Anyone who follows BBE’s The Kings of series knows it’s more like the “whatever the artist feels like” series. On the techno installation, Laurent Garnier, arguably the most fearless techno DJ on the planet, selects Aretha Franklin and The Temptations as historically relevant forerunners (but honestly, who would buy this comp if they truly needed a history lesson?). In an affectionate move, Craig and Garnier each select a track from the other (Garnier and Shazz’s “Acid Eiffel,” and Craig’s “No More Words”). This, at least, feels appropriate, since “Acid Eiffel” still ranks as one of the definitive acid tracks of all time.
Silicone Soul Save Our Souls
It sucks when great artists try new things that don’t quite work. But anything that Craig Morrison and Graeme Reedie can cook up on a bad day is still loads better than most do at their peak. Silicone Soul’s third full-length finds them straying into quieter, more contemplative moments that somehow don’t sound as polished as their lean, crisp tech-house lines, through which emotion always shined so clearly. Fans will appreciate two standouts: “The Snakecharmer,” which curls exotic flute tones around bass notes like a slithering reptile, and “Margin For Madness,” which guides a dark journey into lovely acid recesses.
Niobe White Hats
Look up “indie” in the dictionary and you might see a picture of Cologne-based Yvonne “Niobe” Cornelius. Everything about this Mouse on Mars songbird is strictly anti-commercial: her eerily unsettling, quivering voice (think of a darker Cat Power); her obvious preference for minor keys; and her penchant for distinctly radio-unfriendly arrangements (despite a CD sticker advertising “a variety of pop styles”). Cornelius takes the folk chanteuse element that labels like Morr typically pair with electronic rock, and instead pits her ghostly vocals against any number of musical backgrounds including muted, bittersweet twangs on the rosy-hued reminiscence “Phosphorous,” and the wistful, old-world air of “The Hills,” where she sounds like a ’40s lounge singer. There’s even an echo of old Siouxsie and the Banshees harmonies beneath Cornelius’ quiet tenor: on “Shirocco & Mistral,” a similarly dusky dreaminess blooms within her soft notes, bridging the haunted gap between this world and the next.
Kidz In The Hall (Naledge & Double O) School Was My Hustle
Lupe Fiasco might be pushing the everyman-rapper angle hard but, on School Was My Hustle, fellow Chicago MC Naledge gives the skateboarder a run for his money. Teamed with DJ/producer Double O as Kidz in the Hall, Naledge proves that Ivy League guys (he and Double O are Penn grads) can rock the mic too, infusing tracks like “Go Ill” and “Dumbass Tales” with a healthy dose of personality and storytelling ability. While the project at times feels a little derivative of Kanye West’s College Dropout, it’s also a clever inversion of Kanye’s concept, extolling the virtues of formal education rather than mocking them.
Various Artists In Prison: Afro American Prison Music From Blues to Hip Hop
The title of this disc–which collects prison-related songs, from 1959 field recordings at Lousiana’s infamous Angola prison to Akon’s 2004 smash “Locked Up”–is pretty self-explanatory. What’s curious is that it comes from Germany, since it seeks to draw awareness to the alarming number of black prisoners in the U.S. Overall, In Prison provides an excellent cross-section of black prison music, from “Work Song,” Nina Simone’s tribute to chain gang blues, to “Living Proof” by Lifers Group, the assemblage of inmates at New Jersey’s Rahway Prison who were recruited to make a Scared Straight-like rap album for Hollywood BASIC in 1993. Ill musicology.
DJ Slip She’s a Time Traveler
Troy Geary (a.k.a. DJ Slip) gives us some trauma-center disco on “Conception of Cool” by spending his first two minutes carving a groove out of a life-support machine’s whining bleeps and ticks. A kalimba-cradled Afro-funk rhythm then kicks in for dancefloor effect, but the track is a curious moment in an otherwise underwhelming record. “All Night” sounds created by a haunted Roland TB-303, and “Ufixedit” is a fine slab of micro-house that seems like it’s been awake for three days. But too much of this album lacks the berserk tension and gonzo cleverness for which Broklyn Beats is known.
Tod Dockstader Aerial #3
Tod Dockstader can make you believe that everything you hear on the radio is from another planet. Aerial #3 marks the final volume of the musique concréte pioneer’s project, which translated hundreds of recorded hours of shortwave radio transmissions into music. Just like the previous chapters, the results range from deep, murmuring drones that fly over wastelands to microtones that crawl under your feet. It’s disappointing that Dockstader did not explore the noise of voices regularly broadcast, but his Aerial series still delivers some of the eeriest sounds of the past year.
So Percussion Amid the Noise
So Percussion studies many greats and has a sharp ear for tone, but something’s amiss here. The New York trio experiments with pipes, glockenspiel, vibraphone, wood planks, metal, marimba, duct tape, and even an Ethernet port. The result plays like soothing minimalist wallpaper. “May” lays down a brilliant Steve Reich-style vibe among samples of human gibberish, and “Go” treads upon a music-box groove that many IDM blokes could never get right. But there is a nagging sense that So Percussion only gives five percent of their power here.
A.G. Get Dirty Radio
New Yorker A.G. isn’t the first MC you’d expect to see working with a lineup of mostly Left Coast producers. These days, though, even artists that rep their region to the fullest can branch out and still keep it true. So after years of spitting almost exclusively over Showbiz’s jeep beats, A.G. reawakens Get Dirty Radio by connecting with Californians (Madlib, Oh No, and DJ Design) and even a Norwegian (Tommy Tee). All things considered, this Bronx native sounds pretty on-point riding hazy G-funk (“Take a Ride”) and dusty psychedelic grooves (“Triumph”). While unexpected, the collaborations work simply because these producers have been listening to A.G. for so long. But at the end of the day, nobody knows A.G. better than his oldest friend-when Show hooks up his old partner with some soulful boom-bap on “The Struggle,” this MC’s striking hood narratives resonate the loudest.
Of Mexican Descent Exitos y Mas Exitos
Listening to the deluxe version of this 1997 L.A. classic makes one wonder why the hell 2Mex and Xololanxinxo haven’t released any significant amount of new material together (as OMD) in so long. On this revamped disc, OMD’s previously released material, like the uplifting anti-greed anthem “Money Is Meaningless,” sounds as fresh as ever. Meanwhile, unearthed gems like the breezy, be-yourself joint “Atlas” (featuring Miko and Jizzm) provide plenty of welcome surprises from these proud bilingual rappers. Now can we get an official reunion please?
