When Beatmakers Make Babies

Modeselektor + Apparat = Moderat

As an equation, this combo holds true. A good middle path between Apparat's gentle minimalism and Modeselektor's macro theatricality.

The demonic dubstep of "Slow Match" reminded me of the post-reggae Turrets Syndrom in Lee "Scratch" Perry's latest Repentance. So ima post some of that too.

Moderat - "Nasty Silence"



Moderat - "Slow Match"


Lee "Scratch" Perry - "Baby Sucker"

The Triumvirate

Two of the three reasons I like hip hop are finishing new records right now. This is good.

The third tenor of my hip hop triumvirate is Black Milk, so I'll post a little of him too and call it holy.

Clipse (with Kanye West) - "Kinda Like a Big Deal" [From forthcoming Till the Casket Drops]



Mos Def "Quiet Dog" [From forthcoming Ecstatic]



Fat Ray and Black Milk (feat. Nametag) "Lookout"

Prince, Fone Culturing and a Criticism of Criticism

I met someone recently who told me they occasionally read this blog and at some point in the conversation he told me he thought my subtitle, All Pro, No Con, was my way of saying that this blog is very professional. Funny. But no, it's just a little mission statement: that I try, as much as possible, to only write about things I like.

This led to the topic of a recent conviction of mine: there is no value to music criticism. And by that I don't mean thoughtful writing about music but the use of the medium to put something down. The idea of the act as a judgment.

I've done plenty of music criticism myself and even a few pans, particularly in the few exhausting months that I wrote for a local web magazine and had to write record and film reviews by the dozen every month. But I realized at some point that wielding my creative energy for the purpose of tearing down others' work was making me feel gross, in part because I'm a musician but mostly just because I'm a spiritual being.

Eventually, I couldn't really think of what purpose it was serving. I tried asking myself, was I acting as a filter, helping consumers sift through the internet-released landslide of pop culture, battling the problem of media saturation? Maybe, but I don't buy this excuse. The best filter against something mediocre is to just not talk about it. There is so much amazing music and art, a lot of it going criminally underpraised. What if all that copy space was devoted only to praising things that we believed in, instead of snarky jabs about records that failed to pique our interest in the 1 and 1/2 listens we gave to it before penning a review.

I brought this up to talk about the new Prince double album LotusFlow3r/MplSound and how the problems of excessive and negative analysis can be harmful not just culturally, but to the artistic process as well if they get out of hand.

I read Jess Harvell's passionate but frustrated dis of the new Prince records on Pitchfork yesterday. As a lifelong fan of certain artists who've continued to offer diminishing returns I could empathize with the over-aware fanboy perspective Harvell brought to listening to a new release by a seminal artist loved since youth. For instance, I will continue buying new U2 records the day they come out for as long as I live - it's Pavlovian - and I will continue having a love-hate reaction to them. I don't take issue with Harvell's dismissal of these albums in principle, but I do think that they're a case of someone being too close to the music, with too much personal history invested in the artist, to see them for what they are.

I only began to listen to, and love, Prince's music five years ago. I got a copy of Sign O The Times and it blew my fucking mind. My biggest issue with the Prince I had heard up until that point was the sheen - the wedding-band keyboard patches and Guitar Center-ish axe lines. I just needed to hear Deranged Prince, the pitched-warped funk vocals, the bony drum programming, the screaming and sex, the gaudy futurism, the sheer out-ness of it all.

As far as I can tell, the stock complaint about new Prince material is that he's just imitating his past brilliance. But listening to LotusFlow3r/MplSound, much of which sounds uncannily like an '87-vintage session cut concurrently with Sign, I fail to see what the problem with that is. Because Prince's brilliance was never co-opted. Unlike, say, Pearl Jam, who had hundreds of imitators take their sound and drag it through the mud by soulless imitation, I've never heard anybody make skewed pop music that sounded even remotely like Prince's best experiments. Listen to a track like "Valentina," the whole thing, and try to picture anybody else in pop today who could have composed this, let alone performed and produced it as well.

This is the problem with longevity in pop music. You can't win. It you break ties with your past, people are going to whine about the good old days. On the other hand, if you do more of the same, no matter how brilliant, they're going to pull the self-parody card on you. I have no doubt that if Jimi Hendrix was alive today he'd be dealing with the same underwhelmed analysis.

I like the fact that Prince just keeps making records. There's a workmanship to it that makes a nice balance to his other extravagances. This is someone who's weathered the storm of has-been accusations, whose dealt with people trying to fossilize him by framing his '80s work in hallowed terms and crafting a Michael Jackson-like narrative about him in which an '80s prodigy loses the magic in the '90s as the result of his self-indulgence and inability to innovate within a changing music culture. It would have been so easy for Prince to go all Kevin Sheilds on himself and crumble under the weight of his own legacy. Instead he just keeps doing what he loves without suffering from the psychological rot of self-doubt. There's a lesson in there.

Prince's showy self-love is the thing people are quickest to criticize him for, an Elephantitis of the ego. But it's also what's kept him functioning all these years when he was supposed to be disappearing in the retro shadow of his past brilliance.

LotusFlow3r/MplSound is some amazing music. As future-funky as it ever was. As long as you don't over think it.

Prince - "Valentina"


Prince - Chocolate Box


Prince - Here

Miami Vice Fever

In a recent interview Karin Dreijer Andersson, who records as Fever Ray and is one half of The Knife, said that her greatest current musical inspiration was the aesthetic of Miami Vice. She also mentioned Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight," which was famously used in a crucial scene from the Miami Vice pilot.

This makes total sense listening to her music. I love those things too (part of the reason I'm a fiend for Michael Mann movies to this day) and there are a few Phil Collins tracks in my collection that I consider some of the most timeless music I own.

It's hard to say why these two Collins tracks don't sound dated, but if I had to guess I'd credit the use of analog synths and drum machines (rather than digital presets) as well as the energy of Collins' vocal performance and acoustic drum tracks. On "I Don't Care Anymore" in particular, listen to how dry the mix is, how when Collins starts singing they take the room effect off of the drums. That is just a shithot drum sound, no two ways about it.

Phil Collins "I don't Care Anymore"


Phil Collins "In The Air Tonight"


Fever Ray "Seven"


Fever Ray "Triangle Walks"

Jealous

I want to be Dan Boeckner, making rock records with my wife, having not one (Wolf Parade) but two (Handsome Furs) great bands, making videos where house shows turn into zombie romance epics.

I love the new Handsome Furs record Face Control. Much more than the latest Wolf Parade even. Some of Boeckner's songs take a sec to find their power and it's got me back into longer forms, taking my time, the value of a slow hand.

Handsome Furs "Officer of Hearts"


Handsome Furs "Thy Will Be Done"


Handsome Furs "All We Want"

Eccentric Soul Picks Vol. 2

In November I did a post on the Numero Group's Eccentric Soul reissue series. I keep digging into these vaults and keep finding gold. Here are some of my latest favorites as well as a repost of my earlier blog.

"Don't Be Surprised" - Lynn Williams [Eccentric Soul: The Outskirts Of Deep City]


"Never Walk Out On You" - Mitchell Mitchell, Gene King [Eccentric Soul Vol. 7: The Prix Label]


"Yesterday's Mistakes" - Jimmy Jones [Eccentric Soul Vol. 6: Twilight's Lunar Rotation (Disc 2)]


"Without Love"- Ronnie Taylor - [Eccentric Soul Vol. 1: The Capsoul Label]


Old Post:



No archival music project that I know of has unearthed more quality forgotten music than Buda Music's Ethiopiques series, which restored and re-presented a wealth of Ethiopian jazz from the '60s and '70s. I spent a good year picking through those audio mines - for every gold nugget there are mounds of granite - and it was worth it to get ahold of something that sounded so harmonically and rhythmically bizarre, but with a recognizable soulfulness.

Now I've got a new obsession to rival my Ethiopiques craze: Numero Group's Eccentric Soul series. It's a similar concept, collect works of unrecognized genius, the kind of music that might have had a fighting chance at a legacy in the electronic age - in this case a whole bunch of American soul labels that never rose to the status of Motown, Stax or Hi Records - and package them together for new consideration.

I first became aware of the series during the release of Volume 3, which featured Miami's Deep City Label. I'm still wading through it all, but so far that volume seems the best place to start because it has some of the series' strongest work.

It takes some digging and sifting to get past the mediocre stuff, but the same could be said of the recently reissued Complete Motown series. And besides, in my experience having to do a little work for your music only brings it closer.

Check out some of my favorites so far:

"Am I a Good Man" - Them Two [Eccentric Soul Vol. 3: The Deep City Label]


"Someone to Fulfill My Needs" - Moovers [Eccentric Soul Vol. 3: The Deep City Label]


"One Night Affair" - The Rising Sun [Eccentric Soul: The Outskirts of Deep City]


"What Can the Matter Be" - Tokay Lewis [Eccentric Soul: The Tragar & Note Labels]


"Heavenly Father" - Eula Cooper [Eccentric Soul: The Tragar & Note Labels]

The Dream

The same man that wrote "Single Ladies" for Beyonce wrote "Umbrella" for Rihanna. He calls himself The Dream and with hits like that, who's going to argue. I tend to love the work of producers and writers who step out from behind the curtain to make their own records (Timbaland, Keri Hilson, Ryan Leslie) and it's good to see The Dream doing that with Love Vs. Money.

Listening yesterday for the first time, I thought, "That's funny. This reminds me so much of Kardinal Offishall, particularly my jam "Gimme Some." Three and a half seconds on Google taught me that my ears were on point: The Dream made that track with Offishall. That's always a good thing in slicked-over Top 40 when an artist can keep that strong of an identity in tact.

Here's what I think about "Gimme Some." It's, like, the only piece of music, maybe ever, that makes me horny. How many songs about fucking have ever made you even an ounce turned on? I count them at zero. But "Gimme Some" turns some kind of switch in my head. The chorus hook is some ridiculous, synthed-out eroticism. If you must, just ignore Offishall's rap and get to the hook.

"Love vs. Money," the title track is a stylistic cousin to "Gimme Some," only it's sad instead of sexed up. "He took my shorty, he took my girl/He took the any and everything out my world/He took my heart, he took my soul/I should have known money couldn't match love." This is so twisted and cool, because he's flipping the cliche and playing the part of the guy who tried to buy the girl's love and he lost out to someone who just treated her right. "I can't even hate the homey..."

Kardinal Offishall "Gimme Some (Feat. The Dream)"


The Dream "Love vs. Money"

Cale Parks, Brutal Debonair

Cale Parks has a new song called "Places We've Created" available for download at RCRDLBL.com today. It's totally worth the click.

Cale is an old friend of mine who I mostly knew through his band Aloha. Friend, yes. But I've always considered myself a fan of his consummate musicianship (Don't let his slender, debonair appearance fool you - the man is an absolute savage on the kit). Years ago, in between Aloha tours, Cale started making records by his lonesome and it's been a pleasure to watch him come into his own as a solo artist. Cale's most recent album Sparklace is a beautiful, subtle work of abstract cool. I particularly like the song "This Morning," which I fittingly first heard on an early morning drive. Cale and I have talked about our mutual love of Durufle's requiem, which has a plodding, modal majesty. "This Morning" has the same effect on me.

Cale Parks "This Morning"


Cale's at SXSW right now. Catch him here:

Nothing Says Spring Like A New Röyksopp Album

I discovered Röyksopp many springs ago and their music will always carry the connotation of bloom for me. The new record Junior is out next week.

Röyksopp - Miss it So Much


Röyksopp - Silver Cruiser



Happy Up Here from Röyksopp on Vimeo.

Newtown

I had the immense pleasure of seeing Raphel Saadiq and his bad band of bad badasses last night in Detroit. I almost never get out to see national acts anymore (thanks Ticketmaster), let alone the people whose records I've gone deep with (Al Green didn't come by on this tour, Radiohead hasn't hit Detroit in over a decade, etc.) so this was a little bit of Christmas. And the venue couldn't have been better, a very intimate room with great acoustics, sold out and seated with fervent, mostly black, fans ready to get down.

The live Saadiq experience is the perfect compliment to his new record The Way I See It - minimal yet produced to the hilt. It translated Saadiq's spare take on the Motown sound with matching tailored skinny tie suits, choreographed Temptations-style dance moves, and a soulful band arrangement that featured horns and backup singers but was always anchored by the vintage pulse of a fender jazz bass, a small drum trap and two musicians with the taste and feel to really wield them.

Blogger nixed my post from the fall on Saadiq (brilliantly titled "Saadiq and You Shall Find" - what a waste of great word play!) because I had some mp3s up. This was before my road-to-Damascus moment, when I saw the light of streaming audio, and free music still shot out from this site like candy from a burst pinata.

I'm going to stream those tracks now and urge anybody who hasn't bought The Way I See It to quit messing around and do it. Even if you don't like the somewhat heavy-handed nostalgia of the singles "Sure Hope You Mean It" and "Love That Girl," you should look past it for the subtely modern heart of the rest of the record. And make sure to seek out the b-sides "Seven" and "Kelly Ray."

Raphael Saadiq - "100 Yard Dash"



Raphael Saadiq - "Sometimes"


Raphael Saadiq - "Staying In Love"


Raphael Saadiq - "Kelly Ray"


Raphael Saadiq - "Seven"