A quick note before I get in to this week's artist: I went to Microcenter yesterday and saw the most awesome novelty CD's of all time. Take a look at these bad boys.
That's right. Digital Vinyl. Unnecessary, yes. Retro(hipster?) magnificence, absolutely. Will I buy more? God willing.
Starting this week out I have a diamond in the rough for you, a local gem that can do nothing but rocket skyward from here.
Bright Lights by J.Goods
Based in Austin, Texas Josh Gonzales "J. Goods" is leading the local hip-hop scene in Austin. Armed with a background as a solo and lead drummer in high school, J. Goods has developed his musical talents and lyrics prowess from an early age and is now taking his career as a rapper, artist, and producer to new heights. With several hits already circulating locally in his hometown you'll be sure to see this young star making waves soon.
Brights Lights, though not one of his touted one-hit wonders, is an excellent example of J. Goods creative talent in the realm of hip-hop. Produced and sung by Russell Lee and co-written by J.Goods the intelligent rhymes and catchy melody forged in Bright Lights is sure to please your ears for weeks to come.
Check out the rest of J. Goods lineup on his soundcloud.
Washing Line Wheel And The Old Mangle by Roof Light
Lulworth Pebbles by Roof Light
In an abrupt change of tune(I always seem to do this...) I present you with Roof Light. Little info is available on who, or what Roof Light, exactly is, but this actually plays better to his vast, eclectic span of musical production. Self-described as "Advanced Soul/Psychedelic Folk/Rhythm And Blues/Field Recordings", Roof Light's sounds range from ambient synth productions to dark, grungy garage beats to decayed, analogue electronica complete with atmospheric "field recordings". Roof Light has been on my radar for awhile but not until the last several weeks as he as released more Board of Canada-esque material have I had a chance to show off this musician's true talent.
Washing Line Wheel and Lulworth Pebbles bring a warm, fuzzy sounds to a down-tempo style atmosphere that I have not heard since Boards of Canada's album Campfire Headcase. Wavering analogue generators, scratchy vinyl sound effects and floating melodies dominate the sounds of both of these tracks and bring a refreshing, old school sound to the table I haven't heard in years. I commend Roof Light for steering his work in this direction and hope it leads him to more undiscovered bounds of musical creative that I, as a listener, can only wait in anticipation for.
Pron__St∆rr (quickie) by yahnLOOKEpicard
Bare with me as a deviate yet again (though not as severely this time!) in to the world of hip-hop. Y∆HN LøÔK∑ PIc∆RD of Minneapolis, Minnesota is an intrumental hip-hop artist that has been experimenting with beats, rhythms, and sounds in a way I didn't think it was possible. If you have ever wondered what a bleeding-edge pioneer of hip-hop sounds like, look no further. His combination of lazy beats and spacey samples meshed with his out-of-the-box line of thinking and production provides for an aural experience unlike anything I've ever heard.
Leave It All Behind feat. The Rebirth & Aima the Dreamer by jboogie dubtronic
Cumbia Dubbin by jboogie dubtronic
Finishing out this post with a smooth and drinkable flavour is J-Boogie, a world-renown DJ and producer influenced by latin soul, hip-hop, electronica and many many more sounds. Leave It All Behind, an r'n'b track influenced by down-tempo beats and a soulful, female vox accompanied by chorus bring me back to the 90's and all their smooth, funky glory. Cumbia Dubbin, a mix by J-Boogie created after a trip to South Africa, showcases classic cumbia and a house sounds and clearly demonstrates J-Boogie's exceptional DJ'ing ability. Be sure to check out his entire library of world sounds on his soundcloud.
CDs phonied up to look like vinyl records? why not buy the real thing? vinyl sales are better now than they have been in 20 years, while CDs are being phased out. just bought fever ray's self-titled album on vinyl and am getting the 7" of naked and famous' "young blood" along with fever ray's cover of "mercy street" for my birthday. no offense, but there's point in getting a mocked up CD if you don't get the vinyl quality.
ReplyDeletehave you been to fry's, urban outfitters or hot topic recently? urban outfitter's and hot topic only have a vinyl section— no CDs except for the occasional thing here or there. and their sales are great. fry's introduced the vinyl section in their store about a year ago— for now it's pretty small but has a lot of remastered records on 180g. you should check it out.
on to the music.
the j goods song sounds like it could be played on wild 105.7— don't know why this guy hasn't hit it off. in fact it sounds better than the stuff on 105.7, less garbage-y. it just further proves that the music industry is nothing more than a corporate entity out to make money off of their signed artists, just like any other business. if you aren't willing to surrender your creativity at the door, they don't want anything to do with you.
roof light. this sounds bizarrely beautiful, like out of a strange dream. i'm gonna go off on a rabbit path here— do you have a shortwave radio (that's what this sounds like)? i've got one upstairs i cut on during the wintertime (you can get signals from europe and latin america when it's cold).
there are these mysterious stations that come on all times of the day and night, with no warning, that are extremely odd. so odd, in fact, that no one exactly knows what they really are. the station will come on and play some sort of melody, or a series of tones, and then a recorded voice will come on giving a list of numbers. one, eight, three, five, seven, six, nine, two, one, seven, eight, etc. it will go on for about five minutes. then a beep or something will conclude the broadcast. people have recorded these things and a compilation was released a few years ago called 'the conet project' that was a collection of recordings of these strange broadcasts. they've been reported way back since the early 20th century, and in the past 20 or so years they've increased in number. here's a recording of one:
http://soundcloud.com/the-conet-project/tcp-d1-07-gong-station-chimes-irdial/
a lot of people think that it's something to do with spies, as a lot of the time the station will be jammed by another station, supposedly another government.
back to roof light, very atmospheric and dreamlike. the second track... wow. i want to put this in a movie. this is great.
ReplyDeleteyahn lu... whatever. not going to try to write that lol. Jean-Luc Picard is probably his real name so i'll go with that. it's a bit odd. do you know what time signature it's in? it's strange because it's keeping time but in a very atypical way, that makes it sound like it isn't keeping time. maybe 5/4? it might be in 4/4 but it's throwing me off. sounds like it's in an early stage though, the finished product will probably be very interesting.
i guess the next track (by jboogie) does sound a bit 90s. you seem to like the 90s a lot (you've mentioned them a few times). it's weird, i kind of think of the 90s as kind of a non-decade, as a kind of "it's not the 80s anymore but it's not the 2000s yet" thing. cos until '95 or so, it really wasn't much more than the late 80s. the music was mostly the same, electropop, etc., technology hadn't really changed all that much, but around late '94-'96 things changed A LOT in a short period of time. the internet became a mainstream thing, and suddenly the entire world was connected, and music started being a lot different. i guess during that time period i don't think about the evolution of r+b, but over the decade it became a mainstream genre of music rather than just a niche thing.
it's a good track though.
i guess i've let my mind wander a bit with this music. that must mean you're doing something right.
First let me thank you for the thorough comment! I appreciate hearing back from readers :)
ReplyDeleteNow, let me explain the vinyl CD's: I am well aware of the advantages of vinyl over CD's, if I could afford to buy a nice table and the sound system to back it up I would be listening to my favorite singles everyday on vinyl. The sound is unlike anything you can find digitally!
However, these CD's are not for listening at home or on my computer, etc. Unfortunately, my car does not have an auxiliary jack for an ipod or mp3 player so I must burn to CD all the music I wish to play on the go. I bought these vinyl-looking CD's because I think it's a neat novelty to have in the car :) Trust me, I am not a backer of CD technology, but since I must use it why not have it look stylish at the same time?
Glad you enjoyed Roof Light! It's been a real pleasure for me watching the transformation in his style over the past month or so. I can absolutely see where you are coming from with the shortwave signals, your description reminds me of number stations( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_stations ), though we may be talking about the same thing with different names :)
If you do like Roof Light's sound, I strongly suggest picking up Boards of Canada's Campfire Headphase, In a Beautiful Place Out in the Country, or Trans Canada Highway. Absolutely brilliant albums that capitalize on that style of sound.
As for Jean-Luc, the strangeness of his beats is exactly what led me to take notice of him. The track you are hearing is the finished product! His sound pushes the edge of what you could call organized music(at least to me!)
I think my fascination, and labeling of, 90's music is in part because my childhood took place during that time. I'm sure that if I had been a bit older or had been exposed to more late 80's music my perception of what is a 90's sound and what is just a blob of those two decades sounds would be much different! I also tend to associate movies soundtracks from the time as the "quintessential" sound of the era(AKA MIB, etc.) which has led me to think of the 90's as a chill, rnb, early rap, primitive electronica kind of sound.
Your comment about the late 80's has piqued my curiosity though, I am definitely going to have to look in to music from that era. Maybe it will reshape my idea of the 90's :) Any suggestions?
Thanks again for reading!
Great blog.
ReplyDeleteFor me, the Roof Light music is perhaps the most interesting, taking as it does, elements of Folk and Electronic music with a forward looking approach. It's not pastiche like The Advisory Circle or Bellbury Polly. It certainly has elements of BOC and Bibio too, but more than enough character of it's own, i checked the Soundcloud page and there's another tune on there called 'Cheerio For Now....' which is amazing, it genuinely doesn't sound like anything else around at the moment, with the preoccupation for Dubstep's splintered factions sounding quite cold and mechanical, this stuff is as you say, a breath of fresh air.
Good spot and thanks for bringing this to light.
I wait with anticipation to hear more.....
ahhh okay, i've got you. yeah, if you have to have CDs, that's the way to go. but if you are interested in getting a turntable i would recommend this:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.amazon.com/Technica-AT-LP60-Automatic-Driven-Turntable/dp/B002GYTPAE/ref=sr_1_1?s=aht&ie=UTF8&qid=1302580178&sr=1-1
i have a friend who got one a couple of months ago and is very satisfied. unfortunately, when i bought a turntable back in 2004 there were bascially only two options: a bottom line automatic turntable with no replaceable parts that would wear out very quickly, or a technics 1200, which, i don't know if you are familiar with or not, but they never wear out. ever. they're for serious DJing. so i got that as a gift for around $400 (i had to pay back in serious chores), and it's sitting in my living room now, and will probably outlive me. it plays beautifully but it was very expensive and if it was now i wouldn't do the same.
as for the late 80s, i was born in 1990, so i'm not *that* old. but living in metro atlanta in 1994 was like living in new york in 1988. before the internet things didn't really get around as quickly— like grunge for instance. if you already knew about nirvana, i'm sure you could've gone into turtles records and tapes and gotten it in 1991-1992. but they weren't playing that on the radio and it wasn't a big thing here yet. i guess it's kind of weird, but i can remember a lot all the way back to around '91 or '92 and any further than that, i can't remember.
but if you're looking for really good 80s music i have a lot of stuff to recommend:
Depeche Mode — Violator (1990)
Tears For Fears — Songs From the Big Chair (1986)
Genesis — Invisible Touch (honestly their earlier stuff from the 70s is 90x better. but if you haven't heard this it's definitely still good, especially 'domino' and 'the brazilian') (1986)
for R+B or new jack swing, you can't do any better than bobby brown's "don't be cruel". (1988)
Underworld's "dubnobasswithmyheadman" is one of the greatest electronic albums of all time (1993)
new order put a ton of stuff out, but if you want a good summary, i would get 'substance' (1987)
peter gabriel's "so" is a classic (1986)
kate bush's "Hounds of love" is another one you can't miss. (1985)
the smith's "meat is murder" is good, but if i had to pick one track it would of course be "how soon is now".
i can give you more if you want.
Thank you for the music suggestions! The breadth of my musical knowledge is wide but extremely shallow, there's just so much music I haven't heard. I always jump on the opportunity to expand my horizons so as soon as I find some spare time I will be throwing on the headphones for a listen. :)
ReplyDeleteThat turntable looks fantastic too! It's a but out of my price range for the moment but hopefully with the money I'll be making this summer I'll be able to afford the investment.
To Anonymous #2: Glad you enjoyed the post! I try to update at least once a week so make sure to check back, I always appreciate feedback!
look up some stuff from those records on youtube if you want a preview. i guarantee you won't be disappointed. most of the stuff i listed is either electronic or is heavily influenced by electronic music.
ReplyDelete