MpFree Wednesday: New Tracks from Portugal. the Man and Broken Social Scene and Flying Lotus

Look! Free music that requires no piracy! With forthcoming albums from all three coming in the next few months, Broken Social Scene and Portugal. The Man are offering the seemingly now obligatory free Mp3 downloads of the first single off each of the their albums, and in FlyLo's case 3 non-album tracks just for shits and hyyyyyype.

The Broken Social Scene track is 'World Sick' off the May 4th release 'Forgiveness Rock Record' and it is one hell of a song.  Very epic and very Canadian as one would expect from these guys.  It's been 5 years since their last proper album and the upcoming one should be excellent featuring the likes of members of Stars, Metric, Tortoise, and the lovely Leslie Feist (the "1-2-3-4" chick you remember from the colorful square iPod mini commercial).

Get that track HERE in exchange for an e-mail address.

The Portugal. The Man track 'The Dead Dog' is off their upcoming 'American Ghetto' to be released on March 2nd, their 5th album in 5 years (not bad!).  Nothing bad can really be said about this band, they're great people as well as great musicians.

Get their track HERE in exchange for an e-mail address.

Lastly, head on over to the excellent blog Brooklyn Vegan to peep a 3 track zip file of non-album tracks in anticipation of Flying Lotus's 4/20 release (sweet date bro... hey... could you pass that?) 'Cosmogramma'.  As expected the tracks are wonky as hell.  No e-mail address required.

Enjoy everyone!

Stardeath and White Dwarfs - 'The Birth'

At a free show the Flaming Lips played last August in Del Mar, CA on the infield of the horse-racing track I showed up early to catch the opening band with the interesting name.  The first sounds that came roaring out of the speakers when they started to play was familiar to me.  It was Black Sabbath's 'Sweet Leaf' a song I never dreamed to hear played live.  They had my attention and kept it through the entire set, melting the crowds faces with 10 minute jams of 3 minute songs.

Stardeath and White Dwarfs, headed by Lips' lead-singer Wayne Coyne's nephew, Dennis Coyne, are almost constantly written off as a band hyped only because of their relation to Wayne and his shameless promotion of them as the opening band at Flaming Lips shows for the past couple of years.  What those who ignore the relevancy and quality of this band fail to realize however is that the Flaming Lips, who could fill their undercard with any number of top-shelf acts, chose not to, and instead have time and again given the spot to their one-time roadies (and still sometimes roadies) Stardeath and White Dwarfs.  This is no accident.  This band is neo-psychedelic goodness at work.

Having only previously released one quality EP, 'That's Cool' in 2005, their debut LP, 'The Birth' shows the signs of a band emerging from the womb of the Flaming Lips school of rock.  The influence of the Lips is all over this LP but not in the sense of copy-catting their work, but rather using their template to begin a new generation of bands that are following in the Lips footsteps; creating weird psychedelic rock tunes that evoke imagery of Martian desert landscapes and ganja-smoke filled back rooms.  Invariably some people will point to the similarity of Dennis Coyne's falsetto to that of his uncle Wayne but it fits the music well.  Other influences such as the aforementioned Black Sabbath and Crazy Horse-era Neil Young show through on many tracks quite clearly.

As a cohesive piece of music, the album feels a bit disjointed but the standout tracks like "New Heat", "Those Who Are From The Sun Return To The Sun", and "Smoking Pot Makes Me Not Want To Kill Myself" more than make up for the albums low points.  Casey Joseph the band's bassist really provides a solid backbone for the songs, giving them a surprisingly upbeat feel especially on "New Heat" which is the first single off the album (and my favorite track).  Some songs are ballad-like such as the aptly named "Country Ballad" but even there and at other slow-paced moments on the album, you can tell these guys are trying to create an ebb-and-flow type of sound like the tides of the beach.

Lyrically, the band explores similar a similar psychosis that the Flaming Lips reverted back to this past year with 'Embryonic'; lyrics about death, boredom, and the introspective nature of the universe abound.  It's about what one would expect from an album like this and there are seldom any lyrical marvels to be found, but it doesn't really detract from the music which is the real draw of the album.

And if you enjoy this album then I also highly suggest you check out their cover collaborations with, The Flaming Lips; a cover of Madonna's 'Borderline' that was released for last year's Record Store Day, and most recently their cover of Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side of the Moon' also featuring Peaches (...) and Henry Rollins (! ...) which was played in it's entirety at their joint New Year's Eve show in Oklahoma City and will be played in it's entirety again as THE highlight at this year's semi-flacid Bonnaroo in Manchester, Tennessee.


I highly recommend you travel the cosmos Stardeath and White Dwarf's on this album.  Their young and full energy and worth every penny if they come to shine the light of their dying sun on your city sometime soon.

-Zach Jaffe

Bonnaroo 2010 Lineup

For those of you that are interested the Bonnaroo 2010 lineup is being announced as we speak, one artist at a time, every 5 minutes or so, for the rest of the morning until the line-up is complete.  Head on over to their Myspace page to watch in real time with some cool CooCoo clock animations and floating lightbulbs with hands for wings.  Trippy brah!

The lineup so far is...
The Flaming Lips and Stardeath & White Dwarfs performing 'Dark Side of the Moon'
Weezer
The Avett Brothers
Phoenix
Cross Canadian Ragweed
John Fogerty
Ingrid Michaelson
Medeski, Martin, and Wood
The XX
OK GO
Bassnectar
Norah Jones
Wale
Regina Spektor
Mayer Hawthorne and the Country
Jay-Z


...Thus far, looks like Coachella only worse and with more shitty piano folk chicks.


Coincidently, my review Stardeath & White Dwarfs' stellar debut will be posted later today.  Good year coming up for those guys.

The Chinese Democracy of Rap: Dr. Dre's 'Detox'

It took Axl Rose 15 years to shit out the steaming pile of crap that is Chinese Democracy.  15 years is a long time.  The band that began to the record the album was the band that released the album in name only; the original Guns n' Roses members have long since gone out to shittier things like bands named after fabric-embossed revolvers and providing color commentary on VH1 countdowns.  Any modern musical work of art that spends that long in gestation is destined for irrelevancy and a suck-factor of 11 on a 1 to 10 scale.

It has been over 10 years since Dr. Dre dropped '2001' on the world.  Contrary to many people's memories, and conveniently for Dr. Dre, the album was released in 1999, not 2001.  What started as maybe the most anticipated rap album ever, 'Detox' is turning into the Chinese Democracy of rap.  Recorded, re-recorded, re-re-recorded, scrapped, recorded again, and probably smoked up in an accidental blunt fire and recorded once again, the album is now being delayed until... Well who the fuck knows.  Dr. Dre himself doesn't even seem to know. Talking to SLAM magazine recently he said, “Well, I’m working on it, but also I’ve been working on other people’s projects; you’ll probably hear something in a year or so.”  A year or so.  This means 2011 and at this point quite conceivably beyond.

Let's face it, the man is now 44 years old, and while Jay-Z has certainly show that hip-hop moguls can rap with the best of them into their 40's, Jay-Z has at least been keeping 'in the game' during the past 10 years.  If Dre decides to release the album in 2011 he will be 45.  If you have seen that Dr. Pepper commercial that included mere seconds of Detox, you noticed the dude looks OLD.

Now I hear the argument constantly that Dre is focusing on his production for other artists like The Game, Eminem, Raekwon, etc. but even those artists who work closely with Dre on a day to day basis fail to provide an adequate explanation for what the hell is taking so long.  The Game told XXL Magazine in November 2009,

"I know it seem like he be taking forever with these albums but if you think about the time that passed between the Chronic and 2001, I think Detox is just about due. So it's not about him just making us wait, it's his format."

So let's get this straight, the 7 years between 'The Chronic' and '2001' are somehow just like the 10 years that have thus far elapsed since '2001' and... well and nothing, he has nothing to show for 10 years of work yet besides an advertising deal with a crappy soda you used to drink when the first '2001' came out.  Sure, "Crack A Bottle" had a classic great Dr. Dre flow on it, and there have been some stand-out 50 Cent and other Aftermath artist's tracks, but it's still not what we are all waiting for.  The danger of going back to the lab and perfecting the beat for over 10 years is that when it all finally comes together, whenever that may be, is that it won't come even close to living up to the hype. 

The great irony of 'Chinese Democracy' wasn't just the title of the album, but that people could actually expected a Chinese democracy to come about before the album would.  The great irony of the title 'Detox' is of course that it will be Dr. Dre's final album, likening his career arc as a rapper to an addiction which he will finally purge upon this release.  It will also be a great catharsis to the rap world that has sunk to levels that involve Lil' Wayne attempting a rock album.  But it could also be a bomb that implodes upon it's own supposed greatness and signal the end of an era in rap music.  But I guess you gotta give the man credit where it's due.  He must know what he's doing.  After all, he is a doctor.

-Zach Jaffe

Zomby - "Where Were U in '92?"

“What the fuck is this shit?” was the my initial reaction to dubstep when a friend first turned me on to it in 2006, playing Burial’s self-titled album for me.  Made up of tracks wump-wump-wump-wump bass throbbing your subs and ghost-like vocal samples, dubstep is a relatively new evolution in the ‘idm’ (intelligent dance music) genre.  While classic idm artists like Aphex Twin used glitches and breaks to get the hipsters feel a’movin’, more current dubstep artists, while still staying true to the glitch/break formula of their predecessors, are adding more wordly influences like Jamaican dancehall (where the ‘dub’ comes from) and sounds not out of place on tracks by underground hip-hop producers like the late-great J Dilla and Madlib.  The label Hyperdub, out of the United Kingdom, imprint of the aforementioned Burial, has a plethora of dubstep artists oozing out of the London and Bristol undergrounds.  One of the freshest sounds of any of these has to be that of Zomby.

After a series of 7” and 12” vinyl releases to ramp up the hype as is customary, in 2008 Zomby dropped his debut full length, “Where Were U in ’92?”  This album is good.  It’s not great, but it’s certainly very good.  The reason I say this so early on in this review is to emphasize the fact that if you have not listened to this style of music before, at first listen it can be quite abrasive (read: rave air horns echoing in and out on the majority of the tracks).  This is not to suggest that I have some sort of keen ear more attuned to the nuances of Zomby’s music any more than the next schmuck out there, rather, to the contrary, that I am just the next schmuck out there and it took me a couple of listens to really get a feel for it.

But onto the music.  The title of the album is an allusion to the UK rave culture that was burgeoning at the dawn of the 1990’s.  Zomby by all accounts, although his identity is mostly secret, was most definitely around only 6 or 7 and not participating in the scene.  So wherever he was in ’92 he almost certainly wasn’t raving.  Although he was not yet at the age of majority where he could enjoy the new culture of ecstasy poppin' and 20-somethings sucking pacifiers while dancing until dehydration, he certainly appreciates the music of the era which provide the pallet from which he paints his musical portrait. 

The album kicks off with the aptly titled, “Fuck Mixing, Lets Dance”, a breakbeat 8-bit jam full of symbol crashes and air horns.  The song is actually a relatively benign beginning to what amounts to a complex dance album.  Later on tracks like “Daft Punk Rave” Zomby samples in part of the repetitive chorus of “Harder Better Faster Stronger” and filters it through the grimey strain of the United Kingom’s best scene.  One of the standout tracks, “Tears in the Rain” hammers hard with a pulsating bass beat that never lets up and of course, the obligatory rave horns.  Other cuts like “Float” feel like mid-90’s RnB that your older sister probably got freaky to in high school.  Of course, no album paying tribute to rave culture would be complete without an ecstasy song.  Here, “Pillz” features samples asking “Is you rolling?” and responding with “Shhhhs, I might” followed by “Girl, he geeked up”.  Not exactly an original statement for anyone familiar with the thizzin’ culture of Bay Area rap, but as the song progresses you can almost feel the transition from your Nintendo playing childhood to your booze swilling early twenties when the break abruptly shifts the direction of the song.  Another that is sure to be a fan favorite is “U Are My Fantasy (Street Fighter II Theme Remix)” which is pretty much as it sounds, a remix of the Street Fighter II theme song, but it also really shows his roots in the dubstep culture.

Running at just under 40 minutes, “Where Were U In ’92?” is an enjoyable romp back in time in a glitchy, tweaked-out sort of way.  While most dubstep sounds like the future, Zomby sounds like the future sprinkled with the past.  Zomby is to dubstep, what Peanut Butter Wolf is to hip-hop, a producer mining the early 90’s for inspiration, an era most popular culture has resigned to belonging solely to Nirvana and Pearl Jam.  In any case, fuck mixing, let’s dance.

-Zach Jaffe

Quicksilver Messenger Service - "Comin' Thru"

Raised on Classic Rock, although not of the generation, I will always revere the era as the Golden Age of music (call me biased).  And even as there was a plethora of high quality music at the forefront of this movement, much of its less popular musiq can go un-listened. I give you Quicksilver Messenger Service - Comin' Thru.

A band known for their formation during the sixties with helping the onset of the psychedelic scene, Quicksilver Messenger Service’s seventh album (first with keyboard player Chuck Steaks), Comin’ Thru is brain child of guitarists Dino Valente and Gary Duncan. Although the band’s most notable albums such as their self-titled album (1968) and Happy Trails (1969) show progressive notions of San Francisco’s psychedelic scene, Comin’ Thru shows more of the band’s musical influences of blues, jazz and folk. This album doesn’t follow the typical Quicksilver song montage of congruent jam followed by heavy psychedelic ambient structure (or lack there of). However don’t get me wrong, Comin' Thru still holds true to the psychedelic rock ideas of say the Dead or Jefferson Airplane.

The album’s front runner, "Doing Time in the U.S.A.," a song chronicling different themes regarding broken law has an almost bleeding southern rock feel to it, often resembling tones made famous by Duane Allman and Dicky Betts.  "Doing Time in the U.S.A." gives an ode to the Rolling Stones when Dino Valente recites in his most Jagger-esque voice, “…I can’t get no, satisfaction;” this being ironic seeing as how the band’s former organist, Nicky Hopkins, had recently left to do work with the Rolling Stones. Whether or not this is an actual response to the Stones classic is unknown, but in a genre where underlying song connections run wild, one can only imagine.  Quicksilver’s jazz influences are recognizable within moments of the first horn solos found on "Chicken". Sonny Lewis (saxophone) and Pat O’hara lay down dueling solos of high spectral pitch that make this soulful jam extremely tight. cAs always the bands twangy-blues guitar riffs are found throughout, most present on "Mojo" and "Changes".  "Mojo," a song about what else than a man’s swagger/libido, has the psychedelic song formation most notably found in their earlier albums.  Ending the song via a line-up of solo’s starting from guitar to trumpet to bass followed by keyboard, the band obtains a type of “jam status” rarely seen on their studio albums.  Stressing the difference between this album and their popular titles is the production of keyboard player Chuck Steaks.  His approach to keyboard is much more up tempo and “wild” compared to a more classically trained Mark Naftalin.  The albums organ solo’s often resemble contemporary solo work by (Cha Boi!) Bernie Worell, most recognizable on "Doing Time in the U.S.A" and "Don’t Lose It."

Many regard Comin’ Thru as a lesser work of Quicksilver Messenger Service since the band would fall apart near the end of the decade and many of the original members were not part of the album’s production (John Cippollina, David Friedberg & Jim Murray).  An album that holds two opinions, Comin' Thru (as many albums do) plays both poles of the spectrum: Some critics feel the horn work and heavy piano/keyboard influence is used to compensate for a less talented band, while others state it was merely innovative thinking. Let’s not hang signs, just listen.

-Max Smith

***Note: Lala's selection is decidedly limited to only certain QMS songs so the one posted here is not off of this album.  Sorry for any inconvenience in listening this may cause.

2010: The Year Of Madlib

Madlib is for lack of a better descriptive phrase, mad prolific.  The infamous Stones Throw beat-maker is setting up to have one hell of a year in 2010.  First off, the Stones Throw site states that Madlib's newest incarnation 'The Madlib Medicine Show' will have 12 volumes (!) to be released one a month for the duration of the year 2010.  The first, 'Mablib Medicine Show No. 1 - Before the Verdict feat. Guilty Simpson' is out now with the 2nd volume 'Flight To Brazil' to be released before the end of February.

Now, as if this project were not daunting enough, Madlib is also gifting the world with some of his jazz pseudonym projects, starting with The Last Electro-Acoustic Jazz & Percussion Ensemble 'Miles Away' and Young Jazz Rebels 'Slave Riot'.  Both albums are spin-offs of Madlib's trilogy of albums under the name 'Yesterday's New Quintet' which were collections of jazz made by imaginary jazz groups that were in fact just Madlib making stuff up.  Two of the imaginary groups, those aforementioned, both now have their own releases available now.  The Last-Electro-Acoustic Space Jazz & Percussion Ensemble previously released two 30-minute 'suites' 'Summer Suite' in 2007 and 'Fall Suite' last yearALSO, Madlib recently produced an album for Strong Arm Steady entitled 'In Search of Stoney Jackson' that is also excellent.  AND he and rapper/evil mastermind extraordinaire, DOOM (formerly MF DOOM) have a sequel to their 2004 classic Madvillian - 'Madvilliany' in the works.

To recap, that makes for 4 releases before February 1st, 11 more planned in the Madlib Medicine Show series, and possibly Madvilliany 2, plus lord knows he will throw in a couple more spin-offs of the Yesterday's New Quintet series.  Madlib doesn't eat or sleep.  He just makes beats.