swagger

Method Man – Tical

/ David James / Leave a comment

Method Man.  The most charismatic and possibly most well known member of the Wu Tang Clan, dropped the first solo album of the group after their monumental debut as rap’s first supergroup.  It remains one of the most essential recordings in Wu – and the genre in general – history.

Fuck yes.  Firmly lodged in the holy triptych of Wu legend, between Enter the 36 Chambers and Liquid Swords, Tical is a timeless slice of hip hop tastiness, as fresh now as the day it dropped 16 years ago.  16 years ago, to think of it, is a long way back for any album, much less one in the constantly evolving (or revolving, depending on your take) hip hop universe, to hold relevancy.  But it’s true, through and through.  Put this on right next to whatever your friends have been digging lately and watch as nothing happens:  no jarring shift to ‘old school’ sound, no ratcheting back of production intricacy, and certainly no stale whiff surrounding Meth’s iconic vocal delivery.  Blunted is blunted, and this album defined it in 1994.  No update required, just inhale and enjoy.

If Liquid Swords was a jagged rusty blade flashing in the dead of winter, Tical is the bare-bulb-lit basement beneath a sticky summer night, full of smoke and apprehension.  Isolated, paranoid, incubating ideas for the outside world, it’s an environment unto itself, an album to truly be immersed in.  Coming up for air when the last track ends is understandable, but the stoned reverberations beckon again soon.  Spinning from the opening PBS library fanfare through dusty organ laments like All I Need and the exhuberant 70’s-action-flick horn laden highlight Release Yo’ Delf, there’s not a more consistent Wu release in existence.  Tical lays down a mood and explores every nook and cranny therein.  And hell, if you share my allergy to skits, there’s no more undiluted source of Wu mastery than this release – even my beloved Liquid Swords has the one “Tony Starks” intro (not that I mind it) and no matter how funny the ‘torture mothafuckas’ segment on 36 Chambers is, it breaks all sense of flow.  This piece is straight genius shot from a glock, the proverbial all killer, no filler work.  If you somehow haven’t become intimate in the intervening years, you owe it to yourself to dive in.  Lacking any better words of encouragement than the man himself, I leave you with his words:

“Throw your hands in the sky

and wave ’em from side to side

and if you’re ready to spark up the Meth- Tical

let me hear you say STIM-U-LI!”

…so yeah.

[pick this up virtually anywhere. amazon for instance.  or cduniverse]

Baby Elephant – Turn My Teeth Up!

/ David James / 2 Comments

Baby Elephant - Turn My Teeth Up

Baby Elephant is the brainchild of master producer Prince Paul, most famous for his paradigm-shifting production work on De La Soul’s iconic 3 Feet High and Rising. Paul recruited regular collaborator Don Newkirk and legendary Parliament (and Talking Heads) keyboardist Bernie Worrell to conjure this endearing, strange funk blast in 2007.

This oddball collaboration is a real-deal hidden treasure.

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Boris – Heavy Rocks

/ David James / 2 Comments

Boris - Heavy Rocks 2002

In 2002 Boris performed their most significant transformation to date by dropping this two ton boulder of punk-stoner metal hybrid.

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Dâm-Funk

/ David James / 4 Comments

Dâm-Funk, who just dropped his epic 2cd debut album Toeachizown on October 27, is set to explode heads through the end of the year and beyond with funky electro-boogie workouts the likes of which haven’t been heard since Prince and the Revolution erected bangers for the new millenium two decades early.  I’ve barely had time to absorb the 2+ hour set, much less give it a proper writeup, so here’s the video trailer featuring psychedelic space visuals and a selection of tunes from across the album.  In no way does this do the massive set justice but it’s a tasty slice to whet your appetite, and a heads up to anyone still sleeping on this guy.

Keep your eyes on Optimistic Underground, as I’ll be unleashing a full album post within the week.

-note that the spelling is *not* Dam-Funk, on the artwork-

[available on CD now at the Stones Throw store, or pre-order the ungodly gorgeous 5LP vinyl set available January 10, 2010]

Black Dice – Broken Ear Record

/ David James / 4 Comments

Black Dice are one of the most interesting noise fetishists of this decade, crafting everything from burned out near-ambient soundscapes to rumbling sample-melting inverted party anthems – all with a jagged outré sensibility about how songs are crafted.

brokenearrecord

Imagine aliens descending on the earth eons after humans abandoned it.  The cities are crumbled and in an attempt to understand us, they rebuild everything – not as originally intended, but the way they imagine it to be.  The bits and pieces are placed together via extraterrestrial logic, ignorant of the traditions and established methodology of physical construction on this planet.  The result is something utterly fascinating and strange, with underlying familiarity in its makeup but complete disregard for the way this long-gone race decided things should be.

Then imagine the aliens are the members of Black Dice, and the cities are a thousand shattered records lying on their studio floor.

Broken Ear Record starts off with a deep brass thump, nearly the last recognizable instrument, and proceeds along through a wiggly, pulsating river; occasionally jarring, the overall effect is trance-inducing.  Smiling Off continues this with a more rhythmic pounding and crescendoing structure thoughout its 9 minutes.  The rest of the album springs from the opening duo’s template, adding percussion, subtracting the drift, and working itself into an occasional frenzied burst of cathartic melody.  Oh, and it’s dancey too, in a sorta flailing-seizure-in-a-metal-body-cast way.  There is something truly hypnotizing about this particular beast; it’s like a full giant computer full of instruments rolling downhill until all the crunching and bending and chaotic crashing coalesces into a consistent beat that becomes a straightforwardly pleasant listen.  One only has to surrender to its will and give it some time.  By the end of the second track, its claws will dig in.  By the end of the finale, Motorcycle, they’ll be down to the bone.  Understanding and bewilderment attained in the same wild instant.

Believe me, I was a doubter at first.  Now I can’t stop the momentum.

[get this album, with its attendant awesome cover art, at amazon or boomkat or for vinyl also boomkat or (oddly enough) cdmarket]

Fela Kuti

/ David James / 2 Comments

Fela Kuti is a supernatural being.  An extraterrestrial.  A god.  A politically charged, female-fueled rhythm machine.  He basically invented what we know as afrobeat.  He challenged the deadly authority of Nigeria’s oppressive government through song and action, and paid a price for it.  He popularized and reinvented jazz in Africa, then brought the explosive results to the West.  He was a visionary, a revolutionary, a womanizer, a pioneer, a king… a bad ass mother fucker.

fela_exp_hemiss

Most of his music was released in single and 12″ form, and the majority of his tracks were 10+ minute floor pounding epics.  Thus when being reissued, most of the originals were combined on CD, with it’s longer running time; which brings me to Expensive Shit + He Miss Road.  The impossible nature of selecting a favorite Kuti track or album led me to sharing, as an introduction, the release which I simply have listened to most often.  The tracks here are simply some of the most addictive numbers in his catalogue.  Aside from the two title tracks, we have Water No Get Enemy, Monday Morning in Lagos, and It’s No Possible – all long form, mercilessly energetic pieces designed to kickstart brains and shake asses at the same time.  Most Kuti songs follow a formula of intense rhythm buildup, chanted or sung culturally incisive lyrics, a beat explosion, and an extended hypnotic ending.  The sound itself begs no description; it just is.  Those who have listened know; those who have not are missing out on some fiercely energetic hip-shaking deep groove jams.  The stories behind the songs’ genesis are often intriguing enough for a small book, Expensive Shit in particular, so be sure to read up on them.  It not only aids in the enjoyment of the tracks (as if these masterpieces needed help to be enjoyed) but provides some insight into the man and his tumultuous life.

Just give this a try, especially if you’re completely new to it – in such a case, I promise no less than the most interesting thing you’ve heard all week/month/year.  Open your ears and prepare for spastic motion, mental and physical.  This is only the beginning.

[purchase the groundbeaking combo at cduniverse, wrasserecords, or the always-reliable amazon]

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]