album review: 'flatland' by objekt

Well, I didn't expect I'd manage to get this done before heading out, but what do you know?

Okay, next up... hell, not sure, depends which backlog I break through first. Stay tuned!

album review: 'flatland' by objekt

We return to my ongoing adventure into electronic music. 

Now one of the biggest conversations of this year has surrounded where electronic music is going. The EDM scene is officially mainstream, hip-hop producers are pushing boundaries for weirder and more experimental beats, often drawing upon the ground many electronic producers helped level, and some of the legends of the industry have taken steps to crystallize their own sound. Aphex Twin returned after years of working under other names to the sounds he helped define, Brian Eno worked with Karl Hyde on two wildly different records, and across the industry we've seen producers either drift towards modern popular trends or drag the mainstream kicking and screaming into all sorts of weirdness. For me as something of an outsider to the genre, it's been fascinating to watch, even if I'm not sure how long it will remain popular in the long term.

So I figured I'd dip back into that wretched hive of scum and villainy - and by that I mean Pitchfork - and find a record to really challenge myself, and that's where I came across Objekt. Stage name of German producer TJ Hertz, he began making serious buzz when he started releasing singles around 2011, not so much renowned for melodic construction but for phenomenal mix balance, depth, and texture. And what immediately gripped me by singles like 'Tinderbox' was the sense of contrast: there was a warmth to the crackle of the mix and the percussion that belied the echoing chilly synthesizer leads and samples and the thick swell of the bass. It felt organic and yet almost clinically measured, and it was compelling enough that I had to check out his debut album Flatland. What did we get?

video review: 'montevallo' by sam hunt

Well, that was a total waste of time.

Okay, next up is going to be Objekt, I think. Not sure if it'll be up today or tomorrow - All Hallow's Eve is upon us! So stay tuned!

album review: 'montevallo' by sam hunt

Okay, I've gone on record as being more tolerant of pop-flavoured country music than most. I've given good reviews to Keith Urban's shift towards a more pop-flavoured direction, I didn't mind the new album from Dan + Shay, and hell, Lucy Hale's Road Between is probably going to go down as one of my favourite albums of the year.

But let me stress that there is a line for me, a tipping point when the pop seems to overtake the country so obviously and instead of just outright making pop music - which I would not have a problem with - they try to hide it with painfully thin country flourishes. You get fragments of acoustic instrumentation - none of it with any texture - hidden behind such obvious electronic effects that feel plastered together to disguise how thin and weightless the music really is.

And believe it or not, this has happened before. The sleepy pop country of the mid-80s, the Shania Twain-driven wave in the late 90s, and today, in the era of percussion over melody, EDM, and everyone trying to wedge a rap cadence into their pop song, it's happening again. Some have called it the era of the monogenre, but I'd argue it's all just pop music that's pretending to be more than it is, which to me reflects something a lot worse. As someone who likes pop, country, and most of what's in between, it gets exasperating when pop music co-opts country aesthetics to hop on a trend instead of trying to blend the sounds in a way that feels cohesive or reflects an interesting artistic vision.

And with all that, we come to Sam Hunt - and at first glance, he did show some promise, as he cowrote 'Cop Car' by Keith Urban and 'We Are Tonight' by Billy Currington, two songs I'd argue are the best of their respective albums. But early impressions of Sam Hunt from his smash single 'Leave The Night On' were not good - not because it was offensive or obnoxious, but because it screamed of the most sterile country-flavoured pop I've ever heard, complete with drum machines, a rapping cadence for the chorus, and lyrics straight out of the hook-up brand of pop-flavoured bro-country. In other words, I did not have a lot of hope for his debut album Montevallo, but when I started hearing positive remarks surrounding the album's songwriting... well, I had to take a look. What did I find?

video review: 'run the jewels 2' by run the jewels

Goddamn, this album was sweet. Seriously, get this record, it's one of the best hip-hop albums of the year. 

Okay, next up I'm hearing some interesting things from that Sam Hunt album, but I don't have high hopes. Besides, this Objekt album is intriguing the hell out of me, so it'll probably be next - stay tuned!

album review: 'run the jewels 2' by run the jewels

It's always a little unnerving going into album sequels - especially when those sequels aren't just to great albums, but records that I and many other critics would hold as some of the best of the year. And no, I'm not talking about Lil Wayne's Tha Carter V, which he unsurprisingly delayed, moving it to a week when it wasn't going up against the monolithic sales of Taylor Swift. I'm talking about an album from a duo that chose to leak the album for free, a rap duo whose unlikely pairing was greeted with apprehension last year and now has built to being one of the most heavily anticipated records of 2014.

Yep, I'm talking about Run The Jewels 2, the followup album to the self-titled first record from El-P and Killer Mike, the former an underground producer and rapper known for rhymes as layered and complex as his beats, the latter a member of Dungeon Family know for hard-hitting wordplay and a dominant presence behind the microphone. The pairing might have seemed odd in 2013, but when Run The Jewels dropped, the pairing made too much sense and ended up being my favourite hip-hop album of last year - and I wasn't the only one giving it that acclaim. 

And yet I have to admit, I was concerned about Run The Jewels 2. It was a follow-up to an incredible record full of fantastic wordplay, and it set the expectations dangerously high. And coupled with a list of guest stars that included Zack De La Rocha from Rage Against The Machine, Gangsta Boo of Three 6 Mafia, Diane Coffee known for working with Foxygen, and acclaimed drummer Travis Barker, this record looked like something special - but could it match its predecessor in terms of wordplay and production?

video review: 1989' by taylor swift

Can't imagine how this video will be controversial at all...

Well, anyway, next up will probably be Run The Jewels on Wednesday, and maybe another review along with it. Busy tomorrow night. Either way, stay tuned!

album review: '1989' by taylor swift

It's hard as a critic for me to talk about Taylor Swift.

See, when she burst onto the scene in the late 2000s, I had conflicting feelings on her. On the one hand, I found her songwriting sloppy and lacking depth, I found her instrumental compositions to be a little uninspired, and she didn't exactly stun me with incredible vocals. On the other hand, she had a knack for solid hooks, a fair amount of charisma and personality, and her songs had a real sense of honest populism to them. They felt clumsy, but it was authentic and came from a place of reality for Taylor Swift and her legions of fans could identify with that. And with her album Speak Now, it seemed like she was going even further in that country-flavoured direction and her songwriting was slowly getting more refined.

And then something happened. Some have blamed her, some have blamed her label head Scott Borchetta for bringing on Max Martin and Shellback, but Red was a 180 from the depth and more mature songwriting of Speak Now, going for a flagrantly pop focus that mirrored the sell-out of her spiritual predecessor Avril Lavigne in starting in down-to-earth, detail-heavy, authentic songwriting and who had no idea how to age artistically. And I'll be blunt - I really did not like Red when I reviewed it on my blog two years ago and drew that exact same parallel. Looking back on it now... well, the album was transitional. It was partially filled with the country-flavoured songwriting I appreciated, but it was also very clear she was going to go in the pop diva direction - which on every level did not strike me as a good choice. Her greatest strengths in her songwriting was detail and relatability, and she was going to throw it out for songs that emphasized and reveled in a shallow worldview that flew in the face of any artistic growth or maturity? You don't get songs like 'We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together', 'The Lucky Ones', '22', and especially 'I Knew You Were Trouble' if you're maturing artistically.

But whatever, she's going for pop now - I can roll with that. But I did not know what to expect coming from her new album 1989, reportedly inspired by the pop music of that year. And having gone back to look at that year, 1989 was a terrible year for the pop charts, where the biggest artists were Chicago, Paula Abdul, Bette Midler, Milli Vanilli, Richard Marx, and plenty of others peddling easy-listening schlock. Now of course Taylor Swift is obviously saying she's drawing more of her influences from Madonna, who did have a good year in '89, but every female pop star pulls from Madonna and Taylor Swift always struck me as a lot closer to Debbie Gibson, who charted higher than Madonna that year anyway. That said, Taylor Swift said she was also drawing influence from Annie Lennox, who most people probably remember most from her work with the Eurythmics - which, okay, that's interesting. And when you start digging into the songwriters working with her, you get Max Martin and Shellback, but I also saw writing credits from Jack Antonoff, the guitarist of fun. and frontman of Bleachers, and Imogen Heap, two artists who dropped some of my favourite albums of this year. So I had to check out 1989 and I honestly hoped for the best - sure, I didn't like 'Shake It Off', but there had to be more here than that, right?

video review: 'rips' by ex hex

Pretty damn solid album - not quite as good as most of the critics are raving about, but still very good.

Okay, before the week from hell, I might cover that Objekt record first. Stay tuned!

album review: 'rips' by ex hex

I've talked about in the past how indie rock musicians tend to have several bands and side-projects firing at once, some in the hopes that one will actually strike gold, and some because they have different musical ideas and genres they want to explore. But indie rock did not invent this phenomenon by any stretch, and if you want to look at where it's probably most prevalent, you need to look at punk.

And the story of this band begins around two decades ago in the exploding punk and indie scenes of the 90s, particularly surrounding feminist-themed riot grrl. The first important band of the scene was Sleater-Kinney, the critically beloved band full of explosive energy and who were way more mature and intelligent than most punks of their scene. They released several essential albums throughout the 90s before fading away gracefully in the 2000s to go on hiatus. The second important act of the time was Helium, an alt-rock act that would come to be fronted by Mary Timony, an eclectic singer-songwriter would bounce around a fair bit, the tepid reception of Autoclave to a few solo efforts that really didn't go anywhere. And in the late 2000s, all of their careers appeared to have stalled out somewhat, at least in music. Carrie Brownstein was focusing on the cult comedy show Portlandia, Janet Weiss was doing work with Stephen Malkmus and Conor Oberst, and Mary Timony was working on one of many side projects.

Yet in 2010, with keyboardist Rebecca Cole of The Minders, they managed to pull together into the supergroup Wild Flag for a self-titled album, and it seemed like a second life had been breathed into their careers, especially considering Brownstein used her TV show to give the band visibility most indie rock acts never got. The album was critically acclaimed for damn good reason, and from there, it seemed like anything was possible. And yet the success of Wild Flag was short-lived, as it was announced that Sleater-Kinney would be reuniting for a comeback record next year. Undaunted, Mary Timony called up Laura Harris, formerly of Aquarium, and Betsy Wright, formerly of Fire Tapes and Childballads for a new group called Ex Hex, named after one of her solo albums and in record time, a debut album was ready, called Rips. And let's be fair, there were some real expectations for this band, given Mary Timony's knack for melodic riffs and deftly textured songwriting. So what did we get with this?

video review: 'black star elephant' by nico & vinz

Forgot to post this last night, but still a solid album that's worth your consideration. Check it out!

Next up... Christ, next week is bonkers. Taylor Swift, Run The Jewels, and Lil Wayne (provided he doesn't delay his album again). Either way, it's going to be nuts - stay tuned!

album review: 'black star elephant' by nico & vinz

So here's a fun challenge: name an African musical act. (Die Antwoord) Okay, now name one that actually has charted or has a hope in hell of charting in America. If you start looking through the Billboard charts, you'll find that that list is pretty damn small. Music from around the world already has limited representation on the American charts outside of Canada and the UK, and from Africa you can change the qualifier from 'limited' to 'barely any'.

And yet this year that changed with an act that burst onto the scene with eclectic instrumentation, a decidedly unique textured sound that was unlike anything else on the charts, and an uncanny knack for lodging itself in our subconscious. And of course, the act I'm talking about is KONGOS, a South African-based act that dropped their debut album in 2012 and it took well over a year and a half for their biggest hit 'Come With Me Now' to crash onto our charts, particularly in Canada where it broke the Top 10.

But I can bet that was not the act the majority of you were thinking about, was it? No, if you asked what music landed on the charts that had a decidedly 'African' vibe, you would have said Nico & Vinz and their song 'Am I Wrong'... and really, you'd have been half-right. Nico Sereba is Norwegian-Ivorian and Vincent Dery is Norwegian-Ghanaian, and it's clear that they draw much of their influences from African worldbeat music, but the song has more than a few hallmarks of their Norwegian synthpop background as well, which gives it a decidedly odd vibe from a production standpoint and a song that I've been trying to make sense of for months now. In other words, I had to know more, so I made it a priority to check out their first credited album as Nico & Vinz, Black Star Elephant. What did I find?

video review: 'you're dead!' by flying lotus

Man, this album was fun to talk about. May have gone a little overboard, but still worth a lot of consideration.

Next up... shit, I'm not sure. We'll see, so stay tuned!

album review: 'you're dead!' by flying lotus

I think if I remember 2014 for anything when it comes to my music criticism career, it'll be for two things. The first is turning me around on R&B - it was never really a genre I had embraced before, but with the rising tide of it in the mainstream and some genuinely great albums, I've come to appreciate it a lot more.

And the second would be my exploration of electronic music. I suspect to some extent this will continue to be an ongoing process, as I'm still working on getting a grip on how to write at length about acts that don't really use a lot of lyrics, but with every release, it's getting easier, especially when the acts have a knack for experimentation that can drive a lot of conversation.

Case in point, Flying Lotus, the stage name of L.A. producer Steven Ellison. His career originally kicked into motion with his second album Los Angeles in 2008, but his real success would come from the gleaming, eclectic, and generally pretty damn awesome Cosmogramma in 2010. And even coming from a guy who doesn't tend to love electronic music, that album gripped me immediately with its aggressively textured and detailed percussion, its masterful layered melodies on both synthesizers and classical instrumentation, and the off-kilter twists that suggested more than a passing influence of jazz fusion. Every listen revealed more fascinating twists that hid moments of genuine beauty in the details, not to mention some fantastic grooves that some artists would have elongated into entire songs alone. It's a genuinely thrilling album to listen through, and thus I'll admit I wasn't quite as gripped by his 2012 follow-up Until The Quiet Comes. It was a more restrained record, with more jazzy elements and more guests, but to me it lacked some of the flair, some of those transcendent and gorgeous moments that defined Cosmogramma so well. Plus, the more languid pace made some of the more grating moments drag on longer than they really should.

But all of that wasn't going to put me off checking out Flying Lotus' newest record, You're Dead! And at first glimpse, it looked like something of a different animal, swapping out vocals from Thom Yorke for verses from Kendrick Lamar and Snoop Dogg. So what happened here?

video review: 'paperwork' by t.i.

Eh, not as good as I was hoping, but still pretty solid and worth a few listens.

Next up... eh, not quite sure yet, so stay tuned!

album review: 'paperwork' by t.i.

You know, the more I think about it, the more I'm a little amazed how long T.I. has managed to sustain his clout even today.

Sure, in the very beginning he delivered some star-making records and proved instrumental in defining the trap scene in southern hip-hop, playing off a dual persona that proved to be a surprisingly versatile element in sustaining his career. It helped he had a lot of sleazy yet easy-going charisma and an adaptable, elastic flow that balanced off strong, hook-driven production. Sure, lyrically he could come across as a bit of an asshole, but he was the sort of character that produced such catchy, bombastic music that along with Ludacris he soon developed a tight grip on southern hip-hop.

But with the image and lifestyle came legal troubles, and T.I. was soon stuck in the position of trying to fix up his image. He dropped his most pop-friendly album ever with Paper Trail in 2008, which proved to be one of the biggest of his career but also was uneven in terms of solid quality. After a stint in jail, he came back with No Mercy, which despite some standout tracks was even more uneven in terms off quality. In retrospect, the problem seemed to be very simple: there wasn't a balance between T.I.'s personas, and whenever that balance got skewed, the albums worked less and less. 

So when T.I. came back near the end of 2012 with Trouble Man: Heavy Is The Head, it seemed like a welcome return to form. Most the production was back on point, T.I. sounded more invested in delivering quality wordplay than ever before, and he managed to wrangle together a cohesive sound. Sure, not all of the features turned out and his subject matter hadn't really evolved, but it's not like I was expecting that either. But instead of following up with that project with its planned sequels, T.I. looked to be even more ambitious and with his new album Paperwork proclaimed it'd be the beginning of a new trilogy. And look, as much as I liked Trouble Man - not better than King or Trap Muzik but it was still solid, I wasn't exactly enthused going into this release. Sure, I still hold that Paper Trail was a decent album, but did we really need a follow-up? And with singles like 'No Mediocre' where his protege Iggy Azalea was dropping more well-structured bars than T.I. was, I didn't know what to expect from the reportedly collaborator-swollen Paperwork Did we get something of quality, or a regression?

video review: 'plowing into the field of love' by iceage

And that makes two. And I'm barely conscious.

Next up will come after I sleep. Stay tuned!

video review: 'under pressure' by logic

I'm genuinely surprised that this album turned out as well as it did. Not that I had low expectations, but it came out in the best sort of way. Nice work.

Next up will be the Iceage video in a few hours, so stay tuned!

album review: 'plowing into the field of love' by iceage

Last year when I wrote about the excellent debut album from Savages Silence Yourself - an album that landed on my year-end list of the best albums of 2013 - I talked about my odd introduction into post-punk, which wasn't through an old music collection or friends or an angry white boy phase, but two scattered collections of punk songs, singles and deep cuts. Since then, I've had a much greater chance to delve into the subgenre over the past year in my spare time, partially through hanging out on the edges of the dwindling goth scene in Toronto and half through increasingly deep dives into obscure music that has never touched the charts and only gets acclaim on - you guessed it - sites like Pitchfork.

And this time we'll be talking about Iceage, a Danish punk/post-punk act that immediately became a critical darling upon the release of their first album New Brigade in 2011. And really, it's easy to see why - not only was every member of the band younger than me, they had a knack for hard-edged melodic grooves and extremely explosive drumwork that brushed against hardcore but then was tempered with gothic lyrics that weren't so much angsty but bringing a certain brand of visceral, descriptive bleakness that was unsettling in its own right. They followed that album a year later with the more personal and much meatier record You're Nothing, which took the gothic edge of their debut and honed it much finer, striking directly at human insecurities and everything people do to conceal them, not shying away from putting themselves directly in the line of the fire. It was their first record on Matador - the same label as Savages, unsurprisingly - and it was a natural fit. That being said, I've never been a huge fan of Iceage - I sure as hell respect them, but their occasional choice to sacrifice great melodic grooves for a tempo change or out of nowhere breakdown occasionally frustrated me. Yeah, I know they're a punk act, but when the songs they do write are so strong, breaking them apart in that way kind of irked me.

That said, I wasn't surprised when the critical acclaim started pouring in for their newest album Plowing Into The Field Of Love, so I made sure to give it several listens - how did it turn out?

album review: 'under pressure' by logic

Let's talk briefly about hip-hop magazines - I say briefly, because at this point, many of them are teetering on the point of irrelevance, especially in print. But the odd thing is that it didn't use to be like that at all - I can remember within the past ten to fifteen years when ratings from publications like XXL and The Source held influence and power and used to be the go-to for people to get hip-hop exclusive news. Hell, I remember Eminem's beef with former co-owner of The Source Benzino, where he wrote some of his most infamous diss tracks like 'Nail In The Coffin'.

But now? The Internet has blown the hip-hop conversation wide open, between established music criticism sites, blogs, and - of course - channels like yours truly. And what this means is that the 'old guard' has needed to do something to maintain a vestige of relevance and hip-hop 'cred' - and this takes us to XXL's Freshman List. Now if you're a hardcore hip-hop fan or if you have your ear to the ground, you likely consider the list a complete joke, a flailing attempt by XXL to get a handle on what new acts in hip-hop could break out and become mainstream success stories, to be the guys that called it first. But let's be honest here: I'm not really part of the readership of XXL, and for less-invested hip-hop fans, I can see a certain degree of value in the list, and it's almost always a solid signal boost for the artists in question. And while artists like A$AP Rocky have turned them down, I'm not too proud to admit that I've found MCs I might have otherwise missed that have managed to surprise me from this list.

So on that note, let's talk about one of them: Logic. He started releasing mixtapes in 2010 and built some pretty strong buzz, but he was one of those artists I've always had a bit of a hard time getting a grip on. Yes, he definitely has a solid flow and he's got good bars, but I had a hard time getting a grip on him on a unique rapper. His first Young Sinatra tape did a fair bit to show a lot of sides to his personality and some of his personal idiosyncrasies, but on following tapes he aimed to diversify his sound and draw more of a mainstream hip-hop audience and it didn't always feel as cohesive as an album whole with the more lyrical oldschool tracks. And while I didn't dislike his mixtapes, I always found them a little uneven in terms of content - although that was more of an issue with Undeniable than Welcome To Forever, which I did think was better better. But I figured, 'Hey, when he works to create a fully cohesive album', it'd probably have more cohesion or a more defined style', so I was very interested in his major label debut from Def Jam titled Under Pressure, especially considering the fact there was no credited features on the standard edition of the album - so how did it go?