Producer Presto and MC Lowd kick it middle school all the way on this one, an ode to the year 1992. Lowd name-drops A Tribe Called Quest, Wu Tang, Beatnuts and damn near every other underground act of the day over backpack-friendly beats from Presto and remixers Beathoven and Bobby Boucher. The end result is less an homage and more the musical equivalent of a throwback jersey: It’s supposed to give off an air of “I was there” credibility, but it doesn’t ring true.
Typical Cats Easy Cause It Is
Oakland’s Galapagos 4 imprint (put them on your “ones to watch in ’05” list) has a new single from Typical Cats’ second album release this year. And one listen to “Easy Cause It Is” illustrates how thoroughly this Chi-town MC trio (plus DJ Natural) lives hip-hop culture entirely. And if you do too, cop this. Conversely, The Odd Couple’s (Louis Logic & Jay Love) “Wreckyalife” on Boston’s Brick label is a like a throwback jersey on some cocky new school kids-it rocks a classic Chambers Bro’s beat but the MCs brainlessly complain ad nauseum about the “slutty bitches” they’ve known. Dudes, shut up.
Supastition Boombox
North Cak’s Sup is probably the nicest MC this side of Masta Ace or the GZA. Yeah, he’s good enough to be in that company, and on Beat Society’s (Illmind, MoO, M-Phrazes) Pete Rock-style productions his words seem extra-flexible. Lyrics like “Tuuurrn-it-up/turn the volume up a notch/in the car, in the crib, in the club, on the block/Just-let it bang till your eardrums pop/Yes-let it bang in your boombox,” seem effortless. Do not miss his debut album The Deadline.
Robert Jay Alcohol
The funk vaults are reopened by Manchester imprint and store Vox Pop. Think, funky breaks, think hard-luck crooners, think Northern Soul. Leave it to Detroit native Robert Jay’s 1969 single “Alcohol” to make us remember why the music of his era was so special. Pressed on pristine 7″ 45 vinyl, Jay’s voice sounds like a world-weary Ray Charles, and did I mention he can blow a sax?
Ferocious Mullet Autoload
Charlie Norton and Gareth Green, psytrance exiles from London, return from the success of their single “Cellophane Satisfaction” with another huge slice of breakbeat stomp. With drums that stutter and march while staying steady enough to keep your audience in the groove, the Mullet boys add sweeping bass notes, subtle live elements and robotic voice samples. Also check Chi’s new “Cinetrip Workshop” EP-tight stuff.
Platinum Pied Pipers Stay With Me
Like fellow Detroiters J-Dilla, Amp Fiddler and Moodymann, PPP update the Motown soul tradition without it sounding like watered down radio R&B. Something about their lazy drum loops, galactic funk samples and vintage Moog/Rhodes swagger only further highlight Tiobe Lockhart (“Stay With Me”) and Georgia’s (“Your Day Is Gone”) sumptuous vocals. This is honest-to-god real soul music.
Buck 65 This Right Here is Buck 65
Those familiar with Richard Terfry know him as Buck 65, a husky-voiced truckstop-weary storyteller (and turntablist) doling out droll rhymes backed by hip-hop and tripped-out country. This comp collects songs from the last five years, like “Wicked and Weird,” “Centaur” and “Pants on Fire.” Many come from last year’s Talkin’ Honky Blues, for which he added a live band and honed the countrified concept inspired by his Nova Scotia upbringing. Like the bastard child of Slug and Tom Waits, Buck 65 is a one-man genre that seems a much better idea than rap-metal. He also looks quite dapper in a three-piece suit.
Four Tet My Angel Rocks Back and Forth
Four Tet (a.k.a. Kieran Hebden) used everything lovable about experimental rock and electronic music to make one of last year’s most brilliant albums, “Rounds.” Here, Icarus remixes the album’s latest single, “My Angel…,” into something perhaps even more gossamer, and Hebden turns in two new abstract tracks. But the real treats on this CD/DVD double-disc EP are the videos. Of the four, including “As Serious As Your Life,” most notable are those by surrealist Japanese director Woof Wan-Bau. Magical and creepy, as surrealism is wont, his latest for “My Angel” brings out the dark side of this delicate tune.
Various Artists Inspiraci€n-Espiraci€n: Gotan Project DJ Set
Philippe Cohen Solal hears a groove as a groove, whether it’s a ’40s groove, a ’70s groove or a modern groove. The French composer behind Gotan Project tests his theory and bridges the time gap by culling jazz, tango, folk, dub and hip-hop united by the sexy, nostalgic mystique of tango’s squeezebox, the bandoneon. An untouched work by ’70s tango master Astor Piazzolla makes a good starting point. Then Peter Kruder, Anti-Pop Consortium and Pepe Bradock remix Gotan’s world-famous musical cocktails, while the Gotan team takes on Chet Baker and Peace Orchestra. Think soundtrack, not muzak.
Bloc Party Bloc Party
Pedigreed by Glaswegian pogo-poppers du jour Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party has quickly ascended by deftly remaining self-aware of and accessible through the South London band’s influences. This six-track EP collects the mid-20’s quartet’s first singles, “Banquet/Staying Fat” and “She’s Hearing Voices,” presently chronologically backwards. This is lanky music, scrawls of angular, twitchingly plucked guitars, jags of prickly, tightly wound fret flurries buoyed by gelatinous basslines and charging drums. While the lineage of A Certain Ratio, Gang of Four, the Fall and the Cure is apparent, the skittish flails are additionally touched by Britpop yelp. Bloc Party acknowledges the remaining circumference of its influences with the sequenced clap and synth squiggles of a “Banquet” remix. Bloc rockin’.
