Styles: hyphy, g-funk, 510
Others: SOBxRBE, 100s, the Golden State Warriors (except KD)
Lil B put his Kurtis Blow costume on and made an album. If you had any sort of reaction to that sentence, there’s your review. But, if you insist… at some point around Pink Flame, Lil B releases started to be viewed in relation to his prior output rather than to the history of rap writ large. The flow of his work was stemmed, at least in a relative sense, the mixtape cycle stretching to months rather than weeks or even days.
More about: Lil B
Cartilage in your knee just start pulsating? Don’t worry, rain is not about to start pouring down (I know that would put a real wrench in your plans for the day). Nope, that gentle bodily quiver is the universal sign that there’s some exciting Throbbing Gristle news coming your way!
More about: Throbbing Gristle
You haven’t heard SOPHIE until you’ve heard 258 SOPHIE samples… in a row! Lucky for you, SOPHIE — whose EU booking agent is named Nick Cave, by the way — has just shared a 258-file sample pack for Splice, a site that sells samples, presets, and exclusive artist packs. SOPHIE’s pack contains 248 one-shot samples and 10 loops, culling sounds from SOPHIE’s impeccable, Elektron Monomachine-heavy synthworld.
More about: SOPHIE
From Lil B & Lil Tracy to Wifisfuneral & YoungBoy
With a cascade of releases spewing from the likes of DatPiff, LiveMixtapes, Bandcamp, and SoundCloud, it can be difficult to keep up with the overbearing yet increasingly vital mixtape game. In this column, we aim to immerse ourselves in this hyper-prolific world and share our favorite releases each month. The focus will primarily be on rap mixtapes — loosely defined here as free (or sometimes free-to-stream) digital releases — but we’ll keep things loose enough to branch out if/when we feel it necessary.
More about: Byou, Deem Spencer, Eli Sostre, Gunplay, Hotel, Lil B, LIL TRACY, Purple Dialect, Skye Verbs, Wifisfuneral, YoungBoy Never Broke Again
Styles: unimpressed alchemy, jaguar eating yagé
Others: ELUCID, Open Mike Eagle, Kenny Segal
There’s a lot of easy copy that could go here: “milo is an enigma;” “milo makes art, not rap;” “milo’s work rewards careful listening.” It’s all true to some degree, but there’s a tendency for critics and fans alike to delineate milo’s work vs. the rap world at large — a frame that’s especially odd in light of milo’s repeated statements that who told you to think??!!?!?!?! is an album about dissolving boundaries.
More about: milo
A post-punker with early ties to Ariel Pink and a PhD in Philosophy (a combination of Ps certain to excite another base-P combo, wink), John Maus is returning to the fray with a new album called Screen Memories, his first new work since 2011’s We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves (#7 on our Favorite 50 Albums of 2011 and a EUREKA!-worthy 5/5).
More about: John Maus
Just when you thought they couldn’t possibly do any more THINGS to single-handedly save American Democracy as we know it, the four superheroes in Deerhoof are digging even deeper down into their campaign for Truth, Justice and the (hopefully new-and-improved) American way.
More about: Deerhoof
Did somebody say “gay porn soundtrack”?! Usually when people think of porn soundtracks in general, we think of the sinister sound of the bass guitar that was frequently utilized in those cinematic efforts from the 1970s. But American dance and disco music pioneer Patrick Cowley had a different instrument of choice during that decade, and it came in conjunction with the electronic music revolution that he ultimately helped to popularize in his own small way.
More about: Patrick Cowley
Styles: voice, R&B, club, grime, ballroom, ambient, gospel, joy
Others: Janet Jackson, Donna Summers, Embaci, Prince, TLC, Beyoncé, lawd knows
“Some people want to run things, other things want to run. If they ask you, tell them we were flying. Knowledge of freedom is (in) the invention of escape, stealing away in the confines, in the form, of a break. This is held close in the open song of the ones who are supposed to be silent.”
– Stefano Harney and Fred Moten, “Blackness and Governance,” p. 51 in The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study
More about: Mhysa
I hate how society demands how “ME” I have to be. You want “ME?” Cut me in front of a Metrocard machine, yo. It’s a twice-a-year thang to get a Metrocard. And I understand panhandling. I get you ain’t got cash on hand. I see your failed credit card interaction. Does that give you a ticket to both Metrocard machines without me losing my cool. Yes! Yes, it does. I will play it cool because fucking white people give enough a bad name to this America so like, “I’ll forever exisist humanity’s jackass.” Keep talking, Clifford. This is juxtaposition of the flagrant. Now leave. Shivering.
More about: Bloom, Care Bears, Darren Keen, Fugitive, Kirt The Flirt, Laural Halo, NMESH, Stress, Upgrayedd Smurphy
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