Chief Keef

The introduction of this track is one of Chief Keef's best. And it should be because Chief Keef is finally rich. Young Chop on the beat as always.

Co La--Egyptian Peaches

Matt Papich has thrown out his guitar and his former performance name of Ecstatic Sunshine. Since then he has replaced the six string with a Mac book, Ableton live software, and the new performance name of Co La.  Now I've seen Co La plenty of times around Baltimore venues, but I didn't really start "getting in" to his music until I picked up a copy of Daydream Repeater on vinyl. This debut LP from Papich is simply "rich" sounding, with wonderfully mixed samples, for example on wanna say faux, (video below) the timing of samples are simply outstanding. Enjoy! and if you get a chance see him around Baltimore!
                                                        Wanna Say Faux

                                                             Egyptian Peaches

New Knife album in April

In April one of my favorite bands is coming out with a new album. The track list was just released, check it out! I'm stoked.

Giving him something he can feel

I was visiting a good old friend up at his respective college in Pennsylvania, so naturally as a college student by the end of the night we had consumed a large amount alcohol. Anyways my friends and I were on a large soul music kick...and still are today. So when it came time to crash naturally as kids in the 21st century we turned on the Television to fall asleep. What we found though was an infomercial called "Body and Soul" a collection of great soul songs. This kept us up for a while before falling asleep. The very next day I obtained the Body and Soul collection, and it brought some great great Great tracks to my ears. One great example was Aretha Franklin's Giving him something he can feel. A purely magnificent soul song, with Mrs. Franklin singing her heart and soul out. Now I really enjoy hearing this song after a couple spirits in me, but it would be great to play for your significant other. My favorite line from the song has to be,
"Well, I'm
Livin in a world of ghetto life
Everyone Seems is so uptight
Nothin's wrong, it's alright, my man
I like the way we carry on
His love will send me on and on
with my man
People out there can you understand?"

Charanjit Singh 10 Ragas to a Disco Beat

Charanjit Singh's, 10 Ragas to a Disco Beat was recently reissued by a Dutch record company and I still need to get my hands on that vinyl! For now though, I'll have to settle with the mp3 version of the album. The amazing thing about this album was how ahead of its time it was. Released in 1982, Charanjit was creating acid house music a couple years before it really took off. This is a great piece of early electronic music and a very important one. It's hard to find online and has been taken down a couple of times, so I'm not going to bother with a link. I will post the first track from the album though and a really good article about the album and how it was made.

Article about the album

Recent interview with Charanjit in 2010

 

Original artwork

Strange overtones In the music you are playing

I'm really feeling like an idiot right now. I've had so much Brian Eno material that I never listened to...ever! Well that all changed today, because of strange overtones. The album to your left is the second collaboration between Brian Eno and David Byrne, called "Everything that happens will happen today" and wow its impressive. Recorded in both Brian's and David's home studios the album has themes of humanity vs. versus technology. The song I'll put up was originally released for free as the single from the album, its called "strange overtones." Hope you enjoy!

Strange overtones.

She gone be there fo dah Kid no matter wut

I feel like Nas may have been right when he said "Hip Hop is Dead" back in 2006. It just seems like anyone can get on a mic and come up with a stupid yet clever hook over some good production. Now do that a couple times while blowing blunts and pour some lean in a double cup, now you have a mixtape. You don't even need a good voice anymore with all this auto-tune business, but surprisingly this has created some "good" and undeniably hilarious tracks and albums. For example Future, a former drug dealer, is now perusing a full rap career with great success. After releasing a few mixtapes with some hits like "Tony Montana" and "Racks" Future then released his debut album Pluto. The bizarre thing was Pluto was really really good, it was a complete album with hit songs like "Turn on the Lights" and "Same Damn Time." Today I'll be putting his free mixtape up called Astronaut Status. The best song off the mixtape as well as my personal favorite is called "No Matter What." It's Future's best work overall with heavy auto-tune vocals and hard to understand lyrics. Once you look up the lyrics though, it becomes very easy to understand what this Atlanta rapper is trying to deliver, here is a link for the lyrics. Some of the great lines future comes up with while he's leaning hard include,

 " Anytime we spend time, we spend more than benjamins"...

"What the fuck this high siddity girl want to do with an astronaut kid"

 and finally

"You gotta live and learn to make mistakes to be the man."

  Future is asking the questions of why this particular girl wants to waste time with an air head like him. And I agree he is an air head rapper, yet talent can come from the most surprising people, and I do have an interest in entertaining rappers.
      I think Nas had a point to say about hip hop being dead. Coming from one of the most talented and celebrated MC's to ever get on the mic, I would be upset that people like this are becoming successful without putting in as much time and effort into lyrics as well as the general flow that hip hop requires. But then again Nas came back 6 years after that statement with a great hip hop album entitled "Life is Good." and it is.

Astronaut Status 

We gone take it to the moon

The super bowl is coming up!!! And well Beyonce is performing. So in honor of that here is a song from Watch the Throne.

In my heart Silver and Katherine

I grew up seeing  a member of this band working at my public library. Even more bizarre  was my brother rented the movie, "Half Japanese  The Band that would be King" thinking it would be a joke. Well a little later we found out that Half Japanese was a real band that helped form punk rock and influenced bands like Sonic Youth and Nirvana. This band performs every summer around August at a festival called Shakemore, and it is hands down one of the best days of my year, plus its free! I'll do another post about the band in much more detail later, but here we have the song Silver and Katherine. I'm not sure I have to even say this but the saxophone is stunning, and the youtube video has Jad Fair's art. Enjoy!!!

Bridget Kelly Special delivery

z

I recently had the privilege of riding in the car with my friend playing Baltimore's 92Q. Now I don't listen to the radio almost ever, but wow this song right here... is simply spectacular! Rare you find an amazing song on 92Q. Even though its a break up song; I still feel its some what optimistic. I recently told someone about this song, I hope they liked it.



these tears I cry

Senna soundtrack

 I had already seen Senna before and I was absolutely floored. A former teacher of mine described it as "Life Changing." My family was viewing the documentary for the first time when a particular song stood out to me. The song entitled Otto- Bob featuring Bebel Gilberto (Edu K Mix). You can download it here.



And so you touch this limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a little bit further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high. 
-Ayrton Senna

Balam Acab Wander/Wonder

Where to begin with Balam Acab? aka Alec Koone. His music is so tranquil and calming, yet it has a touch of darkness to it. When I listen to this album I always find myself to become very reflective on past events, or just become very immersed in deep thoughts. I particularly enjoy Balam's sampling of water throughout the album. I'm going to post the whole album because its on youtube, but I'm sure its also on the internet as a rar file as well. Enjoy!

blackbird blackbird blind

Another song under two minutes, but this song I can honestly say changed my life. It kind of fits in with the short lived chill wave era of music, but who gives a shit. This is hands down my favorite song, and a great music video. Which is very rare, I find music videos to be pretty pointless. Just listen, relax, and enjoy.

Arthritis/ Solarr === Herb Scented Bags

 Couldn't tell you too much about this artist/ Producer, but what I can tell you is this song is so simple yet amazing! Check it out! It's less than two minutes and worth your time. I first heard this beauty at a party and I was trumped! I simply couldn't find a song to play afterwards. By the way his album is "name your price" on his bandcamp.

Bitchs aint Shit but good people

This photo represents Death Grips pretty well. They just don't give a fuck. Period. Listening to them is intimidating and sometimes can feel like getting punched in the face. Formed in Sacramento, California, in 2010 D.G. consists of Andy "Flatlander" Morin, drummer Zach Hill (Hella), and vocalist MC Ride. The production between Zach and Andy is simply astonishing! Most of Death Grips songs I could have listened to without any vocals and I still would be raving right now, but we get the pleasure of MC Ride yelling on all the tracks which can be abrasive from time to time. True this isn't music for everyone, its just that aggressive, which I understand. Death Grips have a point about the intensity of their music though. For example on their last album the cover art consisted of a giant dick with the title of the album written in sharpy across it. At first I really didn't enjoy the "art" of it, but it started to make sense. The cover has to do with male aggression and how that rubs off on their fan base. Figuring the cover art would turn most aggressive men in particular away.
   
     Aside from cover art though Death Grips have accomplished A Lot as a band in just three short years. Their first release was a mixtape named E-military, which you can find online for free. In 2012 Death Grips went all out, being my personal favorite artist of 2012. I'm not sure how but Death Grips managed to release two albums in one year, 1) The Money Store. 2) No Love  Deep Webb. The Money Store was a near almost perfect album, about one or two tracks that weren't perfect, the album also had my personal favorite song of the year "Hacker" which has MC Ride yelling great lines like "Gaga can't handle this shit" and "Teaching bitches how to Swim." Overall the Money store delivers and displays Death Grip's best material.

     No Love Deep Webb however is a far different story. I didn't find it as enjoyable as the money store, but boy is it still a great album with an even more incredible story. Death Grips got signed to Epic Records with a deal to complete two albums in one year, however when the band learned that Epic wasn't going to release the second record in 2012 the band took matters into their own hands.  Through social media outlets and other useful internet tools the band released No Love to the public for free and as fans were hearing it for the first time so were the record executives at Epic. Needless to say they were pissed and eventually Death Grips and Epic parted ways. What Death Grips did though I feel is classic punk rock at its finest. Releasing a studio LP for free and completely fucking over the record company at the same time. Now I do wish that I could have a physical copy of  "No Love Deep Web" on Vinyl, but that most likely won't happen. On the bright side though Death Grips showed that you don't need a "Music Industry" what so ever! Now days all an artist needs is a twitter account, access to peer to peer file sharing, along with internet access. That's pretty important.

Hacker

Artificial Death in the West

Brazil Brazil

Just starting to dive into Brazilian music! But what better place to begin than Cornelius' Brazil from his album Point. This song has the ability to impress the listener over and over again. Truly a masterpiece  of beauty. Watch out for 2:15 during the song its memorizing.

Tonight tonight

Tonight is the Night! First post on this new blog, figured it would be appropriate to share one of my favorite soul songs ever!  So here we  have Bessie Regina Norris, better known as Betty Wright performing her hit song "Tonight is the Night" live from the 70's. I particularly love this version of the song with its three minute or so intro describing how the song came to be. Indeed its a little long but light on the ears, smooth guitar melodies, and my favorite bass line of all time. You can get lost in it. Enjoy.

Good ol' Betty :)