This is the second teaser for D-Sisive’s forthcoming record Run With The Creeps, set for release on November 1st (a little later than originally planned). After watching this, I’d think it would be a halloween release. I like what I see though. It’s very dark. And makes me want to put on a cape and hover over my Ouiji board.
If you haven’t checked out D-Sisive’s tumblr that chronicles his creative process during the making of this album, you should do that. Ask a question while you’re over there, mm-kay?
I don’t usually post this kind of stuff. But, what in the fuck? Young rappers and producers: if a “real” rap career doesn’t pan out, don’t worry because looks like your local private bible college will put you on their outreach and admissions payroll! Shalom.
The Day 3 scheduling at Osheaga, more than Day 1 and Day 2, makes me to think of that common mantra about quality over quantity. There were too many must-see artists playing at the same time, which required too many early and unwanted departures mid-performance to check out other groups playing across the grounds. But I’ll be honest and admit there are bigger problems and criticisms I could have faced and articulated, like the porto-potty line ups for instance, or I dunno, being bored. I couldn’t help but laugh this morning when I got a voice message from another Osheaga-attending friend two days after he left it, calling from the media tent to ask if I had any “tips on what to do – how to stay un-bored.” If only I could have banked even a slice of his worries. I was running around like a rag doll with my head chopped off all weekend, just to keep up with the cluster fuck of artists the organizers had billed. Looking back over my Sunday experience in particular, I’m left wishing I had drawn straws and fully immersed myself in a few sets rather than skipping fleetingly across sound worlds like they’re mere lily pads in a pond. Less is more, jah?
For yesterday’s Day 2 coverage I talked about how the best advantage of mega-concerts is that they offer a little bit of a thrill (and education) for music voyeurs of all stripes, so if you’re a hard nose hip-hop fan and are wondering why I cover Baths and Crystal Castles here, please check out that article to get more of a grip on why. Or, you can click directly below to dig some unreal pics c/o moi, Pat Beaudry, and Nick Leger.
The Come Up Show is a hip-hop website, and admittedly OSHEAGA isn’t a hip-hop festival. It’s more like a dog’s breakfast for genre benders, for people who like to try on all sorts of sounds and behaviours, but given the TCUS readership I’ve collected a series of beat-centric acts from Day 2 to review here, namely Dam-Funk, Lupe Fiasco, Ratatat, and Bassnectar.
Before I get into the thick of it, I should quickly disclose a bias or two which spring from the fact that festivals, like OSHEAGA, are uniquely dis-isolated listening environments. In other words, the average attendee’s experiences, moods, and are not primarily controlled by a sole artist, but rather a collective of artists that may, but more likely may not be, musically related. A Hardcore Punk band plays next to an Electro/Dub tent, a Rap-Rock band plays next to an World Indie duo. It doesn’t take a genius to deduce that all sorts of music fans are jam packed into one huge space at these types of venues, which is different than say going to, say, a Foreign Exchange show where everyone knows Phonte’s history with Lil Brother, the 9th Wonder beef and what Nicolay has to do with Okay Player, not to mention that you and everyone else in the crowd likely wore Triple 5 Soul in 2003 and have been to Future Shop to price BASSSSSSSSS woofers and Dr. Dre headsets. Naw, OSHEAGA is not a music bubble laden with comfort music. It’s a festival of mingling where you can try other sound worlds and cultures you may not be so familiar with, musics you may not necessarily go out of your way to pay for otherwise.
So while I limit my review to these beat-hop acts, I do it only out of the sake of economics and the fact that the next show starts in 2 hours and I still need to get this shit written and hop on the overpacked (and underwater) metro to get down to the island, because to block out everything but one kind of music at a festival like this misses the point of festivals like this altogether. The point, is to intermingle. The point is to exercise the lazy, flabby synapses in your brain that double kicks, glitch stops, light shows, funk vamps, and ELECTRIC GUITARS will ignite and the samples and screws and chops and truncations of hip-hop will not. We all know but sometimes don’t like to admit that there is nutritious music beyond that made from turntables and microphones. I guess all this is a long way of explaining what a more succinct musical doctor could have put in a sentence: Remember to eat your vegetables, kids.
Click below to read the full review and to see the pics.
The Up In Smoke Tour is one of those VHS tapes I’ve seen probably fourteen times. Beyond the fact Dre and Em were performing some of the best music they’ve ever made in their lives at a time when everyone in the world was watching, I love that tour tape because whenever I watch it I am in actual physical pain from a desire to have been there, to rap along with everyone else, to see all those chicks propelled to whip out their boobies while whaffs of pot smoke literally hover just above the crowd’s nostril height. Where were all the bouncers? Its like Aftermath bought them out for the night.
If you know the footage I’m talking about and are an Eminem stan — or hip-hop fan generally for that matter — you understand how necessary it is to see this guy in concert. It’s like a rite of passage or some shit. For the first evening of the 2011 Osheaga Festival in Montreal on July 29, Janelle Monae played a great set earlier in the night, whipping around stage with a cape on, scream-skinging and kicking on the floor while shimmy dancing around the stage just as well as she does in her videos.
Janelle’s performance was rad and perhaps the following comparison isn’t fair or warranted, but the eclectic singer couldn’t have done anything to compare to Eminem’s solemn and serious bark screaming into the mic, even if she is a more polished performer. My evaluation may be a matter of taste, but it’s also one of relatively indisputable global weight. He barely mustered a smile the entire night, but managed to make the 30,000 crowd screamers the happiest kiddies in Quebec. His performance, while outstanding, ultimately mattered less than his presence.
Click below to read the entire review and to watch videos of Eminem’s performance.
If you didn’t love the single when you first heard it, YOU WILL NOW. Watch Pusha T and Tyler pull down black masks as they chuck raw eggs at street walkers from their leathered out whip, and get stalked by a large and friendly blonde lady in a dress. The Neptunnnnnes on the beat.
A while back you heard the first single from Toronto’s Purple Hearts, “Know Go,” a collaboration between Brendan Phillip and Lord Quest. Now they’re back with a short album/EP, and you can get it FREE on bandcamp. They call their music electronic soul, which is a pretty appropriate description for the smooth vocals and rounded electornic beats that span the album, crooning topics of love and life.
You can stream “Know Go” below, then head to their bandcamp where you can cop it for a limited time — let me just say it again — for free. Snap it up!
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Download: Purple Hearts- Purple Hearts I [Bandcamp]
When I first saw this video, I immediately did a double check through our inbox to see if we had somehow missed the video for Sweatshop Union’s latest single “John Lennon.” As it turns out, these visuals aren’t official, but are rather a really well put together fan video by WalkingExplosion and is, as Sweatshop Union wrote in the youtube comment boards, the best fan video anyone has ever made for them.
If you’re wondering what all the Bill Murray shots are all about, then you’re not acquainted with Sweatshop Union’s most recent EP, are you?
BADBADNOTGOOD is a jazz trio from Toronto (Keys, drums, bass) that re-imagines hip-hop tunes in their own post bop-harmonic and melodic language. It appears BBNG’s talented constituents are college students, since most of their performance videos and pictures posted up on their tumblr are shot in various classrooms. Staffed wipe boards and retractable desks in mid-sized rooms further suggest they’re property of some lucky music faculty.
The present self-titled EP is a collection of previously released covers from artists like Odd Future, Waka Flocka Flame, and A Tribe Called Quest. It’s tip top. Get the EP over on their bandcamp, and watch “The Odd Future Sessions Part 1″ below.
Gratias, Potholes In My Blog.
The “Fuck a tracklist, figure it out” mentality of certain mix artists is the reason I am going to have a gummy worm squiggling around in my head for the rest of the summer. FlyLo’s Lovers Melt 2 has me all up on google desperately trying to figure out where the HELL some of its amazing sounds call home. Mick Boogie and Dj Jazzy Jeff’s recent Summertime 2 mix is more merciful, as they’ve divvied it up into individual tracks which file into your itunes neatly. But Tyler, The Creator’s Summer Camp mix, like FlyLo’s, is a little more of an exercise for the hippocampus because it loads into your player in a huge MP3 file with no further hint of the music’s sources except for the sounds themselves.
Tyler’s Summer Camp has more mainstream and present-day choices than FlyLo’s Lovers Melt 2, however, with a lot of N.E.R.D., T.I., Badu … you get the idea. If you’re too old for the summer camp you went to as a kid, now’s the time to start a new one.
Update: View the tracklist by viewing the full post/
Download: Tyler, The Creator – Summer Camp [Odd Future]
LOVERS MELT 2 is an over two hour collection of some of Flying Lotus’s “favorite songs ever … some you may know, some you might not.” The theme is in line with the first edition of Lovers Melt, a podcast of awesome tunage that FlyLo put together for Stones Throw’s podcast series back in May. Numero dos comes in the form of a gigantic mp3 on which there are a ton of analog sounds, live beats, melismatic singing, tablas, violins, plugged in guitars, and funkage to be heard.
Download: Flying Lotus – LOVE MELT 2
