Home Taping is Killing Music #1
So, no-one buys their music anymore (nice one Thom Yorke). That's ok, we can live with that. I mean, we'll burn in hell, obviously, but let's face it, we had that coming anyway. Best go down in style, over a killer beat. So, here's a segment we'll be starting up weekly/whenever I get off my sorry arse enough to listen to five new tracks each week. It's a ripoffofloadsofothersites round-up of the hottest tracks that have hit the web this past week, and anything else we think you simply have to hear. Enjoy yrselves!
1) Big Boi - Fo Yo Sorrows (ft. George Clinton & Too Short)
Outkast's Big Boi's been threatening his solo release Sir Luscious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty for what seems like an eternity now. He's been slowly trickling out information and tracks ever since 'Royal Flush' way back in the depths of 2008, and now another piece of a puzzle forever verging on completion falls into place. 'Fo Yo Sorrows' drags the hyperactive ghost of 'B.O.B.' by the neck to the end of a recession-ravaged decade. It's all about getting high, but there is no joy to hear here - the elixir of the drug may have lulled the beat into a fuzzy coma, but as George Clinton heralds the track like a bad trip and the hi-hats really start up Big Boi lets fly with a taught, paranoid verse that bubbles up from below and smacks you in the face before receding into the Cheshire-Cat ether of the chorus. It's chilled, almost lackadaisical, but underneath there's an empty heart of desperate drug money, handgun blasts and brutal hierachy - in the best possible way. On this form, there's not stopping Big Boi and his good Left Foot. [DOWNLOAD HERE]
2) F**k Buttons - Surf Solar
F**k Buttons are probably responsible for more deaf hipsters than any other band of their generation. They're not just noise, they're so far beyond that bracket that listening to them is akin to lying on a bed of crushed glass bound together by tea-tree oil - a genuine physical pain, but also deliciously enjoyable, to such an extent that the pain becomes the very thing you crave. After their excellent debut Street Horrrsing, the group return with another slice of tinitustronica from forthcoming full-length Tarot Sport. It's pretty standard fare - there's 30 seconds of light-relief (that's very relative) at the beginning of semi-quaver ice-box twang, an unswerving kick-drum, some synths so piercing and distorted that it feels like they are drilling into your very soul. You know, the good stuff. [DOWNLOAD HERE]
3) Sufjan Stevens - Movement VI - Isorhythmic Night Dance with Interchanges
Ahh, Sufjan. You're an artist I've always meant to listen to because I know I'd like you but have never really taken the necessary steps apart from hearing that one about Chicago which I quite like (don't you have an album like that anyway?) and subsequently as your back-catalogue and reputation blossoms I forever feel more off the pace which just leads me to feel even more daunted by your work and the cycle goes on don't you see? You do see. Good. Well I very much like this. It's very thoughtful, well done, but there also seems to be a bit of substance to it too. You've actually managed to release a movement from an instrumental work and let it stand on its own in a way that doesn't make you seem incredibly self-satisfied. From tender homophonic beginnings you move through something that sounds like a skipping tape-loop of a soundtrack to one of those slightly hazy American College movies popular back in the 80s. You clearly like Aaron Copland - good, he was a cool guy. And amazingly all those time changes actually make the piece more engaging rather than alienating. Fine work.
Sorry, Mr. Stevens (and my dear reader), I'll stop patronizing you now. This is very enjoyable if you like your listening to be thought-provoking, twinkly and unashamedly New Hampshire. [DOWNLOAD HERE]
4) Osso - Enjoy Your Rabbit
On another Sufjan-related tangent, here's a cut from an entire album's worth of Stevens re-workings for string quartet. Four ladies from New York take what was (presumably - feel free to scoff at me if I further exhibit my failings) another one of those jingly-jangly Suf-a-longs and merge it into a tense, nervy movement of jagged violins, scraping dissonances and rolling cello arpeggios. In a weird way, it's also very catchy, propelled along by its own animal energy to a climax of dying screams and high-wire violin acrobatics. I think it's out about the same time as Sufjan's new stuff, too. How convenient. I'm going to get both, you'll have to decide for yourself. [DOWNLOAD HERE]
Until next time, peace out.
Artists in this article: Fuck Buttons, Sufjan Stevens, Big Boi