Tag: comeback

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Quickspins

QUICKSPINS: Earl Sweatshirt – FEET OF CLAY

Earl Sweatshirt - Feet of Clay

The former Odd Future member delves deeper into the abstract sounds explored on 2018’s Some Rap Songs

At this point in his career, Earl Sweatshirt has fully exceeded any expectations that were set during his early career with Odd Future. The 25-year-old rapper has been turning heads for nearly a decade, continually growing as a lyricist and an artist. With FEET OF CLAY, Earl continues to raise the bar, delivering his second masterful collection of abstract hip-hop tracks in under a year.

While sonically this isn’t too far from the raw, lo-fi sound of his fantastic 2018 LP Some Rap Songs, it still feels fresh. Most of the songs here barely eclipse the two-minute-mark, and don’t have a semblance of traditional song structure. In fact, most are just a single verse, with the occasional outro, feature or chorus throughout. Earl is marching to the beat of his own off-kilter drums and warped horn samples, creating a musical identity that is uniquely his.

Handling most of the album’s production, he has built the backdrop for what feels like the stream of consciousness of an emotionally wounded young man. Throughout the album he opens up about his alcoholism and his depression in the wake of losing his father and grandmother. This is a poetic portrait of grief wrapped in warm but ominous, distorted, sample-based instrumentals.

Serving as the perfect companion piece to Some Rap Songs, FEET OF CLAY showcases a man looking back and trying to come to terms with loss, heartbreak and addiction. Earl’s growth as both a man and an artist are apparent, and this is another great entry into his already phenomenal catalogue.

8.8/10

Trial Track: “MTOMB”

Star Bar:

“Sellin’ kids culture with death, circlin’ like carrion

The more the merrier, phone got you livin’ vicarious

Ice melting ‘cause it’s so hot

The veil lifts, the pain salient” (Earl Sweatshirt on “74”)

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Music Quickspins

QUICKSPINS: Danny Brown – uknowhatimsayin¿

Danny Brown

Danny Brown goes back to basics on uknowhatimsayin¿

Danny Brown, hip hop’s resident weirdo, had huge expectations for the follow-up to his acclaimed 2016 drug-fest of an album, Atrocity Exhibition. The album was grand in scope, featuring a nominee for this decade’s best posse-cut that saw Kendrick Lamar, Earl Sweatshirt, and Ab-Soul trade bars with the idiosyncratic Detroit rapper.

Uknowhatimsayin¿, on the other hand, is Brown’s most grounded effort to date. While still strange in comparison to most rap releases, this album is a far cry from what was expected. The intro, “Change Up,” begins with a single guitar string that echoes enough to give it the classic paranoid feeling of a Danny Brown track. His lyrics also reciprocate the eerie feeling of the song, as Brown raps about focusing on his own life (“Gotta keep a grip when the rent is due / N****s tryna get you for every last cent”).

Legendary rapper/producer Q-Tip executive produced the album, which is easy to see when listening to the songs he produced himself, such as standout “Dirty Laundry” and nostalgia-filled closer, “Combat.” This album is partly a love letter to 90s instrumentals, while also trying to add the signature Danny Brown touch to it.

Uknowhatimsayin¿ also stands out with its features as underground darlings Jpegmafia, Blood Orange and Run the Jewels all make appearances. “3 Tearz” sees a lively Killer Mike of Run the Jewels, where he delivers an impassioned verse targeted directly to U.S. president Donald Trump (“I don’t give a fuck ‘bout Trump, who got dump? / Who protesting collections at their garbage dump?”).

Danny Brown’s strangeness continues to flourish even as he approaches 40. The rapper never ceases to innovate in his work and on uknowhatimsayin¿, he does the most with as little as possible. Don’t mistake this project for a lazy return, this is exactly what he needed after Atrocity Exhibition.

8.5/10

Trial Track: “Dirty Laundry”

Star Bar: 

“Work all day ’til the work gone (Step)

Talkin’ back in the day when I had a chirp phone (Boop)

My n***a made a wrong turn, got flipped in the zone

Had to say I was a smoker just so I could go home (Home)”

  • Danny Brown on “Dirty Laundry”
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Music

Stereolab hypnotize at Corona Theatre

Photo by Laurence BD.

English-French avant-pop legends sound as fresh as ever after their 10-year hiatus

After many of us were drenched in the Tuesday rain, Stereolab revived our spirits by playing a sold-out show that later released more tickets to keen fans online with Evenko. Stereolab haven’t performed since 2009, and have recently released a long list of upcoming new shows across Europe and North America.

The music of Stereolab is an enigma. They have been labeled avant-pop, indie pop, electronic, and were among the first to be considered a post-rock group. Emerging in 1990 in London, England, they incorporated 60s pop, krautrock, and French and English leftist politics into scattered, surrealist songs that didn’t receive much attention at first. They later began to incorporate funk, jazz, bossa nova, and lounge into their music, with a cleaner, more danceable sound.

Over the years, the band began to receive recognition for its experimentalism. Lead by Laetitia Sadier of France and Tim Gane of England, the only two members remaining from the very beginning, they still sound fresh today, and are truly one-of-a-kind.

The crowd at Corona was full of many long-time fans, and even some children and babies were attending up on the balcony seats. Although Stereolab tend to play their live shows with a little more reverb and noise, their organ sounds and beeping synths are still pleasant to the ears of all ages.

Laetitia Sadier addressed the audience freely in French, and confidently lead the rest of the band throughout the night, performing songs from their hit albums Peng!, Emperor Tomato Ketchup and Dots and Loops. Sadier’s airy voice hasn’t aged a bit, and every band member was full of energy and passion, making it a timeless experience. Those who wanted to dance along to their swaying sounds made their way into the crowd and weren’t afraid to let out a few shouts of excitement upon their return.

Stereolab played a setlist that was at times mesmerizing, slow and hypnotic, and other times times frenzied with angular tension. They went back and forth between the more energetic tracks like the jazzy “Ping-Pong” to the more droning, reverb-filled songs like “Crest.” The standout tracks included the cerebral “Metronomic Underground,” the frantic and electric “Percolator” and the playful “Lo Boob Oscillator.”

No matter which direction Stereolab went with their setlist, they never failed in locking the crowd into their magnetic grooves. They came back on with an encore of the long-awaited “Brakhage” – one of their most well-known and defining tracks, that is both experimental and relaxed. They then finished with the 16-minute long “Blue Milk,” and their droning guitars and dreamlike synths put us all in a trance.

It was truly a pleasure to see Stereolab back at it again, as professionals continuing to surprise us with their technical and creative abilities. Stereolab are as seamless live as they are on record, and Montreal was so happy to have them. 

 

Photos by Laurence B.D.

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