Jazz is cool (again). There’s no escaping it. It’s coming back and it’s going to swallow you whole. Then poop you out with a whole new perspective on life, perhaps. New from Brainfeeder comes this debut from Austin Peralta. Peralta you say? Yeah he’s the son of skateboard legend Stacy Peralta but who cares.
Endless Planets features collaboration with Strangeloop throughout and finishes with an epic track featuring The Cinematic Orchestra. I’m still getting my head round the thing really; it’s a good time and the aforementioned ‘Algiers’ is certainly standing out right now. I could say a review will follow but it probably won’t. It’s jazz man, subjective to the last so let it take you wherever you want to go.
“This is a step in direction of where I want Brainfeeder to go. True musicianship as well as some interesting electronics” – Flying Lotus
There appears to be no legitimate streams or samples going on but again, who cares. The tracklist might excite you? Jump in.
1. Introduction: The Lotus Flower
2. Capricornus
3. The Underwater Mountain Odyssey
4. Ode To Love
5. Interlude
6. Algiers
7. Epilogue: Renaissance Bubbles
Released towards the end of last year (2010 for those for those of you reading this in the far future), Soul Like Khan is the debut album of New York based LA raised rapper Soul Khan. It’s actually been a pretty regular fixture on my iTunes playlist for the past month but due to the fact that I’ve been reading Moby Dick, I’m pretty sick of words so haven’t really sat down and decided to commit to the act of writing. Today however I’ve had it on loop so I feel the time has come to give it the props it deserves, especially considering Soul’s giving it away for nothing. And that brings me neatly to an issue which I find rather annoying. Some people tend to look down upon music given away for free, viewing it as inferior and assuming that it was not good enough for commercial release. If you are one of these god-awful people, cast aside your false assumptions and get on your knees for this beast of a record. Put down your worn out Ja Rule cassette and take off that Fubu, because it’s time to move on.
Next Monday marks the release of The Streets’ long anticipated album Computers and Blues and although it was available on Spotify a couple of days ago, I’m posting a stream of the entire thing — in a legal capacity — just in case you’re still in the dark. In terms of what I think of it, my feelings are positively inclined but I have heard a few mixed reactions floating in the ether and you know how easily I’m swayed by popular opinion…I believe everything I see on Sky News [hint: this is not true, I repeat NOT true]. Obviously it doesn’t hold a match to the magnificence of Original Pirate Material but it’s certainly better than Everything is Borrowed and there’s a number of pleasant tunes holding their own in the melee. ‘Those That Don’t Know’ and ‘OMG’ are my two early favourites, but ‘Trust Me’ and ‘ABC’ have been creeping up like swaggering disco maestros and forcing me to listen to the whole album in order to reassess each track individually and eventually my pitiful existence as a whole. One thing I can say for sure is that Rob Harvey’s spanking guitar riffs are lovely. Na na naa nowww nowww…I wish I could play an instrument. Does Mario Paint count?
Excited for February 14th? Definitely. Because that is the day Circus Company release Nicolas Jaar’s debut album Space Is Only Noise. I don’t have sufficient influence to have wangled a promo copy so I can’t bang on about how the new tracks compare with his existing material. Shame.
This is really just a heads up. I was thinking about Valentine’s Day and how much it blows before thoughts then wandered onto this… somehow. Maybe because his music sometimes features in the soundtrack to my nomadic journeys across the desolate wasteland of my soul. Jaar’s music never disappoints, quite the opposite actually, which is a plus.
If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. With that in mind… the new Guardian interview with James Blake is shit. There’s not really much more to be said about it, both parties come across as egotistically deranged lunatics. We’re big fans of James Blake, we wish him all the best and can’t wait for the album blah blah blah but c’mon guys just chill a bit yeah? I prefer to picture Blake beavering away in his bedroom studio or tearing it up, club-style, behind the decks; not in some mutual 69-position rimjob session, which is what this interview made me do. Stupid interview. Now this raucous slandering isn’t usually our style, so apologies. Maybe there should be less of it… or more.
Coming from a man who once released a record called The Rape Tape, this one is unexpectedly chilled out and introspective. It’s basically Cruger — of Unusual Suspects — rapping about sitting in his room, feeling sorry for himself and sleeping too much. As limited as that may sound, the beat is tranquil and the sentiment is deeply resonant, although I guess that’s a personal assessment…I am, of course, not lazy in any way. My energetic and motivated self (recruiters take notice) aside, Cruger usually spits about how he’s going to break off a crowbar in your arse and throw you off a cliff, but I personally prefer this new direction. I hope he sticks to it. Perhaps not the singing at the end though… “Go back to sleep put off reality”
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