If someone were to keep score
for producers Lunice and Hudson Mohawke after the EP of laser-guided trap they made as TNGHT, it might be a unanimous decision
favoring Mohawke. Following TNGHT's release, Hudmo: hopped into the
booth for G.O.O.D. Music's Cruel Summer comp. (including "Mercy"), added shrill blasts to "I Am A God", helped Drake go "swangin'" on the stuttering love song "Connect", and oversaw a kingpin meeting between
Pusha T and Rick Ross for the guilt-ridden "Hold On". Lunice meanwhile stayed out of the
spotlight, 2013 contains a scant two credits from him for Rockie Fresh tracks "Panera Bread" and "Superman OG". There's a Yeezus sample credit
for the Montreal native, though it's as a part of TNGHT for "Blood on the Leaves". Following TNGHT's amicable hiatus at the end of last year, all signs
pointed to Mohawke being the one to take advantage of his new found
"freedom."
"Can't Wait To", the
possible first taste of Lunice's upcoming album, obliterates those signposts
and shreds any scorecard in sight. The initial vocal stutters invite
comparisons to TNGHT's calling card "Higher Ground", though they're more sedate on "Can't Wait To".
Hearing them snake across the track an apocalyptic Burial effort comes to mind before a dance floor
groover. That's all but confirmed when deeper background vocals float over
Lunice's jackhammering bass. They sound like a ghost from a Scooby Doo episode,
if the episode was only shown once for being "too scary."
"Scary" is perhaps the best adjective to use when describing
"Can't Wait To". The glinting xylophone that comes in around the 1:10
mark is "scary." Instead of lightening the mood, it makes everything
10 shades darker. The frail keys in the final 20 seconds are "scary";
each echo makes the hairs on my arm stand up. And Lunice's prodigious work here
is "scary."
Lunice's untitled album is tentatively slated for a 2014 release through Lucky Me Records.
I took my own sweet time reviewing this record for several reasons. First,
trips into the awe-inspiring Mountain West kill almost any desire to work.
Alongside the fact that it's hard to find any Wi-Fi on the side of a mountain.
But more importantly this is a Kanye West record, one of the few artists left
in any genre whose release dates turn into full-blown events. Once the release
date for Yeezus was announced, I found myself intensely circling June
18th with the sort of anticipation reserved for a kid at Christmas. In short,
this is something worth taking your time on, less you risk being bowled over by
the hypemachine that is always threatening to run off the tracks every time
Kanye releases a new album. And finally, I took my time with this review,
because after 10 full spins down into the rabbit hole, I'm still not entirely
sure what I'm hearing. Not that an album like this is without precedence, though the reference
points may appear dated to some. The last commercial artist (for whatever that
means anymore) to make this deliberately non-commercial of an album was
Radiohead with Kid A in the face of the capital they garnered with 1990s
touchstone OK Computer. Drifting back a bit further, we find another Yeezus
companion in the prickly In Utero, Nirvana's aural balking at the
success Nevermind afforded them. Yeezus keeps company with these
mangled predecessors. A dense, often impenetrable album, Yeezus is so
subsumed with blind rage and paranoia it's a small miracle Ye manages to craft
a coherent line while spitting with such venom. In the case of the crushing
industrial complex of "I
Am a God" it's the gospel, with Kanye's righteous anger reduced to a
serious of dissonant yells and blood-curdling screams. Whereas, Radiohead was
wigging out over the perils of living in the Y2K decade, and Cobain & crew
were doing everything to kill the 800-pound gorilla in the room that was Nevermind,
Yeezus' fury is fomented without cause and aimed in every direction. As is often the case with a great work of horror, an apparent lack of rhyme
or reason to the madness is all the more terrifying. And on the first few
listen-throughs, Yeezus is bereft of any method to the madness. "I'm In It" is
positively stomach-churning in its thorough documentation of a party that
reached its legal limit hours ago. A warped, coked up take on classic Prince
circa Purple Rain, the song relies on a double-tracked Kanye voice that
could fill in for Victor von Doom; creating the sort of party atmosphere where
Leatherface would be a must-have on the guest list. Kanye manages several of
his so dumb they're genius lines on the track like "eating Asian p***y,
all I need is sweet & sour sauce," and "put my fist in her like
the Civil Rights sign," but they're the only chuckles to be found on the
claustrophobic song. An immediate difference between this record and prior solo-release My
Beautiful Dark Twisted is a steadfast commitment to a less is more
approach. If West gleaned anything from producer Rick Rubin on the record, it's
that lesson in minimalism that Rubin perfected with Run DMC, LL Cool J, and The
Beastie Boys and West employs to great effect on conversation started "New
Slaves." The song is little more than the bleeps and bloops West filtered
throughout 808s broken up by the occasional orchestral menace that made "H.A.M." so
bracing. Chief Keef who has staked his career thus-far on masking minimalism as
bombast, shows up for a subdued vocal turn on "Hold My Liquor"
where the entirety of his performance can be boiled down to "I can't
handle my liquor, but these b***hes can't handle me." West raps over a
muted drum beat and guitar swipes, futilely attempting to keep his destructive
tendencies at bay. For anyone that still has a proclivity for pigeonholing hip-hop as a genre
rife with over-accentuated machismo and misogyny, they'll be clocking overtime
on this record. A friend commented that this album plays out like My
Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy's "Hell of a Life"
blown-up to LP proportions, and in many ways he's right. That song was the
pinnacle of the decadence, hedonism, and narcissism found on MBDTF, but
it pales in comparison to much of Yeezus. Past stylizing himself as a
God, West declares this "the greatest shit since "In Da Club" on
the drill-scene inspired "Send
It Up," threatens to "turn the plane around if your ass keep
complaining" on closer "Bound 2,"
categorizes an unnamed woman on the mutilated Daft Punk production "On Sight" as
doing little more than "tryna get a nut, and wears the crown of Big Poppa
on "Guilt
Trip;" and those scan as some of the tamest examples to be found on
the album. All of that is just foreplay for the poison pill Kanye force-feeds listeners
on centerpiece "Blood on the Leaves." If the song has a sibling in
the West discography it’s in MBDTF's "Blame Game."
That song was a heartbreaking tale of betrayal, West desperately trying to make
contact at 1 in the morning, "calling your brother's phone like what was I
supposed to do?" On that song, West was wounded and could hard make sense
of the relationship that was crumbling before his very eyes. That's not the
case here, Kanye instead demands "let's get on with it," before a
Spartan beat offered up by TNGHT obliterates a sample of Nina Simone covering
Civil Rights anthem "Strange Fruit." The sample harkens back to a
"simpler" time for West, when rapping and making soul beats were his
only concerns, before he became tabloid fodder and courted controversy. But
that soul sample is the only recollection of 2004 Kanye on the track, lines
like "let's take it back to the first party, where you tried your first
molly," unlikely to pop up on "All Fall Down." When he bitterly
re-terms marriage "unholy matrimony," it's the ice-cold grasp of 808s
& Heartbreak that is recalledand not the warm boom-bap of College
Dropout. Almost a decade into his career, Kanye seems utterly incapable of running in place, each successive album designed to deconstruct what came before it. In Ryan Dombal's review for Pitchfork, he wrote that "many of the
album's most powerful moments have him broken down, insecure, and bloody,
railing against an ineptitude with the opposite sex," which should come as
no surprise to anyone whose followed West since the beginning. The great trick
of Kanye's career has been to construct a front of overconfidence in the
service of concealing his Achilles heel of insecurity. For every moment West
elevates himself to Godlike status, there's an equal part of beating himself up
to a bloody pulp. He can move from the consciousness of "New Slaves"
to the oafishness of "Send It Up" and not even bat an eye. Back to
"Blood on the Leaves" he confesses to wanting "what I can't buy
now," conjuring up 2007's "Can't Tell Me Nothing."
He's traded Mos Def & Freeway spots for Chief Keef and King L, cast aside
much of his soul stylings for drill music/dancehall/and Titanic-sized
electronica, and moved from the neon daydream of Graduation's cover to
the unadorned Yeezus. But one thing hasn't changed and that's the man at
the center of it all, a restless rap savant who still "don't care what people
say."
After a slight delay (writing this many reviews is tough people), the countdown continues as 2012 winds to a close. All are welcome on this as hopscotch from noise rock to hip-hop with ease. If you missed a step, catch up with 50-41, and then continue on with Part II of the Top 50 Albums of 2012.
50. Cigarette Boats- Curren$y 49. Vicious Lies & Dangerous Rumors- Big Boi 48. There's No Leaving Now- The Tallest Man on Earth 47. Blue Chips- Action Bronson & Party Supplies 46. Wrecking Ball- Bruce Springsteen 45. The Only Place- Best Coast 44. Live from the Underground- Big K.R.I.T. 43. I Bet on Sky- Dinosaur Jr. 42. Lux- Brian Eno 41. Rich Forever- Rick Ross
#40. Life is Good- Nas
A
20-year old Nas sits scribbling lyrics in his notebook about his “tec on the dresser.”
The organ-driven “Accident Murderers” featuring a guest verse from Rick Ross is
the sound of a 39-year old Nas acknowledging the brutality of bullets, how they
keep kids from coming home, and how reckless gunplay can lead to anyone becoming
“an accident murderer.” The Nas of “The World Is Yours” is thinking
up a word “best describing my life to name my daughter,” and Nas the father on
the sweet “Daughters” is scrambling to be the best parent he can be. “I’m too
loose, I’m too cool with her, should drove on time to school with her,” he
self-reflectively raps on the second verse, realizing his days of playin’ and
heartbreaking have brought him a daughter who’ll see things from the other
side. He was once warning “I ain’t the type of brother made for you to start
testin’,” but on the weary “World’s An Addiction” he’s letting beefs go dead to
ensure they don’t blow out of proportion. “Bye Baby,” an insight into Nas’ divorce with singer Kelis reveals itself as a
yearning to “take it back some years.” Hindsight’s clearly 20/20 and the past
is the only place to dwell when the present seems so conflicted. The No I.D. produced
“Back When” which samples MC Shan’s Queensbridge class “The Bridge” is a
history lesson of misspent youth and misplaced blame. “The ill reminisce and
think about the fly days, nothing like them 80s summer NY days,” he raps early
on in the track. Many mythologize Nas’ career in a similar way, wishing for a
proper follow-up to Illmatic a
larger-than-life benchmark from a 20-year old that’s hip hop’s measuring stick for
greatness. On opener “No Introduction” he labels those people “trapped in the
90s n****s.” You can never return to what you once were and Nas knows that
better than anyone.
"Daughters"
#39. Hair- Ty Segall & White Fence
Seas
of tranquility mutate into swells of sound. The jingle-jangle of tambourine twists
into thunderous drum beats. Folksy dreaming is corrupted by a feedback-laden nightmare.
Such is the way of Hair,
garage-rocker Ty Segall’s collaborative effort with fellow San Francisco weirdo
White Fence. The pair is perfect together, adeptly crafting odes to their Nuggets forefathers, then pelting their elders
with an explosive static. The hazy “The Black Glove/Rave” could pass as an
outtake from The Beatles Revolver before
Segall & Tim Presley of White Fence grow impatient and skewer the track with
shards of guitar chords. “Crybaby” is an on-edge rockabilly raver that Segall
& White Fence send careening into a canyon. “Scissor People” recalls The
Yardbirds “I Can’t Make Your Way,” until the pair tear down the garage and sift
through the rubble. All initial signs point to closer “Tongues” as the safety from
this raging rock, but no melody is safe from these two and whimsy quickly
becomes rage. It’s clear that on the Hair
EP, Segall & White Fence aren’t so much historians as revisionists, borrowing
the classics from garage rock’s hallowed library and burning the rest.
"The Black Glove/Rag"
#38. The O.F. Tape Vol. 2- Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All
If
2011 was all about Odd Future seizing control of the rap conversation with
their seething lyrics, striking videos (remember the first time you actually
watched “Yonkers?”), and general devil-may-care attitude, then 2012 can be seen
as a continued occupation. Through a steady-stream of releases including the
very-good No Idolsby resident-stoner
Domo Genesis and the overlooked Numbers
by MellowHype, the crew put to rest any notions that this was just the Tyler show.
Instead of one voice, there were now 10 “under pressure, standing in the middle
like hula-hoops.” Domo’s voice in particular rings out on this release, cutting
through clouds of smoke to rattle off dizzying lines like “put that hash in the
bong, it’ll make you cough, and the purp’s going down like the Lakers lost,” on
the lurching “Lean.” Hodgy Beats rips through the Spartan Left-Brain produced
“50” with “a lotta narcotics, flow aquatic atomic.” The Michael Myers
piano-affair “NY (Ned Flander)” plays host to a lecherous Tyler “sneaking in
your kid’s earlobe.” “Forest Green” finds shy-guy Mike G “just tryna get rich, middle
fingers up screaming swag me out b***h.” Even “not rappers” Taco and Jasper return
for the Waka Flocka Flame inspired “We Got B*****s,” the sorta sequel to Goblin’s “B***h S*** D***.” Amidst all
this chaos there’s room for Frank Ocean to sing the tender “White,” where
he fades in and out of a dream. It all builds
to the epic posse-cut “Oldie” where: Tyler, Hodgy, Left Brain, Mike G, Domo
Genesis, Frank Ocean, and a now free Earl Sweatshirt trade verses over a
ten-minute boom-bap track. Earl steals the show, “the culprit of the potent
punch, scoldin’ hot as dunkin’ scrotum in a Folgers cup.” “I started an
empire,” Tyler raps near the conclusion. In the course of a year that empire has
given rise to a democracy where every vote matters, where everyone has a voice.
"Oldie"
#37. Reign of Terror- Sleigh Bells
“Burn
the streets baby please, finish me,” Sleigh Bells singer Alexis Krauss sneers on
buzz-saw opener “True Shred Guitar.” The line is the perfect sentiment for the
Sleigh Bells sound, a Molotov cocktail of beauty and brutality threatening to
go off at any time. In true Sleigh Bells fashion, this album is undoubtedly
louder than anything else you’ll hear all year. At times the mixing is pushed so
far into the red the soundboard should be bleeding. Guitars don’t just roar on
this album, they flatten everything in their path. They take no prisoners in
their all out assault on your eardrums. But loudness alone can only go so far, and
Krauss’ saccharine vocals on tracks like the shoegaze-inspired “Born to Lose” are
the perfect antidote to Derek Miller’s lacerating guitar. “Crush” is the child
of an unholy marriage between the heavy-metal and cheerleader set, sated with echoing
stomp/clamps and enough riffage to make Angus Young envious. Krauss summons up the spirit of 60s girl-pop on
the song, whispering “I gotta crush on, I gotta crush on you.” Unlike debut
Treats that rah-rah attitude isn’t
everything, as the elation of love slowly gives way to disappointment. Krauss
is exasperated on “End of the Line,” struggling to make sense of a romance that
now amounts to “nightmares in the morning.” She squares off with demons physical
and figurative on the riff-paradise of “Demons,” begging for a fight as she’s
slowly engulfed by flames. The jackhammer drumming of “Comeback Kid” leads Krauss
to urge another to “try a little harder,” but she may as well be speaking to herself.
The nagging teens of Treats have grown
on Reign of Terror, doing everything in their power to “deal with it.”
“This
is death of Auto-Tune moment of silence,” Jay-Z maliciously rapped on 2008’s “D.O.A.
(Death of Auto-Tune),” before advising singing-rappers to “get back to rap;
you’re T-Paining too much.” From the sounds of Atlanta artist Future’s debut
album, he didn’t get the memo. Future doesn’t just use the “played-out” device to
cover up vocal shortcomings; he uses it as a conduit into his emotionally
conflicted soul. “Truth Gonna Hurt You” sits the roaming astronaut
down and wrangles a promise out of him to “get my act together.” Future wears
his heart on his sleeve on the Mike Will Made It produced “Astronaut Status,” slow-walking
through the night life with a woman he’d do anything for. Affection becomes angst
on “Turn on the Lights,” when Future burbles about the girl of his dreams. He cuts
through the darkness with a flashlight and flips on lights to find her. Angst morphs
into paranoid anger on the devious “Tony Montana.” Tag-teaming with Drake, Future
warns all-challengers they’ll need an army to take him down, he’s “moving like
a mob boss.” The sampled to death “Same Damn Time” is one of rap’s standout
hits from 2012, an earworm that has you from the get-go. Future can barely
constrain his spending spree over an off-the-rail synth courtesy of Sonny
Digital Future’s rocking “Gucci and Bally at the same damn time,” as if to sneeringly
tell naysayers “give up you’ll never get to this level.” The lyrics are riddled
with the “if one is good, two are better,” mentality, Future’s indecisiveness masked
as flexin’. That double focus is all over the LP, Future knowing full-well when
to stunt and when to sob. He’s rap’s interplanetary traveler, coming in peace
or coming to conquer. Only he and his Auto-Tune know which one it’ll be before
they touch down.
"Same Damn Time"
#34. Psychedelic Pill- Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Repetition,
repetition, repetition. A wheel spinning endlessly throughout time. Such steadiness
can be maddening to some, but to Neil Young & Crazy Horse repetition is assurance,
the bedrock of an unshakable sound that began more than 40 years ago and can
still be heard today. Opener “Driftin Back” lazily floats down a river into infinity
with Neil Young & Frank Sampdero’s guitars as its guide. There’s rarely a
scream or yelp to be heard from the trance-inducing solos in the song’s
27-minutes. All we hear are whispers as Young ruminates on how corrosive technology can
be, “I used to dig Picasso, I used to dig Picasso; then a big tech giant came and
turned them into wallpaper.” He escape by hopping hop on the wheel and spinning
back to a simpler time. The co-dependent couple of the gorgeous, but troubled “Ramada
Inn” are stuck in a rut. For the song’s 17 minutes, they’re seeking a portal to
the past, to a time before: drinks, drugs or kids who never call. They long for
a time when it was just the two of them living for each other. Neil Young’s warbled
refrain of “she (he) loves him so, she (he) does what he has to,” is that road
to redemption, a reminder of loves saving grace. The tribute-laden “TwistedRoad” is all-about the eternality of music, how a few familiar chords can take you
back to that first time you heard “Like a Rolling Stone,” where there was magic
in the air and time stood still. De-facto closer “Walk Like A Giant,” captures Young
floating like a leaf in a stream. A reappearing whistling figure veils Young’s disappointment with his generation’s failure. They were
“getting closer every minute,” but the wheels fell off and the train derailed.
They scorned the steadiness of time to build a path that was destined to die. To some consistency is foolish but to Neil Young & Crazy Horse its comfort, a
one way ticket to the eternal.
"Ramada Inn"
#33. Spooky Action at a Distance- Lotus Plaza
Waking
up from a sublime dream, you struggle to recall it all, to fill in the blanks to
a story that’s slowly disappearing. You close your eyes and cling tight to your
pillow, praying you’ll be transported back to the start. To relive it all one
last time before the “weight of the world,” comes bearing down on you is your
only wish. Spooky Action at a Distance,
the second LP from Deerhunter guitarist Lockett Pundt’s Lotus Plaza project, begins
as a search for that half-remembered dream. “Jet Out of the Tundra’s” chugging bass-line
accompanies Pundt’s quest to go back “where we were again.” He’s running with his
back to the past and his face hidden from the future, trying to make sense
of an ever-changing present. All he needs is his other-half to wake from a
dream and help him face the day. The longing for another soul to join you on
your walk through the scary world outside your bedroom door is a running theme throughout
Spooky Action. The soft strumming of “DustyRhodes” uncovers Pundt’s naked emotions; every beat is his pulsating heart as he
works up the courage to ask for accompaniment into “the unknown.” Questions like
“would you leave with me,” are never easy and Pundt does his best to sell the
scenario. If “Dusty Rhodes” is his pitch, then the drum-heavy “Out of Touch,” is
the plan to “take it slow, just live day by day.” It’s the distillation of the
plans you concoct from beneath the sheets once you’ve given up on the dream, to
“start a life, some place new and out of touch.” “Monoliths” starts with the
sound of something rewinding (a fresh start of sorts) before Pundt casts aside “God,
hate, fun, and faith,” for a chance to walk about and breathe in the liberating
air. By the time his own walkabout takes him to the doors of the penultimate “Remember Our Days” Pundt’s waving goodbye to all the plans and promises he made. He’s no
longer interested in recalling the dreams, he’s committed to remembering the
truly fleeting moments of our lives: the days.
"Monoliths"
#32. Food & Liquor II: The Great American Rap Album Pt. I- Lupe Fiasco
Can
we just pretend that Lasers, Lupe
Fiasco’s middling third album never existed? That “The Show Goes On” for all its
success was a forced sellout courtesy of Atlantic. There was still the message,
Lupe railing against “State Run Radio” and advertising that black is beautiful
on “All Black Everything,” but it was lost under a commercialized sound bordering
on parody. Lupe might’ve had a lot to live up to in delivering a sequel to 2006’s
faultless Food & Liquor, but once
Lasers dropped that pressure vanished.
With a weight lifted from his shoulders, he was free to make the record he
wanted on his own terms. FLII is the
fruit of that labor. “Teddy bears, liquor bottle shrines, and rocks,” can be
found on the corners of “Ayesha Says” his sister’s introduction to the
worldwide ghetto that’s growing every day. It’s a ghetto Lupe raps of being
forced into on the numbing “Strange Fruition.” “I can’t pledge allegiance to
your flag, cause I find no reconciliation with your past,” he raps with
righteous anger over the slowly-dying electronic beat. Lupe doggedly searches
for that past on “Unforgivable Youth” looking for a time before slave labor
forces were providing “wealth to the machine,” but all he sees are permanent scars
and “tears left as proof.” “Around My Way” boldly recycles the beat from
certifiable classic “T.R.O.Y.” by Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth, not to pay
tribute to a fallen-friend, but to eulogize a dream deferred. On the corner of
165th & Broadway, Lupe scans an empty “Audubon Ballroom,”looking for the ghost of Malcolm. With the work of Malcolm and MLK as fuel,
Lupe reignites the flames of that dream. To ensure the fire burns bright, he diverts
the poisonous waters of the word “n****,” and assures that “black people we’re
not n****s, God made us better than that.” No word ever capable of defining an
entire race. Not every track on FLII is
a message for the masses as evidenced on the personal narrative of “Cold War.” A
vocal whispers through a cold New York wind while Lupe sees a
fallen friend off to the other side. “Baby grab a jacket it’s a cold cold war,”
singer Jane $$$ bellows on the hook. With an unswerving message in his mind, a
fire in his heart, and a microphone in hand Lupe’s survived the winter of
discontent and he’s better than ever. If Lasers
did anything it served as confirmation that “even the greatest gotta suffer
sometime.”
"Strange Fruition" ft. Casey Benjamin
#31. TNGHT- TNGHT
This
is the sound of Lex Luger with a laser-beam, Young Chop going surgical on a
beat with a scalpel. If Three 6 Mafia were born in Manchester instead of Memphis
and came armed with a laptop this would be there trade. TNGHT’s audacious EP is
a trunk-rattling rap record reflected through the prism of dubstep & bass
music. “Higher Ground” skitters across the dancefloor, coasting on an amplified
vocal sample before it disappears in a cloud of trap-rap drums and beat-drops.
Remarkably the beat makes room for a heavy horn that gives the track an element
of danger. The itchy beat of “Top Floor” reads as a Chief Keef track stuck in a
slow moving syrup-laden purgatory where a stable of horror movies villains are
lurking just around the corner. And the glitch-ridden beat of “Easy Easy” is
begging for a snarling T.I. to come in and tear the roof of a futuristic
house-party. That collaborators Hudson Mohawke and Lunice hail from Glasgow and
Montreal respectively reads as a shock at first; musical interloping at its
worst. But with cosigns from Waka Flocka Flame, Kendrick Lamar, and Kanye West its
clear these two have all the hip-hop credentials they need.
"Higher Ground"
Any
problems with Round 2? Then let your voice should be
heard, and remember there's still 30 more to go as we climb towards the mountain top of 2012.
