Breakthrough

by The Gaslamp Killer

It must have been tough for The Gaslamp Killer to have his album Breakthrough debut so close to Flying Lotus's seminal Until the Quiet Comes, because the latter definitely overshadowed the former in the world of dark, atmospheric instrumental electronic hip-hop (if that's what you'd call this).  And that's a little unfair, as this is a very good album.

There are definite similarities between the two artists beyond their choice of record label, but Gaslamp Killer is the more traditional of the two.  He may not push the envelope much with his music, but he knows which edge of it he's most comfortable on.

He fills this seventeen-track deep album with some nice fuzzy beats, aided by the always recognizable Gonjasufi on two tracks, and by other artists I admire like Dimlite and Shigeto.  I especially like 'Flange Face', a driving beat that has Miguel Atwood-Ferguson's strings floating above it.

I could have done without the two interludes, one a parsing of the F-word, and the other a lengthy phone message left by his mother, but the rest of this album bangs from a dark place, and it sounds terrific.

Until the Quiet Comes

by Flying Lotus

I think Flying Lotus's new album, Until the Quiet Comes, is probably my favourite album of the year.  In these eighteen tracks, FlyLo takes his music into some places he hasn't gone before, delivering a complete package that is more thoughtful, beautiful, and also accessible than anything he's done before.

I've admired his work for some time now, but sometimes have found listening to him to be distracting or a more cerebral than enjoyable endeavour (depending on my mood).  With this album, he wraps everything in such lush, atmospheric sounds, that I find I can leave the album on repeat for hours and just get lost in it.

A big part of what makes this album work so well is the blending of electronic music with live instruments, with guests such as Thundercat, Austin Peralta (RIP), and Miguel Atwood-Ferguson adding to the richness of the tracks.  There are vocals by Niki Randa, Laura Darlington, Thom Yorke, and Erykah Badu, providing some of the nicest tracks on the album.  My favourite track, though, is 'Putty Boy Strut'.

Flying Lotus is one of the most exciting artists in the business right now.  His music is almost impossible to categorize - he uses the phrase dubstep, but I still think of it more as post hip-hop - and I look forward to seeing what he does next.

Crate Digging: (Surfing On Sine Waves)

by Polygon Window

 Polygon Window is one of the pseudonyms used by Richard James, who was better known in the 90s as Aphex Twin, one of the masters of ambient electronic music.  I went through a phase in my university days where James's stuff was the backdrop to just about every essay or assignment I had to write, as I found that the sonic carpet he blanketed my dorm room in was quite conducive to zoning out and writing for long sessions.


Surfing on Sine Waves is one of his earliest recordings, and it has the makings of his later work.  These nine tracks are very well constructed - the mathematics of the album title carries through each track.  Some, like 'Quoth' are aggressive, while others, like the title track and 'If It Really Is Me' are quite beautiful, and hold up very well almost twenty years after they came out. 

As much as I found James's music trance-inducing, I also sometimes just find it boring.  That is true for most of the middle of this album, which gets a little too rave-friendly for my liking, especially now.  Still, it's nice to put this on from time to time and remember simpler days...

Crate Digging: Seven Veils

by Robert Rich

When I found this cd among a small trove of albums that were lost for years, I could only sort of remember it.  At the time this would have come out (mid- to late-nineties), I was working at a used book and music store, where we were always listening to chill-out music.  I know for certain that this was an album that a customer sold us, and it was probably a review copy.  We played it, played it some more, and apparently at some point I decided to bring it home to me.

To my recollection, the mid-nineties were a time for capital-s Serious music in the electronic field, and Robert Rich's Seven Veils certainly fits that bill.  Here's what's written on the back of the cd-case:

Robert Rich unveils seven rhythm-charged compositions with the exotic, sensual ambience of the Middle East.  Blazingly original music and audiophile quality sound by one of the world's top electro-acoustic artists makes Seven Veils a must for any world or ambient aficionado.

That is an exact quote.  If you're wondering what that dripping noise is, it's pretension...

Listening to this tonight, I expected to hate it.  Strangely, I didn't.  Basically, this is a bunch of white folks playing Middle Eastern music with traditionally Western instruments, and some synthesizers and samplers.  It takes itself way too seriously, but as background chill-out music, it works.  Well, it works well enough.

Crate Digging: Orbvs Terrarvm

by The Orb

I recently discovered a cache of CDs that I thought long lost while helping clean out an old TV stand at my parent's house over the holidays.  The pile of CDs (maybe twenty or twenty-five in number) were all sealed away some twelve or more years ago, and I thought it would be cool to write about my thoughts when listening to them after such a long time.  Therefore, I'm resurrecting my old 'Crate Digging' feature.

First up is Orbvs Terrarvm, the 1995 album from ambient superstars The Orb.  I was a huge Orb fan in the early 90s, and can vaguely remember being pretty excited when this album came out.  It's exactly what someone listening to the Orb would expect - the seven tracks here range in length from seven to seventeen minutes, and are both mind-numbingly repetitive and eerily beautiful in about equal proportions.

The music pulses more than progresses through loops of sound that are both warm and inviting, and coldly clinical.  These are all instrumental tracks, except for the usual astronaut chatter or disconnected samples that always sound like they are coming from instructional tapes.

The ship of ambient electronica sailed many many years ago (although it's not much of a stretch to go from here to the post-hip-hop multi-instrumentalism of artists like Shawn Lee and Clutchy Hopkins), but I really enjoyed digging into this album after so many years.  It kind of makes me want to read an article in Wired about Jaron Lanier or fractals or something.  I should look for the rest of my Orb CDs...

Down 2 Earth (The Standard Edition)

by Ras G

Ras G is one of those artists I'm not really sure how to categorize.  I think of him as being in the same general area of music as people like Flying Lotus, a madcap experimenter with loops and breakbeats, but his work is much gentler than Lotus's.

Down 2 Earth has twenty-one tracks, but clocks in at only thirty-three minutes, making this a quick little beat tape project.  His beats are often pretty, and quite soulful.  This is a lovely album; often it's mercurial in the way in which it moves in and out of my conscious attention when I'm listening to it.

I do wish that Ras would leave out that one sample that appears on every track I've ever heard of his - the voice that shouts out "Oh Ras" in an extended Jamaican accent.  It's the equivalent of crummy old downloads that always had to have DJ Kay Slay shouting out his own name.

Noir

by Blue Sky Black Death

This latest album by the production duo of Blue Sky Black Death has to be one of the prettiest things I've listened to all year.  I've always been approached by the cinematic, lush sound of BSBD, on projects such as Slow Burning Lights, Late Night Cinema, and Third Party, but this disc sets itself apart.

To begin with, I don't understand why this album is called Noir, when it doesn't really have that flavour to it.  When I think of 'noir', I expect to hear something sinister and foreboding; instead, this album is beautiful and warm throughout.

In addition to Young God and Kingston, there are appearances on this disc by Raised By Wolves, and by their Third Party collaborator Alexander Chen, who both sings and plays the viola.  Other vocals are by Rob Harris and Shaprece Renee.  This is a fantastic album.

Messages

by Rise

I picked this disc up on the recommendation of the guy at my second favourite music store (which is now the default favourite, as the previous favourite is closed/on hiatus - long story).  I was looking for something jazzy and nice, and that's exactly what this album is.

Messages is electro-jazz with a touch of a hip-hop backing, bringing to mind a bunch of different artists.  It's a pretty little album (the thirteen tracks clock in at thirty-eight minutes), with no vocals save for some sampled speech.

My problem is that some of the speech is carrying a pretty religious sounding message, which is definitely not my thing.  Biblical quotes, and calls for celibacy are not what I look for when I buy a cd, but I have found that it's pretty easy to tune that stuff out when I'm listening, so it's all good.

Fauna

by Jneiro Jarel

Jarel's been on my radar for a while, through his pseudonymous work as Dr. Who Dat and The Shape of Broad Minds, as well as through the odd production credit on some hip-hop albums.  Fauna is the first album I've bought where the credit is given to him alone, and it's a nice little album.

If I were to describe this simply, I would say that Jarel is the Brazilian Flying Lotus.  He works in the same mindscape of tripped out and abstract beats, but there is more of a South American warmth and feel to this.

The album opens with a discussion of the threat to the Brazilian rain forest, although there is not necessarily an ecological theme to the entire disk.  The second track, 'Castaju Cajunea' has a bit of a Deep Forest vibe, as indigenous singing gets a lush electronic backdrop.  The majority of these twelve tracks are instrumental, although 'Wave Trip' has vocals sung in Portuguese.  This is a lovely album.

Pattern + Grid World

by Flying Lotus

It hasn't been very long since Flying Lotus dropped his Cosmogramma album on us, yet he's already back with this very brief, eighteen-minute, seven-track EP, Pattern + Grid World.

This disc is pretty much exactly what you've come to expect from FL.  There are some kooky abstract beats, but there are also some instrumental tracks that seem to tell a story, such as 'Kill Your Co-Workers'.
The EP moves from sparse and calculating to lush and soulful over its short lifetime, and should be checked out.

It's hard to tell what the intentions of the artist are on a work like this, but with track titles like 'Physics for Everyone!', 'Time Vampires', and the aforementioned 'Co-Workers', it's easy to assume that Flying Lotus is just kicking back and letting loose.

The cover artist's work looks very familiar, but is not credited on the case anywhere that I can find.  Can someone fill me in?

Made Like Us

by Paper Tiger

"This is the first full length record I have ever made," Paper Tiger informs us in the liner notes, and I suppose he's correct, although at just under 40 minutes, I would have appreciated a fuller full length, although I'm quite happy with what we did get here.


The album starts with the appropriately named 'First Track', which is a standard piano-laced instrumental intro track.  This being a mostly instrumental album, it sets the tone for the whole project, which repeatedly returns to the same type of slightly spaced out, relaxed beat.

The second track introduces some chopped up vocals, which is another recurring motif.  On the seventh track, '5360', PT switches this up a little, by having a narrator - he sounds like a young British teenage boy - tell his story, although most of it is buried in the music and hard to hear; it reminds me a little of trying to listen to people talking on the subway while you're wearing headphones.

This is not a strictly instrumental album though.  'The Painters Arm' features singing by Maggie Morrison, and the song has a bit of an 80s pop feel to the hook.  It's good, but it is completely overshadowed two tracks later by 'Palace', which features the incomparable Dessa, in the first of her two appearances on this disk (the second is on 'And the Camera'.  Dessa is such a beautiful singer, and writes infinitely more thoughtful lyrics than most (check out her album!).

In all, this is a very successful full-length debut.  PT creates some lovely moods with this album, and ends with a terrific beat that I could listen to for another twenty minutes without complaining or getting bored.  It would have been nice to see a little more representation of the rest of the Doomtree crew, but I am happy with this as it is.

The Story Teller

by Clutchy Hopkins

When you put on a new Clutchy Hopkins album, you know exactly what you're going to get: atmospheric, meditative tracks that are constructed using a variety of unusual instruments and electronic equipment.

There is the usual Hopkins nonsense in the liner notes - this time around it's a story about Clutchy being in jail in the desert, as the people at Ubiquity keep up with the game of fictionalizing Clutchy's identity in a way that reminds me of Madlib's Yesterday's New Quintet.

The music itself is very good.  This is a slightly prettier album than some of Clutchy's other work, and it seems like more care has been put into creating whimsical track titles ('Giraffe Crack', 'Drunk Socks').  At some point, one will not need any new Clutchy Hopkins, as it kind of all sounds the same, but I do love playing his stuff as background on a quiet day when I'm just lying on the couch reading.

Cosmogramma

by Flying Lotus

The new Flying Lotus album starts with ten seconds of the growing sound from Super Mario Brothers, and you think you're in for one annoying piece of work.  Twenty seconds later, you're listening to some of the most textured and beautiful post-hip hop electronica you've ever heard, and you can relax and let this disc wash over you.

This is a very accomplished collection of music that moves between a number of different moods and atmospheres, although there is an underlying feeling of optimism throughout the experience.  While there are dark tracks, this is by no means a dark album.

Flying Lotus makes use of a number of interesting sonic combinations, including on 'Table Tennis', the sound of ping-pong balls getting whacked around.  Some tracks feature some truly psychotic drum'n'bass breaks, while others have lovely harps and strings, some of which are provided by Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, of 'Suite for Ma Dukes' fame.

Much like Los Angeles, his previous album, this complex work is hard to describe, and is better simply experienced.  While the influences range through hip-hop, jazz, electronica, and more, I got a definite Portishead (circa Third) vibe off the end of the album.  This is something that's going to stay in heavy rotation for a while I feel.

Between the Dots

by The Clonious

This is a difficult album to describe, as it crosses a number of genres, while remaining remarkably consistent. On the back of the album, it's described as "new and classic, soulful and striking, organic and electronic." That works as well as anything, I suppose.

I picked up this album because I'd heard it fits with the general aesthetic of artists like Flying Lotus. It doesn't feel anywhere near as experimental as that, but it is in the same general neighbourhood.

This album touches on jazz, electronica, hip-hop, and funk, and features appearances by Dudley Perkins, Georgia Anne Muldrow, and Muhsinah. It's definitely nice.

Crate Digging: Late Night Cinema

by Blue Sky Black Death

This is a very nice cd. I'd forgotten how nice it was. Blue Sky Black Death eschew their hip-hop roots on this album, instead creating an instrumental techno/ambient album that floats nicely through the room.

Part of the concept here is that this could be soundtrack music, although to what film I'm not sure. I visualize scenes of people walking away from a break-up through the rain, most likely in Paris. Really, it's best not to dwell on such things, and better to just enjoy the music.

Beep Tape

by Koushik

When I think of Koushik, I think of warm, organic beats with layered samples and a very psychedelic sensibility. With this instrumental album, he instead serves up thirty very short electronic tracks, as austere as his previous work is lush.

This is a very minimalist offering, although within these tracks he does demonstrate a wide variety of styles, including some very nice old-school hip-hop.

There's not a lot to say about a project like this. It doesn't fit well within his growing oeuvre, but you can't blame an artist for trying something new. Some of these tracks cry out for a talented emcee, while others stand quite well on their own.

Tons of producers are releasing albums like this these days, but I think more thought is needed before such a project is sent out into the world. There's not enough here to merit repeated listening.

Crate Digging: Uncle Tony's Colouring Book

by Blockhead

I think I unfairly slept on this album when it first came out back in 2007. I remember getting it with a huge pile of other cds, and not really giving it many listens before filing it away.

Listening to it again today, I recognize that it is a much stronger piece of work than I originally realized.

The early tracks are playful and eclectic, and as the album progresses, it becomes much more lush, layered, and serious. Blockhead borrows from hip-hop and electronica to create this interesting and entertaining album.

Stand out tracks include 'Colouring Book', 'The Hucklebuck Slice', 'Trailer Love', and 'NYC Bounce'.

La Llama

by Savath y Savalas

This is a very beautiful, if difficult to describe, album. Savath y Savalas are made up of Guillermo Scott-Heron (aka Prefuse 73), Eva Puyuelo Muns, and Roberto Carlos Lange. The Stones Throw website refers to the album as Catalan acid-folk which I suppose might work as a description.

Basically, the album has a lot of slow, sometimes morose, sometimes calm, singing in Catalan or Portuguese (not sure which) over an ambient, Brazilian inflected background. It works very nicely as background music, and is easy to drift off to.