New Music Tuesday 8/09/11

Artist: Jay-Z & Kanye West (The Throne)
Album: Watch The Throne
Genre: Hip-Hop
Sounds like: Music By A “Super Group” That Really Doesn’t Believe They’re Super (Or Want To Put In That Level Of Work) But Knows They’ll Do Pretty Good Coasting (3.5 out of 5; very solid piece of work that frustratingly doesn’t meet it’s potential, worthy of copping a decent amount of solo mp3s or the album on sale)
Reviewer: DJ Fusion

When it was first announced around late 2010 that 2 of Hip-Hop’s two powerhouses were combining as a supergroup to create for an EP (later expanded to a full length album), it made a regularly ultra jaded fan & media populace raise their heads in surprise, curiosity and/or excitement.

Who are these guys?

Mr. Cool and Corporate plus the The Crazy Creative. Mr. All Black Everything with the Louis Vuitton Don. One of Brooklyn’s Finest along with Chi-Town’s Chef of G.O.O.D. Music.

Hov And Ye. Jay-Z & Kanye West.

Yup, those guys were going to combine their powers – lyrical, production, creative, business and more – to claim their place in rap’s Game Of Thrones.

With secrecy and calculated moves I’m sure Fortune Top 500 Companies will study in the future, no one really knew what was going on with “The Throne”.

Both MCs definitely have power as both artists and label heads. Resources out the yang that lots of musicians would hurt someone for. Recent music releases and appearances that heads still kept their ears open for that actually wanted dope tunes.

What type of sonic boom would one get from this musical project? S*** could get downright scary in a good way.

The first volley from the self-appointed kings was the rather weak, 1 week old bodega baloney quality “H.A.M.”. It made a lot of the Hip-Hop masses feel like they would rather watch paint dry then peep whatever the hell is happening with “The Throne”.

The next warning shot from the combo came later on with “Otis” – a bit stronger on all fronts – production that utilized a pretty nice Otis Redding sample, pretty solid bragging verses but chemistry that was a bit off between the MCs on what should have been a smooth cypher type track.

Now after all of the hype from the labels, “specially selected”* media outlets words of high praise after a listening session and a miracle that is the music industry’s 21st century equivalent of turning water into wine – an album that actually didn’t leak on the ‘net before the release date – music listeners can now behold what’s being offered by “The Throne”.

And what type of audio leadership, trends or excitement is presented by the self-appointed rulers of the mic?

Well, like any politicians a bit too content and comfortable in a current position of power, Jay-Z & Kanye West give the people some of what they promised but don’t work for them 100%.

They definitely know how to choose quality musical allies to build with – the lineup of producers and guest musicians isn’t just star studded but actually put in good to excellent work in their arenas.

Some of the REAL stand out work is on deck includes the production given by the RZA, The Neptunes, S1 and 88 Keys along with Odd Future’s Frank Ocean singing the HELL out of the hooks on his respective tracks.

And the songs where “The Throne” shines on all fronts on are damned near amazing, including the driving “No Church In The Wild” (which will in some eyes be the blatant Illuminati track), the introspective “New Day” passing on wisdom to future sons and the “get rowdy and bounce in the club hard as s***” tune “Welcome to the Jungle”.

The beats, lyrics and chemistry between Jay-Z and Kanye meshes perfectly in those selections, making heads nod & rewind joints to actually absorb everything that’s being heard.

But…there’s a catch.

A huge flaw with this album is that chemistry that actually MAKES musical supergroups and dope crews – from Pete Rock & CL Smooth, Capone-N-Norega, Wu-Tang Clan, Native Tongues, etc. – is sorely lacking.

In over 12 tracks, one never really gets the sense Kanye or Jay-Z actually LIKE working with each other in the studio. The interplay between to a degree feels artificial – like a cut-and-paste job was done via ProTools than 2 guys relaxing and just doing their thing.

Jay-Z and Kanye West also both function the best creatively under some type of duress. Threats from the outside on their status in Hip-Hop, internal struggles and so forth have given both MCs their best creative & commercial successes.

These guys are’t being challenged and they put out music like they don’t expect anyone to do so anytime soon. Besides some standout to pretty cool tracks, “The Throne” has too much AutoPilot Hov and Louis Vuitton Blah in effect. Comfort Rap.

Yeah, that’s not the worst thing on Earth for listeners – them rhyming about bulls*** in slacker mode is better then most of what heads hear on the mainstream media airwaves lately – but seeing what they CAN do together in high style makes such things frustrating.

There’s no utterly horrible song on “The Throne” but some really awkward moments that drag the project down a bit – some songs roll a bit too long, a WAY too awkward “why the hell are you even here besides being famous & married to Sean Carter” guest appearance (sorry Beyonce, your hook on “Lift Off” is f***ing terrible) and weird production fits (“Ni**as in Paris” should’ve had someone rock an official DubStep RMX then kinda half-ass it).

“The Throne” feels like the audio equivalent of potential deferred. Jay-Z and Kanye West put out a pretty cool project for heads to rock & cop, but in their hearts, they both know this is nowhere near classic music album.

‘Ye and Hov will hold on to their well-earned creative territory in rap’s Game of Thrones with this release, but weren’t bold enough to really take things over and establish an even higher place in Hip-Hop’s hierarchy. Kind of a shame really. We’ll see what sonic attacks they’ll hit heads with in the future.

* a.k.a. 90% “Kiss Ass” media outlets that will sell out their mom’s for a VIP Pass and a shout out

Personal Favorite Songs: Murder to Excellence, Welcome To The Jungle feat. Swizz Beatz, No Church In The Wild feat. Frank Ocean, New Day

Music Video Preview: Jay-Z & Kanye West – Murder To Excellence

Artist: Jamie Woon
Album: Mirrorwriting
Genre: Soul
Sounds like: the sound of London soul in 2011.
Lordly rating: a fine English Afternoon Tea at a Michelin-starred restaurant.
Reviewer: Fubsy Numbles

Dubstep. Global now, isn’t it? You guy’s will know it, right? It’s a movement which came out of South London, emerging out of the UK Garage scene in 2005 (which was a form of funky house music influenced by US acts like Masters at Work and Armand van Helden, speeded up to about 135-140bpm), and originally twice the speed it became – before it bafflingly became any speed its makers chose…. Dubstep soon took the route of using 2-step drum patterns, so that the tempo was halved – an important musical lesson from its initial forebears of reggae, soul and drum & bass.

Which brings me to Jamie Woon. I first heard him last year, via the single “Night Air”. Within the first 30 seconds it was fairly obvious to me that this was yet another tendril coming out of the dubstep sound, except this one seemed to have within it some kind of soul, and the anxious sound of soul that the UK seems to do so very well. Troubled Soul, maybe! I discovered that the song was produced by Burial, one of the prime movers of the dubstep movement, himself a purveyor of a dark, cavernous sound, redolent of the council estate, of concrete and tarmac, of the a life lived in uninspiring housing developments.

And that sound, the one of alienation, of ‘otherness’ is what permeates Woon’s lyrics. (Oh, and if you’re wondering, he’s UK-born, but the son of a Scottish-Irish mother, and a Malaysian-Chinese father, hence the surname, I imagine.) These are songs of personal striving, of attempts at relationships, of trying to understand what brings two people together, what keeps them together, and what makes a person survive in the city: ”we dig ‘til we hit something hard/ scratching the dirt ‘til our fingers can hold who we are/ then we pull until we’re facing the stars/ and it feels like it’s working/ working for something” (from “Echoes”).

The urban environment plays a substantial supporting role on this album, always influencing with its claustrophobia, isolation, anxiety, its pushing of inhabitants to escape towards a different sense of freedom (not necessarily physically outside of the city). And yet…

…please don’t let me give you the idea that this is a heavy, overbearing album. Woon’s much too much of a music-lover to simply leave the listener wishing he’d cheer the hell up. This album is chock-full of wonderful, almost sublime vocal harmonies (in which it’s possible to hear the sound of Stevie), great little basslines, hypnotic synthesizer sounds – all incredibly simple, yet almost 100% effective. You’ll find not one sound that is too florid or ostentatious, not one pointless “whoo-eee-ooo-eee” to be heard in the vocals; each of the sweet, seductive elements is there to temper the anxiety, or the broodiness of another sound in the songs. He uses those old favourites – echo and reverb, to instill a sense of the ethereal, the mental escape. It’s a sound with a strong gravitational pull, I find. Just try listening to “Spirits” and not be utterly lost in the wall of sound created by the vocal harmonics – “And I have seen worlds filled with wonder/ Lost on my own lonely mile/ Lessons I wish I had mirrored/ Time after time”.

Woon’s is not the music or words of easy choices, it’s the art of someone trying to find his own answers, and the music reflects that uncertainty, that quest. I am still pretty mesmerised by this album, a record that is unresolved in the sense that it doesn’t seek to answer but to query, but who’s message is that this is where we – the people of the city – are.

This is a wonderful soul record, and – more importantly – a wonderful soul album; it works from track to track, never missing a beat. In that respect, it’s very respectful towards its forebears, whereby the best way to listen to this is as a whole. If a soul is something that feels, and which seeks out answers to the most vital of questions, then this is indeed a very good soul album. A record that continues the traditions of Gaye, Withers, and Gamble & Huff, but also Brazilian writers such as Gil and Veloso, as well UK acts such as The Specials, Ian Dury, Madness, The Streets – whose reference points all emanate from the urban environment. Absolutely wonderful, and the best album I’ve heard this year so far.

Spirits

Waterfront

Album: Timez Are Weird These Days
Artist: Theophilus London
Genre: Indie Hip Hop
Sounds like: An unexpected treasure with a groove all its own.
Reviewer: Hex

One of the continual problems that comes with the idea of crossover music is that no matter how skillfully the artists involved meld various musical styles together – there’s always the issue of which audience truly creates your core fanbase.

For example, Kanye West has never been one to pay much heed to boundaries, but at his core he’s a rapper. His crossover appeal comes from the way he’s able to take his own vast musical and artistic taste and interpret it through hip hop. This not only expands the horizons of the genre past drum machines and samples from old disco songs – but it piques the interest of fans outside of those lines, bringing them inside his world through the sounds they naturally enjoy.

But it stands to reason that Bon Iver fans who enjoyed the mix of lead singer Justin Vernon’s contributions to Kanye’s album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy might not be the kind of listeners who would generally be as interested in Rick Ross or Nicki Minaj. Likewise, many tried and true Kanye fans wouldn’t be the first ones you might think would take the introduction to the Bon Iver sound as an open invitation to “make the switch” and live in the world of Arcade Fire (even if that’s exactly the outcome Kanye is hoping for).

Far too often what you find instead are rock kids with a handful of rap albums in their collection. Jazz guys who can stomach a little metal. Punks who like a country – but only to a certain point.

It’s this kind of non-committal thinking that scares the crap out of the people who run record companies, because they can’t easily decide what kind of radio station would play the hit song. What package tour works best to promote the artist as a “product.”

So even though there are plenty of us out there who enjoy a wide variety of musical styles and artists – it’s frequently up to us to discover and spread their sound, all the while hoping that music can retain its originality and fearlessness in the face of pressure from label executives and music outlets that need things to fit into neat and clean packages.

Which is why I want.. No, I need to introduce you to Brooklyn rapper Theophilus London.

Despite a vocal style born from Brooklyn hip hop – the majority of London’s early cred has come from the indie scene. As such, his name might be outside of your radar at the moment – but expect to be hearing a lot more people talking about it very, very soon. This is an artist equally comfortable channeling the sounds of Michael Jackson, Prince, and Pharrell as he is invoking the sounds of Kraftwerk and the Smiths.

London’s early mixtapes offered such a fresh mix of styles that they instantly drew the attention of contemporaries like Santigold and TV on the Radio — so much so that when the time came to make the jump to a full label release, producers like Mark Ronson and Dave Sitek literally started lining up to be a part of the process, as did guest stars such as The Jealous Girlfriends’ Holly Miranda and Tegan & Sara’s Sara Quin.

The result an album filled with lyrics sharp enough to cut back any takers encased in a sound dripping in synths and hypnotic guitars. There are moments when you want the beats harder to match the attitude of the lyrics, but the restraint shown here in maintaining the vibe of the album throughout its 11 tracks turns it into something more than just a hip hop album with a different kind of sound.

Timez Are Weird These Days is as much an indie album built on rhymes as it is a hip hop record built on groove – a direction reminiscent of directions groups like Gnarls Barkley started to explore before pop success affected them.

From the N.E.R.D.-like bounce of “Girls Girls $”, the Depeche Mode backgrounds of “Wine and Chocolates” to the full on dance floor pump of songs like “Stop It” and “Lighthouse” – to the slow burn of the album’s climactic closing track “I Stand Alone” – there’s an intoxicating mix of urgency and control here that makes this album easy to play cover to cover on repeat again and again.

See what you think, here’s “Last Name London”