I listen to a lot of music. Like A LOT of music, devouring albums like Shia LaBeouf ruins movies. And that’s a lot of fucking movies. Most of these records don’t last past the first listen. They get heard, I jot down some notes, and immediately file them away among artists like: Toddla T, Isis, The Scribbling Idiots, and Death Vessel. Never heard of Toddla T, Isis, The Scribbling Idiots or Death Vessel?? Exactly. So when one of those 20-30 albums a week sticks in my rotation, it’s a damn fine piece of music.

I first came across Bill Callahan’s Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle back in April and was pretty ambivalent. I figured this would be one of the many albums I’d never listen to again and join the Toddla Ts of the world. To get a better idea of my first impression, here are my notes from my first listen through on April 17:

The second solo album from the famous SMOG, whom I’ve never really put forth the effort to absorb, released under his real name. This is just OK. It sort of reminds me of if The National sang The Mountain Goats with less Conor Oberst/Bright Eyes and a bit more Devendra Barnhart. Pseudo interesting, but nothing earth shattering. I should probably abandon this, go listen to some SMOG and figure out why this guy is a considered a genius.

Yet now it’s almost July, and Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle is still going strong in my rotation. As of this writing and according to iTunes, I’ve listened to it 28 times through (and that’s not counting the many times I’ve listened to it on my iPhone in the car).

Why this album has endured so long, despite my initial impression, I have no idea. If someone were to describe it to me—an acoustic, baritoned voiced, alt-countryish rambling, with a song about a bird who can’t find a place to land because there are too many fucking other birds in his tree (seriously, there is a song called Too Many Birds), a chorus full of giberish (Eid Ma Clack Shaw), and a crazy one-off, avant-garde, experimental track with a vaguely female voice “ahh-ing” all over the place (Invocation of Ratiocination)—I would not be interested. Not even a little.

But for some reason, I cannot get enough of this album. I fucking love it. Maybe, like Kanye on 808s and Heartbreak, he’s some sort of crazy voodoo witchdoctor brain ninja that sucks you in deeper and deeper with every listen, till your completely mindfucked. But, for all his quirks and nonsensicality, Bill Callahan has made one amazing album. It could possibly become one of my favorites of this year. It’s an album that will grow on you, take hold of you, consume you.

It’s completely engaging throughout—cohesive in every sense of the word, without falling into the trap of “concept album”—to which so many other artists succumb. This is definitely something I recommend experiencing through a nice pair of headphones and just zoning the fuck out. As you sit back and let the Callahan’s incomparable sounds wash over you, his esoteric lyrics start to make sense. You begin to lose yourself in his world. And halfway through your second listen, you’ll be like, “Damn. Sometimes I DO wish we were an eagle…”

Eid Ma Clack Shaw

Listen to the first two minutes of this album and you’ll know it’s hot. Mr. Green jumps off with a snippet from Spike Lee’s He Got Game over huge strings and an infectious beat. And before Pacewon even begins his laid-back, effortless flow, you’re already bouncing.

I love when an MC and DJ decide to create an entire album together. It provides for a chemistry not found on most Hip Hop records. The lyrics come from one voice, unadultered by out of place guest spots. The production is fluid and not just a sampling of beatmakers.

MF DOOM and Madlib’s Madvillainy, DJ Dangermouse and Jemini’s Ghetto Pop Life, Blu and Exile’s Below The Heavens are just a few examples that reflect this intimacy between MC and DJ. Pacewon and Mr. Green accomplish the same with The Only Color That Matters Is Green.

A relative newcomer, Mr. Green really impressed me. He shows huge range throughout the album. Mixing everything from a children’s choir to The White Stripes, he hits you with something fresh and new on every track. He could have released this as an instrumental and I still would’ve bought it. It’s that good.

Pacewon, on the other hand, has been around for a while. An original member of The Outsidaz, he’s been on the mic since 1991. However, his work on The Only Color That Matters Is Green far surpasses anything I’ve heard from The Outsidaz. He has refined his flow and focused his lyrics. Pace tells a story on every track and makes it sound easy. Every bar rides the beat to perfection.

The Only Color That Matters Is Green is a seamless album. Thoughtful, superbly produced and just plain dope. It’s definitely worth a listen.

Four Quarters

The Eye of a Needle

She Be So Cold

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

People are constantly asking me where I find my music. I usually tell them that I’m part of a super-secret organization of hipsters and the music elite. We get together on the third Tuesday of every month at an underground cafe for coffee, cigarettes and pie. There, we exchange mixtapes and participate in a circle jerk of superiority.

But this is only a half truth.

This organization does exist (kinda). But we get together on music forums. We write blogs. We go to shows. We share music online, through Pandora or Last.FM. We are as deeply entrenched in the scene as possible. We don’t watch MTV or BET. We don’t take recommendations from iTunes or Pitchfork. We get our music from real people without agendas. Real people who love music just as much as us. And in this instance, from a random San Francisco cab driver.

I don’t even remember his name. I don’t even really remember the cab ride. It was late. It was raining. And we were all drunk. But what I do remember is the music. This man played some of craziest shit I ever heard. It seriously blew me away. Hip Hop. Metal. Hardcore. It was like I was in a cab with The Gravediggaz. This guy was the Obi-Wan Kenobi of underground bands. One of those bands was Candiria.

At first listen, Candiria has a definite Nu-Metal fee. And back in the day, I was a huge fan of Nu-Metal—Early KoRn, Orgy’s first album, early Sevendust, Nonpoint, Deftones, Incubus’ S.C.I.E.N.C.E, Slipknot’s self-titled album. They all pretty much stayed in my CD changer for most of the late 90’s. And I spent a lot of time at the 9:30 Club in DC watching them play.

After KoRn released Issues in 1999, I started to grow out of that phase. By then, the genre was becoming littered with the shitty second wave of inferiority. Bands like Linkin Park, Papa Roach and Trapt soured me on Nu-Metal. And I moved on to more substantive music.

Occasionally, I’ll hear some really good heavy music—Circus Circus, Fall of Troy, From Autumn to Ashes—get all nostalgic and smile. But I haven’t really explored that world in a long while.

However, Candiria has brought me back. They remind of what drew us all to Nu-Metal in the first place. It’s raw aggression with sick beats. It’s straightforward and provocative lyrics. It’s underrated musicianship (every member of Limp Bizkit, save Fred Durst, could play the fuck out of their instruments). It’s that sound that makes you want to straight hit shit.

Candiria offers the best of that era. But with a mathcore feel and some decidedly Hip Hop sensibilities. They incorporate jazz-influenced drum breaks, solid guitar work and even some MCing seamlessly. This creates a unique and well thought out sound. It’s the grown man’s metal.

Best of all, Candiria is no one-trick pony. They don’t just scream at you. They don’t just mix Hip Hop and Metal. They don’t just beat you in the head with their technical proficiency. They don’t just make hook-laden, metal sing-a-longs. They’re versatile enough to combine all of these elements without coming off as cliched.

They show tremendous range and progression within their catalog. Each album is distinguished, mixing all their influences in new and fresh ways. Their earlier work is very raw and contains more Hip Hop tracks than their later albums. Their latest release, Kiss The Lie, abandons Hip Hop completely and is very clean, almost over produced. Personally, I think their standout album is 2004’s What Doesn’t Kill You…

I just can’t believe they’ve been around for 13 years and I hand’t heard of them till a few weeks ago. So thanks strange cab driver guy! If you’re reading this, please email any other bands I’ve overlooked. It’s not my fault, the super-secret coalition of hipsters has failed me.

Candiria Discography

1995 - Surrealistic Madness 1997 - Beyond Reasonable Doubt 2001 - 300 Percent Density 2002 - The C.O.M.A. Imprint 2004 - What Doesn’t Kill You… 2008 - Kiss The Lie

9MM Solution, What Doesn’t Kill You…

Without Water, 300 Percent Density

Colby, Kiss The Lie

I talk a lot about the death of hip hop. The slow, agonizing degradation of a culture, that has reduced a once great movement to a joke. Diabolic’s self-parodied/satirical diss track, Dissing the Industry, breaks this down better than anything I’ve ever written. He takes shots at everyone from Jay-Z and Eminem to Erykah Badu and Andre 3000. The audacity of this attack on his own industry, in which he is basically an unknown, makes this track all the more incisive.

And that’s just one of the 19 featured on the Foul Play Mixtape. I’m a huge fan of mixtapes in general, as they aren’t really marketed to a consumer base. Rather, they are solely meant to showcase an MC’s raw skill. And the Foul Play Mixtape does just that. There are no skits or otherwise throw-away or filler tracks. Diabolic just spits for an hour and twenty minutes. And it’s fucking fire. He goes harder than any MC I’ve heard in a LONG time.

The first time I saw Diabolic was at the 2008 Rock the Bells show in San Francisco. Immortal Technique opened up the show and brought on Diabolic at the end for a few verses. And he completely murdered it, totally outshined Technique and he was just a glorified hypeman. I went in search of his work after that and couldn’t find anything but a guest appearance on Immortal Technique’s album and one single, Yall Don’t Know.

More than a year passed until I got a copy of the Foul Play Mixtape. What took the industry so long to give this guy a shot? I have no clue. But I’m fucking ecstatic they did. Diabolic brings the same passion to the mic as Immortal Technique but without the crazy socio-political militancy. For the most part, this album is as raw as the streets itself. It’s full of great quotables like:

I’ll fornicate with your mind/Fuck what you thought

I’ma raise hell ‘till God prays to Christ

Got love and anger/We not thug or gangster/But that don’t mean I won’t pop slugs and shank ya

So if you’re looking for a great new voice in hip hop with sick 16s and the nastiest punchlines you’ve heard in 15 years, pick up this album.

Dissin The Industry

Yall Don’t Know

One of my favorite music blogs, Indie Ducky, has returned after months of inactivity. Right now they’re doing a three part series on the best albums of 2008. I love their reviews, so I picked up all the albums listed in Part 1, that I didn’t already have. Among those, was Fucked Up Friends, by Tobacco.

Fucked Up Friends is the first solo album from Black Moth Super Rainbow (formerly, satanstompingcaterpillars) frontman, Tom Fec aka Tobacco. Honestly, I had never heard of this album, Black Moth Super Rainbow, stanstompingcaterpillars or Tom Fec/Tobacco until today. But apparently Black Moth Super Rainbow, has a nice little following. They’ve opened for the Flaming Lips and played the SXSW music festival twice.

On Fucked Up Friends, Tobacco brings us a mostly instrumental album, hip hop beats with a definite electronic influence. It kinda reminds me of Blockhead, but less organic. Aesop Rock is featured on Dirt and does a fantastic job. Tobacco’s beats go so hard, it’s a shame he didn’t have more MCs appear on the album.

Standout tracks include:

Side 8 (Big Gums Version)

Dirt

Street Trash

I’ve always been a fan of The Alchemist’s beats. His work, from The Soul Assassins, to Mobb Deep and Dialated Peoples, has always been on point. His beat for Nothin, On Me, off Lil Wayne’s The Carter III is the highlight of an album full of great production.

The Alchemist’s latest release includes some of his best work yet. It features Alchemist regulars like, Prodigy, Evidence, and Nina Sky. But newcomers to The Alchemist fold, Pusha T and Kid Cudi, add a new dimension to his masterful production.

The Alchemist’s Cookbook is only six tracks long, but each one is a banger. Al Capone Zone and it’s Kool and The Gang sample make even Keak Da Sneak’s weak ass flow passable (Related: I HATE BAY AREA HIP HOP. To the next person person to tell me to go stupid, doo doo dumb: I will cut you).

The best track of this album is, without a doubt, Lose Your Life, featuring Snoop Dogg, Jadakiss and Pusha T. Every MC kills his verse and rides Alchemist’s eerie beat to perfection. It’s my favorite track of 2008 and gives me hope for the future of Hip Hop. Check out the video and you’ll see what I mean.

I usually ignore Pitchfork’s reviews. Maybe it’s a case of the hipster hating on the hipster. But, I feel like they try too hard to be on the cutting edge of music and are more concerned with crafting clever metaphors than with reviewing an album. That said, even I must admit, they were right on with their Dear Science review. I’ve been listening to TV on the Radio all weekend long, and Dear Science, is well deserving of the 9.2 it got from Pitchfork.  It’s been a long while since I’ve heard a completely original band. And nobody can accuse these guys of being just another faceless band trying to break onto the scene. They’re fearless when it comes to sonic experimentation, blending a huge range of styles into their own unique sound. Plus they’ve been doing since 2001.

I know, I’m kinda late to the TV on the Radio party. But if you haven’t heard them yet, go buy Dear Science now. It’s a great album. Be sure to check out Return to Cookie Mountain and some of their earlier work as well. Below is DLZ, my favorite song off Dear Science.

I know the last couple music posts haven’t really been the usual sexy gypsy posts—bands you’ve never heard of but really need to check out. But I figured that because Chinese Democracy and 808s and Heartbreak were huge albums that had potential not to completely blow, they deserved mention.

But now that they’re out of the way: back to the underground.

Here’s yet another reason I love Twitter (you can follow me on Twitter here). The music recommendations. Last Thursday, I saw this. (I embedded the track at the bottom of the post, so you can check it out.)

The last artist that I discovered through Twitter was Zoe Keating. Considering how amazing that album is, I immediately downloaded their album from iTunes.

Since then, Built for The Sea has been at the top of my playlist. I’ve listened to it at least a dozen times through. It’s a super chill album that makes for the perfect background music for whatever it is you’re doing—working, driving, reading or just want to sit back and absorb a great album.

The coolest thing about this band is their sound is oddly familiar, without coming off as unoriginal. Paper Tigers reminds me a lot of the Cranberries. There are other tracks that channel Snow Patrol, Radiohead or Laura Marling.

This is a painfully beautiful album, engaging throughout, and well worth a listen. My only complaint is at 40 minutes, it’s far too short. Discover it.