Hot shit. y'all should come an get your dance on.
- posted by vcmc @  1/19/2007 11:54:00 AM  |  0 comments

 
FREE DRAMA AND CANNON!
gangsta grillz, you bastards!

Update: NY Times weighs in on the issue, fairly accurately portraying it - in stark contrast to the uninformed, sensationalist pseudojournalism in the Fox Atlanta video being circulated about the event.

Bottom line is - mixtapes are an essential part of rap culture at this point. They're a prime example of the kind of innovation which is possible through digital distribution and collaboration - but, as always, the music industry is chained to the business model they've been dependent upon since their inception, and can only see this as theft.

Things do need to change, though - some sort of structure needs to be in place for the use of an instrumental track on a mixtape such that the mixtape artist isn't so financially constrained by the licensure process that creating a mixtape is cost-prohibitive, and such that the original instrumental artist sees some benefit from the use of their track. It should be obvious that current license process (which can cost several hundred dollars per song just for a search firm to get in touch with the current copyright holder, not to mention actual use fees) is incredibly inefficient and entirely unsuitable for mixtapes, which often contain dozens of tracks.
- posted by vcmc @  1/17/2007 10:41:00 PM  |  0 comments

 
2006 toplists, pt 2
I've made a rough attempt at numbering here, but I'm not going to tweak the list until it's perfect... so this is by no means definitive. I think I got the top 5 pretty well ordered though.

10: Ratatat - Classics
I'm a fan of Ratat's... um, post-metal sound, so that bumped this one up a few points, but I'll admit this is far from great. It's inconsistent, and Ratatat have some trouble with song strucutre, particularly developing into - and out of - those musical crescendos they're good at - no, really good at. And that's why this album is here... the good moments were really fucking good.

9: Various - The World Is Gone
Remember those punk bands from the high school era who called themselves "TBD" just to confuse people when they got on a bill? Various isn't quite that bad (though Amazon even lists the import version as "various artists"), but a name like that just begs for people to write them off for being douches... which may be the case, but the album's definitely worth a listen. Pitchfork compared them to Portishead - aptly so, as far as the genre/stylism goes, if you replace trip-hop (or its influencing genres) with grunge/garage/dubstep/etc. My main complaint with the album, though, is that - for the majority of songs here - they stay within the same musical mode, relying on minor-key melodies throughout. In fact, four out of the five last tracks are in the exact same key; these tracks really blur together quickly - I've started skipping them after the fourth or fifth time through the album.

8: Tim Hecker - Harmony in Ultraviolet
I mentioned this in a recent post... rather than rehash here, I'll just link to it.

7: Sparklehorse - Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain
You know, this isn't all that great of an album either. But Sparklehorse has always* had unique production, and I'm kind of a whore for good production work. The songs, though not great, are pretty consistently good though.

*Ok, I'm really not familiar with any of his work other than this album and "It's a Wonderful Life", but the production stays interesting through both albums, so I'll make an assumption based on that...

6: Junior Boys - So This Is Goodbye
It wasn't Last Exit, but that'd be hard to match by any standards. Some people I've talked to have issues with their old-but-new take on electronica, but I enjoy it - and, really, you'd have to forgive them anyway when there are bangers (ok, ok, poor word choice) like "In The Morning" (which receives the hastily-conceived "best four-note melody of the year" award - you know, the keyboard thing that comes in just before 2:10) and the title track. Good stuff.

5: Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury
What it do. (Yes, that is a statement, for the uninitiated). Amid more hype than, say, oh, TV on the Radio, Clipse managed to deliver a solid sophomore effort. (Finally.) Although... it doesn't live up to what I was hoping for based on We Got It 4 Cheap v.2. If Lil' Wayne disappoints this year with his new full-length, I'm going to have to forego buying rap albums altogether and just go for mixtapes instead. And speaking of Lil' Wayne and mixtapes...

4: Lil' Wayne - Dedication 2 (mixtape)
Some might take issue with putting a mixtape on a year-end list, as the production work isn't really attributable to the artist - but fuck 'em. I enjoyed this one a lot. At 25 tracks and nearly 80 minutes, there's a lot of room for mediocre stuff to slip in, but lil' wayne and guests manage to keep this one pretty compelling throughout. After as many listens as I've given this, I'm skipping around to the highlights a lot, but when an album has a handful of spectacular stuff like "They Still Like Me", "Cannon", and "Sportscenter", you can't go wrong. Cannon, in particular, is my pick for best rap track of the year - only one of the (five!) guest rappers delivers a less-than-stellar performance.

While I'm on the topic, I should mention there's yet another lil' wayne mixtape recently relased - Lil' Weezyana. I'm not sure it warrants inclusion on a year-end list since I haven't been through all the tracks yet, but his version of Jay-Z's "Show Me What You Got" is pretty incredible. Check it out here as a free download.

3: Brothers Quetico - Quid Bro Quo
"Who the fuck are the Brothers Quetico,*" you ask? Let's just say they're a little-known local band without enough people paying attention to them. Genre? Well... with a broad range of influences I don't know well enough to go into, I'll just risk pigeonholing them as indie-folk - though once, while somewhat intoxicated, I called them "indie-barbershop-folk-prog" - but... hmm, actually that's a better description. I'll go with that.

Being a huge audio geek, I took issue by the fact this wasn't "professionally" mastered (mastering on the same monitors as the mix is kind of missing the point)... and went ahead and remastered it myself; toned down some of the huge dynamic range (originally, this had more dynamic range than some classical albums I've heard) and reshaped the tonal balance to be more suitable to non-studio monitors. This remastered version is now my preferred version of the album, which has - despite listening ad nauseum during the remastering process - seen a lot of play time in a more normal environment as well.

Regardless of the audio qualities of the non-remastered album you'd be more likely to hear, there's a lot to love here. Vocal melodies that just work, skillful use of dynamic range, well-crafted song structures, and song sequencing/album flow most albums could only hope to achieve. Live, they're equally impressive, if not more so. They occasionally do some fantastic covers, too - Tom Waits, Portishead, Morphine - watch for live shows on their myspace page.

*No, I'm not actually comparing them to the rolling stones. I just felt like throwing in a random link.

2: The Knife - Silent Shout
Does this make me a pitchfork whore? I have to argue no... but the proof shall be in my yet-to-be-published "bottom 100 of 2006" list, consisting of bands/artists/major label tools who I thought sucked in 2006, which has actually been easier to come up with so far than my top 10...

I'm off topic, though. The Knife caught my attention through...well, ok, a stellar Pitchfork review, but I'm not so much of a whore as to buy anything they tell me to. (Risk Mitigation Through Illegal Downloading™) In this case, however, immediate purchase would have been warranted. Dedidedly techno-inspired (but not in a bad way, I just have trouble with keeping all the subgenres of electronic music straight), they manage to keep things sounding fresh despite some arguably derivative musical elements. But that's beside the point when the songwriting is this solid... bottom line, if you haven't heard it, you need to give it a chance.

1. Grizzly Bear - Yellow House
Not that consensus really matters to me - my list is kind of all over the place - but everybody who reviewed this seemed to like it, yet it barely makes it onto any kind of aggregate list (here, or here for example). I shouldn't complain, though - this is my list, bitches, and critical consensus can go fuck itself.

I'm not going to bother describing the music in detail... go read some music journalist who is better at writing about that sort of thing than I. Let's just say their particular blend of electronic experimentalism, dense instrumentation, and fantastic songwriting all combined to bring this to the top of my list. I'm also really impressed by the fact that the whole recording process was done entirely by the band - they only had some assistance with mixing. Everything sounds extremely professionally done - even the mastering, which can be incredibly difficult to get right without a lot of experience (Brothers Quetico serving as a prime example - and that was mastered by a professional recording engineer). I'll just point to it as evidence of the power of DIY...


- posted by vcmc @  1/01/2007 02:17:00 PM  |  3 comments

 
2006 toplists, pt 1
Ok, so I may be late to this game, but I've been busy with a lot of shit... anyway, here's what we have for the non-top-10 part of my list, roughly ordered by how much I like them, top to bottom:

Clipse - We Got It 4 Cheap, Vol. 2
I really fucking loved this one - i've probably listened to it much more than anything that actually came out this year. I might actually rank this above their full-length, as far as how much I enjoy the two albums... but it came out in '05, relegating it to this category. If you enjoy Clipse at all, go pick this one up. I think you can get it for something like $6 through mixunit.com.

Justice - s/t
I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say these guys deserve a new subgenre, but I haven't heard anybody else do low-fi/noise/house before (or at least, not as well as Justice). There are a couple of fantastic tracks on this EP, but the rest is a bit lacking. Thankfully, these guys do remixes of a lot of other tracks, where their production work can really shine - check out Soulwax - NY Excuse (justice remix), which is way better than the original. Look around on hype machine for other stuff too, there's quite a few of them worth a listen (or 20).

Sunset Rubdown - Shut Up I Am Dreaming
Perhaps this is a good example of how release dates can affect year-end lists... I think this came out in spring sometime, and I listened to it quite a bit then, but only once in the second half of the year - so it's probably better than I'm remembering it to be. I did take issue with the mastering as well, though; they went for kind of a low-fi (some might call it "analog") sound which rolled off the high treble somewhat. I didn't think it sounded so good, and I'm anal about that sort of shit, so it lost points in my book.

M. Ward - Post-War
A really solid album from M. Ward. I never really got into his older stuff so much, but this album seems a bit more accessible than, say, Transfiguration of Vincent. A solid effort, and I enjoy the production - in fact I might (gasp!) steal a few tricks from this album for one I'm mixing. Definitely a good listen - this one just missed the top 10. What the hell, I only really paid a lot of attention to my top 5 anyway. Let's just say it's tied for something around #10 or so.

LCD Soundsystem - 45:33
Maybe it's the version I have, but it's not exacly 45:33 as the title would lead one to believe. Close enough, though. I really liked LCD SS's double album from last year so I thought I'd check this out... there are some great moments here, but since it's one long mix they're not as easy to pick out like we'd normally do with tracks on an album. Essentially, distilled down, this might be the equivalent of two solid album tracks, but they're good enough to warrant a mention here. In its current form, though, this is better background music since most of the elements either take too long to develop or just don't work quite right.

Beirut - Gulag Orkestar
Beirut had a huge amount of music blogger buzz going for him... I think 4-5 tracks were posted various places before the album even came out. Once it did, though, I must say I was a bit disappointed... a few of the tracks here are really incredible, but about half of the album does next to nothing for me. But I have somewhat eccentric tastes, and other people like this more than I...

Yo La Tengo - I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass
It's no "And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out", but it's another decent album from these indie lifetieme achievers. This feels longer than 15 tracks; perhaps in part because it opens and clsoes with 10+ minute jams which don't really showcase the band's best work. Aside from that, it's a little inconsistent throughout, but still a good listen.

Thom Yorke - The Eraser
Ok, ok, everybody was listening to this, myself included - I liked it a lot for maybe three weeks-a month, but it's one of those albums that lost something after the initial infatuation wore off. Kind of like "Hail to the Thief", at least in my book.

Midlake - The Trials of Van Occupanther
Yet another "blogger-buzz"-band. This entire album leaked a couple months before actual release, though. Having been compared to the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac, this is an odd fit, stylistically, for my tastes - but as I posted earlier this year, something just 'sticks' with this album. It's catchy, but not immediately so; all the arrangements work well, and the songwriting is solid. The one thing that stuck out as a negative for this band was the lyrics - which is particularly odd, since I almost never have any complaints about lyrics (within the genres I normally listen to, that is). Several songs on the album elicit a "what the fuck"-esque response from me, which detracts from the overall experience. That, and it sounds like the vocalist has marshmallows in his mouth at times - or he's chewing on his own cheeks. Anyway, after a going through the album a dozen times or so, this just wasn't working so well for me, though the first few listens were a lot of fun.


On to pt. 2...

- posted by vcmc @  1/01/2007 01:06:00 PM  |  1 comments