March 2016 Mini Album Reviews: Gorlen, Jeff Buckley & Violent Femmes

Before I take a look at the Waldgeflüster / Panopticon split or Post Pop Depression, I thought I might look into a few records that have come out in the past couple of weeks and share my opinions on them, however brief.

Gorlen- Tape Death #10

After recording under countless pseudonyms, labels (including such brilliant names as Cascading Fragments, Turmeric Magnitudes, and Sifting Through Shards), Greg Gorlen has teamed with Lathelight Records for another installment in his expansive series of electronic tape manipulation and noise music. This is kind of a mix of ambient sounds and noise, with drones and bits of manipulated and out of speed tape loops, that sound like a slightly more chaotic and more linear version of William Basinski. The first pressing is gone, though due to an error, there will be a repressing of the tape and 7 inch vinyl presentation, so pick yours up.

Jeff Buckley- You and I
In terms of posthumous recordings, Jeff Buckley's legacy has definitely faired a lot better than others. This collection incorporates some unearthed originals and alternate versions, though the bulk here are covers that were performed in the studio. If you've heard the legacy edition of Live at Sin-é or other live albums, you've heard some of these covers before, but if you wanted to see them get a studio treatment, they're here now. I can't say his take on 'Everyday People' was my favorite (not a lot of soulful meaning to squeeze out of "different strokes for different folks", I'm sorry), but I really enjoyed Buckley's interpretations of the Smiths and Bob Dylan's 'Just Like a Woman'.

Violent Femmes- We Can Do Anything
The strummed guitars, bouncy bass and punk aesthetic are all here, but the songs are just...not. I don't know if the whole idea of a comeback record is really big right now, and they decided to jump on it, but everyone's favorite '80s band disguised as a '90s band did not HAVE to make one. If the songs are there and it comes organically sure, but just making one to make one is unnecessary, which is how it comes across here. It won't do anything to their legacy like the Pixies' or Black Flag comeback records did, but it won't have me throwing their self titled album or Hallowed Ground in the trash to listen to this thing either.




Check back in later for more reviews, and be sure to let me know what records you can't get enough of at the moment.


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Review: Kendrick Lamar- untitled unmastered.

Kendrick Lamar has been on quite the winning streak. Section.80, Good Kid M.A.A.D. City, and To Pimp a Butterfly were all very big critical successes, the last of which won him a ton of awards, household name status, and a large amount of fans (this album was also number 3 of my year end list). To Pimp a Butterfly was a profound work, blending funk, soul, beat poetry, and hip hop and discussing themes of race relations, self love, greed, and fame, among others. And it seems like this is the avenue Kendrick continues down on untitled unmastered, though to be fair, it is because most of these tracks are leftovers from To Pimp a Butterfly.

That is not to say that these tracks are lesser in any sense. I quite enjoy most of the tracks on here, and I feel like they would fit pretty well into the aforementioned album. 'untitled 02 | 06.23.2014' sounds like it could be around 'u' in the albums narrative, what with the kind of drunkenly delivered vocal lines here. I also really enjoy the whispered, yet incredibly fast rap on 'untitled 04 | 08.14.2014', an ode to education.

The tracks have a bit of a rougher sound to them, as they are demos, but Kendrick's demos are better than other peoples albums, and the production is still layered, and hardly suffers from the raw aesthetic. The production fits in pretty well with To Pimp a Butterfly's sound, though it does throw in some trap feel, a la Good Kid M.A.A.D. City. Swizz Beatz' son Egypt  produced part of 'untitled 07', which as long as he doesn't go in his father's footsteps of SCREAMING ALL OVER EVERYTHING HE PRODUCES, he's cool by me. The demo quality is most evident on the studio banter/skit heard at the tail end of 'untitled 07', which gives us a glimpse into the studio and Kendrick's sense of humor, as well as his singing voice.

All in all, I think this offering is a great way to finish up the To Pimp a Butterfly narrative and let Kendrick move on to other projects. As it is a collection of tracks and not an album, it's not as cohesive and lacking in the elegant structure and overarching themes of its predecessor, but that is to be expected. I feel like people were expecting the moon from a b-sides comp, but if your expectations are in the right place, I feel like this project will be thoroughly enjoyable.

Out of a total of five stars, I give this:

Check in later for more reviews. What did you think of this album? What albums currently have you excited?

"Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use."

Review: Macklemore & Ryan Lewis- This Unruly Mess I've Made

I, like many, was introduced to the duo of Macklemore and Ryan Lewis through their single 'Thrift Shop', and by extension, their first full length collaboration, The Heist. Being fresh out of college, and well acquainted with a Good Will store, I enjoyed this single, and I thought other parts of the album showed promise. Macklemore was, and is, a very talented rapper, and Ryan Lewis is a producer with a very grandiose, cinematic take on hip hop production, incorporating large degrees of instrumentation, namely pianos, strings and brass. However, I felt like that album, along with this new helping, suffer from the same problems; radical tone shifts and a severe crisis of identity.

I feel like Macklemore is a talented rapper; his delivery is skillful, and he can put words together and deliver complicated flowing lines. However, he has never shown much in the way of consistency. I don't really feel like he knows who he is as a rapper, and yet somehow he is undoubtedly very self aware in his lyrics and behavior, often to his detriment. I am referring to his want to be universally loved by all aspect of the music community; he wants to be conscious, yet funny and radio friendly. He wants to throw rap pioneers on his record to prove his "authenticity" in hip hop as well as talk about the recent events in the Black Rights Matter movement, yet make Deez Nutz jokes and rap about old man genitals on the same record. A person can get whiplash listening to this thing.

This constant tone shift is what really hurts the album for me. Do you want to be Talib Kweli or Asher Roth? Or even Weird Al (seriously, what was with 'Let's Eat'?) There are good moments here, like 'Buckshot' (mainly for KRS-One) and 'Kevin', but the silly moments are just too far. And I'm not going to even up the can of worms that is 'White Privilege II'. I'm not going to bore you with another think piece on that, though I find Macklemore's need to insert himself into things purely for reasons of self aggrandizement a little disturbing. These same neuroses also glimpse through on 'Light Tunnels', a long winded reference to his upset win over Kendrick Lamar for Best Rap Album at the Grammys a few years ago, and the subsequent events. Because it worked out so well the last time you brought that up.

All in all, this had some decent moments, but unless you're a Macklemore fan, you probably won't get too much out of this. He wanted this album to be accessible, yet appeal to hip hop heads, and it fails on both accounts. Pop listeners will find this too long winded, and hip hop heads will be turned off by its goofy songs, strange politics, and honestly, some pretty safe and unexciting production (Ryan Lewis' presence on this is not palpable, to put it lightly). I feel like Macklemore just needs to pick a path and stay on it, because cutting down the middle is not doing him any favors.

Out of a total of five stars, I give this:

I have a long list of reviews I'm planing on sharing, including the surprise Kendrick Lamar album, as well as the Waldgeflüster/ Panopticon split, among others. Stay tuned, and feel free to share your opinions on this record, as well as other projects you're excited about.

"Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use."

Review: Animal Collective- Painting With

Up until a few days ago, I wasn't really sure if I was even going to tackle a review on this record. I honestly had nothing to say about it. I found it very to be a straight forward record; obviously not the typical Animal Collective fare, and a little disappointing. I was hoping for a little more engaging and experimental music to redeem the underwhelming Centipede Hz, but that wasn't what I was hearing. Animal Collective music has always had a pop sensibility, but never like this. This is more a collection of songs than the experience I used to expect. The lack of definable sonic detours and trippy experimentation turned me off a bit at first. But then I listened more closely.

While Painting With is still no where near as experimental as Strawberry Jam or Merriweather 
Post Pavillion, and is a lot more accessible and poppy, there are some very subtle qualities in the instrumentals here that evade the first few listens. These songs are extremely dense, and there are a lot of things going on underneath the vocals; swirling effects, arpeggiated synth lines and strange sounds. I would have preferred a little bit more of some psychedelic experimentation and adventurous nature as opposed to pop singles, but they do it well here as well.

This is going to be short, but if you're looking for some left field, electronic pop with some weirder leanings, look this up. If you're looking for some more experimental work like the band's late 2000s fare, you might want to sit this one out. Overall, I feel like this is a better record than Centipede Hz, but I'm not entirely on board with the group's more simplistic approach to the album. I feel like this record could have been taken up another notch by extending out tracks, and opening them up via sonic detours to really reconfigure the feng-shui of the listeners' gray matter.

Out of a total of five stars, I give this:

What did you think of this album? Are there any records that you're currently excited about? Let me know. Check back in for my opinions on the new record by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, This Unruly Mess I've Made.

"Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use."