KidSyc - The K.I.D.

If you don't know KidSyc, then this is an excellent chance to get to know him. In the words of the man himself - "it's more than a mixtape, but not quite an album." It's a collection of music you need to enjoy. Just try it. This one's free, but the next time you want to fly, you've got to buy.
"Die"


Download The K.I.D. 

Tranqill

This is nice. I haven't gotten too excited about much UK hip hop recently (the exception being Soundspecies), but Tranqill seems like something special.

Tranqill - Deadly Wintaz from One-Handed Music on Vimeo.


He's about to release the Hidden Treasures EP.

Thanks to Rhythm Incursions for introducing me to this.

QD of CCB "All Night Grind"

This man here QD of C.C.B. is one of the most talented artists in the South. No joke. He and his team are definitely some of the most known in the streets of Savannah. On the beats, with a pen, check this joint and tell a friend.

"All Night Grind"

Maf - Death of Charles (Exhibit C Freestyle)

Sorry for the hiatus this week, it's getting hectic with the PROJECTS 4 release coming up soon, and planning for SUAF. But I'm coming back with some serious heat for you.

Maf (short for Mafamadix) is one of Savannah's realest hip hop heads. Earlier this week he played this for the AWOL office via Skype, and I had to get him to send over a copy. He take this Jay Electronica/Just Blaze beat from "Exhibit C" and just tears it up. It's probably the hardest I've ever heard him spit.

"I've got middle class money with Sean Carter intentions."

Download a copy here.

Keith and Tex

Staying in the smooth vein - here's some lazy, island groove straight from mid-60s Jamaica.
Keith and Tex - "Tonight"


Here is an interview with Keith with a bunch of good background.

Tommy McGee

Here's an awesome slow jam for a lazy afternoon.

"Guilty" by Tommy McGee


I found this thanks to A Pyrex Scholar.

Express Yourself

This song pretty much sums it up.

"Express Yourself" - Charles Wright and Watts 103rd St. Rhythm Band


It's no big revelation for old school heads or crate diggers, but this goes down as one of my favorite jams  of all time. It's up there with "Tighten Up" by Archie Bell and the Drells.

Of course, it was also famously flipped (well, more looped than flipped really) for the NWA track of the same title.

Desoto Strut 2-19-10

 

Check out my accompanying article in this week's Connect. 

Substantial's Mixtape of Romance

I should've gotten this up earlier today so you could set the mood. Psyche. There's no denying the theme of Substantial's mixtape, Wink, but it's actually as often funny as sentimental (check the second cut "R Love Songs Gay?").

Grab Wink free right here.

For my two cents, this man is criminally slept in the list of top notch MCs. He's funny, has excellent wordplay, and keeps it real - all traits I value in mic controllers. His 2008 LP Sacrifice is really solid, and musically interesting from the production side too. Listen to the track "My Favorite Things", "It's You", or "Chain Reaction" for example.

Video: Wendy Rene "Crying All By Myself"

Oh man. Wendy Rene is so awesome. Stax Records. Memphis, TN. Her "After the Laughter" is also highly recommended - RZA sampled it twice. (Once for Wu, and once for an ODB collab on the 1st Bobby Digital record). Her voice is just so unique.

Video: Spirit Animal "My Heart is Lonely"

Spirit Animal is from Los Angeles. This video is good (quirky, fun, low-budget), but the song is really dope, a remix of Jackie Wilson's "Lonely Teardrops". Under the alias, the Brazen Band, the group's got a remix album coming out on Valentine's Day that will include remakes of tracks from Beirut, Devendra Banhart, Ginuwine and more. I'm guessing there's a love theme involved...just a guess.




Go to their website on V-Day to get the album.

Video: Kam Moye "Forever Fresh"

Here's the video for some of that new Kam Moye. Beat by Marco Polo (don't sleep on his Port Authority album). Moye is an NC dude who used to go by Supastition, and he's been paying dues for a good lil minute now. He had a boom bap, backpacker album a while back under his original moniker (I think it was called Boombox, but I might be confused), however, that old stuff doesn't hold a candle to his new stuff. A rose by any other name might smell just as sweet, but apparently, this MC got a new name and reallly stepped his game up.




You can grab a free album sampler here.

Don Will's Laura Mixtape

Tanya Morgan member Don Will aka "Don Cusack in High Fidelity" just dropped a nice little mixtape, which you can grab for free right here. In case you were on a Rumplestiltskin type nap in 2009, TM's Brooklynati was in pretty much every hip hop critic's top ten list.

Bits and pieces of this, including "Laura's Song" have been floating around the tubes of the internet for a little while now, (and the maxi single is for sale on iTunes) but now this thing is all wrapped up, mixed up and ready for your listening pleasure.

Check out "I See You" if you want a taste before you grab the whole joint.

TM is on tour through the beginning of March, so if you live in a major metropolitan area, you can probably catch their show in the next couple weeks.

Been Meaning to Tell You

Ernest Gonzalez's Been Meaning To Tell You dropped this week. I can't say enough about this Texas based electronic beat-smith (who is also known to remix under the moniker Mexicans with Guns). His product is versatile, roaming from sentimental and airy to darker and driven with surprisingly little effort.

Check out his website for the album, which comes in several forms, including white 180 gram vinyl and an art book.

Check out this post from December to hear "Dancing in the Snow"

Ethereal Cereal

This is one of the commercials from Robert Downey Sr.'s 1969 satire Putney Swope. Pretty awesome.

Slipping Through The Cracks

Check out this dope mini-documentary about AWOL.

Slipping Through the Cracks_Awol from Kendall Rumph on Vimeo.



Check out more from the filmmaker on vimeo.

Sunglasses "Whiplash" live at Hangfire 02-05-10

Sunglasses (MNUVR + Hula Hoop) killed it at Hangfire last night. Here's a video of them performing their new single "Whiplash", including dancing by Ricky Pirozzi, which makes more sense if you've seen the actual video for the song. It came out a week or two ago and is apparently making waves. Brady told me they've been getting love from Fader and Vice, as well invites to do some shows up in big cities.

Michel Gondry video

"Open Your Heart" a music video directed by Michel Gondry that is a lesson in choreography and color theory. It's also a lesson in how creativity trumps production value with a little sweat equity and a gang of extras. As far as I can tell, the only budget expense here was some complimentary colored t-shirts and the time spent re-sewing them.


Mia Doi Todd "Open Your Heart" dir. Michel Gondry from Viewers Like You on Vimeo.


I found this on the Fader site.

Album Review: Malachai "Ugly Side of Love"

This group Malachai from the UK has haunted me for a while. A DJ friend had a copy of "Fading World" what seems like a year ago, and I heard it, couldn't place the era or the geographical origin - and new right away that I needed to have it. I searched far and wide and couldn't figure out where the hell he found that track, or any other info about the band (they changed the spelling of their name at some point). 

Fast forward to December, when I got a copy of "Fading World" that was leaked as a teaser to the album Ugly Side of Love, which came out Tuesday (2/2). I was at a Christmas party talking to someone about the awesomeness of the track, which I had forgotten I had ever heard, when the same friend who introduced it to me 'lo those many moons ago came up and said 'so you finally found that track.' 

It's only the 5th week of the year - just long enough that I have finally remembered to stop writing 2009 on my checks - but I can safely say that this will be in my top ten list of albums for the year when December rolls back around. That's not some critically excited hyperbole either. It's just a solid record.

It manages to be a lot of different things, and pulls them all off tastefully. There's no derivative feeling. No moments where I feel anxious or dissatisfied - it's immersive. Generally speaking - imagine the White Stripes if Jack White had listened to a lot more Kinks, gotten into crafty sampling, and then spent some quality time with Portishead mastermind Geoff Barrow. It's dusty and psychedelic, wandering from moody to raw powered effortlessly.

If you only heard "Fading World" - which is like a RZA take on the smoothest Jamaican nostalgia - temper your expectations (not because the rest of the album doesn't stand up to it, but because that track isn't representative of the record's feel as a whole). It goes from blunted to bar fight and back again.

This is an album you should buy. Don't even steal it or burn a copy from a friend who bought it and say that you'll catch these guys on tour when they come around. Just go right now and get a copy. Unless you're not into that sort of thing, in which case, you probably need to get music advice from a different blog.

Tronic Night at Livewire 2/25/10

Livewire is breaking out of the usual jammy booking trends to follow up the wildly successful RJD2 show with another night of electronic beats. This time starring Eliot Lipp, M.O. Theory and Nostalgia.
Show is 2/25/10 and a very reasonable $8/adv $10/door. I'm not crazy about M.O. Theory (who are actually from Charleston) because it seems a little easy (typical arrangements and canned, textureless sounds), but some of Lipp's stuff is solid - he was here a few months ago too, so his last show must have done pretty well. Nostalgia is also from Charleston, and apparently, he was nostalgic for the same thing that M.O. Theory was, because their stuff reminds me of everything I didn't care for about late 90s post-Fatboy Slim breakbeat.

New Track from Bosco

Savannah-native Brittany Bosco just dropped a new track off her forthcoming project and, in the words of Monty Python - now for something completely different. If you knew her when she was doing her futuristic electro-soul-jazz thing last year, forget it. This new track is on some straight up thrashy, dirty blues. This is some Jon Spencer Blues Explosion fronted by a down south girl with crazy grit. I'm curious to hear more of the record. Saw Ms. Bosco and the crew in Atlanta in December and, I may have mentioned this before, was blown away by a 16 minute version of "Summertime" that was ridiculously psychedelic. Get a copy of the new song "Ragdoll" by clicking here.