(Lily Van Der Stokker, title and date unknown)
So, I haven't done one of these in a while. I've been a little busy. Up and down the country, busy writing stuff that might actually be seen, sorting out a house and a society... But anyway, these are no excuses. Rough recent interesting stuff rundown...
MUSIC.
Listening has been mainly hip hop. A list of names would just be boring, so here's a few videos instead:
Quasimoto- Greenery.
Way-out there stuff from Madlib, released under the pseudonym Quasimoto/ Lord Quas. The voice is... distinctive, to say the least. Fun, kinda goofy, playful stuff. His first record is probably more consistent, but this track from his second (The Further Adventures of Lord Quas) gives a pretty good idea what to expect: dreamy, but not necessarily nightmarish. Also: track Jazz Cats Pt. 1, though not outstanding as a song, is such a good rundown of quality jazz artists. I've been using it as a springboard for finding stuff, and I recommend you do the same. Now.
Earl Sweatshirt- EARL
From the so-extreme-it's-just-cartoonish crew Odd Future (or, as they some times insist on being called, OFWGKTA (or Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All. Yeah.)) comes Earl Sweatshirt. I make no bones about it: both lyrically and in terms of the video's content, this stuff ain't for queasy stomachs. But it's also (once you get past the aforementioned violence) brilliantly produced- kinda unique, and hard to pin down. A bit lo-fi, with fantastic detuned synth lines and meandering raps packed with genuine 'what'd he say?!' moments. Free downloads of various mixtapes available from their tumblr, here. Their approach is kinda like a new Wu Tang-Clan: one group album, and various mixtapes from the respective members, all masterminded by 'the creator' Tyler. Domo Genesis' Rolling Papers is excellent, but as far as I can tell they're all worth checking out.
And (another) DOOM alterego, Viktor Vaughn. This's the title track from his not-so-recent Vaudeville Villain. Straight up awesome, with one mother of a groove. Obviously, if one hasn't, one should also give the DOOM/Madlib collaboration Madvillain a listen as well, because Madvillainy is packed full of genius, but DOOM's entire back catalogue (except, possibly, Dangerdoom, which is fun but rather insubstantial) rewards digging. Further updates as I get acquainted with the aforementioned back catalogue are to be expected; I'm not saying I know it all here- just that, currently, I haven't heard Daniel Dumile do anything terrible.
Recent gig-going has been embarrasingly lax, but I did manage to catch the (overpriced) Ducktails at the Cube. Bearing in mind I hadn't bothered to listen to their recorded stuff (which, according to two out of the three people I went with, is much better than the live show), the gig was massively, massively underwhelming. Every track felt sub-something else, and weirdly half-finished. The songs seemed somehow malformed- like someone had started writing a song, got bored halfway through and raced through the process. Again: I haven't listened to the recorded stuff, but on the basis of that gig, I don't feel at all inspired to search it out.
But the frontman was likeable enough, and his backing band was the rather good Spectrals, so it wasn't all bad- just a bit dull.
BOOKS.
Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov and Dante's Inferno both got polished off in quick succession. Well, I tell a lie- the Dostoyevsky's been on the go for quite a while, but I got inspired and chewed through two thirds in a week or so. I don't think I can say anything particularly insightful here: both books deserve the status they have, and they're both a bit too weighty to analyse pithily.
So, instead: a quick thumbs-up for a little book of two lectures by the wonderful John Ruskin. Called On Art and Life, and available as part of Penguin's Great Ideas series, Ruskin is consistently charming, especially in the second piece- a lecture delivered on the subject of iron. It doesn't seem too unreasonable to get a high dose of cultyah for ~£3.50, does it? No. So go buy.
MUSIC.
Listening has been mainly hip hop. A list of names would just be boring, so here's a few videos instead:
Quasimoto- Greenery.
Way-out there stuff from Madlib, released under the pseudonym Quasimoto/ Lord Quas. The voice is... distinctive, to say the least. Fun, kinda goofy, playful stuff. His first record is probably more consistent, but this track from his second (The Further Adventures of Lord Quas) gives a pretty good idea what to expect: dreamy, but not necessarily nightmarish. Also: track Jazz Cats Pt. 1, though not outstanding as a song, is such a good rundown of quality jazz artists. I've been using it as a springboard for finding stuff, and I recommend you do the same. Now.
Earl Sweatshirt- EARL
From the so-extreme-it's-just-cartoonish crew Odd Future (or, as they some times insist on being called, OFWGKTA (or Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All. Yeah.)) comes Earl Sweatshirt. I make no bones about it: both lyrically and in terms of the video's content, this stuff ain't for queasy stomachs. But it's also (once you get past the aforementioned violence) brilliantly produced- kinda unique, and hard to pin down. A bit lo-fi, with fantastic detuned synth lines and meandering raps packed with genuine 'what'd he say?!' moments. Free downloads of various mixtapes available from their tumblr, here. Their approach is kinda like a new Wu Tang-Clan: one group album, and various mixtapes from the respective members, all masterminded by 'the creator' Tyler. Domo Genesis' Rolling Papers is excellent, but as far as I can tell they're all worth checking out.
And (another) DOOM alterego, Viktor Vaughn. This's the title track from his not-so-recent Vaudeville Villain. Straight up awesome, with one mother of a groove. Obviously, if one hasn't, one should also give the DOOM/Madlib collaboration Madvillain a listen as well, because Madvillainy is packed full of genius, but DOOM's entire back catalogue (except, possibly, Dangerdoom, which is fun but rather insubstantial) rewards digging. Further updates as I get acquainted with the aforementioned back catalogue are to be expected; I'm not saying I know it all here- just that, currently, I haven't heard Daniel Dumile do anything terrible.
Recent gig-going has been embarrasingly lax, but I did manage to catch the (overpriced) Ducktails at the Cube. Bearing in mind I hadn't bothered to listen to their recorded stuff (which, according to two out of the three people I went with, is much better than the live show), the gig was massively, massively underwhelming. Every track felt sub-something else, and weirdly half-finished. The songs seemed somehow malformed- like someone had started writing a song, got bored halfway through and raced through the process. Again: I haven't listened to the recorded stuff, but on the basis of that gig, I don't feel at all inspired to search it out.
But the frontman was likeable enough, and his backing band was the rather good Spectrals, so it wasn't all bad- just a bit dull.
BOOKS.
Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov and Dante's Inferno both got polished off in quick succession. Well, I tell a lie- the Dostoyevsky's been on the go for quite a while, but I got inspired and chewed through two thirds in a week or so. I don't think I can say anything particularly insightful here: both books deserve the status they have, and they're both a bit too weighty to analyse pithily.
So, instead: a quick thumbs-up for a little book of two lectures by the wonderful John Ruskin. Called On Art and Life, and available as part of Penguin's Great Ideas series, Ruskin is consistently charming, especially in the second piece- a lecture delivered on the subject of iron. It doesn't seem too unreasonable to get a high dose of cultyah for ~£3.50, does it? No. So go buy.
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