Houston's Beatking and Atlanta's Young Thug have just released another quality album each. For me right now there are four rappers who stand out from the pack Young Thug, Kevin Gates, Future and of course Beatking. I love me Lils too ie. Boosie, Duke, Durk & Herb. HBK, MPA and Sauce people are real good too. It's hard to leave out the perennially underrated Starlito. Then there's Gangsta Boo, Youngs Dolph & Scooter, Zuse, RJ, Choice and a bunch of others. One thing I'm way not getting is the Awful Records roster. Every artist on this label seems to get a great critical response with every album they issue and yet I couldn't name you one that I thought was any good and I've listened to at least half of Awful's catalogue. Some things are for other people I guess, people not like me.
Those 4 aforementioned rappers are just several notches higher than the rest at the moment. Kevin Gates usually has the best quality control of these four but he's only released one short mixtape this year Murder For Hire that was a bit hard to handle as the djs were a bit overbearing, smothering Kev's idiosyncratic tunes. So really apart from those 7 tracks so far we've only got 4 tunes that are slowly trickling out of i-tunes from his LP Islah which now has a release date for 2016. What's goin on Kev? We were getting two quality albums/mixtapes for the last three years running and that was an unsurpassed winning streak for recent rap. Perhaps I should give Murder For Hire another chance. So 2015 has been a tad disappointing for Gates fans after those previous three years. I don't read gossip columns so maybe I'm missing something like record company troubles, parole violations, legal issues, personal problems - possibly all of the above. Of the remaining 3 it's hard to say who's on top. Thugga and Beatking have released 3 albums/mixtapes each in 2015. Young Thug can be a bit erratic while Beatking is very consistent but can be a bit samey so it's a toss up between those two. Future's released 3 albums/mixtapes as well this year but he has the edge I reckon because he did that collaboration with Drake What A Time To Be Alive which is surprisingly good. Anyway it's not football so we can enjoy everyone's season and I'm pretty sure before the year is out Young Thug and Future could have at least one more release left in them each. As Gates says these four guys 'don't get tired.'
I don't think I posted this before but it's a toss up between this and the previously posted Best Friend for best tune of the year for me I think. Young Thug should do a whole album of tunes with the vibe of those two tracks, that'd be the best LP of the 2010s don't ya reckon? Barter 6, Slime Season 1 & 2 have 53 tracks. I've made a mixtape featuring the best 29 songs from those three releases called 2015 THUG, if he'd released that it would have been an all time classic. Then there's all his features including 5 on Gucci's Brick Factory 3 and that Metro Thuggin mixtape bootleg and so many more I didn't include. You could probably make another classic mixtape of the best of all those, I'm sure I've missed a bunch too. Does anything recorded go unreleased? Beatking on his closing monologue from 3 Weeks calls it 'the mixtape grind'. I kinda don't get it. Do the rap guys feel they have to keep pumping out so much stuff just to remain constantly visible? Anyway over 29 top choonz in a year is pretty bloody impressive.
DJ Extreme - 1994 Jungle Volume 10
I can't seem to get out of 90s zones. This is a cracker of a mix. I've been working my way through DJ Extreme's mixes at Hardscore. Listened to all his 92 and 93 hardcore mixes and now I've reached Volume 10 of his 94 Jungle mixes. This is a fabulous trip into the 90s. We've got funky drummers, half-time bass lines, divas, ragga muffins, chipmunk traces, r&b dudes, sinister synth stabs, washes of ambience, drum splatters and just plain mental bass. This mix is worth it for the array of bass lines alone. You tend to forget that in amongst the euphoria of 90s hardcore a darkness lurked just as much. This mix contains big names like Dillinja, Ed Rush, Doc Scott and DJ Phantasy as well as 2nd and 3rd level playaz. Jungle was so good in 94 the B, C & D grade artists are fucking great too. The quality went deep and the beat science rewards were endless. Volume 10 isn't relentless with the beats, space has it's place here as well. Sometimes you think the darkness is going to envelope the whole set and the drums are going to conk out. That never happens though until the end, I guess. Big Ups to the Extreme.
DJ Extreme - 1994 Jungle Volume 9
Here's another DJ Extrememix which is a bewdy too. This mix starts out with gold ie. DJ Dextrous & Rapid's Rapid. The House Crew, Tango, Marvellous Cain, Dillinja and D'Cruze all pop their heads up in this ace mix. I can't get enough of this shit and let me tell you there is a bounty of it at Hardscore. Time-stretching, remnants of hip hop, traces of 70s reggae, Ragga, Rave sirens, Amens, House, ethereal lulls, elastic booming bass, dubbed out divas, cymbal splashes, bleeps, mini ponds of euphoria, occasional swells of thick bass goo that leap into the drum n bass future and much more feature here. What's amazing is how different Volume 9 is from Volume 10 which is a testament to the genre's flexibility and breadth of vision and probably why the Hardcore Continuum would continue on for another decade before running out of steam. "They played that bloody Jungle music all night!" And why wouldn't you with choice tracks such as these.
The Church - Hologram Of Baal
Ever since Reynolds posted those Go-Betweens & Church film clips a week or two ago it has been hard to get out of these Aussie zones. You might have noticed I was/am quite the Church fan. I seem to have lost 1996's Magician Among The Spirits so I gave this another listen and wow what an underrated little gem this is. By 1998 they had probably lost at least half of their 80s fan base but that didn't mean they weren't still making legendary music. By this stage of the game we'd all ditched the paisley shirts and pointy shoes long ago but The Church continued on their merry way making druggy journeys into sound. I guess their only contemporaries at the time were Mercury Rev (a friend once described Yerself Is Steam as The Church meets Butthole Surfers), The Flaming Lips and Spiritualized. The Kranky label had been releasing psychedelic space rock for a while too by this stage but the Church weren't following trends. They just did what they did best and made one of their best LPs while they were at it. Hologram Of Baal is The Churchiest of 90s Church LPs. It solidified their 90s experimentalism while containing all of what made them great in the 80s making this an album of consolidation for the band. This LP is like a Church progress report of where they had come from, where they had been and where they were going. More gold.
BRICC BABY SHITRO - NASTY DEALER
Now this is a state of the art rap mixtape 2015 style. With most mixtapes you can usually tell which region of America it's coming from ie. Drill & Bop (Chicago), Ratchet (California) trap/weird (Atlanta/The South) etc. but Bricc Baby Shitro throws them all onto this mixtape making it hard to tell where he's emanated from. It makes sense then that he's from LA but now hanging out in Atlanta. Even though Bricc Baby's got a handful of producers here, the mixtape remains pretty cohesive. Having Young Thug on your mixtape is a blessing and a curse. Thugga will give your recording a higher profile but he's most certainly going to upstage you no matter who you are. That puts the starpower of Young Thug into perspective ie. no one in the rap game can come close to him and this has been the case since his 2013 classic 1017 Thug. Anyway this is a genre mixtape that considers the state of where hip hop is in 2015. You may not like having this plethora of rap sounds all in one place but it's almost definitive of the year or at least the decade in which it was made.
The unlistened to cds, LPs, mixtapes, net DJ mixes and soundclips are piling up. There's not enough time or energy in my life. I am in no way a collector for the sake of having things, being a completest etc. If something's shite to my eardrums it goes out of my life pretty quickly. Then there's the magazines, webzines, blogs and books that aren't getting a look in either. Oh.... and that circus in town that I haven't been to (Was I gonna go to that? Well there is the off chance that a lion may eat its tamer or an elephant running amok)......and I've got 7 unfinished blog posts that have been sitting in the draft box for a good while now.
Let's start with the new, old and new old LPs & cds that are piling up.
I finally got a copy of this like 20 years after it was compiled. This was one of the first things released on Soul Jazz. I think this is some kind of anniversary reissue. Nu Yorican Roots!: The Rise Of Latin Music In New York City In The 60s also on Soul Jazz was fucking gold, so I'm looking forward to listening to this....one day
This should be good...found it on a trip to Adelaide a month or so ago. This came out a few years ago on Soundway. I love a bit of cumbia. Soundway's previous Columbia! was great, as were the 3 cds in their Panama! series ..... should be good ..... one day.
Been looking for this for like 10 years. Warner Jepson's Totenantz arrived in the mail the other day. That cover is awesome! ....don't really know what to expect from this one, which will be a nice surprise....soon....maybe.
This one arrived with the above....can't recall when this was reissued but it was made in like 69 or 70 or 71 or 72. Sonic Youth obviously ripped off the Perspectives Musicales series (of which there 10 LPs, the EMI ones I'm talking about) artwork. Another surprise package.....
Another one that's taken me like 10 years to get and I still haven't played it.....
Well at least I've heard this before but this is like the first proper reissue of Carlo Maria Cordio's classic soundtrack Rosso Sangue from 1981. Looking forward to hearing this in it's complete form....at some stage.
This one I know and love too....but I still haven't played it in it's full audio glory, having only had a crappy mp3 version previously.....oh well.....when's a rainy day?
I was very excited when this arrived but it remains unplayed....could be the first one to get aired. This is a 2015 archival release on Sonic Boom's Space Age label.
God I finally shelled out the cash for this only a few years after it's release. The Lost Tapes arrived a couple of months back..... how can a triple cd of lost Can recordings remain unplayed for so long?
Now this has been in line the longest. I bought it from Beatport when it came out earlier this year. The first Volume was in my best of 2014 list yet this 2nd Volume is yet to rack up any i-tunes stats. Is Deep-Tech still a thing? This has been on my phone for months.....geez....what's going on?
On it's way......another 2015 horror reissue. This one I've never heard but when it arrives it'll have to get in the queue.
Then there's the rap mixtapes...... OMG there are so many!
I'm surprising myself a lot since I started writing this absurd post. How on earth have I not listened to this? I don't even know if Barter 6 is rated or not. Young Thug featured so much in my Best Of 2014 list that I cannot believe the sounds contained within this mixtape have not reached my eardrums yet.
HBK Gang featured a hell of a lot in my Best Of 2014 list as well. Kool John's $hmopcity was one of the best albums/mixtapes of last year so like the above Young Thug it's totally unreasonable that this has had no airplay round at my place yet!!!
Cash Out, Young Dolph, Tink, Teeflii, Lucky Eck$, Boogie, Sauce Twinz & Sosaman, Denzel Curry, TM88, Katie Got Bandz, Bankroll Fresh, Snootie Wild etc. etc. have all released mixtapes/albums of note apparently. Downloaded, not played.
Don't even get me started on the DJ Mixes, articles, books.....
I could go on. My blog would be great if I'd listened to all of the above and written about them wouldn't it? Perhaps I should set myself the task of writing about every one of these releases once heard, surely that is why I started this blog in the first place.
Hang on....I almost forgot this one (below) from last year, which has been in the queue the longest....inexplicably I might not ever listen to it.
ADRIAN YOUNGEPRESENTS TWELVE REASONS TO DIE II STARRINGGHOSTFACE KILLAH
I kept seeing this cover everywhere on the interweb. It's obviously a homage to 70s Italian Giallo film posters and it got me intrigued so much so that I coughed up the dough to see what Ghostface Killah is up to now, plus I heard it was pretty good. The last Wu Tang Clan related release I bought was his very own Ironman from 1996 (can you believe that's 19 years ago?). I did have taped copies of Wu Tang Clan's The W and Iron Flag and those tapes were ok but they were nowhere near the magnificence of Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) from 93 and the classic run of solo LPs from 94 to 96: Method Man's Tical, Ol' Dirty Bastard's Return To The 36 Chambers, Chef Raekwon's Only Built For Cuban Lynx, Genius/GZA's Liquid Swords & the aforementioned Ghostface classic Ironman. Apparently Ghostface Killah recorded several other post-Ironman classics (during my rap blackspot era) such as Supreme Clientele (2000), Fishscale (2006) and the first volume of Twelve Reasons To Die (2013) amongst others.
I'm used to listening to modern hip-hop with its crisp drum machines, synth keys, electronic bass and general digital textures so it's weird to hear an album like this. When I first heard 12 Reasons To Die II I thought it was deep crate digging at its finest (Ala Paul's Boutique or Entroducing) with samples of Turkish psych bass lines, Allessandroni fuzz, old funk beats from obscure 45s, strange Euro easy listening, divas from Morricone/Nicolai soundtracks, scratchy dub singles, trippy Moog sounds from library records etc. So I thought it was a sampladelic record, but on about the 3rd listen when I started listening closely, it all seemed a bit too smooth and cohesive. Upon further investigation it was revealed that the backing tracks are actually all live instrumentation (I think) from retro arranger extraordinaire Adrian Younge. So Younge has replicated a sample laden hip hop album by playing all the instruments instead of sampling them. I'm not sure if there's a point to this strategy apart from the reactions 'Wow that's quite an effort!', 'Gee These are Strange days indeed!' or 'Is he following the kind of manifesto put forth by Daft Punk on Random Access Memories, whatever that was?' Anyway Adrain Younge seems to have swallowed a cool 70s pill. Several layers of retromania are at play here. Firstly we are put it in a mid 90s Wu zone with the propulsive and intense rapping of Ghostface Killah and his chums Raekwon & RZA and the return of the Tony Starks pseudonym who originally appeared on the brilliant Only Built For Cuban Linx LP. Secondly Younge's backing trax have a Finders Keepers/Lo Recordings/Now Again etc. vibe which is both 70s and post-millennial as most of us never heard this sort of shit until it got extensively reissued in the last 20 years by the likes of these and many other record labels. Thirdly it's a live instrument recording produced by a one man producer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist harking back to the days when Stevie Wonder did this kind of thing. I'm not really sure what to make of these observations. It is what it is I suppose.
Anyway when Ghostface Killah's voice appears it's like an old friend showing up like nothing's changed since the mid 90s. Raekwon is a welcome feature on five of these tunes and RZA pops up on a handful of trax too. Twelve Reasons To Die II runs at half the time of Ironman and this leaves you wanting more. Which is better than wishing a quality control editor had been employed to get rid of the filler to keep the LP more concise. I'm not really into comic books and I'm not a 100% sure what he's on about on every track but it sounds so good, what does it matter? It all adds to the Wu mystique and there are no bad tunes here. Who'd have thought Ghostface Killah would be making one of the best hip hop albums of 2015? Dunno, but he has.
DJ MUSTARD - THE MIXTAPE VOL 1 10 SUMMERS
After the disappointing 10 Summers album of last year I didn't think I'd be going back to DJ Mustard at all. I thought his time was up and it was time to move on but after listening to RJ & Choice's Rich Off Mackin my mind was swayed to believe he still had something to give. You would have thought he'd have distanced himself from the 10 Summers title though, so it's a little odd that he recycles it for this much improved release. I assume Choice who turns up here is the same man as Royce The Choice of the great Midnight Run which was my favourite tune from DJ Mustard's brilliant Ketchup mixtapefrom 2013. Anyway Choice along with RJ dominate this mixtape appearing on a third of the tunes. Mustard's old mates Teeflii, Ty Dolla $ign and TC4800 pop up on a tune or two each. YG is is conspicuous by his absence. Iamsu! from the HBK Gang is a fabulous new Mustard trump card. Iamsu! should be as big as Kanye and perhaps he will be. He's got the pop smarts with a delivery that's 2010s rap perfection. Broke Boy is soo good, surely it would be a no 1 smash if released as a single. Mustard is upping the R&B dosage and cutting back the banger intake but that's not a bad thing at all. There's nothing worse than a tune wanting to be a banger but not working. RJ & Choice are pretty much killing everything they do in 2015 and somehow Mustard leaves room to let their idiosyncrasies ferment even further. Dijon (Mustard geddit?) surely realises he's struck gold with these two artists and compliments RJ & Choice with his beats rather than upstaging them. Previously it sometimes sounded like Mustard's rappers had been given a completed beat where they had to try to fit their raps to it, no matter how unaccommodating it may have been. Now it feels like Mustard is more flexible, organic and collaborative. I don't know if he's changed his working methods but it sure sounds like it. Last year I thought DJ Mustard had reached some kind of sonic arrested development but here he proves, with a little perseverance, that he is still mutating. Regression is part of this move ie. several tunes go further back than his past retro-activities ie. some songs reference stuff earlier than Dre circa 92/93 or mid 90s Three Six Mafia. Some of this stuff has got 80s R&B, funk and slow jam vibes. I guess he was always tipping his hat to these zones but perhaps not as deliberately or explicitly as he does here. Then you would swear Shooters was an instrumental outtake from Tricky's Maxinquaye. Actually come to think of it a few tracks have a Massive Attack/Trip-Hop feel. I haven't counted but there seems to be less military chanting on Vol. 1. which is probably a good thing as that started to seem a little formulaic and stale. I don't know who Justine Sky is but fuck she gives Cassie and Tinashe a run for their money on Love. This mixtape ain't no Ketchup but it also ain't no bloody 10 Summers either ie. I'm not deleting this off my computer, I'm about to give it another spin. Dj Mustard is transitioning. Let's hope he continues to in a good direction.
Beatking aka Club God aka Club Godzilla aka Club King Kong...
He's back thank God(zilla). The only rapper along with Kevin Gates who is currently keeping my eyeballs on the rap scene really. I was a bit confused as it started with Stopped but this is a better version than the one on Club God 4 from earlier this year. It's some kind of weird tradition to chuck an old song here and there onto your new mixtape in the rap game ie. Houston 3AM also includes a version of Keisha which originally appeared on Gangster Stripper Music 2. Something I'm yet to fully understand, whatever, I suppose. I was a bit worried on the last mixtape, as Beatking was second guessing himself. He was trying to appeal to his new white and Asian hipster audience as well as his usual hood/club fan base. He even said he recorded a whole new tape during this time and released that instead of his original recordings. He had no need to over think things though because he gained a wider audience by just doing what he does. The best way to go is to just keep on truckin at what you do best and that will keep you true to yourself and your fans. Otherwise you could lose your fans altogether and then you're fucked. Suffice to say this is way better than Club God 4 which was pretty good anyway.
This is the best release from rap zones since King Kev's Luca Brasi 2 and Beatking's very own absolute classic belter Gangster Stripper Music 2. The Club God's consistency is incredible and it continues here. Don't worry he's sticking to his classic themes here: strippers, headjobs, clubs, cars, thowin ass, his dick, paper, Houston etc. He pulls off his usual subject matter with such aplomb you don't get bored with it. Sonically he's got an array of styles as usual like ratchet, trap, 90s European tech flavas and softer soulful R&B. These styles are all intermingled now and just come out as Beatking music. Last year I asked the question, on this here blog, whether he was into rave, hardcore, gabba, doomcore etc.? He gave me an answer on Nervous, the outro, to Club God 4 by admitting his love for Neophyte the Dutch gabber crew from the 90s who had a slew of 12"s on the legendary Rotterdam Records during the golden age of gabber.
On Houston 3AM he even adds to his flavas with a hint of Calypso, Boogaloo, sweet soul and even a lil' bit of old school. I Got Hoez is state of the art Beatking with its low-key ominous yet sumptuous keyboards, brittle drum machines, subtle abstract background samples and great raps from Club King Kong himself and Short Dawg. Beatking's own productions are fine as per usual like Holup, Holup with its intergalactic siren stab, Donkey Kong soundtrack soundz, minimal keys and a wasted crawling vibe. This is shit hot! For a man who is known for being crass he can be incredibly understated at times. Not Right has got the best bass pressure on the tape while the rest of the tune has an opulence you want to get inside of. The Club Godzilla might on first impressions seem amoral or downright up in your grill immoral but he is slowly revealing a particular moral code. You might not agree with it but he does have one, not that I could give a fuck. It's just interesting in a Tony Soprano type of way. His contradictions and sophistication could be a reason for Beatking's continued artistic success though. Houston 3AM Freestyle is an unusually funky electro party jam that is soo superfly good. X-Files includes a sample of, well, the theme to the X-Files that sounds v cool you want it to go way longer than its interlude length of 1 minute. Actually the previous tune Isolated was possibly using the same notes or something very similar come to think of it. Squad keeps the spacey X-Files feel going as well but in a more 80s Casio cosmic tone setting.
One of the highlights here is Deposit which features fellow Houston rapper Sauce Walka who released the funny Sorry For The Sauce mixtape earlier in the year. There's a great bit of Twin Peaks style freaky/disturbing backwards Beatking rapping at the end of No Sleep, I like. That Ain't My Thot features a great boogaloo feel which is pretty much a wholesale appropriation of the 90s tune It Ain't My Fault by Silk The Shocker and Beatking ends it in skit style. Here he talks about strip club addicts who think they're gonna go home with the stripper because they've pumped so much money into her g-string throughout the night but they just end up getting turfed out of the club when the morning light starts appearing under the club doors. Swangas is the Beatking givin us a bit of sugar with a 90s sample I can't quite put my finger on and it's driving me mental. H is a fabulous slow jam informed by subtle gloomcore along with sweet soul vibes provided by Chalie Boy. His obviously a love song to the city in which he resides H-Town ie. Houston. On Japan Beatking samples an artist who might be Juicy J or Chad C Pimp Butler (of UGK fame), correct me if I'm wrong and he's (the sampled dude) talking about country rap and how that became a style and an inspiration for regional and southern rap, I think? Beatking saves the best till last with the self indulgent navel gazing of What I am that's not uninteresting because he doesn't get where he stands in this mp3 generation. In the past (pre mp3) he would have been able to measure success by record sales. How do you measure it now though? He's well off, where he wants to be, got people calling him a legend, MTV playing his videos etc. but he can't seem to grasp where he fits in the larger cultural picture. I guess he is still a cult concern but maybe that's not enough for him no matter how large the parish. He never says he wants a Grammy or a Number 1 single though, I mean that's how some old people measured popularity and success. Now it's all social media hits and Datpiff & HotNewHipHop download stats. After the Club God is finished with his mini self therapy session he throws in an unexpected and secretive classic cut featuring Gangsta Boo that didn't make it onto the great Underground Cassette Tape Music joint from last year. It makes you want Beatking to collaborate with Boo again and again. This tune contains brilliant horror movie motifs, a looped scraping violin and John Carpenter-esque minimal keyboards.
I feel like my world is back on its axis with this new Beatking mixtape and hey there's a new Kevin Gates one too (more on that soon). My faith in rap is has been restored thanks to Beatking. This might be the best recording of the year. He's still the Club God! Still the Club Godzilla! Still the Club King Kong! Still the fucking Beat King mane!!
I never thought when this blog began that I would ever write about music that I'm not listening to. I thought occasional articles about music I hated would have been written but you still have to listen to those. As I have written before, the glut of rap mixtapes and proper albums has become absurd, leading me to almost give up entirely on the genre. Perhaps I went too deep last year and over indulged in rap and, being a fickle bastard, got sick of it. Rap like ye olde reggae is more of a singles game these days anyway innit? Maybe rap's just not as good as last year. Innovation, good tunes and good albums come in waves with lulls in between. Twelve of my top twenty two LP/Mixtape releases from 2014 were from trap, ratchet, drill and other hip hop zones. Another six LPs/Mixtapes rated a special mention in my end of year list as well. I also went a bit mad on old stuff by Kevin Gates and BeatKing in particular. Perhaps my proclivity for these zones reached some kind of apex that could only then decline into a nadir. 2015 has only produced, for me, two ok/listenable rap releases BeatKing's Club God 4 and Ballout & Tadoe's Rise Of The Glo Gang Empire. Even these two aren't really getting mega airplay round here. Artists that I've previously held in high esteem such as Schoolboy Q, Chief Keef, Future, I Love Makonnen, Que, Juicy J, Iamsu!, Sicko Mobb and Rome Fortune remain on the sidelines unlistened to. While releases rated by others in 2015 that I would have usually checked out by now such as those by Father, AD, Rae Sremmurd, RJ & Choice, Drake, HBK CJ, Johnny May Cash and MPA Wicced also reside in the unplayed/unheard sector. I did listen to Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp A Butterfly and well it annoyed the shit out of me. Maybe I should give it another go but I can't bring myself to do it. Like an abstinent nihilistic hedonist I'm a vibe migrant without a destination.
This looks like it might be pretty good but will I ever listen to it?
Future reasserts himself on this mixtape as one of the kingpins in weird Atlanta rap. Like Rome Fortune's Beautiful Pimp 2 last year, Future uses just the one producer here and keeps it short at 28 minutes. It all adds up to a wining combination. Perhaps other rappers need to take note of this. Everything's just way more cohesive and it's probably the best thing Future has done since his Pluto LP. The producer Zaytoven (great name huh?) is keen on jazzy piano and mournful strings sprinkled amongst the trap beats. It never comes across as backwards though, sideways maybe? The keyboards are sometimes minimal and sometimes they reach Aladdin Sane levels of absurdity. Lay Up's production is fine like a mini minimal symphony with a violin loop and a spooky piano. Future's trademark vocal slur, original flow and vocal effects are all present and accounted for. Some of this is experimental in a way that certain things have not been juxtaposed like this before. Hood raps over really baroque type of pop piano with brittle drum machines on Just Like Bruddas. That's really fucking strange. Real Sisters has really mental old school synthesisers played like I've never really heard before. They kind of swarm and swirl eerily. The centrepiece of the mixtape is the final track Forever Eva. Future's vocal is so slurred and a fucked with he's often incomprehensible. This is fine trap with great synth, abstract samples, choice beats and melancholy strings. I think this is about him being an ATL hood forever no matter what. He's a true bother forever. Well he's definitely keeping it strange for now and that's a good thing.
I must admit I kept looking at this on Datpiff and wondered 'To download or not to download? That is the question.' It looked like it would be a bit like last year's Boss Yo Life Up Gang mixtape which was Jeezy, Doughboyz Cashout & YG. It had a few good moments ie. DJ Mustard's trax but the rest hasn't stuck with me, maybe I'll have another listen to it actually. Mixtapes are free and hey this has got Young Thug on it, so surely it's a no brainer plus Rich Homie Quan's Still Goin In Reloaded mixtape from last year was one of the finest. I finally downloaded it. I was enjoying it a lot, until I realised this phrase 'Rich Gang' was being drilled into my head, like every 15 seconds. This started to gnaw away at my brain to the point that 5 or 6 listens in I couldn't take it anymore and had to switch it off. It was a bit like havin someone with Tourette's Syndrome yelling 'Rich Gang' at you for over an hour! Hey Birdman I know it's free and all and I don't want to seem ungrateful but surely the point is to get us to listen to the tape, not turn it off. The 'Rich Gang' phrase was used to the point of overkill. Maybe less should have been is more in this case. Having said all that I was enjoying Tha Tour.Flava's got a great spooky theremin going throughout, makin it a hell of a tasty track. I Know It 's beat is a dub-meets ratchet vibe that's irresistible, surely it could be a hit single. Throw Your Hood Up had me going back to and reassessing DJ Mustard's neglected (by me) 10 Summers as it has a tune with the same title. Imma Ride, Bullet, Who's On Top, 730, War Ready and Pull Up also stood out at this point of listening.The rest was probably gonna grow on me but if I return to the tape, I fear, I might get pushed over the edge by the 'Rich Gang' chant. Which is a real shame. Maybe these tunes are elsewhere, or on i-tunes, without that repeated phrase. Hope so.
er....this wasn't on the tape! Tune of the year?
Only 2 subtle Rich Gang mentions.
Just when I was starting to think 'gee it was all happening earlier this year in the rap, ratchet, trap and R&B zones, but what's happened?' I was going back to hardcore, jungle and speed garage etc. (Reynolds has more on breakbeat garage here, loving that Ruff Da Menace track 2 F In Ruff (So What)). Then a bunch of new releases appear! Mostly free mixtapes but some albums too.
Now this is something to get excited about. Houston's Beatking, creator of 2014's best mixtape Gangsta Stripper Music 2, teams up with Three Six Mafia's Gangsta Boo for Underground Cassette Tape Music. Who would have expected this collaboration? Gangsta Boo & Skinny Pimp did feature on Gangsta Stripper Music 2 though. Gangsta Boo along with The Scarecrow aka Lord Infamous were my favourite 666 Mafia rappers. Female rapping really suited that 90s Memphis style. It's funny because Beatking is one of the few rappers who sonically doesn't owe an obvious debt to Triple Six Mafia like so many current artists do. This is like Beatking goes on a 90s Memphis ghostride with Boo as his guide ie. this is some creepin shit. It's more Boo's game this one. Beatking's rave-esque Club Godzilla side is toned down slightly here but it shows he's versatile and willing to experiment. Gangsta Boo is in fine form here and hey I'm a sucker for anything reminiscent of the Memphis rap underground from the mid 90s.
Next is Ain't Nothin Bigger Than The B. King Kev turns up with Bread Winner Kane on this collaborative effort. Kevin Gates plays the sidekick to Kane on this mixtape which is weird and a bit wrong as he's the King. It's a bit like Elvis playing sidekick to Barry Mannilow. I don't think Kane is Kev's heir but there's plenty of kicks here although this tape is long and I mean bloody long like a Swans album. I was thinkin gee this tune MYB is great and a little familiar and it turns out it's from Kev's very own classic Stranger Than Fiction from last year. I don't really understand how mixtapes work, like how do they get paid, why are old songs reused? Who are these hood rich people? etc. Perhaps we could all edit this one down by about half.
Tinashe's album proper has dropped (what I'm sayin that now?!) after last year's mixtape Black Water. Aquarius contains the choice hit single 2 On. The thing is there aren't any other DJ Mustard productions here which was initially disappointing but I'm gettin used to it now. We've got some luscious tunes on this album and some that stray a little too close to the overtly but slightly bland pop side. She's at her best when it's post-millennial R&B, better than Beyonce and almost up there with Cassie. Tinashe's still at street level and is givin us the real edge that we want on All Hands On Deck which is v Mustardy ratchet. On one tune it sounds like Dave Gilmore shows up doing an absurd guitar solo(?).
Rome Fortune's back. He has the best album/mixtape covers in the game and this cover is probably his best so far. I'm totally lovin that beard too. For this mixtape he takes an opposite approach to his previous tape Beautiful Pimp 2 where he used only one producer, Cito, for it's entire 11 trax. On Small World he's got every man and his dog on production duties including Fout Tet(?). It's a testament to Rome's vision that this all hangs together so well and might even be as good as Beautiful Pimp II. A metal riff shows up on one tune and strangely doesn't seem that out of place. The pace has picked up a notch or two on this tape. There's even a song, ie. with singing not just rapping, Friends Maybe, which is a collaborative jam with I Love Makonnen. Rome Fortune is Atlanta's most intergalactically smooth dude, still doin his own thing, you know, haunted, intimate and whispered raps combined with trippy future hip hop.
*Haven't checked out the new ones for Gunplay, Lil B(?), Rich Gang, Key! & FKI, Que & Mike Fresh, The Church or Billy Idol yet. They all came at once! Well maybe I wasn't paying attention.
I wrote this a while back but forgot to post it. This was released earlier this year.
Rome Fortune's Beautiful Pimp II is a great little mixtape. It's 11 tracks at just 30 minutes so there is no filler here and Fortune leaves you wanting more, which is rare in the rap cd/mixtape game. There are echoes of idylltronica, electro (remember the hip hop variety?), post-rave comedowns, trip-hop, ambient jungle, soul and vibraphone action. There are even hints of the jazz fusion end of drum and bass as well as downtempo soundz not unlike Throbbing Pouch era Wagon Christ. Beautiful Pimp II's got so much synth goodness you end up inside this smooth album's vortex and you don't wanna leave. It's digital like glass with no dirty samples. This aural soundworld is so crisp you feel it might crack at any second. This is one space age trip. Cito is on the beat throughout the entire mixtape making it so coherently flowing, like a proper album release and not just a bunch of tracks thrown together. Even when some scratching shows up it's so digital you don't end up in past hip-hop zones. Fortune's from Atlanta but he's definitely cutting his own path with his unique intimate laconic style. This is progressive future hop of the highest order.
"But pop and rock belongs at the end of the 20th century, in a structured, ordered world that has now fallen apart." Paul Morley (via Retromania) Whilst I believe this is true for rock I'm not convinced that this is the case for pop. Pop has had a pretty good run since say Britney's Baby,One More Time. Rock though that's another story entirely. Just the notion of a rock band seems antiquated doesn't it? It seems absolutely absurd that anyone would be hauling this old carcass around in 2014. Moribund ideas are still being thrown at us as if it's supposed to be authentic man. Surely we're all over and done with rock in the new millennium. Ah...but herein lies a paradox. Our thinking might be ahead of our actions ie. our listening habits. I made a list some time ago of my top 50 albums of the 00s. There are 19 or so rock records. Grinderman, Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Rowland S Howard, The Drones, Yawning Man, Dungen, The Flaming Lips, Ooga Boogas, Boredoms, Deerhoof all of whom you would say were ROCK. Then there's the in between like Sun Araw, Fabulous Diamonds, Broadcast, Ducktails, Gary War, Lamborghini Crystal, Gang Gang Dance and Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti. I mean are that lot rock? In very broad terms you would have to say they were, wouldn't you? So actually rock hasn't fully finished for me in the new millennium despite thinking it's a rotting corpse. It has definitely dropped off in the 10s though with only Swans, Dave Graney & The Mistly, Ooga Boogas and Beaches appearing in my end of year lists. But hang on, then there's Human Teenager, Rangers, Metronomy and Peaking Lights! Are they rock bands? Sure they're not of the White Stripes variety but they have some roots in rock don't they?...or shhh.... maybe Post-Rock. I even thought I was done with psychedelia after Dungen's 2004 classic Ta Det Lugnt but what are The Focus Group's Elektrik Karousel and Belbury Poly's The Belbury Tales if not late in the epoch psych classics? Sure Belbury Poly aren't sitting in tour buses snorting coke off groupies breasts, at least I don't think they are (I kinda wish they were now). I can't think of one rock LP of 2014 that I'd rate although I haven't listened to Scott Walker & Sun O)))'s record yet (I'm psyching myself up for that).
Jeezy feat. Future - No Tears
A Top Tune From 2014
So rock's sun is finally setting but that doesn't mean, like Paul Morley, that I'm about to get into ye olde classical music. Current rap, ratchet, trap, bop, r&b/rap interzones, electronic music, experimental and pop still hold sway with me in 2014. As well as old stuff from soundtracks, library music, reissues/compilations (Soundway, Trunk, FindersKeepers et al.),Belgian, Dutch, British and German 90s hardcore (the dance music variety), 90s Memphis Rap to Bowie etc. I think the furthest I've gone back in time, music wise, is like the 30s and 40s with the blues and early electronics. I like the ye olde electronic music but I think that's my cut off point as far as classical music goes. I don't feel the need to go back centuries in time for my music needs. As a youngster I recall thinking by the time I was 40 I'd be a jazz connoisseur and right into my classical music phase but I don't think it's gonna happen. That's for other people. The Person I didn't become. In fact I think my tastes are becoming less sophisticated as the years go on. Rock'n'Roll was about instant gratification and mayhem and that's the way I still like it. *Ha....I do own a copy of Switched On Bach which I rather like.
Happy to see this at DatPiff late last night. I don't really get the economics of music now though. She's givin this away so how's she gonna get the green she's talkin about? Or is this just a taster to an upcoming cd/download that costs money? Also I can't believe the sexist shit lady rappers have to still put up with ie. see comment "sorority girls will love it." Over at The Guardian this year one of their own writers was sexist, bitter and nasty about Iggy Azalea. Some of you patronising boys sound a bit threatened that 'oh no' a woman has got more talent than you.
Anyway back to the tape I dunno if there's anything as good as the original bangin Girl single from late last year/earlier this year, which turns up in remixed form here. Actually I bought that on itunes so I guess she's got some money to buy her groceries.. She adds some singing and a rap to Schoolboy Q's 2014 classic Studio as well on Valifornia. On 6 In The MorningFelix takes a line from Snoop Dogg'sGin & Juice in which she places herself as a character inside that song. She states "got my girls in the living room gettin it on and we ain't leaving till 6 in the morning." She even gets Snoop to guest on the tune. She's put herself in another song and re purposed it with a somewhat reclamation/feminist message. Snoop must be the most often re quoted rapper in rap. I assume it was he who said "I got my mind on my money and my money on my mind." originally (correct me if I'm wrong). I mean I still hear that phrase or some kind of rephrasing of that line almost daily in hip hop trax. Actually now that I think about it there was a white lady rapper, Lil Debbie or something like that, who also used that 6 in the morning lyric a year or 2 back.
Antipodean reissue of the year without doubt! The long out of print Derry Legend from 1989. The best band to come out of New Zealand in my book. This was originally released on Flying Nun!? Although they seem to get written out of Flying Nun's history and most histories of NZ music actually. More on this later ie. a full write up, when I've fully convalesced. Check out these previous posts for Axemen genius.
Don't know much about this dude but this is some of 2014s best rap/ratchet. Apparently there's another volume.
King Kev's 2014 By Any Means is not as immediate as his Stranger Than Fiction from last year but I'm startin to really dig this a lot. What a fuckin talent! That voice! What a badass!
Lovin this. What a team Bloody Jay & Young Thug. Bloody Jay has a new solo one out as well, I can't keep up.
My favourite LP to listen to while me and my dog sit by the fire with our feet up. Hey I'm an adult! .......well sometimes.
Not Really Diggin
10s Hardcore continuum soundz. Hey I really enjoy Kid Lib but the rest I dunno?
???
A new Rustie album how excitement! Now, I'm not so sure. It's early doors yet though.
"That description of ratchet doesn't really capture the stylistic essence of things like "Rack City" and all that followed it, though does it - "simple rhythms, kicks and claps, squelchy synth bass" - i'm not sure i can do any better, though! Deceptively simple, i think would be the first nuance i'd add. Mustard's tracks are like Dre's classic beats, in way -- not doing anything very flashy or obviously avant, but real groovy. harder than it looks, i'll bet. With Mustard, the signature features are the snare rolls with the paradiddle-like military feel, the HEY!HEY!HEY!HEY! Marine-regiment doing-drill chants, and, more recently, those re purposed and slowed-down 90s house licks and vamps."
This was left on the comments page of Ratchet & Trap Explained by the one and only SimonReynolds. Now that's an explanation of Mustard & his ratchet. Onya Simon! To tell you the truth I thought Anonymous may have been him or some other such luminary.
I don't know if he can top 2013's number 1 sonic document, his Ketchup mixtape, with his follow up 10 Summers. Judging by the little radio skits that contain nothing but past Mustard hits toward the end of this album. Where someone keeeps flicking the dial on the radio only to find old Mustard hits, I think he's already feeling his past as a bit of an albotross. Perhaps he's looking for a way forward or just something as classic as My Nigga, Rack City, I'm Different, Show Me, Paranoid, 2 On, Lady Killa, Midnight Run et al.
Part 2 coming up of my appraisal of 10 Summers. Once I've had more than a few listens. Stay tuned for the next episode of DJ Mustard's 10 Summers.
This could be my favourite track of the year. It's like something from a crappy lo-fi experimental art rock band that only put out tapes in like the mid 80s (that's not a bad thing in my book). I dunno if Thug and Jay are just lazy, bored wasted or just fucking funny. Probably all of the above. Florida Water is from Young Thug & Bloody Jay's 2014 gem Black Portland.
Young Thug & Bloody Jay's Florida Water made me wanna listen to this. I dunno if there's a connection or if my brain's just on random. Anyway this is an Ariel Pink classic from Mature Themes, I wish this song would go for an hour. I just can't get enough.
