Since Travis returned last year after a four-year hiatus with The Boy with No Name, the band has been absurdly prolific. Not only is another album coming out this year (Ode to J. Smith), but Travis has now released three videos for it (see video for the title track here).
Here’s the latest, for Song to Self, not quite the rocker Something Anything is:
Take two of my favorite emcees, add a highly regarded Bay Area producer and put their record out on the heavyweight champ Definitive Jux and what do you get? The Mighty Underdogs and Droppin’ Science Fiction.
I think it’s safe to predict that bringing Gift of Gab from Blackalicious and Lateef the Truthspeaker from Latyrx together will result in some breathtaking verses. Add Headnodic from Crown City Rockers and we’re talking supergroup material.
The group is offering a free download of a new track, War Walk, that features Chali 2na (shocker), Tash, Raashan Ahmad and Zion I. And, man, it’s great to hear Lateef, who probably ranks as one of the more overlooked cats out there.
Pre-order Droppin’ Science Fiction at Def Jux. Other guests on the album include MF Doom, DJ Shadow and Mr. Lif.
Here’s the pretty awesome video by Ben Stokes for Gunfight, featuring MF Doom:
The 33rd installment of I Used to Love H.E.R., a series in which artists/bloggers/writers discuss their most essential or favorite hip-hop albums and songs, comes from Illa J, younger brother of the late J Dilla (R.I.P.). Delicious Vinyl will release Illa’s debut album, Yancey Boys, which features Illa J rhyming/singing over previously unused J Dilla tracks. It’s due for a November release. Check the first single below.
My favorite hip hop album is Ruff Draft by my brother, J Dilla. It’s classic! I love this album because it’s so raw … he took it back to straight loops. The intro pretty much sums up the album, “You wanna bounce in your whip with dat real live shit? Sound like it’s straight from the mufuckin’ cassette.” Even though he used loops throughout the album, Dilla didn’t loop beats the same way an average producer would. What’s crazy is that a lot of the joints off the album were flipped using the same record. I love to hear it in the system in the car … it bumps real hard, as Dilla declares in the intro. It puts me in a trance. As with any Dilla beat, the drums are out cold. Ruff Draft is important to me because it has inspired me lyrically as a songwriter and an MC. It helped me to think out of the box from an MC standpoint as well as from a producer’s perspective. I love the overall concept of the album, which is getting on your grind and doing whatever it takes to make it. Whenever I listen to it, it keeps me focused and on track with the ultimate goal of achieving my dreams and making them become reality.
Enjoy the new video for Q-Tip’s Gettin’ Up. If the rest of Tip’s solo album, The Renaissance, lives up to this single, we’re in for a treat.
On the heels of that last Frightened Rabbit post, let’s keep the Scottish theme rolling.
Travis has released a second video (here’s the first) for the band’s upcoming album, Ode to J. Smith. (If you recall, this is the song that got me in a little bit of hot water.)
According to Travis’ YouTube page, the video shows a man trapped in an elevator car “for days.” That puts a new spin on the desert-island discs debate … what albums would you most like to have if you were stranded in an elevator car for 41 hours?
By now, you probably know Frightened Rabbit is returning to Phoenix in November and that I’m a huge fan and that I’d agree with Amy Phillips at Pitchfork that The Midnight Organ Fight is the best record of 2008.
That said, the band will be releasing a live, acoustic album called Liver! Lung! FR! (Fat Cat) on Oct. 21. Wonderful. And Twilight Sad singer James Graham lends a hand on Keep Yourself Warm. Is it Oct. 21 yet? (Pre-order the album.)
Pitchfork gave us a taste of the record, making the acoustic version of Old Old Fashioned available as download.
ALSO, there’s a downloadable KEXP session, recorded in June, available here. (Thanks to Chromewaves.)
And, sorry, I still have so much fun watching this clip from the band’s show at Rhythm Room in June.
As always, Sole Sides has got me covered on news I’m missing.
This time, we get a new video from Cut Chemist’s The Audience’s Listening, even though the album came out in 2006.
According to the Eyestorm Productions YouTube page, the video for (My 1st) Big Break the “first music video shot entirely on a 360 degree panoramic view.”
Here’s hoping Cut serves up something new real soon (though I definitely haven’t grown tired of this album). On a side note: I gotta get me one of those Cut Chemist slipmats.
If my constant harping about the greatness of Elbow’s 2008 album The Seldom Seen Kid wasn’t enough to convince you, then perhaps you’ll be sold on the strength of the band’s Mercury Prize win, which singer Guy Garvey said “is the best thing that’s ever happened to us.”
The band also recently released what I believe is the third video from the album. This one’s for The Bones of You:
Someone was also kind enough to upload video of Elbow performing the song on Live from Abbey Road:
The 32nd installment of I Used to Love H.E.R., a series in which artists/bloggers/writers discuss their most essential or favorite hip-hop albums and songs, comes from Marc Bianchi, the man behind Her Space Holiday, whose full-length XOXO, Panda and the New Kid Revival comes out Oct. 7 on Mush Records.
Be sure to hit the Mush Records YouTube page for a series of short films Bianchi is releasing as a preview to the record (which is really great, by the way).
De La Soul
De La Soul Is Dead (Tommy Boy, 1991)
there are three records in my collection that have reshaped the way i think about music, and creativity in general. i suppose it is irrelevant to mention what two out of the three are in this half baked little rant. however, the one i will talk about is De La Soul’s masterpiece “De La Soul
is Dead.”
in my opinion, this album goes far beyond its weighty banner of being hailed as a “hip hop classic.” it’s simply a classic work of art no matter what genre you apply it to you. “de la soul is dead” is a sonic collage of the light and the dark. humor mixed with horror. the political and the playful. the sublime and the shocking. all the ingredients of the human experience mixed into one rich, vibrant concoction. it’s the subtleties in this album that keeps it timeless and enduring. no matter how many times i let the needle dig into this record, I always find something new to appreciate and learn from. Choruses, that initially introduced themselves as catchy sing alongs, eventually mutate into gritty and insightful social statements. skits, that at first listen are light hearted, and child like, twist into biting and aggressive commentaries. all of it wrapped up into a familiarly sweet spoon full of sugar that helps get the medicine down. like a small kid with quick fists, it’s far tougher than it appears. to me, prince paul is more like a master painter than a super producer. dipping his brush into every
color known to man, while at the same time, keeping all of it from running into a soupy grey mess. focused and incredibly loose all in the same breath. “de la soul is dead” is a testament to originality and limitless expression.
maybe i am reading into it too deeply? or being overly sentimental? i’ve been told that i do that sometimes. So if none of the above appeals to you, let me also just include that “the beats are slamming.”
BONUS:
Hopefully, I can make up for missing Guilty Simpson on Thursday night at the Blunt Club and make it to see Camp Lo on Oct. 2 at Club Red in Tempe.
The Blunt Club guys keep bringin’ it and this is one not to be overlooked. Camp Lo made what you might call a comeback last year with the excellent full-length In Black Hollywood. But if you’re unfamiliar with the Bronx duo – now just called The Lo? – do yourself a major favor and check out 1997’s Uptown Saturday Night, a classic piece of street-wise hip-hop that really could/should be seen as the precursor to an album like the Clipse’s Hell Hath No Fury.
Here’s the video for Luchini (aka This is It), off Uptown Saturday Night: