Again, that time of the year

I was reading a review on a website that I enjoy a great deal and saw a positive review to an album that really captured me visually. Usually, I don't too excited over a band with such a cool album cover, but for some reason this one really got me. Around this time last year, I came across a band that would soon rank with LCD Soundsystem as my favorite current band. This band was of course the Howling Bells. I was floored by their debut and have since fallen in love with them, especially Juanita Stein. So now, this year, a new band with a cool image and artwork has arrived and made me very happy. This new band is White Rabbits from Brooklyn.

Imagine the Walkmen at their most dancehall mixed with The Specials and Madness with some very rhythmic drumming and "latin tinged" piano, and you have White Rabbits. Bascially, this is some very exciting music with a good mix of genres. This is going to be one of those perfect Summer albums to take with you on a sunny beach and let the breeze go across you. The music is that refreshing.

What makes the album is a few factors. One, the vocals are very hypnotic at times and just enough to get those spots under your skin. Second, the piano is really something. It goes from dancehall-esque "Death Of A Clown" to Afro-Cuban music. Third, the drumming is very exciting. I hear there are two drummers. The latin influence comes in a great deal with the drumming as well. Apparently, I haven't gotten around to it yet, but the lyrics are very provacative. I know I should be on top of something this important, but mind you , there is so much going on during this album. It is just one thing after another.

This is one of the better surprises I have had this year. I love hearing that new rock band that really gets me. With my love of Hip Hop and Electronic music, still underneath it all I love good, interesting rock music. When a band comes around that really gets my blood flowing and does something interesting with music again, the world just seems better. White Rabbits are that kind of band to me. I may have just got the album, but it is very unique and stands on its own as one of the best new albums and bands around. So please, do yourself a favor and listen to this delightful album.

This Is My Kind of Revival

I was watching a video clip of Keb Darge talking about music. For those who don't know, Keb Darge is buddies with Cut Chemist and Shadow and actually opened for them on the Product Placement tour. He is an encyclopedia and archive of old Soul and Funk music. Basically, he is a serious digger. He was talking about there is this label out right now that is making the best funk music. He says there is literally no bad recording from the label. It is a new label too, from Brooklyn. It is called Daptone Records. Now, I get kinda cautious about modern funk music. Usually I think of a bunch reallly boring white kids with strats or happy go lucky people just jamming. It gets me a bit sick honestly. But Daptone is none of that. It is straight up raw, deep funk, the best stuff around. It has a myspace. Go to it. I urge you. The house band is Dap-Kings. These guys are seriously damn good. You might know them because they hang out with Mark Ronson. They were the band on his versions, and I have a feeling they were the band on Back To Black by Miss Winehouse. So that should give you an idea what the music is like.

The flagship artist is Sharon Jones, and she has the Dap-Kings as her band. I have downloaded two of her albums: Naturally and Dap-Dappin'. These two albums are balls to the wall amazing funk music. The music sounds like it was straight from the 70s. The production is flawless. You won't hear drums mic'd any better, well maybe James Murphy. The music is fast, grooving, soulful, and very energetic. Miss Jones is one of the finest vocalists I've heard in some time. So pretty much, this stuff is some of the most exciting and fun music around, and it is so fresh and new.

A few years from now, hip hop producers will not be cutting up old James Brown samples, they will be cutting up Daptone artists's breaks. I certainly hope Daptone gets some recognition. It really deserves it. When you think about the "soul" or "r&b" music on the radio today, it makes you want to take a watery shit and wipe your stereo with it. Daptone is the real deal. So please brothers and sisters pick up a Daptone single of any sort, and you will not be dissapointed.

Great...

I realize, comrades, that this blog doesn't "do" politics, but, well, fuck.

If Putin means what he says this obviously doesn't bode well for the future of 80 % of the music artists I listen to. I fear there's only one man who can sort this out.

This is when The GOVS Take Charge

Ok, I must have had a lambotomy of some sort to forget this wonderful piece of music. This year we had a Fall album come out. It was a good Fall album, certainly not a great Fall album. So where was the Mark E Smith that was on Levitate and the Infortainment Scan hanging out? Well obviously he was with the Mouse On Mars guys. Now this is the Fall album we wanted to hear. This collaboration of the three guys is called Von Südenfed. This album seems to be out in the UK and not yet out here. Bascially, this album is what you would expect when Mark E Smith and some guys in an electronic outfit get together and make a record....

It is crazy, fun, catchy, and very powerful( in the sense that Smith is the fucking man and he is here to stay and no one is going to take the Hip Priest out of his Church). This album is so kick ass, that I was knocked back because I certainly did not expect it. I mean I knew it would be awesome as soon as I realized the existence of it, but the fact I downloaded the album on Itunes as soon as I heard the album was out and listened to it, is was what made it so crazy.

Then as soon as it was all dowloaded, I was in for some kick ass music. The album is like Smith over actually good Ed Banger type dance music. For you people not in the know about this Tres Cool Label Ed Banger in Paris, the music is very hard dance music, but not hard in the hardcore sense. The beats are just well....hard with electro synths. This album is as if all those Ed Banger guys actually made decent stuff. Some of the stuff can be similar to early LCD Soundsystem, but that is too easy to compare and lazy of me. Sure this stuff sounds like that 90s era dance Fall music. But what it really reminds me of at times is "Me White Noise" by Blur. It's that crazy and good and dancable.

So hats off again to Mr. Smith. Fair game to the guys from Mouse On Mars with their bombastic beats. Maybe they should now collborate as a full time thing. The collaboration of Dance musicians with rock vocalists is a great tradition that usually never fails, most of the time. Thom Yorke and Richard Ashcroft with Dj Shadow on UNKLE was enough to make the hairs on your neck fall off. Noel Gallagher with The Chemical Brothers on two songs, but I think Noel should join the Brothers as a full time job and forget Oasis. Damon Albarn with Damon Albarn, Dan the Automator, and Danger Mouse was pretty good if you think genius is good. Iggy Pop was pretty damn crazy with Death IN Vegas on "Aisha". Then, the leader of the Rock Singer with Dance guys was John Lydon first working with Afrika Bammbatta on "World Destruction" then he worked with Leftfield on "Open Up," which still is their best song. So Mark E Smith and Mouse On Mars have joined this hall of fame of Dance/Rock collaborations. Congrads, of course is it really a surprise he could do it. For God's sake Mark E Smith did "Telephone Thing."

There are the best, but what do I really listen to?

I recently made my top hip hop albums. Some I listen to more than others, and certain ones I listen to more are at a lower ranking than others. So I thought I let you know what I really listen to. This is something I think critics of kinds should talk about. First off, every week since I bought the first and third album, I listen to the first three A Tribe Called Quest albums every week. The Tribe was and is the greatest hip hop group of all album time. There is no question about that in my mind. Another album I listen to almost every week is the Pharcyde's Bizzarre Ride To The Pharcyde. This album is just so much fun. The beats are pretty damn awesome as well. It is just so lovable. Totally a great summer album as well. 3 Feet High And Rising is pretty frequent in my listens because it still is so fer fer fer fer fresh. Every time I listen to it, I feel like I am being clensed. I feel bad about leaving it out, but there is one album that was not on the list because I forgot it, and would be in the top ten for sure if I would redo the list, but I am too lazy to do that. This album is Main Source's Breaking Atoms. This is up there in the Mecca of the best produced albums ever. This, Illmatic, 3 Feet High and Rising, Midnight Marauders, Bizzarre Ride, Madvillain, Return of The Mecca, and Step Into the Arena are probably the best produced Hip Hop album ever. Breaking Atoms is just such a joy to listen to. The beats are so damn good that I have to pause the song and catch my breath out of amazement. It is a short album too, you know how much I love that in a Hip Hop album. Breaking Atoms is as essential as 3 Feet High and The Low End Theory if you want some straight up amazing Hip Hop

It's that time of the year

Around this time last year, something amazing happened. I was in the import section in Atlanta'a old Tower Records (which I miss every day of my life) and I saw an album that I read about and had been getting a lot of underground press. This album was something of a Godsend by the way the critics described it. This album was Burial. It was one of the most pleasant surprises of my life in terms of music. It was just what I had been waiting for. Now, a year has past, and a new electronic album has come out that is getting a great deal of press and sounds like another Godsend......

This album is From Here We Go Sublime by The Field. It is minimal, cinematic, ethereal, moody, house music. Even a friend of mine who is not really into electronic music digs the album. It is kinda one of those crossover albums like Endtroducing was or Kind of Blue. It is truly as if shoegazing and house music met. The Field is a product of the famous Kompakt label in Cologne, Germany. This is the flagship of the label. You can search all of the internet and find raving reviews about this album. When listening to it, it like being in a Sofia Coppola or Jim Jarmusch film. It is really moody. It is damn perfect while driving at the twilight hour.

The music itself is something different. The actual drum beats are very simple. It is usually just a bass drum going at a 4/4 beat. Whats over the beat is what makes the record. The music fades in and out and is arranged perfectly. It never seems relentless or tiring. The songs just build and build until they topple over into a supernova of sound collages. It is really quite moving and beautiful. When people talk about electronic music being cold or unhuman, this is why albums like this come out to reconnect people. Listening to this no matter where you are whether in the car or in your apartment with headphones on, as cliche as it sounds the world does seem to slow down. In the end, I can just say on last thing, this is very, very important album.

Second Thoughts on the Arctic Monkeys, Elaborated

I could never see what the big deal about their first album was. I didn't dislike the album; I just didn't think it was as wondrous as everyone kept saying. All the virtues that critics and fans were attributing to the Arctic Monkeys--memorable melodies, rock 'n' roll fun, and witty lyrics--I just did not hear. That didn't stop me from enjoying certain gems on Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, like "When the Sun Goes Down" and "A Certain Romance."

I was never a passionate fan.

I've revised my opinion a bit since I've heard the second Arctic Monkeys album, Favourite Worst Nightmare. I can't say I've altered my view of the first record too much, but I do think that this one is pretty bloody brilliant. It has all the merits people heard in the first album and much more. It's loud, bouncy, fun, melodic, atmospheric, dark, romantic, and beautiful.

The album opens with "Brianstorm," probably the loudest, fastest Arctics jaunt. From the start the album is loud and fast, and an atmosphere of ennui and world-sickness pervades the entire time. The music has bravado and punch; all the lyrics are essentially pained or dark: at the ripe old age of 21, Turner seems repulsed and disillusioned with the world. Most of these songs paint a rather sordid picture of the rock world: fakers, poseurs, whores, and deluded egomaniacs are everywhere. Apparently.

There's really no point in listing my favorite songs, but I will say that "Teddy Picker" is the smartest and funniest--and most genuinely pissed off and disgusted-- put-down of rock scenesters and hipsters I've ever heard. "Fluorescent Adolescent" is lovely, "Only Ones Who Know" is actually achingly pretty, and "Old Yellow Bricks" might be their finest moment yet. Okay, there I went and named song titles anyway. The whole album is well worth your time, though; they've certainly come a long way (in my opinion) from the first album.

"The Chinese don't know what they're doing."

Say what you will about Coldplay, but Chris Martin can certainly hold his own with Ricky Gervais.

Some Kind of Bliss

I apologize for the continuing hysteria, readers, but I'm quite enamoured with Kylie's Impossible Princess album. Here's the finest song from the album, "Some Kind of Bliss." Her backing band is the Manics.

Clive and Kylie

On accents and other things.