THE NEW YORK KNICKS ROSTER SET TO SONGS ON PEARL JAM’S DARK MATTER | 2024-04-25

What if each member on the core 2023-2024 New York Knicks line-up entering the NBA Playoffs was a song on Pearl Jam’s latest full length Dark Matter? With box score stats and roster standings updated as of the second game of the First Round best-of seven series against the Philadelphia 76ers in the Eastern Conference (NYK up 2-0), that is exactly what is going to happen here. To get our ducks in a row, the Seattle grunge rock legends’s 12th studio effort was released earlier this month on Republic Records, and comes four years after their 2020 mixed bag Gigaton. All cuts on the project were produced by new-gen West Coast rock historian and Eddie Vedder-worshipper Andrew Watt, clocking in at just shy of 50 minutes on new fierce, ironclad, and robust material.

Before we delve into the sequencing—a quick monition on the draft method used to select the New York Knicks players. We’d be remiss if we didn’t start by acknowledging the perhaps painful omission of 25-year-old center Jericho Sims (#45) from the tracklist. In our operationalization’s defense, the album has only got eleven tracks, so a cursory season playtime extraction coupled with a lower musical match make him the proverbial twelfth man cut from this rock band team. For similar, yet less controversial reasons, further Knicks bench players on the official roster list this season, such as Jacob Toppin (#00), Duane Washington Jr (#1), Charlie Brown Jr (#4), Daquan Jeffries (#8), Shake Milton (#13), Mamadi Diakite (#21), are also excluded from being considered for this shortlist.

1. Scared of Fear — Bojan Bogdanović (#44) | Credit his naturally alarmed glance, or conversely, the gregarious approach he must’ve adopted to break through in the world’s top basketball league hailing from God-forsaken Croatia, but the 35-year-old small forward veteran feels like the best place to start with the PJ record. Slowly coming into this own after the February trade from the Detroit Pistons, he has so far undoubtedly been the more impactful of the two partners at the Law Firm of Burks & Bogdanović. The track’s full-throttle percussions and piercing guitars act as a fitting metaphor for his full-court hustle and shooting prowess, while the sonic plateau culled in the song’s bridge stands to represent the ebbs and flows experienced with the Knicks jersey hitherto. Still, the robust runtime at four minutes and a half nonetheless denotes Bogey’s stoic and earnest style of play on the floor.

2. React, Respond — Miles ‘Deuce’ McBride (#2) | “Don’t let the sky hook beat you to submission / Maybe it’s the price of price of our admission / Ain’t no fucking roses to our condition / Turn this anger into nuclear fission, yeah, baby, baby“. What better set of lyrics to describe the improbable ascent of what is now officially the floor general of the Knicks’s second unit? After a somewhat underwhelming first half of the season—bottlenecked by a wealth of players trumping him in coach Tom Thibodeau’s formation rankings—something unlocked in earnest around the NBA All-Star break for the former West Virginia Mountaineers youngster. McBride is arguably a top three ball handler on the team, and as a nod to the opening song stanza, has never let his smaller size be a limiting factor in his NBA hooping shenanigans. He was ready to seize his chance, and that has led him to become the second pure playmaking guard choice in the line-up—right after none other than breakout team star Jalen Brunson.

3. Wreckage — OG Anunoby (#8) | Befitting his first name shortening acronym, this Englishman in New York plays with the grace, poise, and wisdom of a multi-decade seasoned statesman, belying his mid-twenties age registry. A star trade in the winter transfer market season across the whole league, the Knickerbockers hold a stupidly impactful 20-3 winning record when Anunoby is on the floor (Playoff games included). A wreckage was both the athletic juncture he joined the Manhattan team in—with key starting players Robinson and Randle reported out for the rest of the season at the time—and the clinical picture of his right elbow during that fearful February-March stint, where he himself had to be sidelined, met by most Knicks fan’s exorcisms. The levity, emotion, and lightness with which he plays mirror the track’s sunny and carefree spirit, while the wholesome flair on the lyrical front as well as a soaring and catchy refrain recalling his vastly underrated jams at the rim.

4. Dark Matter — Julius Randle (#30) | For all intents and purposes, the greatest and most popular player on the team. The titular album track is not only its lead single, but its defining and equalizing driving force too. Congruently to its musical twin, Randle is the only element on the list that truly transcends the current team’s zeitgeist, as a three-time NBA All-Star and a two-time All-NBA player—on top being the NBA’s Most Improved Player Award in 2021. Now, scientific method sticklers might be quick to point out how his being out since the end of January due to his right shoulder dislocation should make him ineligible for this tracklist. Yet let us be serious, no Knicks roster list to speak of can afford to neglect its marquee player—especially during a statement season averaging 24 points a game, a whooping five more than his career average of 19. It’s plain and simple: the cut slaps, goes hard, and defines Dark Matter, so does (a healthy) Julius Randle.

5. Won’t Tell — Mitchell Robinson (#23) | The comic relief. Track number five on the album is the most uplifting, its most solar and joyous. Then again, do not get it twisted, Pearl Jam is stuffed with negative space and melancholy, even in its brighter moments. The song’s chorus motif chanting “You can find me here / Waiting for your message to come” seems like an indirect homage to Mitchell’s sweet spot stomping ground under the rim, while his unofficial role as the team’s prankster and meme master lends even more credence to him matching the record’s lightheartedness. We can’t skip the part where we acknowledge the cosmic balance found in this being Dark Matter‘s fifth track, and the traditional center role on a basketball court being labeled as ‘the five’. If you don’t read any more track-to-player pairings past this point, let this be proof this parallelism is worth humoring.

6. Upper Hand — Isaiah Hartenstein (#55) |The team’s tireless workhorse, he who played all 82 regular season games last year—reflected by an ambitious, expansive, and triumphant 6-minute opus. Heralded as way more than a luxury reserve for starting center Mitchell Robinson, Hartenstein kept the Knicks afloat during that critical February-March period, where they didn’t seem able to catch a break in their own town—alas, only to capitulate himself for a brief period under his own Achilles trials and tribulations. Much like the tune, Isaiah can be a smidge inconsistent at times, yet he never falters in blood, sweat, and tears, and most times he does manage to prevail and come out on top. As his signature defensive move, turn to this recent savage in-motion block of Tyrese Maxey’s surefire layup, denying the 76ers a certified win with only seconds left on the game clock during game 2 of the ongoing Playoff series.

7. Waiting for Stevie — Alec Burks (#18) | This one is rough. The second Knicks coming of 32-year-old shooting guard Alec Burks this winter was not supposed to turn out this way. After a somewhat average start in January and February—with sizable minutes as part of coach Thib’s end of 1st and end of 3rd quarter second unit rotation—the AWOL partner of the Law Firm of Burks & Bogdanović gradually faded into the team’s anonymous background, with a measly 30 minutes of combined playtime on the floor during the last ten Knicks games to date, and an even more dreadful 5 total points scored during the same timespan, for bad measure. Swap the “Stevie” for “Alec” on the similarly underwhelming, contrived, and rough around the edges album track’s title, and that tells you everything you need to know here. Mediocrity-fest.

8. Running — Josh Hart (#3) | A clear case for when a one-word song name fits a player like a glove. Josh Hart has low-key been the true blue-collar revelation of this New York Knicks season. The definition of an industrious all-around role player, this guy’s regularly playing 40+ minutes each game, and not batting an eye. Eddie Vedder’s opening verse on the cut, “Got me running, got me running, but the race, it never ends / Got me running, or else I’m done in / You got me coming as you’re going and the chase, it never ends / I’ll be running ’til the second coming” legit sounds like it was written about the versatile 29-year-old Maryland native. Hands down the best rebounding guard of the whole NBA, and its most ruthless birdwatchers’s murderer, Josh Hart epitomizes all the little actions and plays that don’t quite end up in the box score, but that make teams win games, and (hopefully) leagues. The track is a two-minute incendiary blister that cuts throats and claws listeners by their ears, not without splashing specks of melody and introspection. The h(e)art and soul of the project.

9. Something Special — Precious Achiuwa (#5) | The quintessential providential player. Nigerian-American Precious Achiuwa was there when no one else was. A ductile player and homegrown New Yorker—via Miami and Toronto—he is able to seamlessly play each of the five positions on the floor. In those few and far-in between games where Robinson, Randle, Anunoby, and Hartenstein were all down, he rose from the ashes and stood up for the city, carrying the whole quintet’s presence under the basket on his shoulders. Arguably the most underrated overachiever on this Knicks version, it was his outstanding locked-in performance during those cold winter months that made it possible for fans to quickly forgive and forget RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley for jumping ship during the trade window—not exactly the easiest kicks to fill. As better and stronger songs come back to relevance on the tracklist, Achiuwa finds himself retreating to warming up the bench a bit more—albeit never forgotten. Not the most skilled, talented, or dexterous player on the list, but boy is he something special.

10. Got to Give — Donte DiVincenzo (#0) | The Knicks sniper with a diesel engine. Big Ragu went from borderline disappointing summer trade wannabe-highlight to fixture shooting guard starter on the 2nd seed team of the Easter Conference in around six months. Whilst at that, he saw fit to set the all-time franchise record for three-pointers in a single regular season with 283 (joining Stephen Curry, James Harden, Klay Thompson, Paul George, Buddy Hield and Luka Doncic as the only players to make 280+ in a season). Coinciding with the tune’s crescendo build, DiVo successfully learned how to make himself indispensable, much like this back-end album highlight. Catchy, agreeable, and so damn trademark Knicks; together with the aforementioned Hart and Jalen Brunson he represents that Villanova Wildcats college basketball core that is daring the Mecca of Basketball to dream big this year. “I’ll be the last one standing / I’ll be the first to forgive, yeah“—if one is to trust Pearl Jam, the sniper’s aim is sharper than ever.

11. Setting Sun — Jalen Brunson (#11) | Last, but not least. Song number eleven for #11. Yes, Randle might be the New York Knicks poster child, but Brunson is their prodigal son. The indisputable leader and top scorer on this team, thanks to his formidable performances and sensational contributions to the Knicks once-in-a-generation season record, Jalen was named an All-Star Player this past February. Like his sonic counterpart, he is beautiful to watch, universally impactful, and the undeniably constituent part of the whole. The guy is averaging 29 points and 7 assists per game this season, for God’s sake. We couldn’t imagine Dark Matter without this wall-to-wall acoustic enchantment coda, and so can’t we the New York Knicks without his 27-year-old point guard. Without being a prisoner of the moment, Jalen Brunson is poetry in motion. Jalen Brunson was born to play basketball.

We’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and we hope to feel your interest again next time. And good luck to the Knicks in the Playoffs this time around.

AV

A PRELIMINARY INTRODUCTION TO: GURU’S JAZZMATAZZ SERIES | 2024-03-23

Essaying to introduce audiences to a body of work whose first of six installments debuted more than thirty years ago might seem like an oxymoron to most. Yet, considering the multi-hyphenate and still to this day vastly under-appreciated career of hip-hop MC extraordinaire Keith Edward Elam—aka Guru, a backronym for Gifted Unlimited Rhymes Universal—we claim this framework to be based and useful to some. The exceptionally talented American recording artist, producer, and actor, whose career was tragically cut short in 2010, is best known for his long-lasting impact as one half of superstar alt-rap duo Gang Starr, accompanied by DJ Premier on decks and production duties. Fewer people have the Boston, MA-native’s solo career trajectory on their radar though, particularly as it pertains to his contributions as the host of the unsung collaborative live jazz-rap project series dubbed Jazzmatazz. In his own words: “an experimental fusion of hip-hop and live jazz”.

While on a break in-between Gang Starr albums in 1993, the East Coast rapper saw fit to temporarily diverge from his storied trademark partnership with DJ Premier and venture into collaborations with both old-school and new-school postmod jazz stylists. The first 21-track chapter result of the series, Guru’s Jazzmatazz, Vol. 1: An Experimental Fusion of Hip-Hop and Jazz, saw the light of day that same year, and featured notable collaborations with none other than Donald Byrd, N’Dea Davenport, MC Solaar as well as Roy Ayers. While overall positively received at the time, the exploit reveals vast amounts of comfortable smoothness beyond what meets the eye; that both aged incredibly well, and belied Guru’s otherwise streetwise toughness.

To be clear, the sampling and interpolation of jazz segments into rap joints was nothing new to Gang Starr or even other prominent hip-hop collectives at the time. However, the way Guru executes that marriage throughout the six-episode Jazzmatazz series results in much more intricate, slamming, and gently seductive records than their street-anchored ones. Doubling down on his successful series opener, Guru’s Jazzmatazz, Vol. 2: The New Reality followed suit a few years later (1995), with as much as an hour and fifteen minutes of new material, counting an expanded stylistic horizon inclusive of Chaka Khan, Ramsey Lewis, Branford Marsalis and Jamiroquai amongst its ranks. The project ended up commercially outperforming its predecessor, peaking at number 71 on the Billboard 200 chart (Vol. 1 had to make do with number 94) and number 16 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums list, lending marketable credibility to Guru’s trailblazing vision at the time.

Amazingly, Guru’s Jazzmatazz, Vol. 3: Streetsoul—the following offering in the run arriving five years later—did even better across its sixteen cuts than the previous two albums did. Departing even more drastically from the intelligent hardcore lessons set to incidental jazz on the first two chapters, Vol. 3 embraced more neo-soul and R&B-centric aesthetics, recruiting both genres heavyweights such as Angie Stone, Bilal, Craig David, Donell Jones, and Erykah Badu. Notwithstanding a perhaps more lukewarm critical reception from the reviewing intelligentsia, the album peaked at #32 and #8 on the Billboard 200 and Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums charts, respectively. Evidently, there existed at the time an audience appetite and marketability for the previously unchartered territory of direct taping live instrumentation to underscore sixteen bars over sixteen bars, aptly spat by a generationally impactful and revered MC.

Initially inspired to pursue his vision by a trip to Europe in the late 1980s, during which his eyes opened to the so-called ‘fusion scene’ where hip-hop breakbeats got grafted onto live jazz sonic mantels, Guru was all too aware that his ongoing undertakings with Gang Starr were loaded with too much pretext and expectation for them to be the right conduits for Jazzmatazz. So, leaning into a softer edge, he fully committed to experimentation under his own name instead. The East Coast hip-hop staple left no stone unturned in pledging allegiance to such cause, ranging from the more obvious instrumental layer all the way to his lyrical content. By his own admission, verses and flows on his Jazzmatazz series are more laidback, more easy listening, although still message-oriented. Moreover, he had no small chip on his shoulder—one grappling with the trials and tribulations that came with the record industry of the time.

Lamenting how the lack of radio hit records with Gang Starr was less attributable to the music’s inherent palatability than to label executives’ shortsighted understanding of what the art stood for, the wordsmith actively sought alliance from jazz and its cats on account of what he saw as a shared cultural curse. Both genres are art forms that are highly relevant and intrinsic to black culture and experience, and they both deal with real emotions. As the rapper learned of the different ways the grandparental record industry tampered and warped jazz in an attempt to increase its commercial appetite in the past, he immediately saw the value in uniting in order to speak truth to power. In a poetic twist of fate (and perhaps not coincidentally), major label Virgin Records, that had earmarked his Jazzmatazz endeavors hitherto, stopped supporting Guru’s recorded affairs after Vol. 3. So he went ahead and founded his own imprint in response; 7 Grand Records.

Guru’s Jazzmatazz, Vol. 4: The Hip Hop Jazz Messenger: Back to the Future—his sixth solo studio LP to date (in-between Vol. 3 and 4., he dropped the standalone projects Baldhead Slick & da Click and Version 7.0: The Street Scriptures)—took a whole other seven years to come to fruition, only to clock in at just shy of an hour of runtime as it was released by 7 Grand Records in 2007. Officially billed as the final installment in the Jazzmatazz canon event, the full length was entirely produced by Solar, and features guest appearances from Blackalicious, Bobby Valentino, Slum Village, Common, and Damian Marley amongst others. However, in a move that put even Frank Ocean‘s 2016 millennium label deal finessing to shame, Guru and 7 Grand saw fit to surprise drop a raw companion mixtape on the same 31st July Vol. 4 came out: Guru’s Jazzmatazz: The Timebomb Back to the Future Mixtape. So much for making a statement of intent directed at the majors.

Ironically, the industrious approach ended up backfiring, turning the right heads in the major label circuit. A mere year later, on the heels of Guru’s growing legacy and influence both within and outside of his Gang Starr lane, dearly departed Virgin Records kind of proved his original point entirely by throwing together a puffy, rushed, and haphazard Jazzmatazz greatest hits compilation. It’s too bad that owing to the EMI/Universal Music Group controlling stake of the body of work’s front-end, the best-of collection only featured 18 cuts, limited to the first three Jazzmatazz volumes. Not exactly the faithful rearview mirror doing justice to the whole creative vision on Guru’s part. Only two years later, and not without having released his swan song solo LP Guru 8.0: Lost and Found, Keith Edward Elam passed away from myeloma at the premature age of 48. Although his carnal manifestation might’ve moved on, his visionary impact is forever. Amidst a genre-less and experimentation-prone contemporary musical zeitgeist, Guru’s Jazzmatazz was both prescient and incisive—as Nate Patrin so eloquently outlines for Stereogum:

Jazzmatazz isn’t nearly as outlandish an idea as its creators might have thought at the time. That seems to matter less than the fact it still bumps, though, and slotted between the two Gang Starr classics that bookend it, it captures one of the all-time greatest MCs at a creative peak. Maybe the more important takeaway is this: it’s always worth celebrating when hip-hop finds a way to do the job of preservation that the conservative purists never really could do alone. And the future belongs to those who know where to take the past.

We’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and we hope to feel your interest again next time. RIP Guru.

AV

Below listed and displayed are Guru’s Jazzmatazz volumes (1993-2008):

  • Guru’s Jazzmatazz, Vol. 1: An Experimental Fusion of Hip-Hop and Jazz (Chrysalis, 1993)
  • Guru’s Jazzmatazz, Vol. 2: The New Reality (Chrysalis, 1995)
  • Guru’s Jazzmatazz, Vol. 3: Streetsoul (Virgin Records, 2000)
  • Guru’s Jazzmatazz, Vol. 4: The Hip Hop Jazz Messenger: Back to the Future (7 Grand Records, 2007)
  • Guru’s Jazzmatazz: The Timebomb Back to the Future Mixtape (7 Grand Records, 2007)
  • The Best of Guru’s Jazzmatazz (Virgin Records, 2008)

ALEX REVIEWS MUSIC (ARM): SCHOOLBOY Q – BLUE LIPS | 2024-03-01

Leave it to ScHoolboy Q to quench the audience’s thirst for new quality hip-hop music excitement in early 2024—after a near five-year drought, no less. Today, at the turn of the March calendar month, the Black Hippy wordsmith releases his long-awaited six studio LP BLUE LIPS, a muscular collection of eighteen brand new cuts, just shy of one hour of runtime. With Kendrick Lamar gone, and SZA having transcended beyond the indie label perception and treatment, the 37-year old West Coast MC is arguably the inherited poster child for what Top Dawg Entertainment stands for. It’s only understandable then how this drop has been turning a significant amount of heads in the hip-hop pantheon of recent, not least due to the California label’s elusive and slim pickings promo roll out accompanying this release.

A TDE mainstay for over a decade now, Q has been a consistent paramount asset in thrusting the imprint’s impact, success, and credibility past the insular rap stratosphere. Absent the multi-generational talent and GOAT-claimant Kendrick Lamar, the Germany-born rapper’s contributions in upholding the West Coast’s rap legacy past the G-funk one-dimensionality have arguably been of greater impact than those of fellow group members Ab-Soul and Jay Rock—particularly amongst scene critics. His new project BLUE LIPS, a body of work that can count featured guests such as Rico Nasty, Lance Skiiiwalker, and Freddie Gibbs amongst its ranks, is distributed by Interscope Records and was preceded by a sole lead single, the nocturnal and rabid “Yeern 101“, dropped in mid February.

With virtually the whole hour of material left to the fans’s imagination, and no meaningful leak to speak of ahead of its street date, this project felt like a generous and auspicious affair. Well, with the benefit of a handful replays hindsight under our belts, BLUE LIPS pulls out all the stops. It is gelled together by a unified versatility and a patchworked assembly more akin to a mixtape, than a conceptual album—the notion of ‘blue lips’ underpinning the record with multiple inherent connotations ranging from floral to medical is clearly intentional. The full listening experience equates to surrendering to a slew of loose cannons, where even shorter one-to-two minute skit records such as “Movie” (trading vocal duties with guest Az Chike), “Germany ’86“, and “Smile“, act less as interludes than glorified thematic palate cleansers, strategically peppered across the tracklist.

Also, there isn’t a joint on here that doesn’t leverage some degree of flow or beat switching; surprisingly, it almost always sticks the landing. “Pop“, co-signed by the aforementioned Rico Nasty at number two on the album, is basically a couple different tunes seamlessly merged into one rager, whereas the forte-piano Gaussian bell distribution on the following three-minute belter “THank god 4 me” should not make sense, but it does. Conversely, the laser-focused and formulaic eight track “Cooties” finds ScHoolboy Q in rare lyrical form: “From start to fin’ I can, better my wheels / Like, literally, my daughters is chill / Likе, I can’t believe my housе on the hill / Like, I can’t believe that mountain is real / Accountant is thrilled / The scars on the back of me healed“. Its hypnotic and bell toll-y beat make it a clear standout on the album.

Throughout the sequencing, Q strikes a subtle yet convincing balance in being earnestly direct about his message conveyance, and curtailing a fair topical amount left to the listener’s interpretation. Strongest case in point, the whole entire project name (although the TDE recording artist does let us know that he leads with its shock and speechlessness semantic variation). Elsewhere, we find one of the purest highlights in “oHio“, halfway through the record—a boneless and spastic Alchemist-trademark production atop which the TDE heavyweight and rap verse of the year nominee Freddie Gibbs absolutely annihilate the backtrack beat, with both kindness and fury.

An inspired fellow Black Hippy compatriot Ab-Soul shows up fiercely on the following “Foux“, both MCs snaking and dicing through the most off-the-wall drum & bass production on this whole thing. In many ways though, this tune could and should act as the cliff note to cheat coding the whole record—with its discordant morphing of soft piano licks and zany percussive motifs, the occasional sea of reverb drowning the bars being spat, as well as one of the most heart-on-sleeve stanzas on the project (Ab’s “Repent for my sins, then I turn around / By next weekend, do it again / Wash, rinse, repeat, cycle won’t end / Just spin, I’m bent, she bent, and bend over“), this is your reference track.

BLUE LIPS does not hold back on its rear-end, either. Full beat deconstruction, a flat-out masterclass in sample flipping, and cold-blooded sound design underscore the solo Q track combo meal at number eleven and twelve (“First” and “Nunu“). Following it, the TDE camp sees fit to place the one radio-friendly booming hook on “Back n Love“, a bona fide trap-rager aptly assisted by a surprisingly convincing Devin Malik (an otherwise in-house producer for certain label products by Isaiah Rashad and REASON). Not long after that, “Time killers” offers some true blue (lipped) respite as a welcome breather, soft-grinding highly warped beat engineering with adept lyricism (“Home of the brave, ran by the slaves / Stole everybody name so white Jesus on the chain / I feel proud when it hangs / Try to hide from the fame and still came with a bang), and yes you guessed it: several mini-beat switches halfway through.

Meanwhile, penultimate cut “Pig feet” gives us wall-to-wall abrasive delivery and more subaltern flows, with Atlanta-based Grammy-nominated rapper and producer Childish Major stealing most of the three minute scene on tape. Do not get it twisted though, if one only listened to this joint, they’d be fooled to think BLUE LIPS is yet another dime-a-dozen trap-rage exploit not dissimilar from the many seen in today’s mainstream rap. Yet one of this album’s main strengths is found in its effortless ability to valorize the impressive sonic range of West Coast sounds, rap rock flows, and jazz rap styles, all baked into the hour of solid material on here. All credit goes to ScHoolboy Q and his posse, for not only making it work wonders, but having it sound so sticky whilst at it. Turns out those with blue lips are all of us.

We’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and we hope to feel your interest again next time.

AV

SCHOOLBOY Q

BLUE LIPS

2024, Top Dawg Entertainment

https://www.groovyq.com

GARY CLARK JR HAS UPLOADED | 2024-01-26

The command completed successfully. More than five years to the day after the release of his 2019 Grammy Award-winning exploit This Land, 49-year-old Austinite Gary Clark Jr has finally uploaded the first teaser pack of new music from his upcoming fourth studio effort, JPEG RAW. Dubbed a nifty and portable sampler, the bundle couches four brand new cuts, all featured on the full album sequence of the blues rocker’s highly-anticipated 12-track project. Fully unfolded as an acronym into Jealousy, Pride, Envy, Greed Rules Alter-Ego, Worlds, JPEG RAW is slated for a street date at the end of March, and continues to fulfill a multi-album obligation with major label Warner Records.

Generously previewed across almost twenty minutes of material laced into four songs at once,—”Maktub“, the title track, “This Is Who We Are“, and “Hyperwave“—the LP is set to also feature samples of Thelonious Monk and Sonny Boy Williamson music, and sports noteworthy co-signs from royalty such as Stevie Wonder and George Clinton. If the sampler is anything to go by, JPEG RAW is poised to both build and expand on the already vast range of sounds and influences championed by the prodigal guitarist on previous outputs. Take the rusty and smokey guitar lick on album opener “Maktub”, which is as immediate and sticky a riff as it gets. While the rest of the same track might get filed as a somewhat canonical Clark Jr effort through and through, one need only press play on “Hyperwave” at number nine on the tracklist to wander into pop-adjacent psychedelia that heavily flirts with a current day singer-songwriter canon.

Elsewhere, the eponymous cut at number two on the record slows things down a smidge, by smoothening some of the opener’s razor edge—yet not without seizing the opportunity to undercut the tune with exuberant tongue-in-cheekness covert as alarm-sounding for talking turkey. One shouldn’t let the apparently harmless lounge-backtrack vibe get it twisted, for the bluesman wastes little time to take no prisoners while preaching his views: “My daughters ain’t gotta shake hips to make tips / No judgement if it makes sense, it made sense / But I ain’t with the ratchet / Only racket they’ll be havin’ is if they pick up a good habit where“. Locked and loaded in the trials and tribulations of fame plus all its dues, Clark Jr attempts to combat inner demons with a healthy dose of self-reflection (“I shoulda paid more attention / All my fault, I did it all for the pictures“), before asking his interlocutor the only question that can redeem him: “If this is what you want, what you waitin’ for? / If this ain’t what you want, what you want?“.

Meanwhile, “This Is Who We Are” is a five minutes and a half epic. Coasting through seas of expansive sonic magnitude before diving headfirst into a pronounced R&B flair, the number is less a responsive answer than a proactively assertive statement. The joint also features angelic BV touches from London-based singer/songwriter and producer Naala, and might double as a central cornerstone of the whole listening experience once the full record becomes available (apparently it’s the first thing Clark Jr wrote for the album). With its lopsided marriage of orchestral elements with dense and viscous tapestry of edgy blues guitar weaves—paired with pierce-loud drumming in the mix—this might not necessarily be the song we deserve, but it’s definitely the song we need.

And then there’s “Hyperwave”. Handily the biggest show-stopping teaser as part of this initial collection of singles. Calling this type of jam unexpected from the Blak & Blu creator would be an understatement. Packing a soft and tender melody into an intelligent psych-rock wireframe, this is the type of material one would peg a post-indie band from the UK with making—yet the Austin six-string prodigy pulls it off in both a tasteful and extremely gratifying fashion. With its bona fide ear worm refrain, the track doesn’t sacrifice soulful transudation at the expense of memorability and accessibility; not the smallest of feats. In a lengthy interview with Forbes, the Warner recording artist revealed the writing sessions that led to JPEG RAW to be loose, pandemic-constrained, and unentangled; admitting how he and his band simply “got together in my studio every Thursday and […] smoke a brisket and […] just sit there and eat barbecue, have a few drinks and play music“.

The haphazard impetus behind the sonic Rorschach inkblot test that became the twelve cuts on the album can certainly be noticed on this sampler. Moreover, hearing how Andre 3000’s recent foray as a flautist into new age jazz inspired him to follow his raw unedited instinct in the same interview draws every door open to a prescient full-blown range and experimentation on the record. Adding that to a more clued in hint where he recalls specific cross-pollinated genre contaminations (“I want my drums to sound like Willie Big Eye Smith meets Jay Dilla. I want my bass to be James Jamerson and Mike Dean“) has us at the edge of our seats to find out what the full project will hold. For Gary Clark Jr is the kind of important artist people will happily wait a long time for. His music and lyrics manage to capture vivid vignettes of fractured modern America, and translate them into universal language and feelings that transcend border and state lines—all the while cruising as one of the biggest rock flagbearers in the mainstream. It’s time he tells us all how we’re really feeling, again.

We’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and we hope to feel your interest again next time.

AV

HAPPY BELATED, BASKETBALL | 2023-12-26

This past 25th August, during a session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, the Philippines brought forward a U.N. Resolution co-sponsored by over seventy nations, adopted by consensus. The initiative designates every 21st December as World Basketball Day—notably, the day one James Naismith first introduced the game in Springfield, Massachusetts, 132 years ago. The concept of World Basketball Day was initially sparked by NYU Professor David Hollander, who advanced it in his recent illuminating book How Basketball Can Save The World (2023). Crucially, portions of the original proposal laced into his publication are included in the final resolution adopted earlier in the year.

Over the summer, Prof Hollander collaborated with the Philippines to bring the petition to life, a country with a deep, symbiotic, and remarkable passion for basketball. The Southeast Asian country happened to be co-hosting the exciting 2023 FIBA World Cup—starting on the same day as the resolution’s adoption, later conquered by underdog Germany. Additionally, the longtime advocacy efforts of Hollander’s namesake NYU university class played another pivotal role; over multiple months he and his students engaged with international ministers and stakeholders, urging them to bring forth this proposal. Fast forward to late summer, and basketball is the first team sport ever to obtain an official U.N. international day recognized. Such a historic decision not only reflects the global significance and impact of the game, but also its power to unite people worldwide.

In the resolution that passed the new observance, the U.N. General Assembly commended Indonesia, Japan, and of course the Philippines for hosting this year’s World Cup, and explicitly encouraged relevant authorities to exert every effort to ensure the tournament leave a lasting legacy for peace and development around the world. Simultaneously, it also instigated everyone, everywhere, to play, watch, read, discuss or otherwise connect to basketball game—a connection to each other everywhere. To coincide with the celebration of the first ever World Basketball Day on 21st December, the Permanent Mission of the Philippines to the U.N.—in collaboration with the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame—organized a roundtable discussion focused on basketball and peace, featuring none other than Julius “Dr. J” Erving,  basketball’s original skywalker.

As the inaugural World Basketball Day was observed and celebrated last week, it invited everyone everywhere to play, watch, read, discuss or otherwise connect to the game. Luckily, Memphis Grizzlies’s phenom Ja Morant just got reinstated into the NBA after a long suspension, so that should help glue even more people to screens the world over. Moreover, the premiere US league’s first ever In-Season Tournament made its thrilling and defiant debut earlier this fall, witnessing a hard knock yet obstinate Los Angeles Lakers bring home the coveted trophy in December. These platforms and many more mark a connection to each other everywhere, affirming a global common oneness that is set to push us toward the idea of one world, united, to do the things only one world can do. Starting with basketball, the one thing we all seem to do.

In present times, basketball has grown to become one of the most popular and widely played sports in the world. FIBA estimates that almost half a billion people worldwide are playing basketball every day. In the hundred and thirty-plus years since it was invented, governments and nation states have risen and fallen, wars have been won and lost, borders drawn and redrawn, ideologies proven and disproven, corporations have formed and dissolved, trends come and gone. Yet basketball has consistently grown. In a world shaped by fictitious borders, there are so many challenges that require stateless solutions—climate, intellectual property, bioengineering, diseases, hunger, water—tenets that affect everyone, everywhere. Where does one begin? Where can we all come together? What’s one thing everyone everywhere is onboard with? Basketball.

For Dr James Naismith, the Canadian physical education instructor who created basketball to keep rowdy students active during the winter months back in 1891, always meant the game to be universal. For all of us, everywhere, from its inception. He created a single discipline that was stateless—suited to any and all people, anywhere, anytime—with basic core principles that fostered cooperation, ease of play, spatial intimacy, self-governance, and even a kind of freedom. Today, there is arguably no social, cultural, or athletic institution that matches basketball in ubiquity and influence. Just stop in your tracks and take a look around at fashion, sneakers, music, as well as vernacular.

Earmarking World Basketball Day, Prof Hollander outlined five simple and concrete ways through which people can honor the event globally (see below). Ranging from encouraging the youth to pick up a basketball and start kicking it, to experiencing the game first-hand, the barrier-less approachability of the discipline highlights its grassroots simplicity. It’s no wonder so many people are taking to it on a daily basis. Whether that’s attending team practices, official matches, or merely heading to the nearest court in search for a pick up game, basketball acts as a lowest common denominator across countries, languages, ethnic groups, and cultures. It’s only right we all take a moment to celebrate it—unbeknownst to most, we’ve been doing so for over a century.

We’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and we hope to feel your interest again next time. And happy belated birthday, Basketball, this time around.

AV

ALEX REVIEWS MUSIC (ARM): ALBUMS OF THE YEAR 2023 | 2023-12-21

SMASHING PUMPKINS — ATUM: A ROCK OPERA IN THREE ACTS (MARTHA’S MUSIC)

LISTEN HERE. READ MORE HERE.

RYAN ADAMS — BLOOD ON THE TRACKS, MORNING GLORY, ALIVE – VOL. I, RETURN TO CARNEGIE HALL (PAX-AM)

LISTEN HERE. READ MORE HERE.
LISTEN HERE. READ MORE HERE.
LISTEN HERE. READ MORE HERE.

ODDISEE — TO WHAT END (OUTER NOTE LABEL)

LISTEN HERE. READ MORE HERE.

PARAMORE — THIS IS WHY & RE: THIS IS WHY (ATLANTIC RECORDING)

LISTEN HERE.
LISTEN HERE.

GORILLAZ — CRACKER ISLAND (PARLOPHONE RECORDS)

LISTEN HERE.

EL MICHELS AFFAIR, BLACK THOUGHT — GLORIOUS GAME (BIG CROWN RECORDS)

LISTEN HERE.

FOO FIGHTERS — BUT HERE WE ARE (ROSWELL RECORDS)

LISTEN HERE. READ MORE HERE.

KILLER MIKE — MICHAEL (LOMA VISTA RECORDINGS)

LISTEN HERE.

DOMINIC FIKE — SUNBURN (COLUMBIA RECORDS)

LISTEN HERE. READ MORE HERE.

GEORGE CLANTON — OOH RAP I YA (100% ELECTRONICA)

LISTEN HERE. READ MORE HERE.

TRAVIS SCOTT — UTOPIA (EPIC RECORDS)

LISTEN HERE.

EARL SWEATSHIRT, THE ALCHEMIST — VOIR DIRE (TAN CRESSIDA)

LISTEN HERE. READ MORE HERE.

NONAME — SUNDIAL (AWAL)

LISTEN HERE.

THIRTY SECONDS TO MARS — IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD BUT IT’S A BEAUTIFUL DAY (CONCORD RECORDS)

LISTEN HERE. READ MORE HERE.

DRAKE — FOR ALL THE DOGS (REPUBLIC RECORDS)

LISTEN HERE.

BLINK-182 — ONE MORE TIME… (COLUMBIA RECORDS)

LISTEN HERE. READ MORE HERE.

THE ROLLING STONES — HACKNEY DIAMONDS (POLYDOR RECORDS)

LISTEN HERE.

THE GASLIGHT ANTHEM — HISTORY BOOKS (THIRTY TIGERS)

LISTEN HERE. READ MORE HERE.

TAKING BACK SUNDAY — 152 (FANTASY RECORDS)

LISTEN HERE. READ MORE HERE.

COLD WAR KIDS — COLD WAR KIDS (AWAL)

LISTEN HERE.

I’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and I hope to feel your interest again next time. And happy holidays this time around.

AV

A PRELIMINARY INTRODUCTION TO: THE 2024 PAXAM ALBUM TETRALOGY | 2023-11-27

Safe to say it’s been an eventful 2023 for Jacksonville, NC-native singer/songwriter Ryan Adams. The current calendar year began on a tributary note for the 49-year old country rocker, with back-to-back releases of three significant cover albums in the shape of Bruce Springsteen‘s Nebraska, Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks, and Oasis‘s (What’s the Story) Morning Glory, all between Christmas and Easter. In-between unveiling those reimagined collections, he also found the time to get his old Cardinals band back together after over a decade of hiatus (with a supergroup-worthy line up, no less), drop a new single with them, and take them on a nationwide US tour over the summer. Before all of that, he managed to squeeze a limited leg of solo shows in the UK and Europe. Meanwhile, sometime later in spring, he saw fit to announce the highly-anticipated live acoustic sequel to his 2015 Live at Carnegie Hall compilation—aptly titled Return to Carnegie Hall. Recorded during his acclaimed return to the storied New York City namesake venue last year, the tape was eventually released on music outlets worldwide on 25th August.

You’d think that would do it for even the hardest-working artists in the business, but nope. It’s the most prolific songwriter of his generation we’re talking about here. So halfway through the feel good heat of July, the PaxAm founder came through once more and gave away another new live album. This time couching a highlights reel of salient performances recorded during the first round of shows with The Cardinals, Alive — Vol. I remained available as a free online download for a few months. Then in early fall, a cancelled run of solo shows due to poor health between September and November followed suit, only to be trailed by the surprise announcement of “I Was Here”, a purported new instant-gratification single teasing toward a previously unannounced forthcoming project, named Sword & Stone. Surely, this should be enough for a year-in-review round-up? Well, here comes the kill.

During the first week of November, the former Whiskeytown leader revealed what might be his biggest milestone of the year yet: the majorly hyped ‘PaxAm Relaunch’. Touted as a fresh new clean slate for the artist in anticipation to its d-day, skyrocketing new creative enterprises such as book publishing as well as a slew of previously unreleased original music, the big reveal turned out to be a bit of a chimera to most. Granted, Adams did stay through to some of his prior advertisements. Excitingly, included at launch there was indeed his first ever fiction novel, 100 Problems, on top of your regular update of merch capsules, ranging from fine grade tees to scented candles. However, what built out to be the crown jewel to the buzzed PaxAm reset, his latest tetralogy of albums, ended up leaving fans eagerly salivating, and still mostly dissatisfied. At best. While he did unveil the title of the four new bodies of work in said tetralogy—Heatwave, Star Sign, the aforementioned Sword & Stone, and the long-rumored follow up to his hardcore punk Hüsker Dü worship 1984, 1985—the catch is that at the time of this writing, those projects are only available for vinyl pre-order, with a tentative mid-January 2024 shipping date.

For the full record (pun probably intended), the bells and whistle-y PaxAm comeback also came with the dispatch of five additional products. Still, vinyl pre-orders all the same. Most notably, these encompass an exclusive live unplugged rendition of Adams’s exquisite Prisoner LP from 2017, as well as the second pressing of his remarkable and patchworked 2022 album quartet (Chris, Romeo & Juliet, FM, and Devolver). Just for shits and giggles, inclusive of the upcoming tetralogy, yet sans his bunch of live records in-between, this projected music pipeline would bring his accrued tally of music projects released since his 2020 return to an otherworldly thirteen studio efforts (!). All within just about three years of time.

In the midst of it all, the 2024 PaxAm album tetralogy appears to be happening. The aforementioned four outings all have (somewhat graphically questionable) respective cover art, as well as an official track listing. In lieu of formal chronological release timelines, the album sleeves are embedded below in alphabetical order, whereas according to the label/publisher’s website all of the projects’s sequencings range from Star Sign‘s compact ten songs to a whooping 29 (!) on what’s poised to be a rabid and hard-hitting 1985. Yet, not official street date in sight—whether that goes for the nominal release of vinyl, or for the highly-demanded streaming outlets’s sales availability. For all we know today, these four exploits are all slated for a 2024 release. So while it is true that their announcement and promotion fall on this side of the year, this is legitimate enough a reason for this to be considered as a 2024 tetralogy, for all intents and purposes.

And then there’s the Grammy Award-nominated act’s typical set of scattered, contradicting, and excessive marketing of upcoming music. Now wholly contained on the author’s own Instagram page—alas, with the store relaunch, even the nail-in-the-coffin PaxAm newsletter updates appear to have been indefinitely nixed. The promotional roll out of well, basically everything and anything all at once, has hitherto been an outright spray and pray. With all its shows and tells, uploads and takedowns, and hodgepodge of juxtaposing information, not one soul would admittedly have been able to even commence to make head or tails of it all, if it weren’t for the benevolent Ryan Adams archivist vigilante graciousfew. To date, almost thirty different track previews have been rolled out by the alt-country mainstay within the projected tetralogy. For the most part, without much rhyme or reason as to what kind of picture one is to expect from each of the four full lengths.

Adams has been most generous with 1985, teasing as many as ten cuts from the expected twenty-nine. Undoubtedly the most focused and cohesive-sounding of the four new LPs, the record appears to be building and expanding on the distorted, fast, and zany street-rage displayed on its almost ten year-old predecessor. The more somber and reflective Star Sign follows suit with a whole eight records out of the available then having been peppered and then recanted throughout the pinball cult leader’s IG feed within the last year or so. Here, the picture appears to be clearer, one painted by way of a more refined, song crafted, and lush brush. A vastly ambitious affair, Star Sign enlists the richest arrangements and the longest track runtimes of the bunch (with its title track previewed at as many as eleven minutes of playtime, and another four teasers clocking in longer than five minutes). As far as an early guessing is concerned, this might end up being the best received and most gratifying of the four projects by the lion’s share of DRA’s fanbase, with evident callbacks to a wide range of back-catalogue issuances, such as Jacksonville City Nights (“Shinin Thru the Dark”), Love Is Hell (“I Lost My Place”), and his self-titled (“Darkness”).

Regrettably, Heatwave and Sword & Stone are both rougher around their edges, and more of a mess. At least on paper. Going off its first six teasers, the former appears to pick up from the power-pop and alt-rock inklings Adams left us with both FM and Devolver last year. While the latter—beefed up with an additional quartet of previews (“Blown Away”, “I’ll Wait”, “I Can See the Light” and the title track) to complement the aforementioned official lead single “I Was Here”—sounds more like a spiritual successor to last year’s brotherly tribute Chris. The issue at face value here, with the benefit of doubt tied to the missing full album listening experience, is that both projects tend to blend into each other à la mixtape—not always in a flattering way. Take for instance the minute and change fire and fury of “Lies”, Heatwave‘s opening tune, and you might be wondering how on earth it didn’t make the 1985 cut to round up its track listing to thirty songs.

Meanwhile, when listened to in isolation, records like “Mercy”, “Why”, “Sword & Stone” and “I Can See the Light” absolutely sound like they would belong on the one and same body of work. An upbeat, catchy, and fun one at that. A companion piece to FM of sorts. Too bad the first two are sequenced on Heatwave, and the other two appear on Sword & Stone. No harm no foul—it’s not like the LA-transplant hasn’t repurposed and recycled a wealth of material across his numerous, numerous records. Especially so in his more recent spate of third act career releases. For instance, Chris and Romeo & Juliet have a lot in common, musically and lyrically. His comeback 2020 full length Wednesdays brings it back all the way to a post-Whiskeytown, early solo DRA era. Not to mention his past B-sides and bonus tracks; all systems go as far as where they truly fit amidst their up- and downgrading across deep cuts and official tracklisting slots. Whether deliberate or not on Adams’s part, that is all definitely part of the charm and allure of his fine craft. A little bit like remaining uneasy and on edge until the godforsaken day his 2024 PaxAm album tetralogy finally becomes available for listening. The only assurance we have at this point, is that that will be a good morning.

We’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and we hope to feel your interest again next time.

AV

ALEX REVIEWS MUSIC (ARM): TBS – 152 | 2023-10-28

Taking Pop Sunday. After almost 2,600 days since the release of Tidal Wave in 2016, Long Island alt rockers Taking Back Sunday choose modern pop over alternative, making their triumphant return to the scene with 152. And it worked wonders. Eight years of absence is a lengthy time off for any musician, all the more so for a band approaching a quarter of a century of age—and boy did a revolution and a half take place during those years. Both societally and for the band members. Inter alia, the American outfit celebrated the twentieth birthday of both the band as a whole (2019) and their trailblazing studio debut Tell All Your Friends (2022) with corresponding deluxe record reissues, peppered one-off non-album singles here and there—including a cover of Weezer‘s “My Name Is Jonas“, an improbable co-sign with the Wu Tang Clan, and the late-stage emo wet dream “Love You a Little” assisting both The Maine and Charlotte Sands—and let go their longtime founding member Eddie Reyes (2018). Crucially, considering how their second coming of a self-titled turned out to be, last year TBS also unexpectedly partnered with megastar DJ Steve Aoki, an unlikely long shot that yielded the sticky and defiant dance-rock number “Just Us Two“.

Such a link up was a sole degree of separation from glossy pop production extraordinaire Tushar Apte, who ended up getting enlisted to orchestrate and execute the group’s eight studio album in its entirety. Side-kicked by Neal Avron on mixing engineering duties, the Australian sound crafter—whose previous production pedigree includes BTS, Blackpink, Nicki Minaj, and Adam Levine amongst others—ended up exerting a perhaps greater musical moulding than any other producer TBS previously worked with. Each of the ten records bundled as part of this full length is enveloped in a thick membrane of sanitization unprecedented for the outfit. Even on grittier and more punk-adjacent cuts, such as the fierce and galloping second and forth single respectively (“S’old“ and “Keep Going“), there permeates a layering of lavishness as well as a tender loving care for sound that only a mystical mind such as Apte’s could instil into the pioneering alt rock quartet’s imprint. Conversely, a juxtaposition contributing to arguably the single biggest success factor of this project, lead singer Adam Lazzara’s lyrical flair remained as disarrayed and perturbed as ever, aptly demonstrated on the aforementioned fourth teaser track: “You could forget about the devil / But the devil won’t forget about you / Just because you’re winning / That don’t mean you’ve got nothing to lose“.

As a whole, 152 sounds big, expansive, and very polished. Musically and recording-wise, this half hour and change committed to tape stands as an outing more akin to the latest Thirty Seconds to Mars record, than say this year’s Paramore or Foo Fighters rock and roll canon offerings. Yet once again, perhaps counterintuitively, this is not a bad thing for TBS. For they pulled this off. With the benefit of twenty-twenty hindsight, the electronic and dance-affine sonic leakages on “Just Us Two” last year now resplend as a true blue litmus test for it all—a canary in the coalmine of sorts. Two of the album’s highlights, the gentle soft pop touch of “Lightbringer” at number seven and climactic soaring coda “The Stranger“, are washed up in synthesisers, clean effects, and pitch-correctors. This is something flat out unthinkable if one is to call back to their last record in time Tidal Wave—a no-frills affair dabbling in early punk tendencies and heartland rock inclinations. Well, perhaps unpopularly so, 152 is an overall better album than Tidal Wave.

Don’t take it from us, you ask the core fans. Correcting for recency bias handicap, their reception and hype so far for the new record seem to be at their most glowing since the quartet’s 2011 self-titled, a record that brought the original Tell All Your Friends line-up back together—drafted today counting Lazzara on vocal duties, John Nolan on guitars/keyboards/BVs, Shaun Cooper on bass guitar, and Mark O’Connell on drums and percussions. Case in point, as part of the Concord-distributed Fantasy Record’s sneak peek listening party that took place a few days before the album’s street date on 27th October, the label saw itself forced to go back for seconds to give the full playthrough another unplanned spin, on the heels of thunderous positive vox populi in webchat. Having attended said event first-hand, we can attest that particularly the aforementioned “Lightbringer” and the sticky groove of Spotify SEO-finessing “New Music Friday” struck as immediate first-listen standouts (aside of course from the four previously available singles).

Clocking in as the shortest LP in TBS’s discography—Tidal Wave, their longest, has almost twenty more minutes of material by comparison—152 is groomed by mainstream pop formulas through and through. Fascinatingly, there seems to be a runtime sweet spot optimized around 3:15 of playback, with as many as six out of ten tracks adopting the format—if this isn’t pop craftsmanship down to a T, then we don’t know what is. Even more intriguingly so, all these songs happen to make up the core backbone of the record, by being evenly woven along the ten-slotted tracklist. As a net positive externality, less constrained than inspired by similar machinery blueprints, Lazzara and Nolan found ways to muster up enough wherewithal to step up their lyrical game. Whether it’s post-mess up regret bars on the musically lukewarm intro “Amphetamine Smiles” (“Half-drunk Messiah with a smile on her face / She told me not to take them pills / I said “Girl, you got no faith in medicine“), romantic liberation on arena-sized lead single “The One” (“Now I’m close enough to reach you / All the walls that I could see through / Still, the words that I can’t say go on and on“), or free mundane mad libs-like associations on “Quit Trying” (“Something safe words make you vibrant / Northern lightning, ultra violet / I just quit trying“).

With all that being said, the best song on the album is “I Am the Only One Who Knows You“. Sequenced halfway through at number five, the tune not only has the most convincing songwriting at its core, but everything enveloping it, from its execution to individual performances and production, is of a spotless persuasion as well. On the track, lines such as “Keep ’em out, let ’em in / Unrepentant, unforgiven / Holy hell, high heaven / It’s a destination wedding” and “Give a smile, give a nod, find yourself / Find your god, holy hell / Tell yourself it’s a match made in heaven” transcend even the most literate of Lazzara’s sometimes corny lyrical leanings of the past, thrusting them into more legitimate poetic waxing conversations. Meanwhile, Apte’s white glove production is ethereal, formidable, and immaculate. As a big plus, something about this cut’s X factor makes it one of (if not the) most easily listenable songs in the band’s entire catalogue—no matter a listener’s walk of life. Sure-fire classic potential, hands down.

Yet by no means is this a pitch perfect album. While not enough credit could possibly ever be given to TBS for going so pop with this—lest we forget, they had something to the effect of a scene crown on their emo veteran heads to lose—there are lowlights to be found on this thing. For one, album opener “Amphetamine Smiles” feels like a misstep placed where it is, at least musically. This is the one instance where Apte’s radio-ready production chops didn’t translate as well on a creatively raw, acoustic, and soulfully unplugged composition. It’s also neither fish nor fowl as it builds up into a more traditionally rock track on its back-end, never quite managing to shake off a somewhat subpar packaging. We would’ve loved to have heard this on Tidal Wave instead. Along similar lines, the intentional pop dimension adopted on 152—led by such guiding principles as brevity, punch, and conciseness—could’ve caused certain tracks to leave listeners wanting more from them. Particularly on “Lightbringer” and the undeniably sticky “Juice 2 Me” as penultimate on the tracklist, the feeling is that both could’ve used more fleshing out, and that an even better song lurked beneath the glossier surface of theirs that ended up making the cut.

No harm, no foul—overall, for TBS this is not just an A for effort, but it’s also an A- in execution and output. Handily one of their best albums hitherto. Undoubtedly an outlier in the band’s discography. Here’s to hoping Adam, John, Shaun, and Mark keep on leaning in, pushing this new-found creative endeavour further and further in projects to come, without taking another eight years whilst at it. After all, TBS is back with new material after almost a decade (without the influence), their handsome faces are slapped on the album’s front cover for the first time, and in Fantasy they have finally found a record label that genuinely supports and elevates them. Chances are they now feel comfortable enough to keep scratching their true artistic itches going forward—irrespective of scene, industry, and peer pressures. For what it’s worth, best we can do as fans is to keep not treating TBS like a stranger.

We’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and we hope to feel your interest again next time.

AV

TAKING BACK SUNDAY

152

2023, Fantasy Records

https://takingbacksunday.com

ALEX REVIEWS MUSIC (ARM): BLINK-182 TIER LIST | 2023-10-20

Support blink-182:

https://www.blink182.com
https://music.apple.com/se/artist/blink-182/116851?l=en
https://www.instagram.com/blink182/
https://twitter.com/blink182

We’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and we hope to feel your interest again next time.

AV

FAUX DIRE | 2023-10-09

Drake finally dropped For All The Dogs, so we guess it’s as good a time as any to talk about Thebe Neruda Kgositsile, the 29-year-old rapper, singer, and songwriter better known by his stage name Earl Sweatshirt. His latest Alchemist-produced LP VOIR DIRE, the highly-anticipated follow up to last year’s hermetic SICK!, has now officially come out. Twice. The first time on 25th August, exclusively as a ledgered transaction in its blockchain-powered non-fungible version, offered via decentralized peer-to-peer platform Gala Music. Yup, you read that right. While the 11-cut project still remains fully free to stream on said project’s site, for all intents and purposes that record is solely being offered as a digital collectible. With any additional content, merch, or experiences having to be purchased at an additional crypto-cost.

Well, VOIR DIRE came out again last week—this time in its altered licensed DSP-version. Albeit still sequenced with eleven individual tracks, as many as three of them fell on the cutting room floor (“All the Small Things”, “My Brother, the Wind”, and “Geb”), in order to make room for “Heat Check” at number four, as well as a combo of superb Vince Staples-assisted collabs (“Mancala” and “The Caliphate“). These tweaks, in addition to the previously included staccato-beat feast “Dead Zone” upgrading its tracklist sequencing by one slot, tacked on another minute of runtime to the official Tan Cressida/Warner Records distributed version—yet still keeping the project lean and compact, clocking in at less than half an hour of material.

This kind of two-pronged roll out antic does warrant the question; which of the two versions, tracklists, and musical narratives does the Some Rap Songs MC hold for true? Or truer? Does his standpoint differ from that of The Alchemist? Is there a fake rendition of the LP at all? Aside from fanning flames of contemporary discussions around albums becoming subject to continuous updates in a way not dissimilar from software and apps, the intrinsic semantic valence of its veracity fits like a glove on a record like VOIR DIRE. The clue is literally in its title (‘voir dire‘ is an old French expression translating to ‘telling the truth’). Although alluding to the legal standard of prospective jurors being questioned to determine whether they can be fair and impartial as part of their trial duties, one could argue that by unveiling two different varieties Earl Sweatshirt is superimposing a heuristic interpretation to VOIR DIRE‘s creative meta-state. It’s either that, or dude’s simply covering his bottom due to “All the Small Things” taping a potentially unprotected lyrical interpolation from blink-182‘s namesake smash hit.

Musically, the newest version, the one dropped this month and widely available for streaming and download, is superior. It flows better, has a harder crop of tunes, and does without the more pronounced highs and lows of its fluctuating NFT counterpart. Even its front cover looks like a more accomplished and thought-through graphical affair (compare both artwork versions below). “Heat Check” is plain and simple a stronger joint than “All the Small Things”—albeit eerily similar in its blueprint and sound, raising more suspicion around this being some kind of elaborate art installation. Elsewhere, Thebe and Staples masterfully feed off each other’s energy and pockets with unparalleled chemistry on “Mancala“, while their penultimate heart-on-sleeve confessional “The Caliphate” is a top five all time Earl Sweatshirt song. Period.

Without getting too ahead of ourselves, it’s worth mentioning how the former Odd Future fixture has historically set an awfully high yardstick for himself, with his last two studio exploits in a row making both the 2018 and 2022 Albums of the Year shortlists around here—the October version of VOIR DIRE does have everything it takes to be considered for such accolade again. Yet, this bears the natural query: which one is the true VOIR DIRE up for nomination? Had the second public availability edition not come out, its AOTY merit and buzz would admittedly falter a smidge more (plus, part of us feels it wouldn’t even deserve it, by virtue of the tacky and cornball-y distribution method chosen…).

Should one only zero in on the core constituent parts found on both versions, it’s not like the conundrum naturally dissipates, either. Sure, the MIKE-cosigned “Sentry” as well as “27 Braids” contain some of the coldest and rawest bars Earl’s ever committed to tape, but it’s not like deeper cuts “Mac Deuce” or “Sirius Blac” don’t get topped by more exciting moments on each single one of his past four records. Yet again, album bookends “100 High St” and “Free the Ruler” are exactly the Alchemist-type beats of spineless and concentric sampled pockets that couldn’t call for a better rapper’s flow to be enveloped in than Earl’s. And then “Vin Skully“, at number two on the project, is perhaps the most triumphant belter upon repeated listens, not least on account of its fervent lyrical poignancy: “I don’t know what it is / I remember the ghost inside the crib / Hosin’ down the problem with gin and tonic / How to stay afloat in a bottomless pit / The trick is to stop fallin’ / Only option to start with a step, bet“.

Whether Earl and Al devised this in a deliberate way or not, one thing no one can take away from VOIR DIRE is its gnarly existence across multiple dimensions. There are of course the two sonic plains, embodied by both the non-fungible and licensed DSP version of the full length. Then there’s the greater performance art piece of the album assuming its title’s form, by thought-provoking the epistemological materiality of its meaning. Maybe, the whole point of it all is that there even exists an Earl Sweatshirt version, and an Alchemist one—who knows, perhaps even more? Nonetheless, we can’t quite shake off the feeling that the revered abstract hip-hop producer/rapper duo wasted a giant pun by not naming the record FAUX DIRE. Regardless, we think the joke’s on all of us.

We’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and we hope to feel your interest again next time.

AV