May 25, 2012
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Reviews

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Lee Bannon


Fantastic Plastic
Plug Research
88

Whether or not Lee Bannon’s latest album is consumed in plastic, vinyl, or digital format, it is, indeed, fantastic. The LP sees Bannon reaching further into the depths of sonic experimentation than ever before. On the one hand, the Sacramento-based producer-extraordinaire embraces the same dusty, lo-fi aesthetic that is associated with some of his most notable production credits. However, there is also a marked departure from that sound and a tendency toward futuristic ‘head music’. It all amounts to an album that is simultaneously forward-thinking and traditionalist, while still sounding unmistakably like a rap album.

Fantastic Plastic is a meticulously-assembled collection that shifts gears at break-neck speed. The overarching theme of ‘tension and release’ makes for a gripping listening experience. The result is a suite of unpredictable samples, glitched-out passages that are sure to up your pulse a few notches, and guest spots from a slew of emcees, including Yu, Chuuwee, Del the Funky Homosapien, Chuck Inglish (of the Cool Kids), and the Rebel INS himself (AKA Inspektah Deck).

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M-Phazes


Phazed Out
Coalmine Records
84

Australian beat maker, M-Phazes follows up his 2010 release, Good Gracious, with his latest collection Phazed Out. This compilation plays like an old fashioned blend tape with seamless transitions and excellent cuts provided by DJ Rhetmattic (of the World Famous Beat Junkies), and enlists some of New York’s finest emcees, rapping off M-Phazes’ headnodding boom-bap productions.

M-Phazes’ production style is inspired by boom-bap kings like DJ Premier (who gives him a shout out on the album) and Pete Rock, as well as newer guys like Jake-One (another shout out) and Mr. Porter. On “I’m The Reason”–which features a great performance from Coalmine all-star Bekay–M-Phazes chops up some heavy horns to put on top of neck-snapping drums. Bekay also shows up again on “The Raw” alongside Saigon and Inspectah Deck, all of whom deliver multisyllabic rhymes over Phazes’ chopped-up guitar loop.

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Ana Tijoux


La Bala
Nacional Records
83

With female emcee Ana Tijoux’s latest musical installment, La Bala, she picks up off where her critically acclaimed album, 1977, left off–without being as personal.

On 1977, Tijoux spoke very candidly about the complexities of being a female emcee when moving to Chile, as well as growing up in France to Chilean parents during the Pinochet Regime.  With La Bala (literally, ‘the bullet’), which just made it’s debut in America January 24th after being released in South America last year, Tijoux walks the line of socially conscious music with a message behind it.

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Wiley


Evolve Or Be Extinct
Big Dada
82

With its diverse origins in London’s garage, hip-hop, and dancehall scenes, grime is a genre that’s still very much fixed to the UK.  Its rhythmic cut and common time signatures juggle a constant tempo – usually no less than a feverish 140bpm – as its synths, sound effects, and sub-bass volts and slithers into every imaginable gap.

Enter Wiley, a decade-old icon specific to the genre and the innovator that coined its initial tag, “eskibeat.”  A man branded with a poison label after a few unfavorable happenings, he now seems nothing more than a focused insomniac; and his prolific, but not too larger-than-life persona has – well – “evolved.”  The latest product of that evolution is arguably one of his most cohesive collections to date – Evolve Or Be Extinct.

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Pep Love


Rigamorale
Hieroglyphics Imperium
78

If you’re a fan of prolific Hip-Hop music, you should be familiar with the Hieroglyphics, a collective hailing from Oakland, California. This group includes many notable personalities, including Del the Funky Homosapien, Casual, Torae, Domino, and all of the members of Souls of Mischief. Pep Love, one of the founders of this classic Hip-Hop
collective, recently released his latest solo LP Rigamorale. While he has collaborated with many other artists, including various members of the collective he belongs to, Pep Love shows on Rigamorale that he has the ability to shine and put together a cohesive project as a solo artist.

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Busdriver


Beaus$Eros
Epitaph Records
50

Los Angeles-based rapper BusDriver offers up a minor hit and major miss with his latest releaseBeaus$Eros. A veteran of the long-running open mic venue Project Blowed, Busdriver honed his skills in the early nineteen-nineties during the height of the Los Angeles indie-rap scene. His animated delivery and penchant for experimentation briefly captured mainstream audiences in 2003, when his single “Imaginary Places” was featured in the video game Tony Hawk’s Underground.

While a chaotic sonic jumble of blurred genres and rapidly-delivered rhymes have become recognizable elements of his signature style, Beaus$Eros seems to re-hash the sonic aesthetic of Busdriver’s earlier releases, but this time with less impressive beats, weak vocals, and little to no live instrumentation. On the track “Picking Band Names”, Busdriver is heard crooning in a poorly-controlled falsetto over a boring and layer-less broken-beat. The saving graces of this album are the tracks “Kiss Me Back To Life”–an electro-inspired uptempo jam where Busdriver is heard belting in the style of Phil Collins, and “Swan Dive Into a Drinking Glass”–a heavy-hitting boom-bap and dubstep inspired piece.

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T. Shirt


The F*ck
N/A
82

T. Shirt is not just an indie-rapper with an interesting name, thank goodness.  T. Shirt is a somewhat unlikely New York MC who has built a modest following dropping LP’s independently and blogging via his crafty website illrapper.com. In late 2011, recording sessions for The Fuck album were stolen after T. Shirt’s car was broken into.  This left him with two choices: either re-record an album that was over 90% completed or release what he had without any editing capability.  T. Shirt went with the latter option and the inadvertent result is a rewarding concoction of catchy beats and raw lyricism.

In this case, it’s ok to judge this album by the cover.  The Fuck is not for the overly conservative listener.  Most of the songs are brief and pungent and T. Shirt is amusingly blunt and to the point, delivering the kind of earnest and crass lyrics that makes this concisely-orchestrated album completely diverting.  T. Shirt’s delivery is consistently gruff and forthright, but the majority of the album isn’t overly abrasive or off-putting.  The only exception would be  “Old Man Angst” which is probably the album’s most vulgar track, Shirt spitting belligerent rhymes like “F*ck you, you don’t like the curses/I curse cause I’m cursed and this life is the motherf*cking worst”–seemingly just for the hell of it.

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ArtOfficial


Vitamins and Minerals
ArtOfficial Music: 2012
80

It’s bold, funky and fun. Lets start there as I try to describe ArtOfficial’s Vitamins And Minerals album. From the attention-deserving lyrics and delivery against the thumping sound of this well-staffed band on a mission to funk the sh*t out of you. It’s the horns, it’s the rhythm section, it’s the flow; simply put,  it’s most things about what they do as a collective that makes this a band to watch for. The energy captured by the production here speaks to their ability to deliver a stellar live show. As funky as things might get, they still get mellow (as I found out with the title track).

Capturing the sunny essence of their home state of Florida, the band brings a bright outlook (see “Low Level”). While they do not really pave new ground, they do their thing really well, well enough to keep the album in rotation and make a fan out of me.  Bringing in the likes of Amanda Diva, Michelle Forman, Asuka Barden and Anita Faye Wilson to guest, giving things a well-rounded feel. Check for cuts like “Rumor Says” (Feat.  Anita Faye Wilson and Donald Lowe), the funky (but short) “8785” and “Can’t Keep Running In Place” (Feat. Wrekonize and DJ Fuse).

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Rhett Frazier


Everyday Is Saturday
Digi-Soul 2012
80

What sounds do you expect to hear from contemporary self-proclaimed funk/Soul bands? Going a step further – What sounds do you look for in contemporary blue-eyed soulcats? The slick throwback mix of disco and soul heard in the early years of Jamiroquai (before they went SoCal/Soft Rock on their last album), or the lighter fare from Adam Levine and the lads (I hope not). In today’s climate you want a band that’s funky, has enough swagger and distance from top 40 playlists to make you feel cool and proud to share with your hip co-workers.

Rhett Frazier, Inc. has the blues with a touch of funk. Not funky like (the lords) P.Funk or early Commodores, more funky in that new wave Brooklyn hipster way. They make you move, think and feel cool all at the same time. Cosmic brilliance delivered via a well-stirred pot of soul, jazz, rock, funk and gospel. With it’s occasional, unintentional and tribute-like resemblance to Steely Dan (minus much of the gloss and heavy production) the album Everyday Is Saturday feels extremely organic and down to earth which gives it an endearing quality not found in–well let’s say for the sake of comparison, Maroon 5.

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Crooked I


In None We Trust: The Prelude EP
C.O.B. Records
79

With Slaughterhouse momentum in full force, a release from veteran West Coast MC Crooked I is undoubtedly met with high expectation.  On In None We Trust: The Prelude EP, Crooked I embarks on a lyrical quest to impart knowledge on hood culture, love of money, and most importantly, his bravado.

While maintaining his usual sharp wordplay and flow, the verbose Crooked I relies heavily on club-friendly sounds and predictable themes but falls short of innovative concepts or musicality.  If you’re a fan or’ve been privy to his catalogue history, you have a sense of Crooked I’s quality as an MC.  This project, however, forces the listener to dig optimistically for quality moments.

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Archetype


Red Wedding
Dekagon
78

After ten-plus years together, Lawrence, Kansas duo, Archetype will go their separate ways after the release of their oft-delayed 3rd album, Red Wedding. The duo’s swan song is played by Nezbeat’s phenomenal production, which seamlessly combines samples and live instrumentation. This results in dark, moody backdrops for iD’s poetic verses.
The album opens with the high energy “All In,” which consists of keys, a flurry of horns, and an excellent Mos Def (sorry, Yasiin Bey) inspired hook by iD. Melodic hooks on tracks like “Everybody’s Sayin,” “Sharp Tongue” and “Dance of the Dead” are one of iD’s strong points throughout Red Wedding. He’s also a pretty skilled wordsmith, but is not a terribly engaging MC and has pretty standard flow on most tracks.

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Union


Analogtronics
Fat Beats
92

Even in the mp3 era, an album as a unit of musical greatness will always be treasured in the crates of hip-hop fanatics. In that spirit, the Paris-based duo Union–comprising OJ and Gold–formulate one big jam for boomboxes: Analogtronics.

In the process, a subgenre of hip-hop is born, composed of unruly soul and electronic resonance.  The soulful reverberation created by Union almost seems to demand the likes of Q-Tip, Black Milk, Black Thought or D’Angelo to rhyme, flow, or sing on their production, cementing their legacy. However, for the duo to achieve success and longevity comparable to those artists, they have to solidify a much deeper discography. Consider Analogtronics the prelude to a come-up.  Most tracks are worth listening, with hardly any discrepancies or lightweight fillers.  “Mystery Part 1” seems Grade ‘A’, but the “Mystery Part 2” sequel is lacking.  “Space B-Boy” and “Sky Dust” leave little to the imagination. Nevertheless, the rest of the tracks served as bangers that far outweigh these three.

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