Author: David James

Lemon Jelly – Lost Horizons

/ David James / 9 Comments

Lemon Jelly are a mysterious instrumental duo who create sunny aural landscapes of undulating beats and warm synth swells, homespun string samples and comfortably worn woodwind accents.  It’s an enigmatic yet inviting soundscape, enveloping and indulging the listener – a place to live, cocooned in gentle bliss.  In this sense they could be considered, in a reductive way, as a Boards of Canada sibling who woke up on the right side of the bed.

LemonJelly-LostHorizons

Downtempo post-trip hop is often looked upon with condescending eyes, and for good reason.  Beginning with the striking, exotic feel of early stalwarts Air, Thievery Corporation, and even Zero 7, most notable acts gentrified into a nearly adult-contempo vibe.  The lowest common denominators of this sound are what I would consider “Starbucks music” – wallpaper to soothe yuppies as they drink overpriced milkshakes over a laptop.  It’s only to the music connoisseur’s detriment that this fact obscures numerous incredible acts, leaving us out in the cold, unaware of the innovative treasures obscured behind the prominent bland façade of upwardly mobile coffeehouse bands.

Well enough with the negative.  Time for positive:  This is an uplifting album, as enthusiastic in its aim to please as a new puppy.  There’s nothing abrasive or truly strange jutting out of the copacetic mix, no jarring transitions or moments where the proverbial rug is pulled from under the listener.  What it lacks in moments of surprise it more than compensates with waves of agape-tinged, playfully melodic tones from the first track onward.  It’s a dreamy world of laid-back grooves ensconced in cozy atmospheres.  It’s an album-length getaway to the summertime destination of your choice, ready any time you are.

[cop this groovy masterpiece at cd universe (and check out their classy list of semi-related albums) or place an order at the always reliable amazon.  or try to find the vinyl, as the artwork is widely considered gorgeous]

Cannibal Ox – The Cold Vein

/ David James / 10 Comments

2001: a Hip Hop Odyssey – Cannibal Ox dropped one of the greatest albums in recent history and then promptly vanished.  It’s possible the group was simply too incredible to exist; the universe self-corrected, erasing the extraordinary anomaly.  It’s a bit of a shame, but we have no place to complain when we’re blessed with this singular document of gravitationally scaled hip hop ferocity.

The Cold Vein is that rarest of creatures: an album that scales incredible heights both lyrically and instrumentally, stimulating all musical pleasure centers at once.  Vocal interplay between Vast Aire and Vordul Mega is a perfect dance between partners with different strengths, complimenting each others’ style every step of the way.  Throughout the record, they’re wrestling for control of the shambling, electro-crunch futuristic monster that is El-P‘s monumental production.  This lumbering beast rears its multifaceted head into the atmosphere via the first track’s sci-fi laser synthesizers and keeps pushing through uncharted territory with every minute consumed.  Feeling at times crunchy and nasty as the deepest early RZA work, a la Liquid Swords, the record’s more of a Transformer, flipping expectations and subverting comfort.  The surfaces constantly shift below Vast & Vordul’s feet, erupting in action-funk horn blasts, spacey organ bursts, complex breakdowns where the whole spectacle threatens to break loose and fly apart..  then it’s reigned in by these dueling aural lion tamers.  Combining cutting insight with surrealist connective tissue, the vocals flaunt every previously held rap paradigm.

Cutting through near-scatalogical Kool Keith-tinted non sequiturs, and the dystopian settings of Deltron 3030 (or Can Ox forebears Company Flow), are the surprisingly confessional moments embedded throughout – showcased in particular by the psychological turmoil of The F-Word and Stress Rap.  The one lyrical preoccupation easily identified is the emphasis on power, ambition, loss, survival, and pre-apocalyptic tension.  While not original in any conventional sense, it’s the way these themes are spun through nerd-genre sensibilities that lends weight and intrinsic appeal.  Like the best comic book and science fiction flicks, all the fireworks and metaphysical effects are merely tools aiding in the comprehension of universal truth and personal revelation.

“I ain’t dealin’ with no minimum wage, I’d rather construct rhymes on a minimal page.”  This album is for dreamers and thinkers, unsatisfied with the state of the world, angry about the machinations of politics and culture, the stifling of creativity, the snuffed out aspirations.  It’s fuel for those striving, hoping, and fighting for a better place – even if it’s mental space.  Real Earth follows, after all.

[get your hands on this at CD Universe, with their list of relevant & worthy albums, or amazon of course]

Underworld – Second Toughest in the Infants

/ David James / 20 Comments

underworld-secondtoughest

Underworld could have laid claim, at a certain point in time, of being the greatest band in the world. Of course, Karl Hyde and Rick Smith are modest Brits and known to loathe any self-aggrandizing boasts; the music speaks for itself, on record or in person. They truly bloom in a live environment, as a matter of fact. Where most of their peers are revealed, like the Wizard of Oz, to be little more than men with smoke and mirrors, Underworld unleash a godlike stadium-sized audio invasion. I’m here to share an album, not an experience. So from here we go crazycrazycrazycrazycrazycrazycrazy…

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Bombay the Hard Way

/ David James / 10 Comments

Kalyanji Anandji is the name of an Indian composer duo known for their work on Bollywood film soundtracks, particularly action potboilers in the 1970s.  One glance at the cover artwork for this LP should be enough to give any music or film lover a head start on these sounds.

bombay

In 1998, Dan the Automator collaborated with DJ Shadow to remix, re-title, and reintroduce this action packed eastern funk to a near-clueless western audience.  Floating from jazzy windups to frenzied spy-flick jams, it’s a slick and concise rendering of a very specific intersection of geography and time.  Imagine the best aspects of the greatest hollywood funk scores (Superfly, Coffy, Shaft, etc) reinterpreted by bollywood composers, and processed though a modern hip hop sensibility.  Or just throw this record on and get heads nodding.

[you can grab this used via amazon]

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[Credit to last.fm for info on Kalyanji & Anandji Shah and especially to beatfanatic for introducing me to this album in the first place.]

Steve Reich – Drumming

/ David James / 2 Comments

Steve Reich may be most well known for his groundbreaking juggernaut Music For 18 Musicians; it’s truly unfortunate when most listeners don’t reach beyond that obvious landmark.  Written nearly a decade prior, this piece is one of the most unified, thorough explorations of a concept in the renowned composer’s towering oeuvre.

Drumming is an unequivocal masterpiece of singularly blinding focus.  The title and cover art alone convey more about this landmark than any copious wordplay could aspire toward.  It’s equivalent to Reich’s artistic kernel, a core sample taken from the root of his genius.  The ideas contained herein were expanded and mutated into everything composed in the intervening years.  This is the skeleton, the blueprint, the foundation.

Of course, it’s also a hypnotic masterpiece, a fully realized evocation of everything interesting about modern minimalism.  The drum patterns evolve so quickly and naturally that when layers begin dissipating near the final movement in a slow decrescendo of complexity, the feeling is akin to being woken gently out of a deep slumber:  peeling back comfortingly warm layers of blankets until the cool air sparks movement and consciousness.  Emerging upon the final moments, the most immediate, compelling notion is to hit snooze and resume the dream, from the beginning.  Drumming is a state one leaves reluctantly and with hesitation.

Thankfully, we need not wait until twilight to re-experience this particular dream.

[various releases exist, though check amazon for the version I’ve described, or cd universe where it’s a bit cheaper]

Dr. Who Dat? – Beyond 2morrow

/ David James / 1 Comment

Excitingly innovative instrumental hip hop artist Dr. Who Dat? released Beyond 2morrow at the dawn of 2009.  Yet nearly halfway through the year, there has been little in the way of challenge to this record’s supremacy in it’s natural habitat – repeated listens only reveal the grooves as deeper, the beats more layered, the compositions as wildly accomplished.

beyond-2morrow

“Change.  Change.  Change.  Chaaaaaaaang.”

Jump straight in and prepare to crack a smile as opener Lurk clears the path to a much jazzier, more soulful affair than the genre has been known for lately.  Every aspect, from the vocals to the chunky bass lines to the classy woodwind samples and early-electronica organ tones absolutely bleeds feeling and spirit.

[grab this at boomkat, or in digital format at amazon]

Love Spirals Downwards – Flux

/ David James / 4 Comments

A jet engine blast of an aural rubdown. Love Spirals Downwards attained a unique perfection with this release, striking at the heart of what I consider love sounds – music which conveys the intimate, soothing nature of love itself.  Music which can be a close companion in headphones, embracing worn psyches, calming fears, elevating a languid soul.

Tumbling down a vortex of gauzy electronic opulence, with Suzanne Perry’s siren cry as the only constant, this album is designed for losing oneself into shifting texture.  Ostensibly a dreampop-based sound in atmosphere and tone, the immediacy and a sense of futurism derived via many surprising elements sprinkled throughout engender rapt attention.  Love Spirals Downwards incorporates idm beats, afrobeat percussion, deep-as-dub bass lines and an ambient sensibility to drown everything in an opiate syrup.  Overlaid are the most ethereal guitar lines since Slowdive left orbit – and a shoegazer’s narcotic intentions to back them up.

Getting down to brass tacks, I suggest one merely listen to the track Psyche to fully grasp the beauty of this work.  If that one doesn’t bore straight through the frontal lobe to the brain stem and render jaws slack, I suggest taking a puff and then giving it another go.  Lay back and let the waves wash over.

[purchase at the band’s label, Projekt of course, or CDBaby – a new hard copy will be a rare find, but digital copies abound at amazon]