eashfa
Head is alive. Hence the sound of music.Archive for hip hop
Circulate!
Circulations makes my head melt inside and sway back and forth on the outside.
Looking for AFTA-1’s Aftathoughts Volume 1 a few months ago, you might have been surprised to find it’s physical release is only available in Japan, and it’s Circulations, a label from Japan, who are responsible. I’m digging the Japanese version of the cover.
Afta-1 - Aftathoughts
They are also host to the Muhsinah, Reggie B, couple others I’ve heard of, some others I haven’t yet but damn right I’m gonna initiate myself.
So apparently there is definitely a market for this surreal hip hop sound over there, and not only for the squeaky (literally, sometimes) music called J-Pop.
Reggie B - We R Here (Super Smoky Soul Re-Edit)
Check out some mixes that reinforce general belief that Japanese are actually aliens - but in the best way -
Circulations over at samurai.fm | Circulations myspace
Afta-1 myspace ( links to buy the whole album for $8 )
Many Lessons from Africa
Islam and hip hop mix quite well actually:
MidNight Shems - Jbal Atlas mp3
Hindered by my not understanding any of the gazillion dialects in Africa, I had to rely on my love of the beat.
This is a sample of the compilation Many Lessons released by Piranha. As much as we have come to dread religion for fear of not being in that puritan extreme, other cultures do manage to link the unlinkable. These are wild sounds of proclamation and prosternation - such is the West African way of hip hop.
Serengeti
Serengeti brings forth South Park-like sarcasm and a plethora of characters jiggling their way along this re-release of Dennehy. The album coalesces a big chunk of Chicagoan reality, fictional emo kids, ignored youth, stringing them and their quirky stories together in a vivid representation of the times we call modern.
I haven’t heard the original album, but this one’s got all the good bits like the tracks being in the actual order that Serengeti intended and some previously unreleased ones. Plus a banana sundae. I made that up.
You can stream Dennehy here.
Rough rocks - Moon Blazers
A featurette - because I get ADD too.
Here are Moon Blazers from California. And of course, Saturday morning is for cartoons. A teacher becomes a valid preacher after you get your BA (but like Murs spurs, We all got a place, and we all got a purpose, Now I’m not taking y’all to sunday service). Lyrically challenging your milk-and-cereal habits, these guys have a purpose. I assume it isn’t only to get signed, but also to convey what they’ve been through to young adults. Might be a step up for you to give them a listen.
Just Press Play
Katrah Quey - Solidary and Selections Volume 2 (and it starts)
I’ve been listening to this, at first by accident - you know how clicking gets when you’re a maniiaacc . Fresh drops on specific atmospheric walls. Good beats and good proportion to this remix album.
Politik
And now a raunchy groove to get your motion in a commotion! Haha, laugh that last one off. But it’s true. Thank Blog I ain’t a critic and I can use eashfa to show mainly, mostly love to artists who deserve it.
The Politik are Bembe Segue (all you Brasil fiends out there know her for sure) and producer Mark de Clive-Lowe. The sound is broken beat canvas, soul and jazz oil painting. The songs that I’m digging are High Priestess, with a laid-back sunny vibe reminiscent of Azymuth, Moonlight featuring BLU and Black Sun.
The record boasts a plethora of beat makers and rhyme sayers - Wajeed, Daz I-Kue (Bugz in The Attic), Jason Yarde and respectively BLU, replife, plus one of my personal favourites, Bahamadia. Such a diverse range within the creation process might have got the musical message shattered. Common ground was found to build upon, detonated, then reassembled. And the result is so fresh it might take some ears getting used to.
There’s a mixtape for you to download and preview the album (released 31.07.2007)
eashfapod - Jesus would be jealous
of my own personal podcast resurrection. {mp3} {m4a} | {subscribe}
Here’s the playlist, hope you guys like.
Siesta To Fiesta
1. Outlines - How It Should Be
2. A Sunny Day In Glasgow - Laughter
3. Azymuth - Linha Do Horizonte (Mr. Beatnik remix)
4. AD Libs - The Boy From New York City
5. Sixtoo - Jackals and Vipers in Envy of Man, Pt. 1
6. Tellier & Oizo & Sebastian - Skatesteak
7. Thieves Like Us - Drugs In My Body
8. Saltillo - Blood And Milk
9. Lupe Fiasco - Tilted In Any Colour
10. Boards of Canada - Carcan + Devil
11. St. Vincent - Now, Now
El Kweli Libre
If you go here, you’ll find that Talib Kweli and Madlib have put up a free LP called Liberation (direct download)- burn it, they urge you; they even go all out and provide a PDF with the cover. What kind of tomfoolery is this? Free good music for the masses?! Nooo! Don’t you just love hip hop?
Did I mention this is actually a very well produced piece- no blips anywhere. In this age of restrictions, you have to wonder, at least I have to wonder, who do I choose to promote in this blog. Is it just the content that matters, regardless of how many restrictions you have to promote that content? Or is it the artists behind the content and how they choose to make their music available to as large an audience as possible?
Here’s a taster.
And Talib Kweli’s myspace (who he mentions in semi-jest on the album)
It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day: anyone feeling Shadow?
First of all, props to Jeej, he’ll be doing a *comprehensive* review (if i know him well) so watch out!
DJ Shadow has by all accounts (mine too) pulled a (very twisted) Madonna on us and he’s presenting us with the likes of this:
DJ Shadow - Keep ‘Em Close (featuring Nump) mp3
First time I listened, I practically forced myself into an aural straight-jacket, to listen to the whole of The Outsider and not skip any possible goodness. Maybe almost no track is what I expected, but I’ll still search for the details. The spirit of the tracks that Shadow concocts so well.
My feelings about this album started to change the second time I listened, by the third I felt like a banana had been squashed on my brain. Of course by then I was skipping the unadulterated hyphy mess. It might be a movement, it might have an agenda, it might speak to Josh but it doesn’t to me. Now, I don’t believe he totally wanted to alienate his older fans because half the album cavorts with his former spacey self. See, that’s the problem with hyphy. I like music that gives me space to move a thought, not make me feel like I’ve reached an epileptic state of zggrz and crnnnks and messy keyboards. What’s to feel from all those?
Re-inventing yourself isn’t always good. An axiom as demonstrated hitherto by Josh Davis aka DJ Shadow.
I assume there’s something very private on this LP. Some of the lyrics and the spoken-word ritual (that Shadow preserves intact) say just that. There’s social inadequecies that Shadow cares about - how the Katrina victims were treated. There’s also more than meets the ear. This isn’t a bad album as ideology, but the bottom line is I’m not left with a strong feeling about it, and my gut tells me there’s something wrong. It’s not lack of cohesion, no- because cohesion is more than just a flow between the last and first seconds of two consecutive tracks.
The heavier drum-guitar combo on Artifact sound like it’s been sampled off Metallica’s St. Anger. Midway through the song, the drums prevail.. but then the flow gets disrupted once more. This track encapsulates what the whole album is. Pretty much a dichotomy. A crossroad that keeps multiplying upon itself, and you’re left with a question mark hanging above your head like the sword of fucking Damocles. Josh Davis is no fool, he’s doing this on purpose. But why?! Why do you get Erase You afterwards - it’s not a masterpiece but it does take you to another level compared to the rest.
DJ Shadow - Erase You featuring Chris Martin James mp3
All in all, this is just first impressions.. I still have my respect intact for Shadow. I think.
Original image by hinchcliff
judah & secret
Judah Racham and DJ Secret Weapon, who sometimes go under the name Two Men From Tibet, like to think of themselves as the inventors of Tru Skool. They represent openness and honesty in the face of materialism and lies. They currently putting the finishing touches to the video for this track. BBC - OneMusic - Ras Kwame
Judah & Secret doesn’t sound unsigned, or bona fide underground (what does that mean anymore) but here you go, they’re influenced by The Roots, Talib Kweli, Mos Def (before he pulled his rock guns maybe- nah he’s alright now, he probably just had a phase), Tribe Called Quest. I’m ‘a be teh honky and report that the beats are grooovy baby. Haha, word. Their album’s out too.
A quick Coup
The Coup (Boots Riley and Pam The Funkstress) have been around for quite some time, 4 LPs-time actually, one of which you might recall had a rather scandalous portrayal of Boots and Pam blowing-up of the Twin Towers (before 9/11). Their latest release Pick A Bigger Weapon takes imagery to words- sly comedy, reactionary outbursts and the usual arsenal of a "raptivist" (OK it's the first time I encountered that word) striding with much ease in socio-political realities. No denying it's a protest, but there's no sign of a talking-to or a lecture, you're invited to listen not coerced into a large-scale revolution. If you're a good receptacle for funk and narrative hip hop, then you'll love this - and though I don't exactly live in the US I can "read" this - "BabyLet’sHaveABabyBeforeBushDoSomethin’Crazy".
The Coup - My Favourite Mutiny mp3 (feat. Black Thought and Talib Kweli) (courtesy of Epitath)
DangerDoom in the spirit of online networking love for the fans do what Jamie Lidell once said every artist should do: when you have new material you can't sit on it for a year til it lays eggs, you have to get rid of it (in a nice way) and move on to new things, better music. Well the recent works of Danger Mouse and MF DOOM are being got rid of sequentially at AdultSwim beginning Monday, May 15. (via FilterMag)
