transcendent

Oneohtrix Point Never – Garden Of Delete

/ David James / 16 Comments

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Oneohtrix Point Never has returned with a massive new album you can call G.O.D. It peels up the corner tiles of a thousand realities over 45 minutes, blooming micro-worlds of sound and immediately dissolving in head-on collisions.

For the first time in years, OPN – real name Daniel Lopatin – hasn’t completely restructured his sound, yet I’m feeling the same sense of dizzying vertigo that he’s made a career out of conjuring. In a real sense, the strongest component of his appeal has always been that daring sense of surprise, the act of an artist venturing over the edge of the known music world and bringing back sounds that I’ve never even anticipated, much less heard.

More than a style, it’s an idea, a philosophy. In the wrong hands, it can become a cheap trick. This is something far more substantial.

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Funkadelic – Maggot Brain

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On a weekend in August of 2015, I discovered Maggot Brain. I may have been 44 years late, but I’m just now realizing the depth and power that Funkadelic were capable of.

I’ve been on a funk kick, spurred on by the incredible new Dam-Funk album, and stumbled up on the evocative cover of Maggot Brain, with a woman’s head planted in the dirt, face frozen mid-scream.

It’s deeply unnerving, an iconic image that immediately sears into the memory. It fits the music completely.

Listen yourself:

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Elysia Crampton – American Drift

/ David James / 2 Comments

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This is hard to explain, but I promise that Elysia Crampton has recorded some of the most ecstatic and staggering music you’ll hear all year. There’s a deep spiritual undercurrent to her new album that elevates it far beyond mere conceptual music. This connects to my heart, my head, and my gut, rendering me speechless.

The album is  only 30 minutes, but covers a galaxy of feeling that I’m feeling unprepared to describe this morning. Just listen if you want to hear something startling and beautiful.

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Walking With Jesus

/ David James / 2 Comments

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I had a conversation with a friend today about Christian music and why it mostly bothers the hell out of me. (ha) I realized it’s that sense of overt politeness, the way it’s crafted – an official Christian musician seems to have all rough edges sanded off, as pious as a politician tries to look – that takes away any depth and feeling in the lyrics or music itself. It lacks almost anything that I could normally grasp as enjoyable.

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Flying Saucer Attack – Instrumentals 2015

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FlyingSaucerAttack_Instrumentals2015

Suddenly Flying Saucer Attack appears again, nearly 15 years after last contact, with a set of unnamed instrumentals. It’s gorgeous, droning guitar music that makes no apologies for its obliqueness and doesn’t try to reach out to the uninitiated.

This slab of ashen dream is ready and waiting for anyone interested.

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Kendrick Lamar’s arresting new video: Alright

/ David James / 2 Comments

Watch this right now. Just do it. You don’t need to thank me.

If you want to see an artist at the peak of his powers absolutely nailing the zeitgeist, click play.

Kendrick Lamar dropped To Pimp A Butterfly just a couple months ago, and it’s already one of my favorite albums of all time.

The brazen mixture of politically, socially, and psychologically aware lyrics with an incredibly nuanced and evolved delivery; the dark and deeply funky production, shot through with an entire jazz band’s worth of all-star live players; the live-wire theatricality of the entire endeavor… all of these parts coalesce as Lamar’s ambition and talent meet in in the stratosphere.

It’s both incredibly audacious and earnest to a fault. The album feels embarrassingly personal at times, the rapper spilling his demons in a drunken crying jag. At the same time, everything’s wrapped in a sense of universal struggle, the intrinsic knowledge that we’re all in this together. There’s no wonder that it’s proven as divisive as it is beloved.

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Seashore (DJ Sprinkles Ambient Ballroom)

/ David James / 1 Comment

DJ Sprinkles

“It’s so easy to be confused.”

DJ Sprinkles (Terre Thaemlitz) has made it a mission to reclaim house music from the blandly hedonistic masses. As we’re reminded on the opening to 2009’s insanely perfect Midtown 120 Blues, “the house nation likes to pretend clubs are an oasis from suffering; but suffering is in here, with us.” His (Terre is “she” and Sprinkles is “he”) dreamlike house undulations evoke a distinct melancholy while oozing comfort and acceptance.

This track is a beating heart at the center of what people mean when they say emotional dance music. It can destroy anyone who’s paying attention, but it’s also incredibly addictive, a spiked dopamine drip at the center of my nervous system for 12 consecutive minutes.

Listen here:

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