THE MONTHLY DIGEST INCLUDES A CLUTCH OF ACCUMULATED NEW MUSIC REVIEWS; THE SOCIAL INTER-GENERATIONAL/ECLECTIC AND ANNIVERSARY ALBUMS CELEBRATING PLAYLIST; AND CHOICE PIECES FROM THE ARCHIVES
(Cover Star Macie Stewart. Photo credit Shannon Marks)
_____/THE NEW____
Macie Stewart ‘When The Distance Is Blue’
(International Anthem) 21st March 2025
Perhaps one of the most prolific collaborators of recent years, across several mediums, the multi-instrumentalist, composer, songwriter and artist Macie Stewart has come to represent a flourishing, explorative contemporary music scene with multitudes of connections and threads. Apart from projects with choreographer Robyn Mineko, Sima Cunningham, and the Pacific Northwest Ballet, Stewart has become a stalwart of the International Anthem family, contributing and helping steering releases by Rob Mazurek – who literally appears below this review with his foil Alberto Novelle -, Bex Birch, Damon Locks, Makaya McCraven and Alabaster DePlume.
Another foil, featuring in the intimate ensemble that plays on this Stewart’s first solo album for the imprint – the actual debut solo LP, Mouth Full Of Glass came out a few years back on another label -, is Lia Khol, a cellist and sound artist who already collaborates with Stewart in a duo. There’s also the addition of both the equally versatile artist Whitney Johnson (credits include the Verma band and the avant-pop lo-fi Matchess alias) on viola, and Zach Moore on double-bass. This is where those inter-connections must end, as I could just carry on regaling all the various entries from the bio and dedicate this review piece to one of the most enviable of CVs in the music scene. But we must not get distracted, and instead now look at the album.
When The Distance Is Blue could be read as…well, perhaps blue in mood. But this is an album that slips poetically in and out of consciousness, inhabiting, ruminating over and in some cases writing the aural equivalent of a love letter to the spaces in-between the tangible and the environment, with background passages of field recorded interactions taken from public places. For instance, the famous Tsukjii district of Tokyo, near to the Sumida River (reclaimed originally from lowland marshes) is referenced as the title for an atmospheric piece of recorded street side, market interactions. It carries on over and bridges the reverberating, sifted, swept and delicately plucked and vibrated opening suite ‘I Forgot How To Remember My Dreams’ and the near atavistic recalled, apparitional haunted voiced ‘Murmuration/Memorization’. The former of which features Khol’s clean cello and Stewart’s meticulously struck piano notes in a near forlorn but beautifully evocative mood. It reminded me of both Cage and Reich, of the Japanese school of contemporary classical music, and even a little of Sebastian Reynolds work with cellist Anne Muller. The latter, which is named, in part, after the stunning synchronised patterns of large groups of starlings as they come together in flight, seems to dial into something old or timeless; an elliptical dance of Tony Conrad like bows, Hellenic-like spirit voices rising and falling like their avian subjects, and the neoclassical.
The album title, and the underlying theme, is inspired, imbued by the American writer and activist Rebecca Solnit’s A Field Guide to Getting Lost book. I’ve unfortunately not read it, but the L.A. Times summarised the nine essay pieces that make up this work as: “An intriguing amalgam of personal memoir, philosophical speculation, natural lore, cultural history, and art criticism.” Elsewhere it’s been described as a wondering and lurching zigzag through history, politics and art, with the author described as a “Intellectual nomad” by The Guardian’s Josh Lacey when he reviewed it. But all can agree about the book’s themes of change and transformation. Of which Stewart taps into, recording the almost unnoticed; an essence of a particular time and place; a captured seasonal moment of rumination and episodes that left their mark. Across this a near perfect length album, a complete journey is sounded out through both attentive and deeply felt strings, piano, percussion, wordless voices and double bass. It’s a liminal sound that evokes Sakamoto, Cale, Alison Cotton and a sense of the Oriental slow movement, as it moves beautifully and moodily between pizzicato plucks, the cascaded, watered, resonated and bowed. I’ll say it again, as perfect a vision as you can get, everything about When The Distance Is Blue is just so right; every feeling, note, sensibility carefully pitched in a dreamy and ached, subtle and often mysteriously intriguing way.
Alberto Novelle & Rob Mazurek ‘Sun Eaters’
(Hive Mind Records) 28th March 2025
A moment in time; an afternoon’s encounter. The symbiotic alignment and then transformation of the improvised and layered, sonic and sound art foils Alberto Novelle and Rob Mazurek transduce timbral elements and textures into an amorphous act of existence on their collaborative release for the discerning internationalist label Hive Mind Records.
Created in a day, extemporised to a point, the Sun Eaters album, despite its rhythms, is a serialism of encounters and reactions to recognisable lines, soundings, echoes, flutters, melodic addresses, nature trial organic serenades, shakes, tingles, jangles and bleats from Mazurek’s trumpet, flute and percussion of bells. His partner on this exploration transforms these instruments into hallucinatory and playful electronic, modular and oscillated new atmospheres and ambiguous soundscapes that simultaneously evoke Jon Hassell’s Fourth World inventions, the collaborative work of Ale Hop and Laura Robles, the Aphex Twin, Carmen Jaci and King Champion Sounds.
When you address both participants extensive and envious CVs, you can only assume that together they will make something very experimental and unique, but not so academic and avant-garde as to create something dry, theoretical and impenetrable. Before we can any further, just a brief summary of the experience brought to the Dobialab studio that day in Northeastern Italy. I was only the other month referencing Mazurek in relation to Damon Locks and his List Of Demands LP. The cornetist and interdisciplinary innovator featured Locks in his Exploding Star Orchestra lineup, just one of the numerous groups the countercultural Chicago figure and influencer had instigated over the decades; most notably Isotope 217, the varied Chicago Underground ensembles, and one of my favourites, the Sau Paulo Underground offshoot. I could list umpteen other incredible collaborations (his work with Jeff Parker to name just one), and run-off a long list of influential labels that have carried his work (my friends at International Anthem for one) over the years, but you can get this all off the various bios circulating on the internet. His foil, Novello, often “repurposes found or decontextualised analogue devices to investigate the connections between light and sound in the form of contemplative installations and performances” under the JesterN guise – I borrowed that from his Bandcamp page by the way, hence the italics. He’s assisted such notable talent as Alvin Lucier, David Behman, Nicholas Collins and Trevor Wishart, and improvised with such luminaries as Evan Parker, Butch Morris and Karl Berger.
Combining these experiences, echoes of Don Cherry, Peter Evans and Miles casting shadows across an arid Latin sounded landscape are sampled and looped, turned into a language of abstract data, mechanics, transmissions, signals and pitch registers. There’s a buoyancy swimming below the synthesized beds that indicates a certain rhythm and movement. And yet at times the pair seem to be floating in the cosmos or lost in an illusion as they pull the AEoC through the mirror backwards and shake and rustle the cow bells of a herd heading for Tibetan shrines. Those bells by the way also ring out like tubular long pipes or like a sleigh ride into spiritual transcended. But I can’t help feeling there’s a lot of fun at play too on these peregrinations, especially on the Mexican wrestler referenced snake-rattled and mirage-esque ‘Luchadores Sudden Embrace’.
Taking a completely different direction, the fungi studied inspired finale, ‘A New Mycological Framework of Narrative’, is the sound of Richard H. Kirk’s wordless mewling and mantras, a touch of Kriedler and even Kraftwerk, and Finnis Africae being fed into a strange soundboard and apparatus of conductors.
A different kind of creation, this six-track reconfiguration seems to just be. Neither non-musical nor musical; neither avant-garde nor defined; the results are beyond simplified categorisation. Mood pieces? Sensory exploration? Textual exercises in ambiguity? Abstracted visions conjured out of an apparatus and range of acoustic instruments? All viable descriptions perhaps for an amorphous collaboration. Followers of both artists will be happy with the outcome.
El León Pardo ‘Viaje Sideral’
(AYA Records) 21st March 2025
A “sideral”, or celestial bodies related, “voyage”, the new inviting album from the Colombian brass, wind and multi-instrumental encompassing artist El León Pardo is imbued by pre-colonial Colombian magic and contemporary musical hybrids that fuse cumbia with the Afro-Caribbean and cosmic.
Noted for spreading the word and virtuosity of his chosen instruments and culture to the world through his work with Ondatrópica, Curupira and Frente Cumbiero, Pardo is imbued by the sound and symbolism of the “Kuisi” end-blown flute, and Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountain range in which its whistly trill echoed; the loose Colombian originated infectious rhythm of cumbia, which in more recent times has switched the European influence of accordion for electric guitar, but has been restyled and modernised throughout time to include the trends the day; and the ancient Pre-Colombian Zenu people of the Sinú River Valley and their atavistic flute.
Channelling all this to conjure up a dream realism peregrination, dance and wonderment, Pardo invites a number of Colombian foils to join him on a sometimes-surreal corridor to the stars. Taking up the offer is fellow eclectic polymath Edson Velandia, emcee N. Hardem of LNI and Soul Am Beats fame, and “nueva (“new”) cumbia” motivators Frente Cumbiero, who’s main instigator Mario Galeano is also a member of both the already mentioned Ondatrópicaand Los Pirañas groups. This trio’s contributions further expand the scope of influences and ideas, heading down into the lively Bogota barrios, or snake rattling and sauntering into a spellbinding oblivion of magic eye Colombia and the cosmos.
As the tile translates, there’s a relationship between the stars, the celestial spheres, playing out on Viaje Sideral. A both playful and deep immersion of universal mirages and dream states that simultaneously sound Andean and yet futuristic and cosmological, the album’s nine tracks use tradition and modern tech to build up an alternative reality. Analogue synths echo and modulate those space sounds: a representation of beamed astral planes and spectral rays, and travellers from other worlds landing in the mountain valleys of Colombia.
Whilst traditional instruments, the chuffed, short and longer, more drifting and circular convulsed flutes and pipes, both brassy and Latin trumpet, reference imaginative invocations of his homeland. Factor in some of that Afro-Caribbean influence and a touch of Mad Professor dub effects to this playful, inviting, danceable, percussive infectious, pop-y, soulful (there’s even some electric guitar parts that I would swear were Rhythm & Blues flavoured) and mystical, and you have a dreamt landscape brought to vivid, rhythmic life. El León Pardo isn’t however just about the magic, but by using the instruments he does, bonds with and sticks up for those pre-Colonial indigenous roots as a form of activism and conservation, education. This is nothing short of a great imaginative Colombian trip, equally at home under a menagerie canopy of exotic conjuring as it is in space.
Puce Moment ‘Sans Soleil’
(Parenthèses Records) 21st March 2025
Tuning in via the kosmische, new age, trance and ambient imbued modular electronic laboratory to the courtly and Imperial Gagaku tradition, the Puce Moment reconfigure purposeful Japanese ceremony, dance and music to conjure up an otherworldly, haunting and mystical soundscape under a “sunless” sky – if you directly translate that album title of “Sans Soleil”.
Travelling to the notable Japanese city of Tenri (the old capital of Japan, for a very brief period during the late 5th century rule of Emperor Ninken) in 2020 to record and work with the local Gagaku Music Society, the French duo of Nicolas Devos and Pénélope Michel recontextualised an old but continuous form originally performed for the elite. They expanded this exploration turn transformation further with the addition of the São Paulo born choreographer and dancer Vania Vanneau: furthering the soundscape project into dance, visual movement and performance art.
For those unaware of this Japanese form, Gagaku’s roots can be traced back to the 6th century, perhaps earlier, when Japanese delegates were sent to China to learn about its culture. They are said to have brought back a fusion of both Chinese and Korean music, instruments and dances to the Imperial court; to be performed at banquets for the elite. But some historical sources suggest that it was through the spread of Buddhism, making its way across from China to Japan. And one of the main dances, the “Bugaku”, involves the wearing of intricate Buddhist costumes and masks.
Familiar sounds of this form include the famous barrel-shaped wooden “taiko” drum, the “Koto” 13-string zither, the “Biwa” short-necked lute and the “Shō” wind instrument – used for one of the six titles of this peregrination and mood musical work. All of which, I believe, can be heard both in their recognisable form and morphed and woven into a modulated, generated, filtered atmosphere of electronic apparatus drones, fizzes, oscillations and amorphous mysticism.
Hinting at rips in the fabric, a misty geography and periods of historical meaning and reference, Sans Soleil summons ghosts, voices from the ether and the four winds and wisps of Jon Hassell, Hiroshi Yoshimura, Popol Vuh, Tony Conrad’s work with Jennifer Walshe and Ash Ra to magic up a sound world that sits on the border of the alien and cosmic, landscape and pure atmosphere: The word used is liminal. This convergence of trance-y, lucid synthesised sounds and voices on the air merges dreamily and spookily with Japanese tradition, ceremony and choreography to create something more akin to an experience, an immersion and dance.
Alessandro Alessandroni ‘Paesaggio Bellico’
(Four Flies Records) 18th March 2025
Like much of mainland Europe scared, brutally traumatised and worn out by WWII, Italy and its battle-ravaged population pretty much became risk adverse to war. Although eventually changing sides back to the Allies, the ill-fated bedfellows of the Nazi Axis alliance were, apart from the diehards/racists/antisemites/psychopaths, were always ill at ease goosestepping to the tune of Hitler. In fact, no matter how history has been warped, the Italians put down and made the butt of so many jokes, the country had some of the largest numbers of partisans fighting against the Fascist regime – percentage wise in all of Europe, Italian partisans were far more likely to be killed and murdered by the Nazis than anyone else.
Italy favoured internal civil war over the international: a war of ideologies, corruption, state and philosophy that rages to this day. Terrorism and organised crime concentrated the mind. But no one in Italy could turn away from the events that followed in the wake of WWII: the Iron Curtain and Cold War to Korean, Vietnam and so on. And that brings us to the work of the stellar talented and connected iconic and cult Italian composer Alessandro Alessandroni, who scored an impressive range of war themed documentaries and films during a career that spanned a good half of the 20th century.
Born on the release date of this latest battle, war and psychological collection (18th March), Alessandroni came of age during the rise of fascism and the events that would lead to the Allies invasion of first Sicily then mainland Southern and Central Italy, the horrific bloody battle of Monte Cassino and the brutal air raid bombardments that destroyed so much of the country – an agreement between both sides thankfully saved Rome and several other important cultural cities.
During a period between 1969 and 1978, the maverick and highly influential composer and multi-instrumentalist recorded a catalogue of scores and atmospheric pieces, suites that dealt with not only the military aspects but the trauma of war and its effects upon those who both fought and faced its wrath. After the smut and titillation of the Music From Red Light Films 1976-1980 collection, the Italian label Four Flies unearths an impressive and quality selection of these tracks, previously left dormant in the vaults.
A peer, foil, mentor and friend to such luminaries as Ennio Morricone, the Rome born maestro and artist first made a name for himself with his Spaghetti Western twang-y Duane Eddy signature guitar and whistling scores for the highly influential film director Sergio Leone. But Alessandroni also founded the wordless octet vocal group I Cantori Moderni (“The Modern Choristers”), which featured his wife Giulia De Mutiis, and went on to form the brief prog-rock-psych group The Braen’s Machine with fellow Italian cult composer Piero Umiliani.
During the late 1970s he was scoring more and more mondo trash, erotica and garish S&M horror – see Lady Frankenstein and Killer Nun. And yet, the quality of his work is never in doubt; often elevating such tawdry, amateurish affairs to cultish status by the music alone. Although far from serious, it seems Alessandroni’s craft is likened to playing with an amusement park of ideas, sounds and instruments: entertaining but also captivating in equal measures. With an ear attuned to the contemporary fashions, but the classical and traditional too, a lot of musical ground is covered in his compositions: from Italian folkloric standards to disco, library music and the salacious.
In turn, this package (the vinyl copy features 15 tracks, whilst the digital is expanded to include 29) channels much of that legacy, but with far more seriousness, artistic depth, emotion and compassion. Most of those familiar with his work will instantly recognise the signatures and the palette; from the spine-tingling chills and fears of his Giallo-like scores to the arpeggios, the twang and pick of his Wild West evocations – namely on the couplet of cloud hanging “Pattugliamento Aereo” (“Air Patrol”) pieces; although the second “Aereo” matches that with vague Alice Coltrane harp-like plucks and a subtle prog-esque organ.
Where sentimentality and a touching relief is needed, tracks like ‘Lettere dal Fronte’ (“Letters from the Front”) air towards Bacharach and Morricone, and feature that recurring Baroque chamber sound of harpsichord or clavichord that gives each occasion a sense of spindled timelessness. ‘I Sopravvissuti’ (“The Survivors”) is a lovely touching sentimental piece that evokes both the balletic scores of Aram Khachaturian (sounds uncannily like his suite from Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey) and wartime period classical music. Talking of 2001, with the use of the I Cantori Moderni ensemble of wordless voices both appearing like apparitions and spirits of lost and dead souls, or like some removed version of ecclesial requiem choristers, there’s also a semblance of the stirring visionary ominous fears and otherworldliness of György Ligeti.
Quite rightly, the ‘Dachua’ suite should evoke an enormity of horror, but this score is more in the mode of supernatural horrors from the crypt than genocide shock. It sounds like some lost silent film theme of haywire Baroque piano: a combination of devilment and madness, with one hand delicately lacing the keys, and the other, hitting near off-key jarred and out-of-key notes. And whilst sounding the most terrible aspects of war, from execution to the shelled-out ruins of a psychologically destroyed mind, the music strikes up the military snare, playing it like a spraying machine gun, or, building up an unsettling drama of pain and anguish: all managed beautifully, even when dipping into Library music, the hallucinating, dreamy and psychedelic.
Military timpani and drills aplenty amongst the plaintive recall of the acts and dogs of war, this survey features supernatural forces, cold chills, suspense, loss, remembrance and hope.
The suites, atmospheric pieces, scores and signature found on this Paesaggio Bellico are all far too good to be left undisturbed, languishing in the vaults of cult obscurity. Fans, heads and even those with a cursory interest should investigate.
___/THE SOCIAL PLAYLIST VOLUME 95
The Social Playlist is an accumulation of music I love and want to share; tracks from my various DJ sets and residencies over the years; and both selected cuts from those artists, luminaries we’ve lost and those albums celebrating anniversaries each month.
Running for over a decade or more now, Volume 95 is the latest eclectic and generational spanning playlist come radio show from me – the perfect radio show in fact, devoid of chatter, interruptions and inane self-promotion.
Each month I mark the passing of those artists we’ve recently lost, and as this is the first opportunity to do so, I’ve included homages to the last “doll” David Johansen, the soul music’s Carol King, Roberta Flack, vibes innovator and jazz fusionist Roy Ayers and troubadour Bill Fay.
Anniversary albums wise there’s tracks from Herbie Hanock’s Maiden Voyage (celebrating its 60th anniversary this year), Bob Dylan’s Bringing It All Back Home (also unbelievably 60 years old), David Bowie’s Young Americans (50 this month; see my short analysis in the Archives section below), Parliament’s Chocolate City (also 50), Sonic Youth’s Bad Moon Rising (40 this month), Radiohead’s The Bends (30 years old this month), Gene’s Olympian (another 30th) and Edan’s Beauty And The Beat (where does the time go…seriously! How can this LP be 20 years old this month?!).
As usual, I like to throw in a smattering of cross-generational tracks and some more recent ones – those that missed out on the previous Monthly playlists of new music. In the latter camp, we have a resurfaced (so not strictly new) live version of Throbbing Gristle’s ‘Convincing People’ from Volksbühne, Berlin, recorded on New Year’s Eve in 2005; an imaginative reverberating study, peregrination from Dorothy Carlos; and some mirage grunge indie from Raisa K. In the former, a number of oldies from Krumbsnatcha, 21. Peron, Stanton Davis’ Ghetto/Mysticism, Gloria Jones, Flutronix, Berlin Brats, Pete Dello and more… Expect no substitutes. Expect no algorithmic replicants. Expect no AI bullshit. All playlists are compiled without any external influences, totally conceived by whatever I wish.
IN FULL:
New York Dolls ‘Private World’
Gloria Jones ‘Cry Baby’
Roy Ayers ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’
Roberta Flack ‘Compared to What’
Parliament ‘Ride On’
Edan ‘Promised Land’
Herbie Hancock ‘The Eye Of The Hurrican’
21. Peron ‘Bes’
Bill Fay ‘Dust Filled Room’
Radiohead ‘My Iron Lung’
David Johansen ‘Heart of Gold’
Berlin Brats ‘(I’m) Psychotic’
New York Dolls ‘Don’t Start Me Talking’
Sonic Youth w/ Lydia Lunch ‘Death Valley ‘69’
Throbbing Gristle ‘Convincing People Live’
Dorothy Carlos ‘Balm’
Raisa K ‘Affectionately’
Roberta Flack ‘Some Gospel According to Matthew’
David Bowie ‘Can You Hear Me’
Roy Ayers ‘Pretty Brown Skin’
Stanton Davis’ Ghetto/Mysticism ‘Space-A-Nova II’
Krumbsnatcha ‘Closer To God’
King Honey w/ Hezekiah, Gos and Chief Kamachi ‘Trinity’
Georges Bodossian ‘Punching Bull’
Flutronix ‘Crazy’
Meridionale des cayes ‘Zanmi femme’
Bob Dylan ‘Love Minus Zero’
Bram Tchaikovsky ‘Robber’
Gene ‘Olympian’
Pete Dello and Friends ‘Arise Sir Henry’
___/ARCHIVES
Each and every month, I use the digest as a good excuse to once more retrieve congruous and related posts from the archives. This month, to tie in with the 50th anniversary of David Bowie’s “plastic soul” period, a short piece on one of the soul crooning pale duke’s best album’s Young Americans – well, in my opinion top three.
And from this time, near enough, a decade ago, another chance to read my review of Glitterbeat Record’s Hanoi Masters: War Is A wound, Peace Is A Scar album, raw and therapeutic sessions recorded by Ian Brennan and released during March of 2015.
Disingenuous to a fault, the cracked actor’s ‘plastic soul’ conversion, raised more than a few pencilled-in eyebrows and frowns.
Totally free of his carrot-topped mullet crown, he now hotfooted across the Atlantic to Philly, intoxicated by the city of brotherly love’s sweet, lovelorn soul music.
A new face in town, the burgeoning ‘thin white duke’ employed a cast of ethereal backing singers (including an as yet famous Luther Vandross) and kindred musicians (notably Bowie’s new lead-guitarist foil, Carlos Alomar) on his cocaine-fuelled pursuit.
Calling in the favours, fellow alienated Brit in residence, John Lennon, helped write the cynical snide ‘Fame’ (he plays on the recording and adds harmonies too) and let Bowie cover his stirring cosmological trip, ‘Across The Universe’ – much maligned, but I really dig this version, and even play it regularly in my DJ sets.
Reflective, sophisticated, Bowie and his detractors may have labelled him with derogatory terms, yet there’s no denying it’s another successful musical adoption: truly up there with his best ever work; a complete showman chameleon transformation. Even one of his most infamous haranguers Lester Bangs couldn’t help but admire it: the only Bowie LP he ever gave him credit for.
Decreed as the leading highlight’s of the album by the majority –
Young Americans (single), Win, Fame (single)
Pay attention to these often overlooked beauties –
Somebody Up There Likes Me, Across The Universe
Various ‘Hanoi Masters: War Is A wound, Peace Is A Scar’ (Glitterbeat Records)
A side excursion, travelling due east to Asia and breathing in the evocative songs of Vietnam, Glitterbeat Records launch a new series of field recordings entitled Hidden Musics. Finding a congruous musical link with their usual fare of West African releases, the label sent Grammy-award winning producer Ian Brennan (credits include, Tinariwen, Malawi Mouse Boys, The Good Ones) to Vietnam in the summer of 2014 to record some of the most lamentable and haunting resonating war-scarred music.
Indelibly linked to what the indigenous population call ‘the American war’, the examples of both yearning and praise pay tribute to the fallen: delivered not in triumphant or propagandist bombast but in a gentle meditative manner, these survivors, forty years on from the end of the harrowing and catastrophic (the repercussion still reverberating in the psyche of the burned America and its allies) war still undergoing a healing process.
Tinged with an omnipresent lilting sadness these songs are imbued with battle scares (hence the albums sub-title War Is A wound, Peace Is A Scar), as the featured artisans and traditional music masters who had joined the cause, sometimes for the first time in years, allow` their voices to be heard once again. Brennan’s notes are littered with these various connections to the war: ‘…a thirteen year old whose job was to sing to the troops to boost morale and provide solace. Another was a former AK-47 issued village leader who had not sung in over forty years and proved to be the most dead-on vocally.’
‘Un-mediated’ and as raw as you’ll ever likely to hear these fragile, half-forgotten songs without being there yourself, played on the most obscure accompaniment of moon-shaped 2-stringed and zither instruments – including the strange K’ni, a plucked instrument clasped between the teeth, the local dialectic language spoken through the single string to produce a weird otherworldly vocoder like effect –, each documented performance is a lingering trace of an old world. Industrialisation and technology it seems has no respect for the past, increasingly infringing on even the most remote and relatively atavistic traditions in the mantra of “progress”, replacing those indigenous songs with the cultural imperialism of their south east Asian neighbours (Japan and South Korea) K-pop and karaoke genres. Here then, before they vanish forever, Vietnam’s victors speak; from the sweetly yearned Phạm Mộng Hải eulogy to departed souls For The Fallen to the dew dropping off the blossom love paean to her homeland, Nguyễn Thị Lân sung Road To Home, each purposeful – with the occasional clanging up tempo surprise – song is a revealing glimpse into loss, exile and resistance.
Considering the history and ill blood between cultures – though this has eroded as capitalism takes hold and the country opens up – it has in the past been difficult to investigate for the serene and attentive beauty of the Vietnam music scene, but this earnest and adroit study into a world seldom covered proves enlightening.
Hi, my name is Dominic Valvona and I’m the Founder of the music/culture blog monolithcocktail.com For the last ten years both me and the MC team have featured and supported music, musicians and labels we love across genres from around the world: ones that we think you’ll want to know about. No content on the site is paid for or sponsored, and we only feature artists we have genuine respect for /love or interest in. If you enjoy our reviews (and we often write long, thoughtful ones), found a new artist you admire or if we have featured you or artists you represent and would like to say thanks or show support, than you can now buy us a coffee at https://ko-fi.com/monolithcocktail
PLAYLIST SPECIAL
Another eclectic spread of all the artists/bands/ensembles/collaborations that have piqued our interest, warmed our hearts and got us thinking during March, the Monthly playlist collects tracks from all the reviews, mentions during the last 31 days on the blog. There are also a number of tracks that got away, or we just didn’t have room for.
We have Matt Oliver once more on the rap control, picking another essential showcase of new hip-hop cuts from Your Old Droog, Fly Anakin, Juga-Naut, The God Fahim and Jesht. Plus a myriad of borderless picks from every genre imaginable; including tracks from El Khat, Koma Saxo, Big Thief, Sweeney, ASSASSUN, Crows, Alice Dreamt, Kick, Adam Walton, Kristine Leschper and plenty more.
THOSE TRACKS IN FULL ARE:::
Paten Locke & Edan ‘Fried’
Koma Saxo w/ Sofia Jernberg ‘Koma Krig (Ft. Lucy Railton & Maria Reich)’
El Khat ‘Djaja’
Terakaft ‘Jagwar’
Etienne Jaumet & Fabrizio Rat ‘Rive Opposte’
Big Thief ‘Time Escaping’
Tone Of Voice Orchestra ‘That Kind Of Day’
Pussy Riot w/ Vérité & Latashá ‘Laugh It Off’
Martha D Lewis ‘Dawn’
Sweeney ‘The Break Up’
ASSASSUN ‘Over Again’
Le Pietre Dei Giganti ‘Ohm’
Bleak Soul ‘Mundane, USA’
Kick ‘Sirens Never Sleep’
Nova Charm ‘Over.Loading’
Exociety ‘Good Grief (Ft. Rav, Kill Bill: The Rapper, Scuare & Airospace)’
Raw Poetic & Damu The Fudgemunk ‘Chewing Gum’
Fly Anakin ‘Sean Price’
Neuro… No Neuro ‘Take A Step Outside Of Yourself’
Mai Mai Mai ‘Fimmine, Fimmine (Ft. Vera Di Lecce)’
Your Old Droog ‘.500’
Flying Monk ‘Fuck The Fame (Ft. Axel Holy)’
Elzhi & Georgia Anne Muldrow ‘Every moment (Ft. Dudley Perkins)’
PLOP & JUNNU ‘Totnoy’
Tom Caruana ‘3000 Volt Scarf (Ft. Lee Scott & Jazz T)’
Psych Major ‘Peace Bridge (Ft. Jamal Gasol, Wyze Wonda, DNTE & Toneyboi)’
J Scienide ‘Danceteria’
Juga-Naut ‘Dressed As Myself’
V Don & Sauce Heist ‘Wray & Nephew’
The Other Guys ‘Crepes And Breaks’
Isambard Khroustaliov ‘Cryptoersatz’
Simon McCorry & Anthéne ‘Distant Glitter’
Leaf Dog & BVA ‘Devil’s Breath’
Stinkin Slumrok ‘SHOW ME’
Jehst, Confucius & Mr Brown ‘Daily Planet’
The God Fahim ‘4 Matic’
Nicolas Zullo ‘Strano Siero’
Chlorinefields ‘Finally’
The White Russian ‘B Child’
Shelterheart ‘Empty Pockets’
The Lancashire Hustlers ‘Happiness On A String’
David Åhlén ‘My Only Treasure’
Rodrigo Bragança ‘Third Walkers’
Fatoumata Diawara ‘Dji L’eau (Malian Movement)’
Amaru Tribe ‘La Serpiente’
Istanbul Blues Kumpanyasi ‘Keep The Lord (In You) – Live’
Papercuts ‘Palm Sunday’
Crows ‘Garden Of England’
Alice Dreamt ‘All Those Little Things’
Harry Christelis & Pedro Velasco ‘LD13’
Alex Izenberg ‘Egyptian Cadillac’
Bart Davenport ‘Billionaires’
Carl Erdmann ‘Turritella Flats’
Σtella & Redinho ‘Charmed’
Adam Walton Cloudbursts II’
Kristine Leschper ‘Carina’
Pjusk ‘Aftenblå’
Rapture & Verse: May 2018:
May 24, 2018
HIP-HOP REVIEW: WORDS: MATT OLIVER
Singles/EPs
If you can look away from Kanye rediscovering his Twitter password, here’s the new Rapture & Verse to clog up your social media feeds with self-amusing jpegs, resent at royal wedding snubs, and wondering who’ll step up next after J Cole’s ‘KOD’ and Childish Gambino’s ‘This is America’. The saga continues when Salar examines the ‘Demigod Complex’, whose who-wants-some rhymes come wrapped in dynasty strings measuring you for a horse’s head. S. Kalibre takes the weather personal on ‘Sun and Rain’, a quiet storm looking for a sliver of light in burdened times. Bluesy keys and dipping sunshine won’t hold back Fliptrix, asserting ‘It’s Like That’ with bladed precision synching syllables against the shimmer. “If the bars don’t get ‘em, then the flow will” – Legion of Goon lump you with extra credit, ‘AIOFO’ and ‘Flashing Lights’ keeping up their strain of witty unpredictable. ‘Lock Your Doors’ is a pretty flimsy means of resistance once Ramson Badbonez does his best Jack Torrance impression, and ‘Safe’ by Kalieon won’t provide shelter from a measured pounding of the streets battling uphill.
The sweg of sarky master Lee Scott continues unabated, ‘Oh, The Fun We’re All Having’ a seven tracker finding pleasing ways to rise up from his customary wit pricking dulled psychedelica. ‘When It Rains It Pours’, and when Lewis Parker reaches cucumber temperature, it’s normally a keys and breeze classic, smoothness to the Nth degree with Verbz on the mic a good fit for street forecasting. Three times for your mind, the P Brothers’ buccaneering ‘Mentaltainment’, with Daniel Son, Doo Wop, Your Old Droog and Milano picking up and brandishing the baton, does heavyweight jail breaking you’ll lose your shoes over. On 2018’s system update of ‘don’t touch that dial’, Homeboy Sandman and Edan attempt to break superhighway shackles and ‘#NeverUseTheInternetAgain’, a fun old skool caper with a hook from the rooftops capping exasperated moral guardianship/public health warning.
Interesting spoken word/rhyming at both ends of the candle from Lausse the Cat tells the tale of ‘The Girl, The Cat and The Tree’. A cosy jazz bedding of some splendour can show its claws, and the comfortably muted storytelling joins the dots between telltale realities of love and life, and what’s going on through the looking glass. The powerful, stark prose and spectacle in the spotlight of ‘Without Certainty’ has Ceiling Demons speaking up in a bid to bring a pertinent good cause to the fore: job done if it strikes a chord or doesn’t leave you sitting comfortably. “Emotional damage, you know I’m a vet” – at the junction of heartbreak ridge and breaking point, WLK’s ‘The Gry’ EP is a bid for survival knocking you sideways: industrially scalded, claustrophobic in surround sound, and lashing out when rationality evaporates. With a Guilty Simpson-esque roughness around the edges, MIKE’s ‘Black Soap’ EP is a steel wool wash of loops and freestyle static circling the drain, that gruff command structuring and keeping heads above water.
Albums
A whiny, shrill, eyeballs bulging flow researching Cage at the height of his neuroses with a dash of Chester P: that’s the mist of Eric the Red descending on ‘Caught Red Handed’. Eric’s mugshot is front and centre while Illinformed helps himself out back, in prime form with 14 shots to the dome and his own mutinous agenda. A swift in and out job, as much about partnering in crime as trying to stitch one another up, this is a thick cut of hella lairy British beef.
Spraying bars to bleach your grey cells and decreeing “I’d rather be real shallow than fake deep”, Lunar C has got the smarts to back the undoubted brat factor. ‘Dirtbrain’ rides mischief and sledgehammers found on grime stairwells (see the scales-breaking ‘Skwolla’), with WTF wordplay goading the rewind button. But canny operations that could well take him further, show his strength for the gift of gab beyond gobbing off. Ain’t no such things as halfway crooks, but there is The Mouse Outfit’s ‘Jagged Tooth Crook’, which is neo-soul, nailed. Manchester’s late night live band stick to the script and show the usual steady steps spiced by a rota of emcees and guests.
With assistance from Earl Sweatshirt and Knxwledge, Denmark Vessey’s ‘Sun Go Nova’ is a laborious half and half of rhymes most ears won’t be ready for, and a turnaround of instrumentals riffing off of needle fluff. “For lack of a better word, it’s alternative and leftfield” says the man himself, which is putting it mildly. An insurgent radio station needing the deftest of twiddles to lock onto, follows an audience address admirable for its single-mindedness, chipping away at your defences.
If the origins and whereabouts of Pan Amsterdam lead your search engine down a dead end, ‘The Pocket Watch’ shrugs ‘so what?’ if its skittish ghetto Jackanory leads you down a rabbit hole/Never-Netherlands. Easily distracted with thought pieces of no why and wherefore, the coolest town crier refuting time and space that you’d never imagine medicates to funk, jazz and electro paying low rent but giving glints of bygone razzle dazzle. Unfazed, unconstrained, and easily up for cult listen of the year.
Instrumental scaremongering from Dew8 offers a one-way ticket to a two-way street of the outer limits and no man’s land with lo-fi ghoulishness, ‘Pigeon Feed’ perfecting the classic of letting your ears fill in the gaps for what horrors will follow. Parallel altered state ambience and patent anxiety from Sam Zircon reserved ‘For Shipping and/or Storage’ is like trying to piece together the ghosts of dreams past, offering sub zero degrees of nostalgic comfort and a boom bap itch that you can never quite get to.
Solidify your summertime listening with Dumi RIGHT’s ‘Doing It The Right Way’, the Zimbabwe Legit emcee doing user-friendly consciousness with help from Mr Lif and Mike G of the Jungle Brothers; a good one to throw on once debate breaks out over beers and barbeque. Follow suit with Offwhyte’s ‘Both Sides of the Mississippi’, packing contemplative punch from that fairly gentle, ever fluent flow of his, where rhymes manifest over perfectly matched beats until he’s the last man standing. More fire from The Doppelgangaz tells you to open wide and say ‘Aaaaggghh’. Tinted a little darker than their rockingly good ‘Dopp Hopp’, still crossing from East to West but like they’ve dimmed the high beams on the low-rider (‘Slay Bells’ demands are you listening), all praise remains due to The Cloak from one of the baddest assed pairs out there.
The love of lexicon is still the apple of Paul Barman’s eye. More than meets the ear in his answer-for-everything, stimulator kook role, ‘Echo Chamber’ carries on closing the gap between potent politics, funky lounge lizard off-the-tops and bizarre hypotheses, burrowing its way through the toughest of leather bound volumes to have you picking the bones out for weeks on end. A supporting cast of ?uestlove, Mark Ronson, Open Mike Eagle, Prince Paul, DOOM and Masta Ace means it’s not far from frickin’ awesome. Blu and Shafiq Husayn’s flaky ‘The Blueprint’ has funk to be found, but sounds like it’s constantly going in and out of tunnels while it breaks down gang divisions and geography by the most basic means possible.
Some proper old skool, four-track business out of Cali produces a re-up of The Nonce’s ‘1990’, the Project Blowed affiliates finding their feet with De La Soul-style rhymes, pointers towards Peanut Butter Wolf & Charizma and The Pharcyde, and interplay and concepts (little metaphor needed for the napkin-tucking ‘Chocolate Cake’) getting the most out of raw materials. Royce da 5’9” continues to go from strength to strength when unlocking the ‘Book of Ryan’, piled high with battles and confessionals, life lessons and fears to open eyes and ears. Given the LP’s length, ‘I’m not getting better, I’m just getting started” will make you think twice if you thought you knew everything about the man already.
With so much drama in the CNT it’s kinda hard being the LDZ. Funky DL does GTA, and Sam Krats has got the cream.
Rapture & Verse: March 2017:
March 23, 2017
MATT OLIVER’S ESSENTIAL HIP-HOP REVIEW
Rapture & Verse’s March hares are made up of dirt-slinging duo Remy Ma and Nicki Minaj (naturally, Foxy Brown then has her two penneth worth as well), Snoop blurring the line between life and art when it comes to America’s next top president, Joey Badass having a John Lennon-style, ‘Bigger than Jesus’ moment, Tupac ‘memorabilia’ reaching unhealthy new levels, and a right flash-looking reissue of Kool Keith and Dan the Automator’s trailblazing weirdo ‘Dr Octagonecologyst’ (when an Easter egg just won’t do). All topped with Will I Am appearing in a new video with the realest of the Rovers Return, Liz McDonald.
Talib Kweli joins the UK B-Boy World Championships with an April performance (probably not as a contestant…well, you never know). Big Daddy Kane reiterates he’s still got juice with a London appearance in May bound to bring in scores of hip-hop nostalgics; and home-grown old skool originals London Posse go on a wee road trip to tell all the current gun finger spitters how slang should really sound. Also upcoming on these shores – DJ Q-Bert, Masta Ace and Jedi Mind Tricks, all making it rain like an April shower.
Singles/EPs
A teeny-tiny singles selection this month starts with a quintet of instrumentals seeing who’s big enough to plug a mic in. Urban Click’s ‘Half Past Two’ does boom bap that keeps time and plants seeds of doubt; just enough fear factor to have you looking over your shoulder mid head-nod, until ‘Payback’ brings the hatchet into full view. In need of an assertive, affirmative funk jam with a worldview to cause roadblocks? Rob Cave’s singsong exasperation telling you ‘Hold Your Head’ is that very jam. Follow that with a remix of Mista Sinista’s ‘Life Without Fear’, another partier making a point with Worldarama, Illa Ghee & Chordz Cordero wrapping up Eitan Noyze’s bulbous funker. Milano Constantine gets grimy on the belt-loosening ‘Rasclart’, with Conway and Big Twins helping extort DJ Skizz’ mob skanking.
Albums
Action packed storytelling kicks off Your Old Droog’s triumphant ‘Packs’, that languid NY flow quickly working a number of hustles and stakes-high dice games, all with a penchant for humour and words to the wise stashed in the trunk. From go-slows to arse kicks, adopting the same readiness for and awareness of when the streets come calling, and with Danny Brown, Edan and Heems on his team, YOD perfects the unfathomable: a varied album with no time to waste or room for error. 14 silk cuts, if you will.
With a flow somewhere between honey dipped and Seattle high, Porter Ray’s seesaw twang that’s always laidback in a perpetual state of motion grounds spacey, floaty forecasts replacing low riders with ambient parachute jumps. ‘Watercolor’ is vaporous but tangible gangsta living from under the stars with a creditable amount of earnestness, with Ray’s role as some kind of avenging angel leaving his mark on you, one way or another.
UK crews control this month starts with the Gatecrasherz getting parties jumping and scrawling their names all over the VIP list on ‘Uninvited’. A more patient unit than expected, inasmuch as each emcee queues obediently before showing ill discipline on the mic (in turn letting you pick your own distinctively-twanged rapper like you’re swapping stickers), a broadside of bumping beats (including ‘2-3 Break’ playing out like a choose-your-own-adventure book), gets doors off hinges.
Steady Rock and Oliver Sudden push flavour in your ear with ‘Preservatives’. The BBP reliability always plays the game the right way, spanning humble brags, straight shots, living as they live it, tales told while getting ‘em in and beats getting bobbleheaded on life’s dashboard. What you hear is what you get. Amos & Kaz’ ‘Year of the Ram’ justifies all natural assumptions of locking horns and being capable of a battering. Forceful personality dominates business, pleasure and pain; these two are up for a scrap, or at least a good pantsing, after their knowledge has driven its way down your ear canal. Granville Sessions power through without pretension on ‘Monument’, demanding a captive amphitheatre rather than threatening the front row. A forthright manifesto playing no games makes for a well regimented campaign.
After the ‘Barrydockalypse’, Joe Dirt is the last real rapper alive on an album that’s a pessimist’s paradise. Repping Squid Ninjaz by showing strong survival instincts, keeping composure is paramount on a great, stomach-unsettling set for those getting kicks out of losing themselves past the wrong side of the tracks. Safe to say Jam Baxter’s ‘Mansion 38’ is not surrounded by a postcard-perfect white picket fence; half cut, whip smart, and hoovering up Chemo’s top-to-bottom production so that the pair sink until they strike the gold of rock bottom. Ultimate, grungy outlaw hip-hop, putting the trap in trapdoor.
As a flipside, Dabbla barfs out bonus project ‘Chapsville’ (location: London twinned with Tennessee and Thunderdome), spraying obnoxiously hot bars at water cannon pressure while DJ Frosty twists the shapeshfiting landscapes around him. Leaf Dog’s ‘Dyslexic Disciple’ is a proper UK hip-hop knees-up, awash with weed and scuffles always likely to break out because it’s all family. Funk and blues buck like a bronco, plucky and bullish rhymes will step to a mic whatever the weather, Kool Keith drops by to diss you without you realising, and a grand finale of a giant posse cut lands the knockout blow.
Oddisee is his usual engaging self on ‘The Iceberg’. With music as crisp as freshly plucked Romaine, effortlessly upping the pace when the time’s right, the personal becomes appealing so that you can’t help but pore over eloquent diary entries where the ink never runs dry. Ultimately you agree with his clearly made points of view as Oddisee is becoming the master of his own destiny who could make takeaway menus or the phone book sound compelling. From the supple to the ambitious/exhaustive, Beans releases three albums simultaneously (!) – ‘Wolves of the World’, ‘Love Me Tonight’ and ‘HAAST’ – as well as an accompanying novel. Fantastical seat of your pants scenarios and breathless narratives seemingly doing real life and politics in fast forward even if caught in traffic, the Anti-Pop Consortium alumni loves the feel of a fine tooth comb throughout.
NYC’s El Michels Affair have reached the same level of dynasty as their Staten Island source of inspiration. Back covering another batch of Wu-Tang Clan trademarks in an irrepressible, funk and soul, live band experience, ‘Return to the 37th Chamber’ repeats their craft of cultish kung-fu cabaret rewriting the scrolls of Shaolin methodology. Though they dart in as quickly as they sneak out, they’re politely nuthin’ to fuck wit’ when you’re trying to name that tune.
A jawbreaker flow meets boom-bap control; ZoTheJerk and Frost Gamble’s ‘Black Beach’ makes strong statements, showing Detroit determination to put things right – or at least stay vigilant – in a world full of buck-passing. A good combination that cruises before T-boning ya. Fuelled by hard liquor and blackmarket diesel, TOPR’s ‘Afterlife of the Party’ is a 13 track brawl finding “epiphanies in heresy, poetry in vulgarity”, kicking down doors and spitting wisdom with the force of a slammed down shot glass. Even at its calmest, there’s only one (albeit methodical) trajectory, justifying arguments and rabble rousing as a hard-bitten B-boy. The usual safe-breaking, toothpick-chewing, phone-tapping vibes from Roc Marciano plots ‘Rosebudd’s Revenge’, a seedy shoulder-brusher putting its kingpin in a familiar position of power, to the sound of a soul jukebox watching trife life go by.
Hosting a sophisticated dinner party but still putting fresh kicks on the table, Dr Drumah runs a tight ship of instrumentals passing round cigar-n-scotch jazz and choice samples keeping ears attracted late on. ‘90’s Mindz’ is precisely put together, a showcase of simple pleasures that’s got plenty of mileage. Once that’s soiree’s over and done with, head over to Vital’s ‘Pieces of Time’ for pretty much more of the same; hard shells with soft centres and golden age hues, in an easy access network of neck work. Argentinean Gas-Lab boasts an international cast to take you ahead of the sunrise on the soul dejeuner ‘Fusion’, all piano keys and horns applying shine to respectful spit. ‘Rise N Shine’ shakes the bottle and wakes a little Samba in Spaniard Alex Rocks, an easygoing beatsmith who gets his US guests licking their lips from the stoop. With a squeeze of bossa funk in the mix as well, it sticks to the script enough for soft tops and sunloungers to start folding themselves back.
Welcoming your retinas this month: Open Mike Eagle turns superhero, Joey Badass pledges allegiance, Knowledge Nick gives a thumbs down, and Ash the Author keeps on track.
Rapture & Verse: February 2017:
February 23, 2017
HIP-HOP ROUNDUP
Words: Matt Oliver
Singles/EPs
Having had all our ideas for a witty intro brainwashed by the off-piste pizzazz of Strange U’s ‘#LP4080’, (you don’t wanna know about a Biggie/Faith Evans duets album anyway), lead space cadet Kashmere has also been dabbling in backstreet voodoo with Bambooman on the ‘Supergod’ EP. Verbally out of shape as usual, a wee drop of alchemy sprinkled over stripped backdrops goes a long way. Dabbla, in his usual style sounding like he’s dashing in and out of rush hour traffic, shows off how good his ‘Cardio’ is, and Joker Starr does whatever he can to bring doom without the cartoon to ‘Spy Da Man’. Dream McLean and The Last Skeptik know the value of the basics: the ‘Cheese on Brown Bread’ EP is four tracks, not needing any extra garnish, just cunningly sharp words pricking simple neck chops. Back in the old routine, DJ Format and Abdominal ready a new album with a pair of funky head hunters: industry tell-tale ‘Behind the Scenes’, and 100mph throwdown ‘Diamond Hammer’.
Instrumentals to both ease and expand minds from IMAKEMADBEATS on the seven-starred ‘Better Left Unsaid’, include a remoulding of 10CC and views of hip-hop from afar. Attempting to stay Gd up while keeping to a righteous path, Obi J reps ‘Red City’ with reflection and retaliation. The non-stop hustle of Avarice, bending jazz under his control into a hard-as-nails enforcement of ferocious rhymes, makes ‘Words and Sounds’ anything but simplistic, where the only greed is to go all out. Six tracks that stand up to be counted.
Raekwon beat down ‘This is What It Comes Too’ is a timely reminder to respect the gods, well set up by Xtreme’s subtle flip of a hip-hop fundamental that lets the Chef build and destroy. On ‘The Art of Rock Climbing’, Boldy James welcomes you to the total gangsta experience. Whether in the thick of it or just lounging in the aftermath, the DJ Butter-assisted EP runs rewindable rackets out of Detroit. Wallowing ‘In the Mud’, deM atlaS questions everything and nurses a life hangover in the process, and Vince Staples wilds out, plain and simple, on ‘BagBak’. Passport Rav and Asi Frio will measure you for concrete shoes ahead of a trip to the ‘Shark Tank’ in a callous mob style, while on ‘Help’, the all out 16s of Your Old Droog, Wiki and Edan leap from building to building while the world implodes under a prog rock plume and Rob Base is the last voice of reason. Not a track found pussy footing.
Getting sunshine to glance round the corner, Chris Read & Pugs Atomz air it out over ‘Chocolate Milk’, neo-soul with the bonus of a great hook. ‘Black Nite’ goes deeper and slinkier, with two twizzly remixes from Myke Forte. Pete Rock & CL Smooth’s timeless ‘They Reminisce Over You’ makes its 7” debut and enhances its legend that little bit more.
Albums
‘The Building’, a towering B-boy document from honourable humanitarians Mazzi and SOUL Purpose, gives familiar samples new life and piles high banks of bricks and mortar beats and rhymes you can always back to do the business. No punches pulled, see it hanging around year bests in 10 months time. Sucker puncher M Dot gets into it with the ‘Ego and The Enemy’, a spokesman for pessimists arguing reality where there’s no such thing as hard luck stories or second chances. Impressive assists from Hi-Tek, Method Man, Camp Lo, Marco Polo, Large Professor and Marley Marl (craftily flipping of all people, Ms Dynamite) help the Boston brawler grab the game by the scruff of the neck and pop vertebrae like bubblegum.
A heavy dose of Oh No & Tristate cuts class A dope for ‘3 Dimensional Prescriptions’; following the Gangrene cookbook, a dangerous connection casting their own shadow and treating willowy funk and soul like a cross-border haul, it’s an album that sounds equal parts elite and illicit, glamour and gall. Get fixed up. Great all round game from LiKWUiD, with 2 Hungry Bros feeding the machine on the boards, makes ‘Fay Grim’ a storybook full of sass, stress, strike outs and scholarly knowledge that shows fairytales for what they are. An album not rhyming for the sake of riddling. Dope KNife’s ‘NineteenEightyFour’ is an absolute battering ram of four wheel drive blasting through the boggiest of boom bap. Describing the savagery as “the movie Taxi Driver in rap form” is no joke, and Big Brother would think twice about listening in.
A clutch of autobiographical styles from the UK now: the composure of Loyle Carner’s low-key ‘Yesterday’s Gone’, even when the odds of the day to day aren’t always even, creates a new and relatable street bard elect. The decidedly more unrepentant Devlin and the ferocity of ‘The Devil’s In’ is perfect synching second time around after the overproduction that strangled his debut; and Big Heath reminding not to take home comforts and hard work for granted on ‘Smells of Beef’ gets the essentials all in order. Less introspective and just balls out slimy, Stinkin Slumrock & Morriarchi’s ‘Morrstinkin’ parades a doomed brand of swaggering sewer rat rap, hinting what once was polished and optimistic is now ripe for red light zones and no man’s land.
Quelle Chris’ ‘Being You Is Great, I Wish I Could Be You More Often’ catches itself in ups, downs (either going in hard or trying to function) and managing the in betweens. Therefore it never sits still both lyrically and stylistically, with wit and reflection both sharp and slowly revealing itself. Worth taking time with. A similarly individual look at the human condition is Stik Figa’s ‘Central Standard Time’, making the verbally dense levitate – “I got some idioms for idiots if anybody interested” – and displaying appealing introspection and emotional intelligence that’s just the right volume of far out. More of a catharsis is ‘Rap Album Two’, Jonwayne’s return that makes personal struggle both poignant and unapologetic for showing its hand. Suitably muted but speaking strongly and openly, in hushed tones without looking for sympathy, watch its humble humanity become the choice of the open eared this year.
When you can’t see the angles no more, you in trouble. Alternatively, when Corners come into view, fresh UK hip-hop will get you going. Beit Nun, Benny Diction and Deeflux pass the mic like a Sunday morning game of frisbee, and the casualness of their goodness taking the sting out of everyday slogging is pretty devastating. Eight-track ear swim ‘Tape Echo – Gold Floppies’ has dynamic duo Torb The Roach and Floppy McSpace sedating speakers in some unknown realm. Instrumentals grab armfuls of samples and cook them in slowly boiled delirium to create a thick beat stew. The broth of Batsauce for the ‘Clean Plate’ series is also a heavy ladle using battered wax as a serving suggestion; apple-bobbing funk, hot pockets of flavour, and samples strewn to make some kind of sense. Chrome’s ‘The Remix’ funky-freshens a bunch of Britcore classics, golden age staples, and queues Kanye, Edan, Ty, Savvy and De La Soul for a session in his win-win, no fee surgery.
Mixtapes
Currently giving Midas tips on how to win, Paul White goes through his psychedelic wax satchel and like a hypnotist, comes up with ‘Everything You’ve Forgotten’, a free mix of past/present/future beats marbling into one. Fighting the power with a comprehensive manifesto , Lushlife’s ‘My Idols are Dead + My Enemies are in Power’ is unequivocal in its activism, a rolling funk fire to get hearts racing and fists clenched at once. Ain’t nothing sweet about the tongue lashing ‘Pick & Mix Experience’ of Ramson Badbonez and Jazz T, a half hour of hard nuts to crack teeth and heat that’s off the Scoville scale.
Feet to the floor with A7PHA and Paul White & Danny Brown, and street takes from HPPYPPL and Gatecrasherz.
Monolith Cocktail Blog 