Album Review: FluiD - "Envisioning Abstraction: The Duality of FluiD"

A while back I was contacted by a European record label by the name of Alrealon Musique, a label which prides itself by independently putting out experimental music. It was through them that I was able to review John 3:16's fantastic new album, and a few days ago in the mail, I received a package with John 3:16's album and Envisioning Abstraction: The Duality of FluiD by musician/ producer The Fluid.

Duality is one of those albums which mish-mash a bunch of genres together. Thick, distorted bass guitar straight out of modern hip-hop, electronic samples, and loud screeching, not unlike what you'd find in noise music are in ample supply on this album. The drums groove nicely throughout the album, and when everything comes together, the songs sort of seem to work as instrumental hip-hop tracks. None of it would fit in a T-Pain or Ludacris track, but these tunes seem to be more akin to the frantic backings of many Death Grips songs. One song in particular, "Iron Communique" features experimental hip-hopper Black Saturn on the mic, and it really becomes a full track once the vocals drop.

For the most part, FluiD keeps a pretty tense atmosphere throughout the album. With all the noise in the background of the tracks, things always stay uneasy, especially when the other instruments start to pick up. Luckily, things do ease up, like with the tracks "Dread Futures" and "Parallel States", but between these two (the fourth and tenth songs receptively), the intensity picks up again.

To be completely honest though, Duality isn't a mind blower of an album. In fact, I think it's pretty forgettable. Other than a couple basslines or chord progressions, none of the album sticks with me when I stop listening to it. The second problem I have with this album is the noise. Unlike noise punkers Sexgender, whose songs seem to flow without structure and have a very chaotic feel to them, FluiD's songs seem pretty focused and precise. The noise and droning that gets laid over top of the beats, basslines, and progressions just distract and annoy me from the quality music underneath.

Bomb-Ass Tracks: Iron Communique, Dread Futures

On a Playlist With: Death Grips, any experimental instrumental hip-hop

Overall Score

2.5

FluiD makes some pretty impressive instrumental hip-hop tracks with an experimental flair, but his delving into noise and drone music turned out for the worse. In the end although I didn't dislike it, Duality was a pretty forgettable album.

That's all for now, folks!

-DG

EP Review: Hoodie Allen - "All American"

I'm not sure what the weather is like where ever you are, but here in Guelph it's been bleak, cold, windy and rainy for the past week or so. Considering it's also midterm season, I've been stuck living in the UoGuelph engineering building with all the other engineering students. As a result, I've been looking for some music to pick me up after a long day of not understanding my electrical devices class. Queue my friend Luke who posted a Hoodie Allen song on Facebook a week ago or so.  I had never heard of Hoodie Allen before and for some reason I was expecting Hoodie Allen to be either fucking brutal deathcore (a la Acacia Strain) or really abrasive electronic music (like Stephen Walking). Then, I click on the link and listen to this:

Feel good jams ensue.

Hoodie Allen (Steven Markowitz) is an American (I totally couldn't tell by the album cover!) hip-hop/ pop artist who only recently came onto the music scene. He self-released his debut Bagels and Beats in 2009, and just dropped All American, an EP this spring. Hoodie seems to be apart of the new "nerdy white people trying to rap" trend (Kreayshawn, MC Frontalot, etc.), but luckily for him, he actually pulls it off.

All American is a great blend of hip-hop and pop music. Hoodie's songs feel like happy, upbeat rap songs during their verses, but turn into big, over-the-top pop tunes with lots of catchy hooks and simple lyrics that get stuck in your head for the choruses. A couple songs deviate towards other genres, with the song "Small Town" hitting disco/ dance club levels of fun, and "No Interruption" sounding like a modern R&B tune. Whichever way Hoodie presents his music, I guarantee it'll always get you dancing.

The instrumentation on All American is simple, but effective. Synth, keyboards, pianos, funky guitars and bass and drums are pretty much all that are used here and it's really for the best. Most of the songs have a really simple, catchy backing track, and as the song moves onward, new lines and melodies crop up from the other instruments. Production is nice and shiny, with everything sounding spit-shined and sparkly. Normally I'm a fan of warmer production sounds and tones, but for music this upbeat the vibrant production really drives home the feel-good sound.

The only things that disappoint me on All American are the last two songs. Hoodie changes gears instantly from "lets go adventure and have a summer road trip!" down to "let's just sit around and get really high". The music is still good, it just doesn't fit with the rest of the EP at all, in my opinion. It's not a big gripe, but I find myself just playing the first 6 songs over and over, constantly ignoring the last two. At least the songs I don't like are both at the end of the album so it's not like they break up the stretch of songs I do like.

Bomb-Ass Tracks: No Interruption, Eighteen Cool, Small Town

On a Playlist With: Whatever's on your summertime playlist.

Overall Score

3.5

Hoodie Allen brings some tasty feel-good jams with All American. Other than the last couple songs on the EP, you can tell me it'll be soundtrack for the next American Pie movie and I'd totally believe you. If you're feeling down, just give Hoodie a chance, and I'm certain it'll turn your frown upside down.

That's all for now, folks!

-DG

Album Review: Kanye West - "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy"

Yeah. I'm reviewing Kanye West. The internet made me do it.

I'm not going to introduce Kanye West, because honestly, whether or not you've heard his music, it's almost a fact that you've heard of him somewhere, somehow. Maybe it was from South Park, maybe it was from his outburst at the 2009 VMAs. Either way, you've heard of the guy. I've never been a fan of the man; he's been way too much of a dick for me to care about his music. However, after finding what I thought to be a very inspirational YouTube video, I decided to give him a listen. Because hey, #YOLO, right guise?

I'll come right out of the gates, guns blazing with this one: I liked My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. I thought it was a pretty solid rap/ hip-hop album. Now, I can never remember where I've heard this, but it's just ingrained in my mind that everybody just loves this album. I'm convinced that every music critic and reviewer seems to think that if you don't love Fantasy with all your heart, you're a soulless, distasteful, and shameful excuse for a person. Well, I can't say that I love Fantasy, but I did enjoy a fair few songs on it. The entire album runs for almost 70 minutes (excluding the bonus track), which is a hella-fuckin'-long album in my books. The running time is so long mostly because a lot of the songs run on for 7 to 9 minutes. I'm generally a fan of longer songs, but they really need to be done well to keep my attention for their whole running time.

Funnily enough, the longest song on the album, "Runaway" is one of my favorites. It clocks in at just over 9 minutes, but when the 6 minute mark hits, things get funky with some heavy strings and what sounds like someone's voice through a talkbox, distortion, and a sub octave. This is going to be a ridiculous comparison, but the ending of "Runaway" reminds me of the ending of "Straws Pulled at Random" by Meshuggah. Musically they couldn't be any more different, but it's just that sudden change of sonic direction that seems to grip me so furiously. Maybe I'm just a big wierdo. Who knows.

The beats, rhythms, backing tracks on Fantasy are probably my favorite part of the album, especially on the first half. "Power" has the badass-as-fuck chanting, tribal drums, and soloing guitars and piano pushing everything forward. The only thing I still don't like about this song are the samples from King Crimson's classic song "21st Century Schizoid Man". The samples fit the music, but I'm just not a fan of artists ripping bits and pieces from my favorite songs for their own music. Kudos to Kanye for knowing who King Crimson are, though.

The instrumentation on the rest of the album is lush and thick. Strings feature heavily all over the place, almost always accompanied by piano. Sounds from trumpets and other horns also come up sometimes, most memorably on "All of the Lights". Things swing from empowering and inspirational down to heavy and angry and back up again. The album seems to shoot all over the place emotionally, which kind of makes Fantasy seem a little incoherent. Luckily for Kanye, like, a bajillion people feature on this album, from Raekwon to Jay-Z to Bon Iver, and the featured artists fit perfectly with whatever tone he's trying to set with each track.

Bomb-Ass Tracks: Power, All the Lights, Runaway

On a Playlist With: Childish Gambino, Jay-Z, Death Grips

Overall Score

3.0

Like I said, I liked My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, but I didn't find it the mind-blowing second coming of Jesus that some people seem to think it is. It's a solid rap album with wicked production, but too much of it is "just a another rap album" to me. That being said, the parts I like, I like a lot. Kanye might be a douche, but he's a pretty good musician.

That's all for now, folks! I'm going to go eat some fishsticks.

-DG

Album Review: Killer Mike - "R.A.P. Music"

If there are two types of rap I like, they’re:

1.  Funky, family friendly  80s style
2.  Hard-as nails South-Western style

Guess which category a man as subtly named as Killer Mike falls under.

Killer Mike is an Atlanta based rapper who has been releasing full length albums for almost 10 years, and has been featured in a gazillion songs from the likes of Immortal Technique, Sly & the Family Stone, and Lil’ Jon (really not as impressive as the other two). Killer Mike has worked also with El-P on numerous occasions, so it isn’t too surprising to hear that El-P produced R.A.P. Music.

This album has two main highlights for me and they’re the tone of Mike’s voice and the beats/ instrumentation.Killer Mike has this really commanding voice. I wouldn’t say it’s anything too special, but I think it’s pretty powerful. I always like the type of rappers who put enough force behind what they say that they slowly start sounding out of breath or strained. Weird? Maybe. Whatever. The production and instrumentation done by El-P is fan-fucking-tastic too. All the beats hit harder than adamantine boot heel, which is A-okay in my books.

Even though Killer Mike and El-P forge this seemingly gargantuan persona for R.A.P. Music, they can keep the songs varied enough that the album doesn’t seem to be a testosterone-fest. “Don’t Die” makes Mike sound almost scared and paranoid, while “Willie Burke Sherwood” still feels strong, but just listening/ reading the lyrics shows Mike’s more melancholic side. Lyrical content on this album varies from boasts, to conspiracy theories, to personal and family issues, to the power of music. All this variation keeps the album fresh and interesting, without ever fully diluting Killer Mike’s tough-as-fuck image.

Bomb-Ass Tracks:

Big Beast (ft. T.I., Trouble & Bun B): The intro track doesn’t waste time telling you not to mess with Killer Mike and co. Probably my favorite song on the album to blast while in the car with the windows down.

Don’t Die: While “Big Beast” might be my favorite to blast in the car, “Don’t Die” has to be my favorite on the album, period. The song goes from eerie and off kilter all the way until the fantastic audio sample in the middle of the song, then Mike seems to take control of the chaos and push out a powerful ending.

Willie Burke Sherwood: Just a great song to close your eyes and lose yourself to. Look up the lyrics. Just fantastic.

On a Playlist With: El-P, Childish Gambino, Ludacris

Overall Score

3.0

Killer Mike and El-P make a great rap album that pulls you in for the whole ride. Blast this when you want to pump yourself up, or just erase whatever’s on your mind. I’d recommend this even to people who aren’t huge fans of rap or hip-hop.

Album Review: Childish Gambino – “Camp”

As some of my friends know, I have a guilty pleasure for a little Hip-Hop and Rap every once in a while. “BUT DAVID!” I hear you scream, “HIP-HOP DOESN’T HAVE BLAST BEATS OR GUTTURAL VOCALS, HOW COULD YOU ENJOY IT?”. It’s true, I do like me some Hip-Hop from time to time, I’m going to be reviewing one of my new favorite albums from the genre: Camp by Childish Gambino (released November 15, 2011)

Childish Gambino is the stage name of comedian/ actor Donald Glover. Glover rose to popularity with his stand up comedy acts, and solidified himself as a comedy powerhouse by portraying Troy Barnes on NBC’s ridiculously awesome show Community. Gambino’s Camp was the first of his that I’ve heard, and it’s technically his debut studio album, but he’s released a bunch of stuff prior to this as well.

Dat simplicity.

Camp is a more straightforward Hip-Hop album, musically. There are no wonky rhythms and beats a là Death Grips (review of The Money Store coming whenever I get around to listening to it), and no over the top bass lines and bass drops a là every Bro-Hip-Hop and Bro-Rap artist ever. Gambino raps about whatever he feels like, from girls to the state of black youth in America, to his short shorts, to his philosophies. It might seem that since there’s such a wide breadth of topics covered in Camp, it might diminish the whole album as a whole, rest assured, Gambino keeps it surprisingly well focused.

The album holds a dramatic and somewhat melancholic vibe throughout, rising to anger on “Heartbeat” before swinging back down. The emotional mood cracks apart again and transforms into insanity on the track “You See Me” where Gambino’s delivery of the lines makes him sound like a mental case.

Please tell me I'm not the only one who thought his shirt said "Broom Rape" for a second. Please.

The album suffers in only a couple ways, and that’s in Gambino’s constant references to his dick and the processing on his voice at times. I have no problems with a few dick jokes, but when it starts to crop up in almost every song, it’s a little much. The processed vocals are simply run through some light distortion, but I feel like it really takes away from the quality of his natural voice.

Bomb-Ass Tracks

Outside: The opening track off of Camp really sets the mood for the entire album. It’s one of the more serious songs dealing with how it was like for him to grow up in various neighborhoods as a kid, and he tells the story flawlessly. The choir-sung chorus is absolutely fantastic, and when the piano kicks in, oh man, it’s just perfect.

Heartbeat: This song is just nothing but straight power. The calm choruses offer a nice contrast to the furiously spat out verses. Some of the lines in “Heartbeat” are just genius, too.

That Power: Spoken word over a beat/ track. As the final track, it sums up everything he (and this album) are about and closes off the album incredibly well.

Overall Score

4.5

Childish Gambino’s Camp is a great ride of ups, downs, twists and turns which really hits home with me. It’s not without its flaws, but I can easily overlook them for the great music that it is. Check it out sometime.

That’s all for now, folks. Keep being Awesome.