AeoX always steps into strange territory with sounds never heard before; this one is like Frank Zappa with a gay twist. They tore the roof off of Panorama Bar in Berlin (and my mind!) with their live PA. Hanno Hinkelbein and his guitar-swinging monster mate Alexej are worth checking out if you‘re bored with minimal techno from Germany-and you like punk. I sure do!
Skream Skreamizm Vol. 1
This boy is on fire, and with Tempa behind him, get ready for the Skreamizm series; lots warm low-end but with the coldest heights. “Rottan” is like the wacked-out cartoon Monkey Dust, but for your ears. The bass here just never dies.
Dizzee Rascal Wasteman
On the Rascal‘s third LP, we can expect a maximum of ladylove. His taster, “Wasteman” (produced by Footsie of Newham Generals), is a big tune. It‘s Dizzee himself who takes the track to big heights, showing why he is the number one MC around.
Harald Sack Ziegler Punkt
One half of child‘s-play-pop purveyors Sack & Blumm, as well as a frequent Mouse On Mars collaborator, German tape scene pillar Harald Sack Ziegler‘s scatterbrained solo sound seems to hail from a toy workshop where punk, ska, electronic, and folk music compete for equal time on the hi-fi. Punkt, a 22-track album comprising the illustrious Cologne-based musician‘s previously vinyl/cassette-only work, is a frothy collection of wonkalicious woodwinds, slapstick samples, funk snippets, crashing drums, and steely guitars all stamped with Ziegler‘s distinctively oscillating vocals. A frantic romp indeed, Ziegler succeeds by imbuing every nook and cranny of his sound with a quirky, ear-perking catchiness.
Rhymefest Dynomite (Going Postal)
I was hooked from the first horns; then the cymbals come crashing in like a Mack truck. This song is just epic, lyrically and musically. I would suggest listening to it loud as hell right before you tell your boss to stick his TPS reports up his ass. “If King were alive this is how he would sound: ‘You a soft-ass nigga, you a mark, you a gump/Fuckin‘ lame, you a coward/You a punk, you a chuuuump!‘” Agreed.
Baby Dayliner Whodunit
Baby Dayliner‘s got that classic delivery that is going to carry this song to the top of a lot of best-of-2006 lists. “Whodunit” has all the ingredients for a dancefloor staple. The disco-soul-inspired rhythm drives the song, and Dayliner‘s just got that way of making you want to sing along with him-at the top of your lungs. I‘m not leaving home without this song.
Pigeon John Brand New Day
There are a handful of songs that you can drop at a party-or at home with your friends or in your car-that will turn a bad situation good and a good situation great. This is one of those songs. It starts out with drums set at a tempo normally reserved for indie rock bands, which only intensifies the energy that John brings. Then the guitar riff kicks in and you‘re officially uplifted. Pigeon John‘s going to find himself making a lot of new and excited fans with this track.
Judith Juilerat: Sinister Lullabies
The harshly beautiful music of Judith Juillerat speaks pointedly of rain-damp alleyways in Berlin or Cologne, so it’s a shock to find out that she operates light years away from Germany’s techno epicenters. Juillerat hails from Besançon, a sleepy French town with no music community to speak of–it’s home to nothing much, actually, besides some nice foliage and the aged walls of the town citadel. And as a 36-year-old, full-time mother–entering the studio only after her two kids are asleep–Juillerat is both a latecomer and an anomaly in the electronic music game.
Juillerat also boasts a surprisingly wholesome bio for one whose music is so dark. “I like listening to uneasy music,” she explains. “It’s good sometimes to be face to face with fear. It allows us to start from scratch. But, of course, I avoid listening to too much terrifying music with my children–they will have plenty of time to hear it later!”
It’s telling that Juillerat’s first album, Soliloquy, unfurls like a collection of sinister lullabies. Employing a limited arsenal of hardware (“software is too indirect”), she crafts techno love letters pulsating with mechanized cricket drones, the echoes of distant bells, and her own smoky voice. Tracks are by turns soothing and discomfiting, like “mes nuits sont plus belles que vos jours,” which begins with a music box chime and Juillerat’s bedtime humming, but disintegrates into an eerie loop of the Pledge of Allegiance.
By Soliloquy’s release, Juillerat had already been making music in her living room for 12 years, first “borrowing” her then-boyfriend’s gear, then improvising on her own, inspired by albums like Laurie Anderson’s Bright Red/Tightrope. But she’d never made anything public before 2004, when–on one fateful Friday–a friend told her about a UNICEF-sponsored contest to remix Björk’s “Army of Me.” The contest ended that Monday, and an energized Juillerat worked through the weekend to produce the seething revision–renamed “a(r)mour” on Soliloquy–that would ultimately win out over 600 contestants.
The same year, Juillerat began talking to the Berlin-based Shitkatapult label. “Their eclecticism attracted me,” she recalls. “So one day I just sent a demo. Three months later I was in touch with [label boss T. Raumschmiere], who said he loved ‘haphazardly’ and would like to make a version for his album.” (The track, featuring Juillerat’s muted monotone, appeared as “3 Minutes Happiness” on his 2005 Blitzkrieg Pop.) When Juillerat announced that she had a completed album ready–redone heavily with vocals after her work on “Army of Me”–Shitkatapult jumped to release it.
As Juillerat preps for her first-ever live performances in support of the album, Soliloquy appears as a personal testament to the road long traveled. “I picked the title to evoke my solitary musical work, because that was so important for me,” she says. “It’s the first time I’ve worked alone. I can’t help asking myself a lot of questions all the time. I wanted to make something intimate, which could make the listener ask some questions, too.”
Magic Pony’s Favorite Things
In 2002, Kristin Weckworth and Steve Cober started their own fantasyland called Magic Pony. The storefront/art gallery–located on Queen Street in Toronto, Canada–stocks the cutest things on the planet, from Yoshitomo Nara sticker sets to Pete Fowler’s Monsterism rings to Marcel Dzama’s Sad Ghost salt ‘n’ pepper shakers. Magic Pony also hosts monthly shows, introducing the newest work from the likes of Kozyndan, Nathan Jurevicius, and Dalek. We caught the globetrotting Pony duo on their way home from Toy Con in New York, and they told us what’s floating their boat.
1. Derrick Hodgson‘s My Mania
My Mania is the first comprehensive collection of Derrick Hodgson’s artwork. It unearths this Canadian artist’s creative process from sketch to screen and gives insight on how he combines aspects of cartoon, graffiti, and contemporary design to create a prolific world of characters. Get ready to go mogo with the poppers, peepers, floaters, sprouts, yetis, and ghouls that float and multiply from every corner of these pages. Apey stuff.
2. Creatures Off My Back by Geoff McFetridge
Geoff McFetridge’s design work constantly surprises and delights us. McFetridge’s newest creations are four colorful figures–each is a little human, but with something else going on inside. From the Solitary Arts set to the gentle Sasquatch Coins, these figures sum up a little piece of human existence in a way only McFetridge can. A total essential for any fan of good design.
3. The Malfi Trio by Friends With You
Friends With You is two wizards from Miami that keep conjuring up the weirdest creatures ever to be seen by human eyes. Now, their Malfi Trio is here to bring magic and mystery to the world. Super Malfi’s spots are supposed to have magic powers, Smiling Malfi is a trick master, and Regular Malfi will bring you wealth…or trouble! Who doesn’t need a pleather plush doll to add some excitement to everyday life?
E-40: Tell Me When to Blow
When I finally catch up with E-40 after two weeks of phone tag, rescheduled appointments, and missed connections, the first thing he does is apologize. “I ain’t had time to crack a sunflower seed,” he offers. It’s a memorable turn of phrase that makes me laugh out loud (and remind myself to use it early and often). His timing is dead-on; the delivery is perfect, effortless. But that’s just the way Earl Stevens talks.
His down-to-earth demeanor cuts through all the celebrity bullshit; he is at once engaging, polite, charismatic, and hilarious. To fans of his music, this should come as no surprise. The self-appointed Ambassador of the Bay has the uncanny ability to tell a story in song and make you feel as if you’re being addressed directly. With his new album, he hopes to address a lot of new fans directly.
Released on the Vallejo, California native’s own Sick Wid It Records (in conjunction with BME/Reprise), My Ghetto Report Card could be the first Bay Area rap album in years to make a splash on a national level, but the Ambassador knows that it won’t be easy. “I can’t [blow up the Bay] by myself,” he says. “I can only give it a jumpstart, but we need the battery to be fully charged. It’s not gonna be a cakewalk–we walkin’ on hypodermic needles right now.”
Straight From the Soil
If anyone is willing to put in the work needed to make this happen, it’s 40. He’s at the forefront of the Bay’s hyphy movement, characterized by up-tempo tracks, convulsive dancing, and sideshows, where passengers hang out of the doors of muscle cars as they figure-eight through intersections. From album to album, he consistently pushes himself, developing new slang and honing his lyrical techniques. When asked what sets the new album apart from past efforts, he replies, “It’s me mastering my craft–bein’ able to still keep my same start-stop-and-go-scoot-type delivery, but also makin’ it to where you can adapt to it quicker than before. I feel it’s my best lyrical display to date. I’m just spittin’ lug after lug. The album’s blappin’.”
The bulk of My Ghetto Report Card’s production is shared by crunk heavyweight Lil Jon and super-producer Rick Rock (who proclaims himself the “Northern Cali King of the Slappers”), but there are also tracks from Bay Area veterans like Bosko and Studio Ton, as well as one of the Bay’s hottest young producers: E-40’s 18-year-old son Droop-E. There are cameos from across the map, including Houston’s UGK and Mike Jones, and Dipset’s Juelz Santana. The album’s lead single, “Tell Me When To Go,” finds 40 paired with Oakland’s gravel-voiced MC-of-the-moment, Keak Da Sneak. The duo trades rhymes over a Lil Jon beat built around a sample from Run-DMC’s “Dumb Girl.” In the first verse, 40 raps: “I don’t bump mainstream/I knock underground/All that other shit/Sugar-coated and watered down.” But the video–an artful black-and-white montage of Oakland sideshows, East Bay Dragon bikers, and hyphy dancers–has broken through to both MTV and BET, helping 40 reach a huge audience. So what does “mainstream” mean to him?
“I’m talkin’ about the people see you every day on the award shows, and I don’t slap that in my trunk,” he explains. “I’m not mad–it might be a song or two I might blap from one out of every 10 artists–you know, somethin’ that poke out like nipples.” To further clarify, he adds: “Underground, to me, means independent artists that spit that soil shit, the hot niggas and the up-and-coming artists like Turf Talk, San Quinn, Mac Dre, Messy Marv, Mistah F.A.B…. I’m talking about underground like UGK.”
To that end, 40 has found a way to give the underground some mainstream exposure. Up until a few years ago, radio station KMEL 106.1–the Bay Area’s local Clear Channel affiliate–rarely played local artists. “To be honest, [Bay artists were] lackin’ in production, and rappers had to step it up,” admits 40. “But now we got hella good music out there–cats done stepped they game up to the fullest.” In 2004, he met with KMEL’s program director and explained that they would have to play local artists if they were to live up to their title of “The People’s Station.” For his efforts, 40 was rewarded with E-Feezy Radio, a two-hour slot on Sunday afternoons that gives him the leeway to play the artists he feels deserve to be heard–and he doesn’t have to look far to find many of them.
The First Family of the Bay
When you look at the company that 40 has kept since the beginning of his career, it quickly becomes apparent that his loyalties lie first and foremost with his family. The oldest of four children, he formed The Click in the late ’80s with his sister Suga T, brother D-Shot, and cousin B-Legit. His youngest brother, Mugzi (of The Mossie), records on Sick Wid It, as do his cousins Turf Talk and Trenches, The DB’z (aka The Dirty Boyz), and B-Slimm, who makes up Kabinet Gang with 40’s son Droop-E. And across town on the north side of Vallejo, his cousin Mac Mall has been putting out records since the age of 16.
But when he says, “Every rapper got a little E-40 in ’em, whether they like it or not,” he’s not talking about the many branches of his talented family tree. He’s referring to the fact that his inventive slang has become commonplace in the rap vernacular. Over the years, he’s debuted myriad terms, not to mention nicknames for himself, including 40 Belafonte, E-Feasible, and his latest, Spittery 40 Yay (à la Sidney Poitier). The problem is that he’s rarely credited for creating the slang he slings, like “It’s all good.”
“I put [it ‘s all good] out there real tough, like with ‘you feel me.’ All them words, that’s street shit. I didn’t get that from no rapper-ass nigga; it’s regular street talk. I’m a street nigga–[the fans] just see the glamour part of me, they don’t know I’m from the soil. I’m too laced with this game. You can’t talk about the things I talk about unless you been surrounded by it.”
The Hood Narrator
As he claims in numerous songs, “I speak for the soil,” but that doesn’t mean that he partakes in all the activities he describes. Even though 40 and countless other Bay MCs tell tales of popping pills, he doesn’t touch the stuff himself.
“I don’t thizz [take ecstasy] and I don’t condone it,” he says. “Just like Arnold Schwarzenegger don’t really condone shootin’ up a police station with his Terminator weaponry. I’m just a street narrator. We rappers. We just like directors and script writers, but we comin’ from a street point of view, so we just talk about what we see, and a lot of these youngsters is on them pills.”
40 makes it abundantly clear that it’s important for him to reflect what happens in his hood–in other words, to stay loyal to the soil. By doing so, he’s remained relevant when most rappers his age have long since fallen off, but that’s only part of the secret to his incredible longevity in a notoriously fickle genre. He also credits “stayin’ prayed up, consistently puttin’ music out, not bein’ stuck in a time warp, and not bein’ lazy,” with his success. His legendary work ethic is the inspiration behind album titles like Grit and Grind and Charlie Hustle: The Blueprint of a Self-Made Millionaire.
But it’s clear that it will take more than straight talk and twisted slang to extend the Bay Bridge to the rest of the nation. It’ll take an artist with E-40’s talent, charisma, and focus–and it means that a lot more sunflower seeds will go uncracked.
That’s My Word
As he states on the intro to The Best Of E-40: Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow, “The rap game stay stealin’ my slang, pimp.” Here is a small sampling of E-40’s ever-expanding lexicon of slanguage.
Blaps and slaps: Hard-hitting bass sounds, analogous to the Bay term “slumps” or “slumpers.”
Fo’ sheezy/Fo’ shizzle: The 40-fied version of “for sure,” co-opted by everyone from Snoop Dogg to soccer moms. “Me and Too Short was the first ones to say that on wax,” says Feezy.
Gouda: Money (as in cheese).
It’s all good/It’s all gravy/It’s all gravity/It’s all gratifying: “It’s all good” is self-explanatory, but note the 40-rific evolution of the term.
Pimpin’: It looks like a verb or an adjective, but it’s really a noun. As 40 explains, “Pimps wasn’t even callin’ each other ‘pimpin'”–I’m the one that got everybody sayin’ that.”
Pop your collar: More than a decade before Jay-Z bragged about his button-ups, 40 was flossin’ grown man shirts.
Tycoon: In 1996, on B-Legit’s “Check It Out,” 40 drawled, “Ever since the womb, I been a tycoon.” He explains, “Of course, it’s in the dictionary, but at the same time, street niggas wasn’t callin’ each other tycoon. That was just in the corporate world, like Steve Wynn and them. But I made it street.”
With a gypsy-ness/with a hurry-up-ness: With a quickness.
Yay Area The Bay Area
Yaper: Money (in keeping with the “Yay Area” theme, a Y is added to “paper.”).
