2 On -Tinashe, Drake & Other Remixes.

This is pretty much a Drake version of 2 On and it's pretty good but not really bettering the original. After the first minute of Tinashe's original he takes it over and makes it his own for the rest of the tune.

Then there's this which is pretty odd but this stays Tinashe's track. Although the whole vibe of the tune is moved to somewhere else not as compelling. The rap ain't anywhere near as good as the original Schoolboy Q cameo though. What was Vado thinking? How on earth was he gonna top one of the great rap cameos of all time? He shouldn't have even bothered. I imagine Schoolboy Q being not too threatened by its lameness. I love that string loop thing though, nice. Remixes: What were they for again?

The Original and Best Version. 2014 Classic!

Gangster Stripper Music 2 - Beatking

Here's another killah tune from Beatking's mixtape Gangsta Stripper Music 2. Echoes of Darkside Hardcore, Gabba, Marc Arcadipane and more. This could be the tune of 2014!

Similar influences here as well as a bit of 90s Dutch, Belgian and the omnipresent 666 Mafia.

This one is incredible too. Haunted, disorientated and faded!

Rome Fortune

Well the backing track is like Kraftwerk, then there's a Moonshake(the group)-like sample followed later by a Pole-esque unskank at the end. It's an incredible production whether the producers are hip to these references or not.

More haunted soundz similar to Burial ala Drake, Schoolboy Q etc. The sound of sweet emptiness.

Total Control - Typical System

I'd already decided to review this LP before I'd heard it. I liked their previous record Henge Beat from 2011. I guess they are a side project band but I can't tell these days what the main bands are for these people and what the side projects are. So I guess you have to take them all on their own merits. Hey I'm a fan of Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Ooga Boogas and UV Race some of whose members are in Total Control. I wasn't however expecting to be so disappointed by this record. Sure Total Control show they have fabulous taste in punk/post-punk/synth music but is that enough at this stage of the game/epoch.

It all kicks off with Glass a Suicide/Numan/Foxx pastiche. Then Expensive Dog which is just like a Wire song. Flesh War is better like a new romantic Eddy Current tune. A chorus you're not expecting turns up and you're in pop heaven for a moment and the previous two tracks are forgotten. The guitars and synth intermingle perfectly. In fact you can't help thinking why didn't they go over the top with the production on this one to give it a chance at being a top 10 hit in the pop charts! Systematic Fuck is next, in my notes it says systematically fucking boring, huh? Liberal Party starts off promising with synths, drum machines, maybe a sax and an insidious guitar line. Then you're thinking well this could have been made in 1981 by The Makers Of The Dead Travel Fast. Nothing modern, now or futuristic is happening here or anywhere else on the record. There is no attempt to use the attitude/manifesto's that caused their influences to create such visionary work. Total Control are content to reproduce the sounds of trailblazers but not attempt anything revolutionary/innovative themselves, not even really attempt to extend on their heroes ideas. Are they/we just resigned to repeating the past future over and over. Nietzsche has been mentioned as an influence on this record but that feels like a cop out and a little too convenient doncha think?.

Two Less Jacks is a bit like er.....Gang Of Four. Black Spring is a bit more organic. It's a trippy psych gem (If you're in need of another one of those that's up to you I guess). I'm trying not to say Black Cab or Spaceman 3 but I just did. The Ferryman follows and it's synth noodling for 2 minutes & 42 seconds that's not unpleasant. Hunter is weird electronic goodness that I wish Typical System had more of. The keyboards & guitar seem barely controlled. The vocals have a desperation and the sweet girl backing vocals add an unexpected juxtaposition. Safety Net is more Numan/Foxx/Human League in indieland schtick with Mikey Young's unmistakable guitar which gives the tune an odd vibe. But then I just can't help wishing it would turn into an Eddy Current Suppression Ring song with Brendan takin over the microphone with his fingerless gloves and the rest of the Eddy Current boys kickin out the jams in their unique style. Instead Safety Net just plods into inconsequence to end the record. Probably not really what the world needs now. Flesh War & Hunter are the standout tunes and I really wanted to love the rest of the record as much as those tracks but....

Kevin Gates ...Again

More Kev! Anything that mentions Patrick Swayze but spelt wrong has gotta be good. Add in Whoopie Goldberg and it's pure gold. I find this hilarious and don't even understand it.

Well this one reminded me of Lick My Nuts (below) which was made by Kev's collaborator here Juicy J . Kev tellin it like it is. He is the new King right?

Lord Infamous, DJ Paul & Juicy J - the early 90s Memphis rappers/producers who are more influential today than they ever have been.

4.30 AM .....they just keep comin from King Kev and there's way way more check out these as well.

This one from 2013 as well

I think he's been in prison but he's managed to
 release this 2014 jam. He's on a roll.

I first heard this track on the Badmuthas: 18 Original Black Movie Hits compilation (not a dud on that by the way) and it blew my mind. Sweet yet bleak soul soundz a bit like a lot of the rap and R&B now. This is like a fine aged single malt whiskey....mmm......yeah.

Kevin Gates/Beatking/Dizzy Wright

Only just heard this track from last year and OMFG! How good is it? I know what to call it - Magnificent!

Now this is some tripped out ratchet that seems to have gone over the edge. What about that absurd drum machine. 2014 Digital psychosis!

Anthemic tune from Wright's 2014 mini album State of Mind.

Caustic Window

From the new 'old' Caustic Window LP ie. it's from 94 and never got released. Makes you remember where a lot of your favourite music came from, doesn't it? Aphex Twin aka Richard D James aka Caustic Window had a great patch of, well, most of the 90s when he could do no wrong. This puts him back into historical perspective. Also Caustic Window is a great now album.

Fingertips.

Now this is a weird one it could have been made 5 years earlier (back then) with it's acid squelches and lovely piano riff but he puts this strange feeling over the top of it. Which gives the tune, that usually would have been upbeat, a melancholy vibe. Years ahead of Ratchet's 'downer euphoria' or Hauntological's uncanny zones. Can't finish post dog annoying me....

Oh Happy Day!

This turned up in the post today just after I'd been to the dentist and had a filling. It feels like I've been waiting for over a year for this to come out. Was Fisher trying to recreate old skool anticipation of pop culture with its delayed release? Can't wait to read this. Mark Fisher as K-Punk was one of the original music bloggers alongside Woebot, Gutterbreakz and Blissblog. I think out of all the Zero Books I've read this one has the most pages at a whopping 232!

Then I discovered this! Only been waiting 20 years. Aphex Twin's alter ego Caustic Window finally has this LP available to the public. I'm sure this was reviewed in Melody Maker in 93 or 94, but it never got released. It has since gained mythical status. Anyway here it is and man it sounds bloody good so far. I'm in the 90s now.

Funcrusher Plus - Company Flow

HIP HOP I IGNORED PART 4

I always meant to check this album out. It was critically acclaimed but I guess I never heard it on the radio so I never got around to it. I don't really know what I was expecting as I'd forgotten what all the fuss was about. I think I was expecting some kind of futuristic hip hop informed by Autechre. God knows why. Perhaps I had them mixed up with another group. When I first put the cd in the tray I was a little daunted at the running time of 75 minutes. That's almost twice as long as Illmatic by Nas. I knew there was a white guy on the beats (El-P) and a couple of African American dudes (Big Jus & Mr Len) in the posse. This LP is not really similar to the other 3 albums in this series (Nas, Geto Boys and DJ Paul & Lord Infamous). I don't think they say 'nigga' or 'bitch' until about halfway through the record. Bewildered would be the best word to describe how I felt when it started. Thinking "Another 75 minutes of this? F*%$! What have I got myself into? Is this the underground rap that's meant to be shite?" Persevere I have. It took about ten listens to eventually start getting it. Not listening to Funcrusher Plus in it's time of release makes it hard to pinpoint innovations and where it fits. It was recorded between 95-97. Some of it is contemporaneous with Wu-Tang Clan I guess but not really a step beyond that.

1997 was a strange year for music and for me. I got off the Hardcore Continuum and pretty much missed tech-step (well the records anyway which I later returned to and now rate highly) and speed garage (I tried but...). 1997 was the year I disengaged from the rap scene as well and perhaps there was a reason for that ie. not much good rap. Which could explain why Company Flow were seen as messiahs by some. Wu-Tang Clan released a double cd which I never listened to due to its absurd length and still haven't. The last rap albums for me were Ghostface Killah's Ironman and New Kingdom's Paradise Don't Come Cheap. R&B was in its ascendancy. Timbaland, Aaliyah and Missy Elliot had arrived with The Neptunes and Destiny's Child about to enter pop culture. Germany was still where it was at with arty electronica (Mouse On Mars, Farmers Manuel, To Rococo Rot et al.), to the mellow tech sounds of Basic Channel/Chain Reaction and then onto the more extreme music from labels like Cold Rush, PCP and anything by Marc Acardipane and his several hundred monikers. Nick Cave, Spiritualised, Daft Punk, Royal Trux, Autechre and Portishead all released great LPs. Reissues were becoming more frequent with excellent re-releases from Yoko Ono, The Monks, La Dusseldorf (who I'd never heard!), Pharaoh Sanders, Lee Scratch Perry etc.

Bad Touch Example brings the bad vibes you were expecting from an album with a title like Funcrusher Plus. Haunted beats and distant horns blaze in the background while words are thrown at you at a hundred miles an hour. The best bit is when they say candyman 5 times in the mirror. Some of the references are so 90s like Maggie Simpson, Ricky Lake and Baby Jessica (did she fall down a well?). So I was thinking this LP going to be some kind of funny horrorcore lite, wrong! 8 Steps To Perfection is next and god knows what it's about. Trying to be clever but not catchy. Is that the meaning of underground rap? It's got some nice beats though with little computer game noises and a really cool atmospheric loop that sets a strange vibe. Collude/Intrude begins with distorted commands, an unbelievably funky beat, scratching and disorientating vocal effects. This tune is about some sort of science fiction military football match against a major record company. Aren't they all? Blind's got more reverbed effects. Oh....and hang on....I think they've written a hook on this line "I wanna be payed MC Beserker/Fancy tyin to eat just living". Gee this is almost pop. I'm confused by one of the other lines "Every bloodline is tainted/Signifying malignant raps/Who with bad intentions of Boogeymen and death as a source of laughter." Are they having a go at Horrorcore and Gangsta or are they talking about themselves? More importantly do I care? No. Silence has got a fabulous deep bendy bass sample, choice beats and much scratching. This could get played out on the dancefloor I reckon. Legends is more anti-major label shit. Company Flow claim their style is bizarre (usually if you have to point this out you're not) and independent as fuck (like that's supposed to be meaningful). Sonically there's a great clanky guitar/bass line and some noisy abstract samples. In the final minute it gets into some classic cacophonous scratching. Help Wanted is a sampledelic intro to Population Control with a kind of Brave New World scenario. A classic slowed down tough def jam beat is mixed with eerie samples, aquatic sounds and an off kilter piano loop which makes Population Control a backing track that could have been put together by Moon Wiring Club. The lyrics are kinda 2000AD futuristic but place the song firmly in the 90s with mentions of Bill Gates, Ted Turner and Keyser Soze. Then I'm starting to think they're homophobic with use of the term faggot in a derogatory fashion and not for the first time. Lune TNS is a tribute to graffiti artists and b-boys in NYC with a plinky plonky backing courtesy of a sample from ambient guru Steve Roach. Definitive is more anti major label shtick amongst sci-fi ideas. You get the feeling they only became indie after having major labels slam doors in their faces. Having few hooks and clunky raps would've helped those doors slam. This route to becoming indie is hardly likely to endear you to hardcore indie followers. Anyway I quite like this track with its minimal keyboard, beat, scratching and the top line 'My style Is War & Peace/You're shit is just cliff notes.' This is only halfway through this double LP.

89.9 Detrimental sounds like one minute of a rap battle that Company Flow lost. Vital Nerve features BMS as guest rapper, whoever he may be? Now this is good and the catchiest tune so far giving Raekwon and Ghostface a run for their money, at last. El-p bragging that he's been the 'nastiest MC since birth' over a stark bassline and beat. Is it too little too late though? This is followed by a sprawling epic Tragedy of war. It references Waterworld, Storm Troopers, DEA, Drug smugglers, Jackson Pollock and Watership Down? Strange beat change ups make me like this one a lot. A difficult unfunky beat begins The Fire In Which You Burn. Sitar samples add to the mess along with incoherent raps with too many words. Chorus alert! Krazy Kings has one along with some cool synth stabs. Lyrically it follows their space age hood jams template. Last Good Sleep delves into the darkness with dystopian sounds and a creepin beat. This all adds to the tale of this urban nightmare of alcohol abuse and domestic violence. Info Kill II has another dark creepin beat with terrific synth lines and is one of the more instantly likable tunes on Funcrusher Plus. This tune does actually have a 90s IDM vibe. This is the sort of track I was expecting before I ever put the record on. Hey, it only took 18 tracks to get there. Funcrush Scratch brings proceedings to a close. This is a dark scratching jam fitting with the mid/late 90s turntablism revival and Return of the DJ etc.

All in all pretty much a disappointment. I cannot believe this was so revered. Some editing would have made this an ok single LP. It's hard to imagine kids now going back to it and digging it and using it as an influence. Usually the most dumb arse shit ends up appealing to the following generations see Black Sabbath and AC/DC over Yes and ELP, Darkside over intelligent D&B etc. So I advise you to check out early to mid 90s rap from Memphis as a tonic to get over having to listen to Company Flow.