The Monthly Playlist: February 2022: Animal Collective, Future Kult, Che Noir, Your Old Droog, Orlando Weeks…
February 28, 2022
PLAYLIST SPECIAL
An encapsulation of the last month, the Monolith Cocktail team (Dominic Valvona, Matt Oliver, Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea and Graham Domain) chose some of the choicest and favourite tracks from February. It may have been the shortest of months, yet we’ve probably put together our largest playlist in ages: all good signs that despite everything, from Covid to the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, artists, bands everywhere are continuing to create.
65 tracks, over 4 hours of music, February’s edition can be found below:
That exhaustive track list in full:::
Animal Collective ‘Walker’
Modern Nature ‘Performance’
Gabrielle Ornate ‘Spirit Of The Times’
The Conspiracy ‘Red Bird’
Cubbiebear/Seez Mics ‘All Friended Up’
Dubbledge/Chemo ‘Itchy Itchy’
Dirty Dike ‘Bucket Kicker’
Future Kult ‘Beasts With No Name’
Lunch Money Life ‘Jimmy J Sunset’
Ben Corrigan/Hannah Peel ‘Unbox’
Uncommon Nasa ‘Epiphany’
War Women Of Kosovo ‘War Is Very Hard’
Ben Corrigan/Douglas Dare ‘Ministry 101’
Sven Helbig ‘Repetition (Ft. Surachai)’
Ayver ‘Reconciliacion Con La Vida’
Lucidvox ‘Swarm’
Provincials ‘Planetary Stand-Off’
Wovenhand ‘Acacia’
Aesop Rock ‘Kodokushi (Blockhead Remix)’
Junglepussy ‘Critiqua’
Tanya Morgan/Brickbeats ‘No Tricks (Chris Crack) Remix’
Buckwild ‘Savage Mons (Ft. Daniel Son, Lord Jah-Monte Ogbon & Eto) Remix’
Che Noir ‘Praises’
Koma Saxo w/Sofia Jernberg ‘Croydon Koma’
Medicine Singers/Yontan Gat/Jamie Branch ‘Sanctuary’
Black Josh/Milkavelli/Lee Scott ‘Die To This’
Funky DL ‘I Can Never Tell (Ft. Stee Moglie)’
Mopes ‘Home Is Like A Tough Leather Jacket’
ANY Given TWOSDAY ‘Hot Sauce (Ft. Sum)’
Split Prophets/Res One/Bil Next/Upfront Mc/0079 ‘Bet Fred’
Nelson Dialect/Mr. Slipz/Vitamin G/Verbz ‘Oxford Scholars’
Immi Larusso/Morriarchi ‘Inland’
Homeboy Sandman ‘Keep That Same Energy’
Wax Tailor/Mick Jenkins ‘No More Magical’
Ilmiliekki Quartet ‘Sgr A*’
Your Old Droog/The God Fahim ‘War Of Millionz’
Ramson Badbonez/Jehst ‘Alpha’
Ghosts Of Torrez ‘The Wailing’
Pom Poko ‘Time’
Daisy Glaze ‘Statues Of Villians’
Orange Crate Art ‘Wendy Underway’
Seigo Aoyama ‘Overture/Loop’
Duncan Park ‘Rivers Are A Place Of Power’
Drug Couple ‘Linda’s Tripp’
Ebi Soda/Yazz Ahmed ‘Chandler’
Brian Bordello ‘Yes, I Am The New Nick Drake’
Psychedelic Porn Crumpets ‘Bubblegum Infinity’
Steve Gunn ‘Protection (Ft. Mdou Moctar)’
Jane Inc. ‘Contortionists’
Black Flower ‘Morning in The Jungle (Ft. Meskerem Mees)’
Jo Schornikow ‘Visions’
The Goa Express ‘Everybody In The UK’
Pintandwefall ‘Aihai’
Thomas Dollbaum ‘God’s Country’
Crystal Eyes ‘Don’t Turn Around’
Glue ‘Red Pants’
Super Hit ‘New Day’
Legless Trials ‘Junior Sales Club Of America’
Monoscopes ‘The Edge Of The Day’
Alabaster DePlume ‘Don’t Forget You’re Precious’
Orlando Weeks ‘High Kicking’
Carl Schilde ‘The Master Tape’
Bank Myna ‘Los Ojos de un Cielo sin Luz’
Park Jiha ‘Sunrise: A Song Of Two Humans’
Simon McCorry ‘Interstices’
Our Daily Bread 495: Dubbledge & Forest DLG ‘Ten Toes Down’
February 16, 2022
ALBUM REVIEW/MATT OLIVER
Our resident hip-hop lexicon and expert Matt Oliver is back with a new review. Matt’s been busy with his own music pr business of late, but been selecting choice cuts form the hip-hop scene for the Monolith Cocktail’s monthly playlists. We’re glad to have him back on writing duties with this review of the recent UK rap duo of Dubbledge and Forest DLG.
Dubbledge & Forest DLG ‘Ten Toes Down’
(Potent Funk) 10th February 2022
By definition Ten Toes Down means to totally commit to something, and Watford emcee Dubbledge has always shown devotion to the home cause, an energiser helping mangle the angles of hip-hop as part of LDZ and Problem Child and showing off all his resplendent showmanship as ‘The Richest Man In Babylon’. Quite how Ten Toes Down became a lost album is a mystery; one assumes the standard suspect of industry foul play was at work to deny Dubbledge another chance to blow your house down, though a couple of dust-offs within a compact package suggest a reconfiguration of his geezer-ish cunning done as a wink and a smile and living by the seat of his pants. His is the sort of flow that stores cheekfuls of rhymes akin to an iconic trumpet player, gargling them about the place and working every last facial muscle before leaving the front row festooned in comedic phlegm and flavour.
It’s this force of personality, providing the sort of unsubtle putdowns still worthy of an opponent’s applause, which loves nothing more than the spotlight being turned on full whack, but knowing the prove must always back the show. The closing track ‘Your Mum’ is ready to take the mick, but Dubbledge and his stretchy syllables get away with it by including some parental value not to be taken for granted: the man has layers. On what it takes to be a ‘Soopa Gangsta’, Dubbledge put his spin on Big Pun’s most famous lines about Italian culture, and pulls another fast one by being more knowledge of self than guns and furs stereotypes.
‘Taking Libs’ continues his studies into the male-female occupancy of Venus and Mars (“I buy you fish and chips, you should be happy”) – the persona can have the flippancy of a 70s sitcom and pique a PC interest, but that’s entertainment. The album’s centrepiece, the diary of extortion that forms ‘Itchy Itchy’ (previously ‘The Phil Mitchell Crackhead Song’), looks like being the album’s weightiest material; except it’s delivered so that heavy addiction comes off as cheeky chappy tomfoolery, including giving crackheads a shout out on the outro. While you’re not exactly rooting for him as he ducks and dives to fund his habit, it’s more comic strip than public service confessional – and we’re alright with that.
Dubbledge doing damage (“I ain’t trying to be something that I’m not” is verification, if needed, straight out the gate), bears many technicalities: it’s all in the timing of pauses, the theatrical fade aways mid-conversation, the accentuation of pay-off lines on every fourth/eighth/sixteenth bar (including the ‘aw yeaaaaah’s that pepper ‘Chess’, an Amen-break wrecking ball re-sourced from 2011’s Chase & Status/Tinie Tempah collaboration ‘Hitz’), and the pointing of the mic crowd-wards for feedback, before he runs down to your funny bone. Obviously, bravado by the bucketload helps as well: the posse cut with Kyza, Micall Parknsun and TBear, the Englishmen of the belly dancing ‘Mad Dogs’ bumrushing crews out through the fire exit, is a classic case of in-for-a-penny impudence. For all the posturing putting a finger to lips, who wouldn’t be moved by it’s to-the-window, to-the-wall hook of ‘we’re the bollocks!”
All this weight has the right backer: Forest DLG, the newest alias of producer’s producer Chemo/Telemachus, loads up ten moments of loudness spanning rip-n-run club bangers, neck grabs heading into the red, heavy synth power (‘Tear Dem Apart’ – again the title tells nothing like the whole story), and the title track re-enacting a Lock Stock car chase. On ‘Lend a N A Pencil’, Dubbledge peacocks “while I’m standing on a tightrope, one toe balancing/in between the forces of good and evil like Anakin”, while FDLG adjusts a bass frequency back and forth like a bored studio nerd. It’s only on ‘Awkward’, cartwheeling between folk, psychedelia and Big Brovaz’ ‘Nu Flow’, when the producer has a bash at putting on a night on the tiles for his muse to caper across. As much as it’s the album’s sore thumb, it perfectly frames D’s soul-bearing performance.
Never reduced to anything cartoonish despite circling some slapstick bum notes and hormones ruling head, Dubbledge puts on a proper show. Ten years or so on hold hasn’t deadened the impact of Ten Toes Down, and though there are perhaps few surprises given his work in the intervening years, those experiencing his spectacle for the first time have a cult hero to give a big hand to.
Monolith Cocktail Monthly Revue: January 2022: Trupa Trupa, Jam Baxter, Binker & Moses, Silverbacks…
January 28, 2022
PLAYLIST REVUE/Picked By Dominic Valvona, Matt Oliver, Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea’ and Graham Domain
The inaugural “revue” playlist of 2022 from the Monolith Cocktail team picks up on a few stragglers from the end of last year plus a load of eclectic treasures from the last month. The Monthly is a sort of summary; an encapsulation of the music we’ve loved, reviewed and picked up on during January.
That track list in full::
Rokia Koné & Jacknife Lee ‘Kurunba’
Avalanche Kaito ‘Dabalomuni’
Melt Yourself Down ‘Balance’
Detective Larsson ‘Magic Show’
Trupa Trupa ‘Uniforms’
Thyla ‘Amber Waits’
Claptrap ‘Out Of’
Spaceface ‘Long Time’
Kristine Leschper ‘Picture Window’
RULES ‘Ghost’
Labelle ‘élude’
Nyokabi Kariuki ‘Equator Song’
Pleasure Craft ‘Dead Weight’
Lion’s Drum ‘Kami Shintai’
Selci ‘Ghost’
The Jazz Butcher ‘Running On Fumes’
Tom Shotton ‘Here, Always’
Wesley Gonzalez ‘Greater Expectations’
FNKPMPN ‘The Typical Boob’
Sylph ‘Ancient Hole’
Rob Burger ‘Hotel For Saints’
Letters From Mouse ‘Elizabeth’
Sarah Vaughan ‘Inner City Blues’
Kojey Radical Ft. Knucks ‘Payback’
Jam Baxter ‘Go On’
Cephas Teom ‘Primordial Forms’
Buck & Gase And Rahrah Gabor ‘Pass Impasse’
Andrew Heath, Phonsonic & Simon McCorry ‘The Passage Of Time (Live)’
King Kashmere, Cupp Cave, Herrmutt Lobby & Booda French ‘Donuts’
The Doppelgangaz ‘Concord Grapes’
Nelson Dialect & Mr Slipz ‘Only Just Begun’
Binker And Moses ‘Accelerometer Overdose (Edit)’
Ashinoa ‘Disguised In Orbit’
Bollards ‘Plate Up’
Salem Trials ‘Funkytown’
Chris Church ‘We’re Going Downtown’
Michael Rother & vittoria Maccabruni ‘Exp 1’
Laurie Anderson – The Arca Remix ‘Big Science’
Kate Havnevik ‘Dream Her To Life’
Bagaski ‘Campan’
Roedelius & Tim Story ‘Crisscrossing’
EXEK ‘Unseasonable Warmth’
Deserta ‘Where Did You Go’
Silverbacks ‘Archive Material’
The Monthly Playlist: September 2021: The August List, The Felice Brothers, Blu, Jazzmeia Horn…
September 30, 2021
PLAYLIST: Dominic Valvona/Matt Oliver/Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea
The monthly recap and chance to catch up with all the most eclectic music that the Monolith Cocktail team has been listening to over the last four weeks (with a few additional tracks we missed back in August). Chosen by me (Dominic Valvona), Matt ‘Rap Controller’ Oliver and Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea, the September 2021 edition features a truly global lineup of the best and most interesting Hip-Hop, Electronica, Jazz, Nu-Soul, Krautrock, Post-Punk, Experimental, Pop and beyond, with musical waves from Africa, the Med, Americas, Europe, Far East and of course the UK.
TRACK LIST:::
The August List ‘Seams’
Monsieur Doumani ‘Astrahan’
Ex Norwegian ‘Thot Patrol’
The Speed Of Sound ‘The Day The Earth Caught Fire’
Motorists ‘Go Back’
The Crystal Casino Band ‘Waste My Time’
The Felice Brothers ‘Jazz On The Autobahn’
Timo Lassy ‘Orlo’
Blu ‘Everyday Blu(e)s’
DJ JS-1 ‘Spaghetti Park’
Lukah ‘THE WAY TO DAMASCUS’
Jazzmeia Horn And Her Noble Force ‘Where Is Freedom?’
Kondi Band ‘Everything That Sierra Leone Has’
Los Camaroes ‘Esele Mulema Moam’
Mopes ‘Facts Machine’
Solem Brigham ‘Couple Towns’
Gift Of Gab Ft. Vursatyl, Lateef The Truthspeaker ‘You Gon’ Make It In The End’
Gotts Street Park ‘Diego’
Hiero ‘Soil’
Showtime Ramon Ft. Illecism ‘Julius Erving’
Viktor Timofeev ‘Portal Of Zin II’
Variet ‘The Ancient Of Seconds’
Faust ‘Vorsatz’
Vilmmer ‘Fensteraus’
Late ‘Verbal Introduction’
King Kashmere & Alecs DeLarge ‘Soul Caliber’ Robert & SonnyJim Ft. Rag’n’Bone Man ‘Porridge’
Niklas Wandt ‘Lo Spettro’
Badge Epoch ‘Galactic Whip’
Dr. Joy ‘No Deal’
Ulrich Schnauss & Mark Peters ‘Speak In Capitals’
Psycho & Plastic ‘Wunsch, Indianer Zu Werden’
Sone Institute ‘Forget Everything’
Steve Hadfield ‘Ascension’
Headboggle ‘Skip Pop’
Forest Robots ‘Every Particle Of Water Understands Change Is Essential’
Wish Master & Illinformed Ft. Datkid and Gaza Glock ‘Chefs Recipe’
Dceased, Telly McLean and Unlike People ‘Rainey Day Relapse’
Nukuluk ‘Ooh Ah’
Boohoo ‘Forever’
The Legless Crabs ‘A Saucer Is Born’
Bordello & Clark ‘Dreams Of Rock And Roll Stars’ Santa Sprees ‘Save Yourself’
Birthday Cake! ‘Retrospect’
Salem Trials ‘No York’
Helm ‘Repellent’
Will Feral ‘The Minx’
Sun Atoms ‘The Cat’s Eye’
Simon McCorry ‘Flow 04’
Group Listening ‘Sunset Village’
John Howard ‘Dreamland’
Andrew Heath ‘The Healing Pt. 1’
Tara Clerkin Trio ‘Night Steps’
Color Dolor ‘Underwater’
Gina Birch ‘Feminist Song’
Esbe ‘Amazing Grace’
Monolith Cocktail Monthly Playlist: August 2021
August 27, 2021
PLAYLIST SPECIAL/Dominic Valvona/Matt Oliver/Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea
Unapologetic fans of California’s favourite sons, The Beach Boys, this month’s imaginary Monolith Cocktail radio show playlist features a hell of a lot of tracks from the Feel Flows box set, which came out today. Some of which, are choice tracks that have lain dormant for decades.
Joining them is a fine selection of new music from the MC team (that’s me Dominic Valvona, our remote contributor and hip-hop selector Matt Oliver, and the maverick troubadour lo fi rock god turn critic Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea) that includes bloomed pop loveliness from Bloom De Wilde, respectful nods to prog rock icons from Uncommon Nasa, Homeboy Sandman slurping on the dairy, the brand new Fiery Furnaces mellotron bellowed plaint, and some mad dashing mayhem from Girl No. III. Plus plenty of greatness from Pons, SonnyJim, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Brandee Younger, Ephat Mujuru and Liz Cooper. 46 tracks to soundtrack your weekend.
Tracks Listing:.
The Beach Boys ‘It’s A New Day’
Gabrielle Ornate ‘Waiting To Be Found’
Bloom De Wilde ‘Garden Of The Sun (Jstar Remix)’
Ester Poly ‘Pressés’
Flowertown ‘The Door The Thief The Light’
SLONK ‘Erstwhile’
Julia Meijer ‘Borta Från Allt’
Seaside Witch Coven ‘A.E.O.’
Liz Cooper ‘Slice Of Life’
The Beach Boys ‘It’s About Time – Live 1971’
Brian Jackson, Adrian Younge & Ali Shaheed Muhammad ‘Duality’
Uncommon Nasa ‘Vincent Crane’
Tanya Morgan ft. Rob Cave ‘Tanya In The Sky With Diamonds’
Homeboy Sandman ‘Cow’s Milk’
Creatures Of Habit ‘The Devil’s Hands’
Bronx Slang ‘Clock’s Ticking’
Lore City ‘Once-Returner’
Your Gaze ‘Black Afternoon’
Sølyst ‘Flex’
Ephat Mujuru & The Spirit Of The People ‘Mudande’
Ballaké Sissoko ‘Simbo Salaba’
The Beach Boys ‘4th Of July (2019 Mix)’
Sorrows ‘Rita’
Lisa Mychols & Super 8 ‘Pet Sounds (Story)’
Makoto Kubota & The Sunset Gang ‘Bye Bye Baby’
Brandee Younger ‘Somewhere Different’
Ryuichi Sakamoto ‘Mountains’
The Beach Boys ‘Forever (2019 A Cappella Mix)’
The Fiery Furnaces ‘The Fortune Teller’s Revenge’
Graham Domain ‘Limbs Of Loneliness’
Corduroy Institute ‘An Interpretation Of Our Own Story’
YOUNGMAN ‘GALACTIC LUV’
Celling Demons Ft. Zarahruth ‘Silver Birch’
Kid Acne Ft. Jaz Kahina and Vandel Savage ‘Transistors’
The Mouse Outfit & ayiTe ‘Don’t Stop’
Girl No. III ‘Wales’Whales’Wails At Weyl’
Pons ‘JOHNNY PERSUASION (HABITAT 67)’
Sebastian Reynolds ‘Crows (L’Étranger Remix)’
CMPND ‘WEAINTPLAYIN’
Lee Scott/Hyroglifics Ft. Black Josh ‘Sacrificial Goat’
Sonnyjim ‘Mr Singh’
Sweaty Palms ‘The Dance’
Weak Signal ‘Barely A Trace’
Xqui X SEODAH ‘Timete’
Giacomelli ‘Phaze II, Pt. 2 (Bonus Track)’
Shreddies ‘(no body)’
Our Daily Bread 426: Illman ‘Ugly Days’
February 23, 2021
EP REVIEW/MATT OLIVER
Illman ‘Ugly Days’
(Potent Funk) 18th February 2021
Should any global implosion occur – and right now that’s not a very big should – the mic will remain the sole property of Illaman. Of noted livewires Problem Child and Pengshui, Illaman, troubled and tightly wound before falling back, reaches a crossroads of riding out the apocalypse and wondering where it all went wrong; but where demons are treated like a pen pal and ignorance is a useful defence mechanism, he never lets on as to whether Ugly Days is catharsis, cry for help or just a shrug to deal with the matter. After all, there remain “so many questions, not many answers”.
Right-hand man Norm Oddity plugs into an electrified vista that those with the world on their mind and shoulders can take solace from, simultaneously triggering itchy souls into taking action, unblinking in the eye of the storm. For headphones and hoods under low light, “these emotions run rife when you’ve spent your whole life trying”, the breakbeats of ‘Everything Bless?’ stalking Illaman to scuttle down dark alleys. Unapologetic in its vulnerability and bruised introspection, the title track is aware that situations could slide even further, the guesting DRS providing an even more numb, dead eyed view as electronic shoots of optimism are shushed down.
On the nobility of ‘OK’, promoting a positive hook as doom takes a breather, Illaman boldly puts his backbone into it: a low-key rousing of the troops speaking up for the outsider (“make some noise for yourself fam, go celebrate your weirdness”), even if the message comes through gritted teeth. “I stay strong like ox, stay on course when you flop/cos all them little battles is what you remember at the top” is a lesson crossing the cipher into the real world, ahead of ‘Universe’ re-upping cause for cautious cheer. A lo-fi headswim with a montage of life lessons flashing before Illaman’s ears, it represents the EP causing and curing insomnia, and the orator’s substance intake both blocking the bigger picture and boosting confidence in a bleak midst.
The psychological profiling of eerie closer ‘Way Home’ is another to split itself: this time between self-help insight and unreachable scratch, Norm Oddity peers through the blinds in a sole instance of the producer perhaps losing faith while Illaman dismisses any fairytale ending. Austere and wide open, allowing for time to breathe and explore, Oddity represents the spaced out in both the extra terrestrial and mind-altering sense, offering unspoken yet meaningful encouragement that’s not without its moments of claustrophobia: take Illaman out of the equation and you have a rich half dozen of brain teasers before bedtime. The emcee’s forcefulness, conviction, anger and erudition, standing as the last man of reason out of hiding, makes him both untouchable (as both man and emcee) and as exposed as everyone else. Never proclaiming to be a saviour, it’s this everyman sharing of hopes and fears that moulds Ugly Days into a tome for all modern existence. Matt Oliver
Matt Oliver joined the Monolith Cocktail team over five years ago, contributing the leading Hip-Hop column in the UK. In recent years Matt has selected tracks for the blog’s Monthly Playlist Revue and written one-off reviews. You can see his professional practice as a dab hand at biographies and newsletters, blurbs long and short, liner notes and promotional texts, and putting words to the promotion of singles/EPs, albums/compilations, and upcoming/established artists/DJs/producers/events on his portfolio-style website.
Apart from the Monolith Cocktail Matt has written features & reviews in print and online for Seven/DMC Update, Hip-Hop Connection, Breakin Point, Rime Magazine (US), Undercover Magazine, One Week to Live, IDJ, Remix (US), FACT, Clash, BigShot (US), Mrblunt.com (US), Worlddj.com, Datatransmission.co.uk.
Monolith Cocktail Monthly Playlist: August 2020: Secret Machines, Nosaj Thing, Charles Tolliver, Fliptrix, AUA…
August 28, 2020
PLAYLIST REVUE/Dominic Valvona/Matt Oliver/Brain ‘Bordello’ Shea
Join us once more for the most eclectic of musical journeys as the Monolith Cocktail compiles another monthly playlist of new release and recent reissues we’ve featured on the site, and tracks we’ve not had time to write about but have been on the radar.
The August edition kicks off with a blistering sunny-disposition Ron Gallo,space rock barrage returning Secret Machines and riotous Young Knives. Later on we’ve a host of jazz smarts from Stanley J. Zappa & Simo Laihonen, Charles Tolliver and Donny McCaslin.
As diverse as ever though, there’s a host of genres represented, including ‘Sufi Dub’ (Ashraf Sharif Khan & Viktor Marek) ‘after geography’ ambience (Forest Robots), ‘Eastern European femme fatal punk’ (Shishi) and ‘Euclid inspired polygon techno’ (Kumo).
Matt Oliver furnishes as ever with a host of choice hip-hop tracks from Fliptrix, Helsinki Booze Mercanhts, Loki Dope and Verb T.
There’s also a second despondent melodious grunge-y new wave rocker from the burgeoning talent that is Jacqueline Tucci. Something for everyone, more or less.
TRACKS
Ron Gallo ‘HIDE (MYSELF BEHIND YOU)’
Secret Machines ‘Everything’s Under’
Young Knives ‘Swarm’
Death By Unga Bunga ‘Trouble’
Shishi ‘OK Thx Bye’
Jacqueline Tucci ‘Sweeter Things’
Elian Gray ‘High Art’
Loki Dope ‘Have You Any Wool?’
Stanley J. Zappa & Simo Laihonen ‘E38 E 14th, City Of Piss, USA’
Charles Tolliver ‘Copasetic’
Nosaj Thing ‘For The Light’
Donny McCaslin ‘Reckoning’
VRITRA ‘CLOSER TO GOD’
Remulak & Type.Raw ‘Mad Skillz’
Vex Ruffin ‘Hinde Naman’
Mazi & Otarel ‘Staiy’
Fliptrix ‘Holy Kush’
Sausage Spine & Relentless Exquisite ‘Skin Diamond’
Verb T & Illinformed ‘Rotten Luck’
Pitch 92 & Lord Apex ‘Suttin’ In The Trunk’
Helsinki Booze Merchants ‘Tokyo Drift’
Fliptrix ‘Powerizm’
Diassembler ‘A Wave From A Shore’
Forest Robots ‘Over The Drainage Divide’
Mark Cale, Ines Loubet and Joseph Costi ‘Bodies Of Water’
Lucia Cadotsch, Otis Sandsjo, Petter Eldh ‘Azure’
Paradise Cinema ‘Possible Futures’
Only Now ‘Merciless Destiny’
J. Zunz ‘Four Women And Darkness’
Alan Wakeman, Gordon Beck ‘Chaturanga’
BROTHER SUN SISTER MOON ‘Numb’
Brian Bordello ‘Rock n Roll Is Dead’
The Hannah Barberas ‘W.Y.E.’
AUA ‘I Don’t Want It Darker’
Ashraf Sharif Khan & Viktor Marek ‘Drive Me On The Floor’
Harmonious Thelonious ‘Hohlenmenschemuziek’
Kumo ‘South African Euclid’
Cabaret Voltaire ‘Vasto’
Pons ‘Subliminal Messages’
Freak Heat Waves ‘Busted’
Constant Bop ‘Alone Again (Naturally)’
Josephine Foster ‘Freemason Drag’
John Howard ‘Injuries Sustained In Surviving’
Hi, my name is Dominic Valvona and I’m the Founder of the music/culture blog monolithcocktail.com For the last ten years I’ve featured and supported music, musicians and labels we love across genres from around the world 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. 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 buy us a coffee at https://ko-fi.com/monolithcocktail to say cheers for spreading the word, then that would be much appreciated.
Our Daily Bread 393: Elian Gray ‘Awkward Awe’
August 17, 2020
ALBUM REVIEW/MATT OLIVER
Elian Gray ‘Awkward Awe’
Album/14th August 2020
“We got blogs to tell us how journalism lost its essence/and Urban Outfitters are hosting ayahuasca sessions”
Dystopian is too convenient a sonic description. Claustrophobia is a given. Conspiracy theorist is a bit on the nose. But there’s no doubt Elian Gray is revelling in a no man’s land just shy of pitch black. At various points referencing The Lasso, Aesop Rock, Acyde, Tinie Tempah, Ed Scissor, Riz Ahmed and Ghostpoet, Awkward Awe is music for the fibre optic generation trapped in a tangle of their own wires, relaying scenes seen through CCTV that have its lookout warning that you’re still not seeing the whole picture. It’s all-knowing, antiestablishment, reality too skewed to become fantasy, hip-hop/grime from someone with the world in the palm of his hands, whose attitude means he’s likelier to toss it back and chuckle villainously upon its implosion. His sometime involvement with the DefDFires crew makes sense as well, given the days of reckoning permanently ringed on that particular outfit’s calendar.
A dry, beady-eyed delivery made spiteful when at full speed/spiked by microphone distortion, is further enhanced when it drops down into skulking, night vision reportage (the aromatic ‘Mango Lassi’) and mounts a throne while predicting death by screen burn with a quiet relish. ‘Haters Will Say Its Photoshop’ proclaims, without a hint of irony, “with this access to boundless information/I’m sat in my pants, on my phone, judging strangers”. Gray’s occasional, intentional running into dead ends nicely sums up society’s mindset of misaligning deeds and thoughts. Thing is, some of his rhymes are so biting that they sound ideal for a hipster to scrawl across an overpriced tote bag. Maybe Gray has been burned by the lifestyle he now admonishes, or is inexplicably trying to bring civilisation down from the inside while the oblivious keep calm and carries on. Virtually praying by candlelight on ‘Awe’ while fallen angels read their own last rites, Gray is dismissive of the vulnerability he can show (“I’ve been so afraid of love it’s made me bitter inside”) – the world order will flippantly take care of that particular caveat anyway, citing the fact that everyone’s made their bed, so all’s left is to lie in it.
“It’s no secret the world’s outgrown its own leaders/yet I can’t help feeling our defects might go deeper”
Interrupted beats, of broken, backfiring connections to trip hop, are all digital oil drum fires and London wastelands with irregular electronic heartbeats, infrequently flashing back to slick moments in time akin to a black box recorder spewing out something pertinent. The thoroughfare ‘Mary J Poppins’ allocates time to get your head together, and ‘Meanwhile’ surprises with its bursts of glam rock guitar. The restored glamour of ‘High Art’, and ‘Leonards Got Bars’, occupy life at the sharp end – or at least live with the idea of doing so – the latter in particular nut-shelling the fallout of high def beats and alternations between the balance of ignorance and bliss. ‘Another T Shirt’, trap booms grappling with blinking 8-bit neon and a lone songstress wailing, is Gray developing an Infinite Livez incision, but burying the slapstick with a cold stare and trigger temper, cultivated and remaining coiled since the rooftop shouts of opening track ‘Awkward’ give a momentary impression of just another loudmouth shooting their five minute shot.
In these current times – and that includes the stick-to-the-sheets temperatures of late – there’s no better soundtrack, and Awkward Awe becomes more and more a perfect description of Gray’s caustic detailing. Throughout he is undeniably passionate and articulate, but as on ‘Pisces’, able to tear down the façade of life, the universe and everything without breaking stride, not looking to gain constituents and not particularly caring whether you take his word as gospel. It’s hard to argue with the logic that “once the lie detector detected itself lying/the polygraph it seems is not without a sense of irony”. And with the world showing no signs of doing anything other than going through the motions, Gray won’t be short of work anytime soon.
His is an inner circle operating as a force field keeping out the rabble, so good luck trying to offer your admiration: even his most amplified call-to-arms, ‘Come Down with Me’, isn’t an entirely convincing statement of brotherly love. Sharpen the scalpel for repeated dissection of Gray’s 50 shades of antipathy.
Playlist/Dominic Valvona/Brian “Bordello” Shea/Matt Oliver
For those of you that have only just joined us as new followers and readers, our former behemoth Quarterly Playlist Revue is now no more! With a massive increase in submissions month-on-month, we’ve decided to go monthly instead in 2020. The June playlist carries on from where the popular quarterly left off; picking out the choice tracks that represent the Monolith Cocktail’s eclectic output – from all the most essential new Hip-Hop cuts to the most dynamic music from across the globe. New releases and the best of reissues have been chosen by me, Dominic Valvona, Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea and Matt Oliver.
Tracklist In Full:
Thiago Nassif ‘Soar Estranho’
Freak Heat Waves ‘Nothing Lasts Forever’
Lithics ‘Hands’
Ammar 808 ft. Susha ‘Marivere Gati’
Bab L’ Bluz ‘Gnawa Beat’
The Koreatown Oddity ft. Taz Arnold ‘Ginkabiloba’
Koma Saxo ‘Koma Mate’
Wish Master ‘Write Pages’
Gee Bag, Illinformed ‘I Can Be (Sam Krats Remix)’
Gorilla Twins ‘Highs & Lows’
Jeffrey Lewis ‘Keep It Chill In The East Village’
Armand Hammer ‘Slew Foot’
Public Enemy ‘State Of The Union’
Run The Jewels ‘Yankee And The Brave (ep.4)’
Gaul Plus ‘Church Of The Motorway’
Tamburi Neri ‘Indio’
Ty, Durrty Goodz ‘The Real Ones’
Fierro Ex Machina ‘A Sail Of All Tears’
Skyzoo ‘Turning 10’
Kahil El’Zabar ft. David Murray ‘Necktar’
Afel Bocoum ‘Avion’
Etienne de la Sayette ‘Safari Kamer’
The Lancashire Hustlers ‘Stuck In The Middle Of A Week’
Scarlet’s Well ‘Sweetmeat’
Campbell Sibthorpe ‘Good Lord’
Westerman ‘Drawbridge’
The Fiery Furnaces ‘Down At The So And So On Somewhere’
Kutiman ‘Copasavana’
Caleb Landry Jones ‘The Great I Am’
Bedd ‘You Have Nice Things’
The Original Magnetic Light Parade ‘Confusion Reigns’
Cosse ‘Sun Forget Me’
Bananagun ‘Modern Day Problems’
Salem Trials ‘Head On Rong’
Lucidvox ‘Runaway’
HighSchool ‘Frosting’
Jon Hassell ‘Fearless’
All our monthly playlists so far in 2020
Album Review/Matt Oliver
Ill Move Sporadic ‘Drug Corpse II (Body Disposal)’
(Starch Records) Album/Available Now
“You never know when you might need to know skills/in body disposal, it’s no frills” – Necro, ‘Dead Body Disposal’, 2001
Just like volume one, but more drugged up and expecting more cadavers on the slab. The patent of narcotics and necrosis from IMS pair One Boss and Ben 81 have delighted a bedevilled Monolith Cocktail, with their leasehold alongside Tenchoo of ‘Panic Room 9’, and the Big Toast-helmed ‘You Are Not Special’, whose irate, Question Time shutdown could get a nation to stay indoors with no why or wherefore. Favouring raw over horrorcore and retaining much of their regular hitmen on the mic, the London-Bristol-Manchester connect entertain without attempting too much keep-it-realism. There’s whiplash in the midst, horror to unfurl and behold, and larger than life tropes to encounter (the sleeve is a beast as well, accelerating the levels of volume one’s gnarly shtick both visually and for what the next 40+ minutes stand for), but there’s control to the themes so they don’t become either OTT or a pastiche of what it means to be authentic.
Forcing you onto the ropes with the kind of bass-pinned boom bap that paves a warpath at every turn, the Sporadic sadists pound pavements with a Godzilla-sized plate, charming a natural cruddyness from ageing but real deal equipment: Joey Menza is such a beneficiary on ‘The Wake’ while a ghost train sounds off in the wrong direction. Witnessing the macabre remains in IMS’ laboratory, the lab here houses your archetypal collection of eerily lit fluids in beakers – so Biz Markie cover sleeves of yore and the video to Ludacris’ ‘The Potion’, but with more of a closed circuit autopsy vibe brazenly letting you in on its dirty little secrets. The space invader skitter on opening track ‘Agro’ straight away suggests that something wicked this way comes, standard set by the effusive Ash the Author; and ‘Drug Slur’, directed by the shady as fuck Strange Neighbour (“the anger in danger”), and ‘Witch Hunt’, lined with voodoo sonar to make ouija boards jump, have got white chalk outlines running through its brain once a full moon comes into view.
The damning toxicology report for ‘Drug Corpse’ means its participants come armed for battle, microphone cocked, rage in check, with a Britcore blaze of glory in its sights. That old skool UK rat-a-tat is never better illustrated by some of the cipher-splitting couplets Tenchoo reels off when returning to pour a measure of ‘Snake Venom’ (“I’ve been creative before action figures/before tracks like Michael Jackson ‘Thriller’/before Dwight Yorke played for Aston Villa /before Marathon bars got revamped to Snickers”). Theme treating ‘Any Style Killer’ as a martial arts sensei prompts him to “treat an emcee like a fish finger dinner, I’ll batter them with lyrics I deliver”: again, pleasing in targeting the fine line between game-for-a-laugh comic book brags and career-ending death blows. Only when Tenchoo closes the album by calling out the phenom of ‘Poser Rap’, speaking out from the claustrophobic land of the gravedigger, do the jabs seek a common enemy, rather than round-housing anyone within a million mile radius. But throughout you can tell IMS are banking on their headhunters to get their hands and minds dirty until they’ve all developed a thousand mile stare, rather than treat the booth like a pitstop.
Suffice to say there’s little room for respite, but then have you checked the album’s title or looked at that cover reimagining the best of Iron Maiden? Vignettes pinpointing the blasé horrors of substance misuse don’t help either. The jazzier piano licks of ‘Out for the Count’, with Oliver Reese going all in, have a near-‘Illmatic’ degree of chill to them, and when it’s not creating foul play to a Bunsen glare, ‘Writer Block’ thuggishly yet handsomely hits the streets, daily operations manoeuvred by Reem Remi. The slick back and forth between Strange Neighbour and the ever dangerous Gee Bag on ‘Tabasco’ retreats slightly, but sharpens the knife edge on which the album balances: the classic trope of implied gore on the boards maximising the damage. Accessible in knowing there’s getting dumb and dumbing it down, IMS taking victims to the trash compactor is night bus business where no-one in their right mind would suggest knocking the volume down a touch.
Matt Oliver:
Unable to kick the reviewing habit for what is now the best part of fifteen years, Matt Oliver has gone from messing around with music-related courseworks and DIY hip-hop sites to pass time in sixth form and university, to writing for/putting out of business a glut of magazine review sections and features pages in both the UK and the US. A minor hip-hop freak in junior school, he has interviewed some serious names in the fields of both hip-hop and dance music – from Grandmaster Flash to Iggy Azalea – and as part of what is now a glorified hobby (seriously, every magazine he used to turn up at bit the dust within weeks), can also be found penning those little bits of track info you find on Beatport and Soundcloud, or the notes that used to come with your promo CD in the post. Up until recently Matt wrote the UK’s premier Hip-Hop column for the Monolith Cocktail. He’s now contributing the odd article/review for us.
Monolith Cocktail Blog 