Bobby Ray is back at you with “Beast Mode”. “I guess 2010’s the first year you gave a shit.” Maybe. But B. o. B., with 3 top 10 singles and a number 1 album to his credit, can make legit claim to his beast modey-ness. Dude has had a massive year and, and if anything, “Beast Mode” serves as something of a valediction to his 2010.
B. o. B. – Beast ModeRating: 8.2
A favorite remix of a favorite song by a favorite artist. Grifta’s rework of the seminal Deadmau5 tune is five and a half minutes of expansiveness, hope, wonder, beauty, the future on tape. What that sounds like.
Deadmau5 – Faxing Berlin (Grifta Remix)Rating: 8.6
Top shelf beat here from the Megatron Don; The seemingly perpetually addled with label problems Saigon pitching in with some choice rhymes. The feel Just Blaze has for the rhythm, cadence, & diction in the flows of the rappers he works with (particularly Saigon) really sets his production work apart.
Saigon – Strength (Prod. Just Blaze)Rating: 8.2
The Swedish bodytalker paused her worldbeating tour of nonstop jams just long enough to cut this cover of the classic Prince track for the UK’s Channel 4 TV.
Robyn – When Doves CryRating: 8.1
A big step up here from the Kentucky-based band. “Shake Me Down” is the sound of a band at a defining point of creative realization. The band’s second LP Thank You, Happy Birthday is due Jan. 11.
Cage the Elephant – Shake Me DownRating: 8.5
Photo by Carrie Day
We’ve been fans of singer-songwriter James Vincent McMorrow for a minute now. His penchant for soulful melody and tuneful lyricism makes him one to keep eyes peeled to in 2011. Already a success in his native Ireland (#1 album, sold-out national tour), McMorrow is set to release his debut LP Early in the Morning in the States in January. We can’t wait. Check out some of these quotes about his development as an artist and writer. (Man, would we love to just hang out and talk music with this guy.)
James Vincent McMorrow – Sparrow and The Wolf“I started listening to older music from the 50’s-70’s, and learning guitar, piano. Then I heard a Donny Hathaway song called ‘I Love You More Than You Will Ever Know’ and it made me want to start singing.“ (YES!) “I’ve been a huge fan of female singers, probably because of the way I sing. I can understand the way they construct melody almost better than I can the way male singers write.” (YES!) “That’s how I started learning how to record myself,” remembers James, “by listening to people like The Neptunes and Timbaland, and trying to figure out how they did what they did.” (YES!)
rating: 8.3
DJ Shadow came to Boston for inspiration and for feedback. The massively influential turntabilist is in process of crafting a new record. “It’s been a long time, Boston… How long has it been since I played a solo show here?”
The reaction to Shadow’s hyphy-influenced 2006 LP The Outsider (we loved it btw) was divisive, even among his core fanbase. Leading the DJ to question, “Repeat Endtroducing over and over again? That was never, ever in the game plan. Fuck that. So I think it’s time for certain fans to decide if they are fans of the album, or the artist.” At the show, Shadow stated he wanted to get the “temperature of the fans”. And as such is likely the nature of the Shadowsphere tour to engage with, connect to, and re-inspire not only his fans but the artist himself with them. And the fans came out.
“Shadowsphere awaiting host.” A diverse mass of 1000 plus; from hip hop heads to dreadlocked dudes; middle aged and beyond husbands and wives to gangly college and high school kids feverishly awaited their host’s impending arrival. The kids were loud, chants of “Shadow, Shadow, Shadow, Shadow” greeted the DJ as he entered stage, greeted the crowd, and took to inside the Shadowsphere.
The Shadowsphere, a spherical canvas ball of maybe 15-20 feet in diameter stood starkly onstage against a wider film screen-like background. With the first few notes of “Building Steam with a Grain of Salt.” The sphere and screen lit up, exploding visually into a collage of imagery. Images of stars, planets & the depths of space grew into time lapse footage of plants and flowers and into more grating, disturbing images of hate and warfare. The shadowsphere itself was often used a 3-D imaged object against the screen background. The shadowsphere transformed into an eyeball within the eye socket of a human face and into a baseball hurling through Yankee Stadium. “A lot of people say DJ’ing as an art form is dead or its in decline. …..(I think its) only progressing, moving forward. ….Much through shows like this ….and visuals like this…..”, spoke Shadow a varying points throughout the set.
The bass shaked and rumbled, moved first from your core, jarring you, then spreading, pulsing through limbs and into your appendages, rattling you. Shadow’s use of his own canon of material as means to showcase his fluency with more contemporarily informed beats was really really cool. Using elements of drum and bass and other more European rhythmic forms, familiar jams like “Six Days” and “Organ Donor” were transformed. Breathing that currency of action and motivation, revelation that what is new can inspire, the emotional relationship the fan has with those songs and their familiarity, that convergence made for a truly moving listening experience.
“I’ll definitely be back. See you next year.” said Shadow at the close of his main set. Awesome. We’ll definitely be back too.
Here goes our new fav track off Cudder’s Mr. Rager stinkbomb. Mr. Mescudi trades verses with GLC (This beat fits his flow like glove. Think “Drive Slow”.) and fellow 216’er and world’s coolest human Chip Tha Rip. Nicole Wray (BlakRoc) adds a sultry vocal hook. Smooth.
Kid Cudi – The End (feat. GLC, Chip Tha Ripper, Nicole Wray)rating: 8.3
“We blazin’. Nicki what you think?” Well, Kanye, man, we’re not Nicki but this track is fire, hot, smokin’, it’s fucking BLAZIN’! “Blazin'” is produced by rising beatmaker Drew Money. Kanye and Nicki both totally smash this. Best Nicki track we’ve heard by about a mil. Nicki haters can totally take a hatecation on this one. We are.
Nicki Minaj – Blazin’ (Feat. Kanye West) Nicki Minaj – Your Love (Small Black Remix) via Gorilla vs. BearRating: 8.2
“Bigger Than Us” is new from former UK it girls White Lies. “Bigger Than Us” sounds, well, big, but is it big in that sort of self consciously big way? Is the band trying to hard? Are they overreaching on this new material? Is it just too much? No.
White Lies – Bigger Than UsRating: 8.2
Kanye makes records cause he absolutely has to. He has to do this. Any truly great singular artist, regardless of medium, is driven by that quality of will. He makes records cause he has absolutely has to. “Lost in the World” feels in ways nothing on the self-styled self-conscious 808s and Heartbreak ever could. The track for “Lost in the World” sounds, feels, bleeds like the work of an artist who absolutely had to create it.
Kanye West – Lost in the World (Feat. Alicia Keys & Bon Iver)rating: 8.8
UK producer Star Slinger crafts a fucking monster here, melding the 1990 Cocteau Twins tune Heaven or Las Vegas into one of the coolest space jams yet heard on this planet or any other. Star Slinger’s rhythmic intelligence is really top shelf. The way he uses the Manny Fresh-esque snare drags to compliment the repetitions in the bits of voice and melody and shards of synth is just phenomenal.
Star Slinger – Elisabeth Fraser (Cocteau Twins Rework)rating: 8.2
