Promising new music
There's a lot of promising and great music released today.
Mike D - 'Thank You'
I love Mike D. He was in Beastie Boys, one of my favourite-ever bands.
This is Mike's debut solo album, even though it's a deeply collaborative album. He's made music with his sons and people from their band; one of these persons is Will Graefe, guitarist who's in a band of a mate; that band is Okkervil River, driven by Will Sheff.
Thank You is experimental, rap, punk, groovy music! It's fun hip-hop with a lot of open-ended kind-of-Buddhist lyrics. I've heard the album once and it's really, really good. I'm glad there's so much to uncover here. I mean, old and famous hip-hop guy...could have been disappointing as fuck but it's really not. Sue me all you want.
Dinosaur Jr. - 'There Near'
The guitar-drums-bass masters are back. I just started listening to this album and in a way Dinosaur Jr. are the AC/DC of sludge rock. A cousin of mine once commented on the release of a new AC/DC album this way: 'It's like buying a new pair of Levi's 501s: it's new, but you know exactly what you're gonna get.'
Not in a bad way. There's just something about this band that simply works. The production seems a bit more muddled this time around: stereo doubling and...it's still good. The technicalities work as well.
Saul Williams - 'Leap Life'
At the get-go, Saul was a spoken-word artist. Today he's that, a rapper, producer, author, activist, composer, and collaborator.
This album sees him working with people like Robert Del Naja from Massive Attack. The result? A diverse and elevating experience. Saul's a nice person and this album transgresses human life on Earth, as lofty as this sentence is, it's true.
Sarah Davachi - 'The Will of Tongues'
Sarah often brings an out-of-the-body quality to her own compositions pared with a drone-like effect from organs and other instruments. This is a double-album and I want to hear this.
Floating Points - 'Mere Mortals'
An opera by Floating Points! This is about Pandora: action and consequence, motherfuckers!
If you've not yet heard Floating Points, it's one person: he's one of the most interesting electronic-music artists that I've heard in a very long time. I recommend getting into his shit. The album he made with Paraoah Saunders, the jazz legendary, will go down in history as one of the best albums in recent decades.
Ty Segall - 'Chrome'
A new album by Ty Segall is a gift: much like Dinosaur Jr, Ty is a world onto himself. His song, composition, and guitar-playing all go together to create a wondrous mix of sludge, hardcore-guitar feels, and a big heap of psych music. One of the more talented people I've heard from the USA in a long time.