June 2012 Hotlist Week 2

I Self Devine - "The Sound Of Low Class Amerika" 2012

After giving us 3 free albums already this year, this is the official one he's charging money for. First off, let me say that the title is very appropriate, and there is not one single weak track on here. I Self is one of the most underrated political artists out there, and this is his best work to date.

Tom Hagerman - "The Breakfast Playground" 2007

Solo album from the string arranger/accordion player from Devotchka. Mostly just good background music consisting of various string instruments, accordion, and toy piano.

"Cold Heat: Heavy Funk Rarities 1968-1974"

Another great Now Again compilation. I can just blindly buy these and know they'll be good.

Amon Tobin, JD Mayer, Jim Dooley, Mel Wesson - "Infamous Soundtrack" 2009

Soundtrack to a video game i've never played. Great electronic meets cinematic classical music sounds.

Quakers - "Quakers Instrumentals" 2012

Usually when people put out the instrumental version of rap albums, I prefer one version over the other. Either the rapper annoys or bores me but I like the beats, or the beats are boring without the rappers. This album sounds about the same either way though, vocals or no. I'm still diggin this one.

Dose One - "Art Of The Demo Megamix" 2012

So apparently, Dose One listens to every single demo anyone has ever given him, and this is his mix of his favorite tracks from them over the years. There is some truly hilarious and unforgettable songs on here, and i'm glad he put this together.

"Soul Cal: Funky Disco & Modern Soul 1971-1982"

I can't stress enough how good the people at Now Again are at collecting these gems from the past.

Jel - "Greenball 3.5" 2012

Some more of Jel's old beats from the 90's. It seems he's probably used up anything from this era that was actually interesting. These sound like skeleton beats of his or practice beats.

Apparat - "The Devil's Walk" 2011

Before this album came out, I was really anticipating it. He seemed to be poised to take it to the next level after his decent 2007 debut, and then the enjoyable collabo he did with Modeselektor called Moderat, but this album just falls flat for me. He seems to have scaled back the detailed production he had been building up, in favor of some regular sounding orchestral arrangements on some tracks. He's also fell into the what seems to be nowdays, the common pratfall of the hot new electronic artist, which is to try and sing to appeal to a wider (possibly Coldplay listening) audience. Much like RJD2 and Lorn, it just seems like he really has no business singing, and anything that would be good about these songs is taken away for me and makes me wish for instrumental versions.