Album Reviews: September 2014 Week 2

DJ Q-Bert - "Extraterrestria" 2014

A couple weeks ago, I reviewed the other half of this double album, released separately, "GalaXXXian". That album was more "traditional hip hop" and rap based, whereas this one is more concentrated on turntablism and beats, and is generally more progressive sounding. I'm going to need to hear this album more to really know it's place in history, but right now this album is exactly what I wanted to hear. Mostly hard sounding beats with fast, twiddly scratches laced over them. This is one of those albums where when it's over, i'm like "that's the end?? that's it? I want more", which is the best feeling to have after hearing a new album. Just fiending for more. The beats on this album are a really good mixture of future and past sounds, and it just sounds right to me. Check out "Moth-Rah", the epic "Broken Butterflies", "Labyrinth" (featuring Dana Leong), "Nautilus", "Draconian", and "HuverKraft" (featuring Dana Leong, DJ Zeke, + Coppe).

Ty Segall - "Gemini" 2013

Gemini is a little collection of demos and unreleased stuff that clocks in just under 30 minutes, so it's a quick listen. As with the nature of most demos, it's some bare bones material, leaning on the acoustic side of things, and with an artist as talented as Ty is, this is still quite a nice little album. I don't believe there's too many artists out there that could put out an album of discarded songs like this and have it sound this great. I'm still pleasure delaying myself from listening to his new album, at least until the hype from it has died down a little, but i'm looking forward to reviewing that soon. Check out "Thank God For The Sinners (Demo)", "Ghost (Demo)", "The Hill (Demo)", "Would You Be My Love (Demo)", and "You're The Doctor (Demo)".

Tokimonsta - "Half Shadows" 2013

Tokimonsta has always seemed like one of those artists that showed a lot of promise for future releases, after hearing her earlier material. This album just really doesn't deliver on the level that I want it to, which is a shame. It starts out OK enough. A couple decent instrumental beat creations, and a not wack guest appearance from Kool Keith, but then the album takes a completely different turn into songs that feature vocalists singing (sometimes guests and sometimes Tokimonsta herself) over her production. This could have turned out great, but none of these songs seem to really ever gain any traction in my mind and become memorable. It's just kind of generic, for lack of a better way of putting it. She seems like a capable pop producer, these songs just aren't my flavor at all. A couple of these style songs from towards the end of the album fare a little bit better, like "Moon Rise" (featuring Jesse Boykins III) and "Green" (featuring Andreya Triana), so maybe it's just that I don't care for the actual guests in the middle of the album. (Gavin Turek and MNDR). In any event, this album feels a little uneven and lackluster, but is certainly not weak. She had just set a high bar of quality for herself previously, and I think maybe she's in an exploratory phase in her career, trying to figure out how to present herself and the different roles she takes on as a producer/performer, and this album is a result of that. Check out the videos for "Go With It" (featuring MNDR) and  "Soul To Seoul (Part 1)", and "Soul To Seoul (Part 2)". (These videos are really well done). Also check out"Sweet Williams" and "808".

 The Both - "The Both" 2014

The Both is the duo of Aimee Mann and Ted Leo. They are both (haha) established musicians in their own right, and it's interesting that these 2 artists decided to unite and attempt to combine their sounds.  (it also furthers my theory that Aimee Mann has a weird thing with collaborating with male musicians who have first names for last names...) I think they hit the mark exactly with this album. This is so much better than most "old people music" that gets released. They're not forging any new ground with styles or songwriting, but they're also almost perfect at what they do. Bringing some solid, singer/songwriter oriented, pop/rock, that you want to listen to again and again. As far as my personal viewpoint goes, I was already a huge Aimee Mann fan, but i'm more of a pedestrian listener of Ted Leo through friends that are big fans of him, but I never really got into him myself. There's times during this album that I wish he would take more of a backseat, instead of the equal partnership they have going on, but it's not so bad that I want to turn the songs off, like I do when I hear the Jim James songs on the Monsters Of Folk album. In fact, this album still makes me want to go back and take a 2nd look at Ted Leo's albums, to see what i'm missing. This album puts me in a good mood and is very happy-go-lucky sounding without being actually sappy or corny. A hard line to walk, for sure. Check out this short video of them explaining the band. Also check out the videos for "Milwaukee" (Ted Leo is hilarious as his fictional uncle) and "Volunteers Of America". For some reason, I can't find any good links to just audio tracks of some of the better songs of this album, but some of my favorites are "Hummingbird", "You Can't Help Me Now", and "The Prisoner".

Copywrite & DJ Scratch Johnson - "Carbon Copy's Phony Art Pub Scam" 2013

Copywrite was always one of those rappers that I felt had talent, but never really made songs that I cared for too much. He was always too reliant on punchlines for my taste, and most of his songs had a repetitive and contrived nature. All of those previous opinions made the high quality of this release all the more surprising to me. He sounds great all throughout this concept project of him flipping Beatles classics into some weird cut and paste rap collages. This album is extremely well put together on the beat side of things, and it would have been easy for him to flub this up with some crappy or boring rapping, but he kicks it into full gear, straight owns these beats, and just blows the place to smithereens with his verses. He makes lots of references to Beatles lyrics, but also keeps it interesting for a hip hop listener who doesn't give a shit about the Beatles. Some of the songs he seems to adapt a child-like sing-songy flow, similar to Das Racist on "People Are Strange" or MC Hammer when he did that Addams Family song back in the days. It works so perfectly on these Beatles melodies, it's amazing. It's rare when you see an idea so perfectly executed, but strangely I haven't heard anything about this album anywhere. I honestly can't find any links to show you guys this album at all either. I guess something that treads uncertain waters of legal territory is bound to be that way, but it's still a shame. Copywrite has this one song on his Bandcamp page, but I feel this is one of the less interesting tracks from this project.

Paul White - "Ancient Treasure" 2010

I had the album this single is from, "Paul White & The Purple Brain", right when it was new, but never knew about these versions of this song. On the album, it's just a little 2 minute instrumental beat, but for the single, Guilty Simpson comes in to turn this into a full rap song, and the regular version is probably the least interesting of the bunch. Both of these remixes done by Paul White himself are awesome, but unfortunately, possibly due to them containing samples from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, I can't find links anywhere. Here is the regular version of this song.