Archive for the 'Record Reviews' Category

30
Dec
09

Analyrical – “First Date”

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Categories: Record Reviews

First Date is a strong, if somewhat limited, debut for Analyrical. The St. Paul MC, originally from Kansas and who did a stint in Eau Claire before coming back to Minnesota, is a member of the Background Noise Crew. Led by CEO, producer, and living hip-hop encyclopedia Egypto Knuckles, the crew also includes producer Phingaz, and MCs Tonekrusher Smith, Status Reign, and T.Q.D. (who released his own debut album this year, Clench, Grit, Breathe).

Analyrical embodies much of what it means to be a Twin Cities MC, though sometimes to the point of predictability. He namedrops the appropriate venues on both sides of the river (Dinkytowner, Turf Club, and even the historic online forum DUNation), as well as including a Twin Cities dedication song (“66612”). On this song, with Rudy Van Gelder-sounding jazz drums dominating Spanphly’s production, he talks about all the different types of MCs in the Cities, the “backpackers , abstract gangsters, and all the like.” He’s certainly not a gangsta rapper, yet is hard to pigeonhole just as a backpack rapper, even though most of the characteristics are there.

Production duties on First Date are handled by a cast of characters, including fellow BNC-member Phingaz on “Put ‘Em Up,” as well as Katrah-Quay of 4Shades, Dimitry Killstorm, and fellow St. Paul MC and producer Orikal. There are great musical details spread throughout the album, whether it be the 8-bit sounding snares on “Sky is Burning,” the brake drums on “Put ‘Em Up,” or the accordion melody on “Penance.”

In addition to the TC rep song mentioned above, the album is laced with plenty of lyrical wordplay and one-liners, giving songs like “Tick Tick” and  “Sky is Burning” their verbal punch, an effect helped by his lower-than-expected voice. On “More Than,” he echoes many an MC who want to make their work “more than” just music, more than just rap. There’s the emo-ish conclusion of “Penance,” with a vow to own “up to all my bullshit,” with apologies “to all my ex-lovers and all the jobs I ever quit.”

Unfortunately, none of these songs really serve to separate Analyrical him from the dearth of MCs currently vying for stages throughout the Cities. There definitely is a sound to Twin Cities hip-hop, but when an artist veers too close to it, as Analyrical seems to on First Date, the listener is left wanting a greater balance between reppin’ one’s home town and developing a style and voice regardless of geographic location. All that being said, though, there’s definitely enough here to a warrant a second night out.

08
Dec
09

Guante and Big Cats – An Unwelcome Guest

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Categories: People to listen to, Record Reviews and Show Reviews

My review of the debut record from Guante and Big Cats, An Unwelcome Guest, is over at the Twin Cities Daily Planet. Check it out, but more importantly, check out the record and the show this coming Saturday. More info can be found here.

Here’s a bit of the review:

Part Cormac McCarthy, part Woody Guthrie, and part Public Enemy, An Unwelcome Guest is an intricately woven poetic and sonic excursion through landscapes mental, emotional, and physical, cementing Guante and Big Cats!’s status as two of the best emerging artists within Twin Cities hip-hop.

02
Oct
09

FranzDiego.com – Franz Diego (2009)

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Categories: People to listen to and Record Reviews

franz-diego-cover

It’s a strong statement to Franz Diego’s character, both as an MC and as a person, that the first words you hear on his debut full-length are about other folks. “This one goes to all the people who helped me who/ nurtured my growth and kept me so healthy,” he speaks on the album’s opening song, “Quest for Self.” The South-Side reppin, boombox-carryin’, dookie-rope rockin’ MC, who prides himself not just on his own skills, but on a dedication to communities both within and beyond hip-hop.

Franz’s words are a mix of swagger (“Nokomis Kid” and “Par Le Vu FranzD” “ vulnerability (“Quest for Self,” “Cloudy Day,” “Father Song) and lady-lovin’ (“Pretty,” “MVD,” “Discipline,” and “Grenadine,” and righteous fire aimed at all the right targets (“Move On, “Pearly Whites,” and “Duel Citizen”).

While the whole album is a testament to Franz’s rhymin’ versatility, it’s this last group of songs on the album that really makes it, and its creator, stand out. Burnished with an alley-wailin’ noir saxophone, “Move On” views the difficulty, yet necessity, of living consciously in the face of people who could care less. “Times gettin’ rough,” he says, “but we treat it like it’s casual.”

The target of “Pearly Whites” is a similar one, as a plodding, almost herd-like beat [undergirds] Franz’s derision of those who exchange thoughts of speakin’ truth to power “for the almighty dollar,” politicians and non-politicians alike who live only to “Shake a hand, shake a hand/Show them pearly whites.” Closing repetitions of “spend money” of “keep smilin’” offer a satirically grim coda.

Finally, a dope semantic flip of Slick Rick’s line from “I Own America” becomes the heart of “Duel Citizen,” a ferocious critique of xenophobia and anti-immigrant hysteria. While Ruler’s talkin’ about his own deportation when he says “Even if I got deported/I own America,” Franz and producer FireLikeWater refunction his words to stress not that immigrants, refugees, and indigenous need “room” made for them, but that such superficial attempts at change and integration only mask, and hence perpetuate, devastating social inequities. In the end, Franz demands that his listeners “open your eyes right now and start witnessin’” because, without all of the immigrants, refugees, and indigenous folks living in artificial borders, “this country wouldn’t be shit.”

Franz’s extensive work as a community organizer in and through hip-hop, both on his own and with groups like Yo! The Movement, make these words much more powerful than the usual MC political posturing

All that being said, “Nokomis Kid” is definitely one of the album’s best songs even without rabble-rousin’. Jaunty piano and bass syncopations provide the basis of Franz’s audible documentary of growing up in one Twin Cities neighborhood I’ve never heard rapped about on record. With its spoken interludes fluidly blending into the verses—from tagging to dog bakeries to what would eventually become Ill 3’s Bedroom Studios—the song should go down with “Twin Cities Rap,” “The Shh Song,” “Ice Cold,” “Always Coming Home Back to You,” and “No Coast” as one of the best rap songs about the Twin Cities by somebody from the Twin Cities. While Franz would no doubt be humbled by such a statement, there shouldn’t be any disagreement.

11
Sep
09

e.g. bailey – “Twin Towers (Dreams of Possible Tomorrows”

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Categories: People to listen to and Record Reviews

Twin Towers cover image

On this 8th anniversary of the events of 9/11, e.g. bailey has crafted “Twin Towers (Dreams of Possible Tomorrows),” an eloquent statement that both captures the emotions and experiences of 9/11 as well as how to respond and remember them.

The piece opens with singer, guitarist and fellow TrúRúts artist Chastity Brown. She delivers the first part of bailey’s poem, a collage of observations that sound like fragments of a broken news report, the frame through which many saw the events of 9/11.

No death today
No war
No justice comin’ down
Reports say peace is on the way

Yet this news report flips the usual broadcasts of death and destruction associated with 9/11, setting the stage for a poem that looks forward to something greater, something better than images of smoking towers. Brown’s dirge-like intonations of “And I watched the buildings crumble,” however, delivered with a voice that itself sounds ash-choked, leads into the body of the poem and takes the listener back to 2001.

bailey does well to navigate the over-loaded and hyper-emotional associations with 9/11, be it jingoistic drum rolls of war, uncritical celebrations and memorializations a la “Patriot Day,” or reactionary conspiracy theories. Instead, he focuses on the bewildering experience of that day, bodies and towers falling from the Manhattan sky. He wonders “whose truth to trust” as the poem’s narrator goes “stumbling through the fog” (one of more than just ash, smoke, and debris), while children and lovers suddenly find themselves alone.

The other theme of “Twin Towers” is how to remember these events, be it 8 or 80 years afterwards. bailey calls for unity, a familiar theme of course in 9/11 responses, but his has a critical edge. The unity he calls for is not for a nation to wage war in hopes of short-sighted revenge, but rather a call to humanity, his words moving swiftly from the individuals itself who died in the events 9/11 and, presumably, in America’s response to it, but rather a unity to stop these events from ever happening again without perpetuating violence, “no matter the politics of color or creed.” It is a tone of remembrance that cannot be captured by commemorative “never forget” anniversaries or lapel pins, but rather a remembrance that is as much about actively and peacefully shaping the future as it is about the past.

There are two versions of “Twin Towers,” one with the poem recorded by Twin Cities spoken word godfather J. Otis Powell, the other by bailey himself. While the words are the same, the difference is palpable. Powell’s delivery is deeper, more measured, adding a gravity and weight to the words simply through his bass intonation alone. bailey’s version, while no less meaningful or emotional, is slightly faster, and reflects more the mental state of someone actual experiencing the events, be it in person or through a screen, while Powell’s sounds much more reflective and pondering. Both versions, however, are a powerful testament not only to the past, present, and future of 9/11, but also of bailey’s skill of mobilizing poetry for contemplation, remembrance, and subtle, but no less insistent calls for action.

17
Jun
08

Big Cats! – Sleep Tapes

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Categories: Record Reviews

Sleep Tapes is the debut album from my homie (and former student) Spencer Wirth-Davis, aka Big Cats. It’s a mostly instrumental beat album that takes, as its title suggests, the imaginary landscapes of our own sleepy unconscious. Created over the last year or so, much of the album was made when other people themselves were sleeping. “I was making most of the material in my bedroom late at night, really quietly,” he told me, “so my neighbors wouldn’t kill me.”

Cats’ album does a great job of reflecting the mystery of the world when we fall asleep, like on the song “Hi Speed Dub,” as its fuzzed out spinet, ghostly voices, and other things that might go bump in the night are skewed just enough to place them out of everyday reality. Throughout the album, numerous little riffs and bits emerge and recede through the hazy textures, like on “Wonder Naps” and “2 Mics.” The highlight of the album is “Ballad Northwestern,” with its impossible-to-resist wordless vocals, slightly-distressed synths and addictive, yet not overpowering beat. Near the end, with the appropriately titled “New Day” and “Big World,” we start to hear the dawn, and the start of things anew.

The sounds of Sleep Tapes might remind some of old RJD2 or local sonic wizard Dosh. At points, though, the album starts to get repetitive, with similar grooves coming one after the other, while other times, Cats tries to fit in too many elements of his greatly varied sonic palette into a single song. Yet the album is full of head-nodding grooves, maybe even some to fall asleep to. Just make sure not to sleep on Big Cats.

Spencer, who performed many of the instruments on the record, will be joined by three instrumentalist friends to recreate much of Sleep Tapes at the Dinkytowner this Thursday night, as part of “Last of the Record Buyers” series. Show starts at 9pm and the price of $3 will surely be worth your while.

15
May
08

Atmosphere + Tou Saiko Lee

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Categories: Record Reviews and Things Goin' Down

Here are a few more articles that I published recently. Great time to be prolific, right in the middle of finals.

Feature piece, as well as an interview, on Tou Saiko Lee in the wake of an attack on him by Jason Lewis, one of the right-wingers on KTLK.

Also, here’s an extended review of the new Atmosphere record, When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold, as well as an interview with Slug.

Thanks for the eyes and, as always, more to come.

12
Apr
08

El Guante – Album Review

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Categories: Record Reviews

Hey y’all, the Twin Cities Daily Planet just published my review of El Guante’s Haunted Studio Apartment. This album’s amazing and well worth giving a listen to.

http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/node/10431

Watch soon for a site overhaul, a new logo (or I guess a logo period) and articles on this weekend’s hip-hop festivities (the break/s and KRS-One) as well as some papers I’m giving at conferences.

17
Mar
08

Muja Messiah Review

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Categories: Record Reviews

mujacover.jpg

Here’s a review coming out soon in The Liberator of Muja Messiah’s mixtape, MPLS Massacre. Watch for the magazine soon. And the official release party is this Thursday, March 20th, at 7th Street. $7 gets you in and a copy of the mixtape.

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Muja Messiah’s MPLS Massacre, a mixtape in advance of his full-length The Adventures of the B-Boy/D-Boy, deftly reveals many of the tensions—and sometimes outright contradictions—of himself, rap, and the world at large. Many are encapsulated in the album’s Intro and elaborated throughout Massacre, from the personal tensions of being “not your average half-white black guy,” as well as things like snitchin’ (“niggas yellin’ ‘stop snitchin’ then get mad when the cops don’t catch ‘em”).

Featuring numerous Twin Cities hip hop figures, including I Self Devine, St. Paul Slim, Muja’s mates from Raw Villa, and Slug, Massacre lays bare the tension between reppin’ where you’re from and where you want to go. Laced with Twin Cities references, Muja’s trying to show that the Cities ain’t just “backpackin’ and hippie/like it ain’t crackin’ in my city,” seeking success with a harder rap sound historically marginalized in the Cities. Yet he often turns to the sounds of the South for Massacre, especially on “Southside,” which combines his own Minneap home with the musical south of Memphis synths and drum beats.

One of the highlights of Massacre is the remix of M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes,” as Muja skillfully adopts the words, rhyme patterns, and flow of M.I.A., making it much more than your standard remix. With its complicated global genealogy, from the Clash to the globe-hoppin’ M.I.A. (and featuring one of the Twin Cities’ own world musical travelers, the Ghanaian-born M.anifest) the song raises the stakes far beyond Minnesota.

While Muja says he’s “just trying to get y’all attention/without having to mention money, women, or the cars I’ve driven,” women and money are everywhere on Massacre, as are Muja’s musical molotovs for revolution. On “Huey P Newton,” Muja channels a hard rock version of the “Revolution” chorus to continue the struggles of Assata, Huey, Mumia, Dead Prez, and countless others. At the same time, though, he and many of the album’s guests partake in the gay-bashing and sexual objectification of women that fall in line with dominate American cultural norms. There’s a fine line, of course, between rebellion and cultural co-optation, and Muja seems to work this to his advantage. Neither black liberation nor narrative of hustlin’ and pimpin’ exhaust Muja’s rap identity. Even though having “one foot in the coffin, one foot in the cell,” as he raps on “MPLS Poppin,” doesn’t leave much room to move, Muja refuses to be boxed in.