I contributed a summer mix CD (er, .rar file) to my man Jeff Weiss' annual Summer Jamz series, and he posted it this morning over at his blog Passion of the Weiss. You can download and read a little blurb about my entry here. As you might notice from the title of the mix, it's only the first volume of 2009. This year I'm doing two volumes for the first time, the second one being put together as we speak. Look for it sometime in early July, right here. With more rap on it, too. Maybe. Hopefully.

starkey
"GUTTER MUSIC (feat DURRTY GOODZ)"
from gutter music 12" (keysound recordings, 2009)

If this was 2003, this would be your favourite blogger's favourite song. Unfortunately, bloggers and critics deserted grime for dubstep, which features actual rapping a lot less, mostly because it's pretty damn hard to rap over the kind of off-kilter rhythms that separate dub from garage and grime. If anyone is going to be up to the task, it's a British emcee like Durrty Goodz, who sounds completely at home over the bubbling synthesizers and hyperkinetic dancehall lasers that ricochet and refract off all the shiny surfaces of Starkey's "Gutter Music."

Durrty is a rapper with loads of personality, and it shines through here. Sometimes rappers shrink on tracks intended to get people up and onto the dancefloor, but Durrty raps like he was born to do songs like "Gutter Music." His flow twists and turns through the track; this isn't a methodical, monstrous left-turn only Nascar flow, this is skilled Formula 1 maneuvering. His voice doesn't get lost in the mix either—his confidence spills off the edges of the track and his faux-Jamaican patois gives the track a real international vibe. He doesn't hit you with silly things like complex metaphors either, his Gatling gun flow and intensity is all he needs to get you hyped up. Even so, Durrty's got lot of great moments here, such as when he half-laughs as he delivers the line "Yuh luhk oofffffal brah!" in his peanut butter thick London accent, or how his repeated claims of things' gutterness turn into one of the year's most infectious chants.

Durrty's thesis here is that "All the best rappers came from the gutter/ best producers came from the gutter/ best beats, came from the gutter," which is both wrong and right at the same time; by "gutter" he doesn't necessarily mean inner city London or the Marcy projects, but anyone on the fringe, anyone with an I'ma Take Mines By Any Means Necessary attitude, that sort of unhinged rawness that can't be denied; an unrespectability that's not a crutch but a weapon. Jay-Z used to be gutter; now he just pays kids to clean out the ones on his house(s). After all, Starkey is an American producer—essentially a dubstep outsider—and Durrty—who's British, and that automatically makes him an outsider in an important way too—is one of those British rappers with the sort of anxious, fidgety energy that works so well on the kind the claustrophobic tracks that still dominate grime today. It's kind of ironic that he calls this track "gutter," because it's made for raves more than it is the streets, but that only further proves Durrty's point. The fact he's making sunny club bangers over dubstep beats with American producers—that's gutter.

clipse
"I'M GOOD (feat PHARRELL)"
from till the casket drops (columbia, 2009)

Your enjoyment of "I'm Good" depends on a few things: your fondness for Neptunes beats that sound like a cross between the T.I. and Common collaboration "Good Life" and a bunch of the beats that Chad and Pharrell did for Slim Thug a few years ago, your tolerance of sung Pharrell hooks and Clipse songs that hew closer to the aesthetic of Lord Willin' than Hell Hath No Fury. Because I'm a sucker for all three things, I enjoy "I'm Good." I just think it works a lot better as a deep album cut than the first official single (was "Kinda Like a Big Deal" kinda just the street single?) from the forthcoming Till the Casket Drops, which is slated for a tentative September release. As always, Malice and Pusha T sound like gold over a Neptunes beat, even if it's one of their tracks that straddles the line between their glittery synthetic schmaltz and their springy, spacey funk that they rarely do these days. What's more important is that "I'm Good" sounds like a genuine Neptunes track, and not just a Pharrell- or Chad-produced track. From the persistent pop of the drums and the hiss of the claps to the way the keyboards melody compliments the cotton candy synths higher up in the mix, which shine brightly and spiral deep into the track's spacious cushion, this is the sort of beat that supports rather than hogs the limelight, the kind that the Neptunes were so great at effortlessly churning out until about 2003.

As for the actual rapping, it's less We Got It 4 Cheap hunger as much as it is earned haughtiness, more autopilot than autotune. Pusha T cackles as he compares himself to Shamu and references the Ice Cube classic "It Was a Good Day" while Malice drops two memorable lines, one about the sound his engine makes (purr) and the second likening the colour of his diamonds to that of Minute Maid juice through a very Gucci Mane-esque simile. This is the kind of rapping that gets mistaken for complacency; rather, this is simply the warm-up, the pre-game stretch. Yeah, the Thornton brothers got out-rapped on "Kinda Like a Big Deal," but Kanye's been on fire lately, even with his C+ verse on that Keri Hilson song, and Pusha and Malice are even more laidback here. If this is the track most approaching a single on Till the Casket Drops, then maybe there's reason to loosen those collars and feel a little worried. But if this is the introduction, the one before the smash, then we'll allow Clipse their first-at-bat ground single. They all can't be grand slams, right?

I'm not feeling the new Mos Def album as much as a lot of people are, so I think I'll review the thing in the next few days. Here's what I had to say about "Casa Bey," the third official single from The Ecstatic.

At least he sounds like he gives half a shit on this one, although he continues to lapse into his recent habit of simply rattling off adjectives describing his dopeness, a standard fallback for rappers who have forgotten how to rap. Otherwise it's syllable stockpiling, feel-good metaphysics and lukewarm braggadocio. And to be fair to the guy, the samba jam session he raps over has a lot of abrupt direction changes and detours to deal with, and Mos is probably one of the few rappers who could ride this beat without being bucked off within seconds. But it's telling that my favourite part is when the Final Fantasy pianos emerge from the din and dance like sunbeams on the ocean as the track fades out.
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I never did write too much about 808s and Heartbreak, but it wasn't for a lack of (positive) things to say about it. I proclaimed it my second favourite album of last year, behind only Afterparty Babies, and months later my feelings toward Kanye's coping-mechanism-on-wax haven't budged much. The Jukebox reviewed the album's latest singles—in Europe, "Welcome to Heartbreak," and on this side of the pond, "Amazing"—the other week, and this gave me a chance to finally say something about the album. "Welcome to Heartbreak" seems an odd choice for a single, especially when deep album cuts like "Coldest Winter" and the lighthearted "Robocop" remain, but as long as "Paranoid" gets a proper push as a single, and this seems to be the case, with the B-movie video starring Rihanna and all, I'll be content. By far my favourite song off of the album, could "Paranoid" be the summer jam of 2009? I like the video mix of the song too; more Mass Effect synths from 'Ye are always welcome in my world.

"Welcome to Heartbreak (feat Kid Cudi)":

I don't know who (finally) taught Kanye how to ensure his drums slap you across the face, but 808s & Heartbreak is the kind of album that producers are going to be sampling from well into the next decade for their breaks. Here the low-end is storm-like, brewing and sinister, the drums spongy but still devastating. The lyrics are kind of ham-fisted, but crucially, Kanye absolutely nails their delivery; there are few other figures in hip-hop that could make the lines "My friend showed me pictures of his kids/ And all I could show him was pictures of my cribs" sound like the saddest thing ever. Kid Cudi's vocals float around in the background, sounding like they're caught in a vortex, flitting in an out of this dimension, displaying his excellent ear for melody. The bottom line: the melodies on 808s are so affecting, so viscerally primal, that "Welcome to Heartbreak" only scores a 7 because the rest of the album is that good.
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"Amazing":

"Amazing" finds Kanye attempting to remove as much as he can from his music while retaining maximum pathos. The use of space on this is astounding; the track isn't minimal so much as bereft of all hope. The insistent, tribal lurch anchors Kanye's repetitions of amazingness; it's clear from this battering of his head against the wall that Kanye is spewing what is expected of Mr. Ego himself but inhabiting none of it. Jeezy sounds worn-out as he staggers through his verse, searching desperately for his footing amidst the all that wide-open space. He sounds even more larger-than-life than usual, but in the kind of way that perturbs rather than triggers. Yeah, his president is black and his Lambo might be blue, but none of that matters out here. Not quite amazing, but as close as mortals can get.
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Also, look for much more frequent posting here and a shitload more of actual writing from me from now on. If Pitchfork is going to hire me, I've got to give them reasons why I should be hired—and I'm going to give them a lot of reasons.

Here are two things I did on The Field's new disc; first is a blurb over at the Jukebox aboutYesterday and Today track "The More I Do"...

What I like about this is that Willner gives it enough room to really stretch out and unfurl, that the track's eight minutes don't feel indulgent or unnecessary. Its length is vital here; a protracted duration would have rendered its build-ups and releases null. Instead they feel earned on their own terms and all the more rewarding because of it. The more Willner does, the less different his music sounds that one might imagine, but that's because he's developed a sound rather than simply a style.
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...and here's a review of the album itself, which was published in last Thursday's issue of SEE Magazine:

Yesterday and Today picks up where electronic artist Axel Willner's 2007 breakout From Here We Go Sublime left off: clipped samples, looped rhythms that burrow into your head and refuse to let go, vocal fragments that float in and out of the tracks like wisps of clouds carried away by the wind. Although the album's title suggests that this is an album unconcerned with looking ahead, Willner suggests otherwise on tracks like "Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime," a loping, luxurious track that features actual vocals, unaltered. Then there's the title track, where Battles drummer John Stanier adds forward propulsion and weightier percussion, a nice change from Willner's usual stock drum patterns. "Sequenced," the sixth and final track, gives us a glimpse into where Willner might venture in the future; claustrophobic and insistent, the song reveals Willner's darker, proggier side. It's not quite a Knife track, but it cuts through a set of speakers all the same. Whether "Sequenced" is a step in a new direction or merely a scenic detour is up for debate, but The Field is well aware that while the past is something that hovers in our subconscious, we can't forget that the future is looming just ahead.

All in all, the new album is very good but probably doesn't reach the Everest heights that From Here We Go Sublime does, and that's just fine. Where Willner goes tomorrow is perhaps the most exciting thing to consider about Yesterday and Today.

I heard the Deadmau5 and Kaskade track "Move for Me" on the radio for a good two or three months before I knew either the song's title or who made it. This is the kind of house music that Deadmau5 makes—it's not that he's without style, it's just that his style is of the unassuming kind that could, well, be mistaken for anyone else's. But those little synthesizer riffs that he loops over and over in his songs—usually just toying with volume levels throughout songs rather than actually writing different parts—are pretty damn hypnotic, and Haley Gibby, the vocalist who appears on both "Move for Me" and "I Remember," writes these killer melodies that communicate this very pervasive sense of longing (which could also be hurt, or regret, or possibly all these things) with her barely there vocals. But neither of Gibby's performances acknowledge or even hint that she's aware of how pretty these things are; it's like she's totally innocent as to how devastating these two songs could potentially be. But as the case seems with Deadmau5, "I Remember" is the type of song you can't imagine not existing while it's pounding on the dancefloor, and the kind you'd be hard-pressed to remember ten seconds after it finishes. I'm actually kind of surprised this was so well-reviewed at the Jukebox.

There’s no forward progression here, only déjà-vu. This works when the synths connect; when the loop permeates your soul; when the beat propels. These things happen on “I Remember.” The flipside is that when these things don’t happen, about forty-five seconds is all you need to hear everything on a Deadmau5 track. “I Remember” suffers from this too; it’s just lucky that those forty-five seconds are more than adequate. I probably shouldn’t like this as much as I do, but Deadmau5 and Kaskade favour subtlety over brute force, which is my biggest issue with a lot of this kind of dance music.
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