Tag Archives: featured

Tyler, The Creator Goblin

14 May

Much like everything else out of the Odd Future camp, Goblin is not for everyone with its extremely dark and graphic subject matter. If you’re able to wander into this dark sonic space, however, you’re in for a truly special debut.

Release Date: May 10, 2011
Record Label: XL
Rating: 90

At this point, you either love the Odd Future crew or you hate them. Goblin isn’t going to change that, nor is that what Tyler, The Creator is trying to accomplish. Goblin, despite being a major label debut, is essentially a follow-up to his Bastard mixtape, even starting out with an intro track with his fake alter-ego psychologist that is helping Tyler sift through his emotions on the album.

“I’m not a f****** role model/I’m a 19-year old f****** emotional roller coaster with pipe dreams,” Tyler begins, following with the lines “okay you guys f****** caught me, I’m not a rapist or a serial killer, I lied.” From the onset, Tyler is immediately debunking, or attempting to anyway, much of the controversy surrounding Odd Future in general, but particularly him.

Even so, despite the semi-confessional lyrics on the opener and a number of other tracks, Tyler, The Creator easily switches to the highly gifted yet controversial lyricist that has garnered him both praise and disdain. It’s funny, its crude, and sometimes it’s just plain wrong, but for better or worse Goblin is the inner trappings of a 19-year old with an overly-active imagination, daddy issues and a decidedly sharp wit and dark sense of humor. Perhaps it’s only refreshing in that it’s so brutally honest (to a fault), but either way, Tyler, The Creator appears to not only be the appropriate face of OFWGKTA, but he’s a talented rapper and producer in his own right.

While tracks like “Radical” and to a lesser degree “Sandwitches” are slightly redundant, Goblins brightest moments come from tracks such as “Yonkers,” “Nightmare,” “Tron Cat,” and even pulling off a pop jam with reasonable swag in “She.” The production is always sharp at the minimum, and often times flat-out ridiculous (see “Transylvania”).

While it’s sure to resurrect much the seemingly never-ending debate as to whether or not the misogynistic and violent lyrics carry much weight for listeners or are instead recognized solely for shock value (and if that even makes a difference), Goblin is an abstract work of art, despite its faults.

Tyler, The Creator – “Yonkers” (Radio Edit)

Lolla I Love You, But You’re Bringing Me Down

27 Apr

In its original incarnation, Lollapalooza was a freewheeling travelling festival that embodied the grunge and alternative era of the early 90′s, fostering the careers of such acts as Rage Against the Machine, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and of course, Perry Farrell’s own, Jane’s Addiction.

Nowadays, Lollapalooza is thought to be one of the big three summer destination festivals, along with Coachella and Bonnaroo, and with so many other festivals coming into the fray following in their respective blueprints, it’s getting harder to differentiate one from another.

That being said, Lollapalooza has gone from carving a niche in the world of alternative rock music to becoming an increasingly mainstream festival, going so far as having Lady Gaga as a headliner last year.

While it is a drastic shift in the philosophy of Lollapalooza, it’s not just the lineups that have alienated the original fan base, but the generic one-size-fits-all approach which C3 Presents appears to be cultivating every year. How can such a large-scale festival be content with recycling such a large percentage of acts from previous years as well as whatever bands have made it big since performing the previous summer at Pitchfork’s own music festival?

While the cynics have always seen it as a festival driven on pure greed, given the festival’s policy on not allowing any of the acts to perform within 300 miles of the Chicagoland area for months before and after the festival, it hasn’t been as crystal clear until now.

Celebrating their 20th anniversary, it was rumored that Perry, C3 and company were looking to go big this year. It was the perfect opportunity to win back those who felt that Lollapalooza sold out by allowing Lady Gaga to headline last year, while at the same time continuing to expand their ever-growing popularity. Instead, quite frankly, the brain trust at Lollapalooza played it about as safe as safe can get, phoning it in with a sub par combination of headline acts, and very little to stand on from the second tier down.

Musical credibility is one thing, as that’s largely a matter of personal preference, however, it’s hard to wrap one’s mind around the fact that here, on their 20th anniversary, Lollapalooza would fail so miserably at cultivating a set of artists that are not only pertinent but also diverse enough to create a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Why charge $215 a pop for a three-day festival for a number of acts that most can see anytime at a much smaller, more intimate venue? When appealing to smaller Grant Park crowds, there was a level of intimacy that was unmistakable, creating an air that every participant (both the crowd as well as the musicians) were a part of something special. Now, much like what happened to the maligned Woodstock, the corporate influence on Lollapalooza has reached a fever pitch and it looks as though it will continue for the foreseeable future.

The point of this isn’t meant to revel in nostalgia, as any festival will continue to evolve over the years– but where Coachella has constantly year in and year out sought after uniquely popular acts all while cultivating a event-like atmosphere, Lollapalooza has become one of the cookie-cutter festival shows. Worst part is that all the while, spokesman Perry Farrell continues to pretend that he is offering something more than the world’s largest exercise in the commercialization of music and pop culture.

Meanwhile, Pitchfork Music Festival, the comparatively smaller three-day event held in Chicago’s Union Park continues to evolve and take the place of what Lollapalooza used to be– an opportunity to experience bands on the brink, as well as established artists, all in one largely intimate setting. That’s something on which you cannot put a price.

2011 Lollapalooza Lineup Announced

27 Apr

Lollapalooza’s lineup has finally been revealed, and if you’re expecting something entirely new and different for their 20th anniversary– well, you’re not really going to get it.

Headlining on the main stages will be Eminem (I wonder if he’ll show up in a Chrysler?), Foo Fighters, Coldplay and Muse. On Perry’s stage, headliners are Girl Talk, Pretty Lights and KiD CuDi. Tickets are going to run you $215 for the three-day passes, as early bird tickets have sold out. For more information, check out their website. To view the full lineup, click here.

tUnE-yArDs w h o k i l l

23 Apr

Merrill Garbus’ sophomore release is impressively cocksure, surprisingly cohesive, and most importantly catapults her into being one of the most important artists around right now.

Release Date: April 19, 2011
Record Label: 4AD
Rating: 100

When Garbus released her debut album Bird-Brains using nothing more than a handheld recorder and Audacity, it was apparent that the voice behind the lo-fi presentation was something worthwhile. What was unexpected however, is just how far Garbus would be able to push the envelope with her follow-up w h o k i l l.

Fortunately, 4AD seemed to pick-up Garbus’ immense talent and merely handed her the keys to a studio and left her to her own devices. The results are superlative to say the least. It’s polished, sure, but it’s also just as experimental (perhaps more so) than ever before. Working only with bassist Nate Brenner, w h o k i l l has a surprisingly full sound, packed with looped vocals, heavily layered African-influenced beats, and occasionally horns and other sampled noises.

Despite her wide range of influences, the most obvious of which is African music, what makes tUnE-yArDs so successful is that it’s never derivative. One can certainly point to TV on the Radio, perhaps Animal Collective, as contemporaries, but it’s never a paint-by-numbers affair.

Instead, if anything, the staggering integrity with which Garbus’ approaches her music reminds of Janelle Monáe’s impressive The ArchAndroid. Both display impeccable attention to detail, and are freewheeling as can be without ever losing focus. Last, but certainly not least, they are both incredibly strong female voices in complete and total control of their respective musical destinies.

While the whole album is impressive from beginning to end, its tracks such as the single “Bizness” or the bombastic “Gangsta” where Garbus flexes her genre-melding talents. Likewise, when she slows things down on the absolutely gorgeous “Powa” (which contains some of the best vocals you’ll hear this year), and “Doorstep” you see that even in her most exposed moments that Garbus is a formidable musician.

Already established as a talented live act, Garbus put her skills to work and finally had a budget to match her talents. The result is one of the best albums you’ll hear all year, one that should really put tUnE-yArDs on the map.

“Powa”

“Bizness”

TV on the Radio Nine Types of Light

17 Apr

The idea of TV on the Radio releasing a “sunny” album may be hard to digest, but Nine Types of Light is a terrific album regardless.

Release Date: April 12, 2011
Record Label: Interscope
Rating: 84

To prove that certain clichés exist for a reason, enter TV on the Radio’s Nine Types of Light, released after the band’s move from Brooklyn to sunny Los Angeles. Largely gone are the stark, densely layered and occasionally foreboding sounds that so properly reflected the bands roots in a post 9/11 world. Instead, they are replaced with an appropriate, though surprising, glimmer of hope and bittersweet nuance. If anything Nine Types of Light should come with a disclaimer for fans, as they are certain to require more listens than usual to truly understand, let alone appreciate what’s going on.

David Sitek’s production is slicker than ever, only daring to even broach anything remotely gritty on songs like “Caffeinated Consciousness,” which even then are more similar to Peter Gabriel than the genre-melding brilliance they have done previously. Still, the band sounds engaged, so it’s clear that this is a conscious shift, rather than TV on the Radio suddenly deciding to phone it in.

Still, this conundrum is a bit reminiscent of Wilco’s Sky Blue Sky, an album that by most stretches of the imagination was quite good– or at the very least serviceable. However, on the heels of A Ghost is Born and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, many thought the band suddenly aged overnight into the genre of “dad rock.” Similarly here, all the elements of TV on the Radio’s former glory is on display, just with sun-drenched production and a much lesser sense of urgency. Even songs like “No Future Shock” seem to stop just short of being a full-out immersive display a la “Wolf Like Me.” Conversely, the band is at their strongest on their more mature-sounding ballads such as “Will Do” and “Killer Crane.”

That may not seem like a big shift, but it’s enough to make the band’s once statement-driven sound almost appear timid at first blush. Even so, the end result is still a thing of beauty. Whatever one can argue the album lacks in staying power, it’s still as immaculately detailed as anything you’ll hear from the band, only now it comes in a much sunnier packaging.

“Will Do”

Stream Foo Fighters’ Wasting Light in its Entirety

3 Apr

In response to the album recently leaking, Dave Grohl and company have allowed its fans to enjoy Wasting Light in its entirety ahead of the April 12 release date. At first blush it could easily be the best Foo Fighters release in what feels like an eternity, and it looks like their new recording process may have helped things considerably. Give a listen below, and look for a review in the next few days:

The Strokes Angles

21 Mar

Perhaps they should have taken a cue from The White Stripes and quit while they were ahead.

Release Date: March 22, 2011
Record Label: RCA
Rating: 55

Nostalgia is a tricky beast– and there are few things in life as bad as swearing that something was great, only to revisit it and find that there was hardly anything special about it at all. Even worse are the times that the things you held dear sputtered out with such futility that it makes you question their original existence. For a decade, a garage rock revival that was seemingly built on nostalgia and featured such acclaimed bands as The White Stripes, The Hives (remember them?) and The Strokes, supposedly saved rock music as we know it– or remembered it. In an odd twist of fate, MTV seemingly embraced this generation of “The” bands, even going so far as featuring a “Battle of the Bands” between The Hives and The Vines. That last sentence is completely laughable now, but at the time it was a pretty big deal.

These days, The Hives are still touring but are largely forgotten (you barely even hear “Hate To Say I Told You So” anymore), joining a cesspool of other bands that people and critics largely rooted for, perhaps against better judgment. Even the bands that most thought could stand the test of time (The White Stripes) have sputtered out. Thankfully, Jack and Meg decided to hang it up before ever releasing something as detrimental as The Strokes’ Angles or First Impressions of Earth.

In what was a notoriously dreadful recording situation, The Strokes did nearly all of their recording separately, using a slapdash approach so problematic that it truly shows on the final product. Julian Casablancas seems as though he saved up all his energy for the lead single and just didn’t care enough to do much more. Also, while there are elements of fine songwriting and the craftsmanship they displayed on their first two albums, The Strokes can’t seem to get out of their own way. It’s truly as though they decided to let their own individual egos duke it out rather than produce a congruent sound, and consequentially as a listener you’re subjected to a nonsensical, occasionally worthless, trite and overtly pretentious set of songs that contain as much hot air as a Kanye West tweet.

Truth be told, we all should have seen this coming, but we all wanted to believe in the nostalgia that is Is This It?, an album so lauded that one could argue that it destroyed the band if it weren’t for their follow-up Room on Fire. It was then that people thought, perhaps unfairly, that maybe this New York City band could be the rock n’ roll saviors the critics wanted to be after all.

Now, thirteen years since the bands formation, the whole affair feels as forced as a Charlie Sheen joke, and Angles stands as the final straw in a charade where a band who (correctly or incorrectly) was thought to be the epitome of a new millenium rock n’ roll cool, instead showed their true colors of apathy and delusive grandeur.

You can stream Angles in its entirety from The Strokes’ website.

Gruff Rhys Hotel Shampoo

5 Mar

Gruff Rhys, whether as a solo artist or as the frontman of Super Furry Animals, always impresses, and Hotel Shampoo is no exception to the rule.

Release Date: February 14, 2011 (UK), May 3 (US)
Record Label: Wichita (US)
Rating: 93

Hotel Shampoo, like seemingly every other project that Gruff Rhys touches, exists within some sort of gleefully twisted alternative universe. Partially retro, always random, and with a largely sentimental 60′s pop heart, Hotel Shampoo beams with an enthusiasm largely unmatched, especially on such songs as “Sensations in the Dark,” “Shark Ridden Waters,” “Take a Sentence” and “Honey All Over.” A much more consistent effort than his previous Candylion, there’s also less-reliance on the cute, while maintaining the same sort of fun boundless energy for which he’s known. A lovely, thoughtfully made release, Hotel Shampoo is a pure joy for any listener.

“Sensations in the Dark”

Pitchfork Tickets on Sale and Partial Lineup Revealed

5 Mar

In case you missed it, three-day passes for the 2011 Pitchfork Music Festival went on sale yesterday at noon. In addition, a portion of the lineup has also been revealed. While it looks as though Pulp will be a no-show, the bands that will be present should make for a fun-filled dynamic experience. Three-day passes will set you back $110 (a slight increase from last year), while single-day tickets cost $45. The passes sold out in five days last year, so go out and get your tickets today. The partial lineup is listed below:

Friday, July 15:
Animal Collective
James Blake
Das Racist
Curren$y

Saturday, July 16:
Fleet Foxes
The Dismemberment Plan
Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti
Woods
Sun Airway
Kylesa

Sunday, July 17:
TV on the Radio
Cut Copy
Deerhunter
Destroyer
OFWGKTA
Yuck

Conquering Animal Sound Kammerspiel

27 Feb

A wonderfully beautiful debut.

Release Date: February 15, 2011
Record Label: Gizeh
Rating: 93

Somewhere between late period Björk and CocoRosie resides the sonic qualities of this immensely charming Glasgow band. At its heart its finely crafted pop music, in its most highly affected form– nuanced, haunting, guarded with bursts of organic sonic pops and whispers that require multiple listens to unfold like the layers of an onion. The attention to detail is unrelenting, and while there’s nothing for passive listeners to pick out of the air and enjoy, Kammerspiel is playful enough that it’s not intimidating either. Anneke Kampan’s vocals are sweet and transcendent, able to gently float above the softer accompanying sounds on some tracks, while able to pierce through the heavy productions of others. While the album as a whole is more impressive than its individual parts, the impact and atmospheric depth that the band is able to accomplish within a thirty-eight minute span is staggering. A very impressive debut, Kammerspiel is truly a stand out.

Listen to the album below:

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