It looks like Metro Zu and Raider Klan been poppin since Purrp got back to Miami. With hella tunes droppin through both crews it’s been extra impossible to keep up. This freestyle with Ruben Slikk, Denzel Curry, and SGP is sick. I keep comin back to it. It’s like a BET Cypha, but real. But one record that I did get to spend some time listening to was Lowercase‘s Homegrown the Shroomer.

While he isn’t Metro Zu proper, he’s in the same zone as Metro Zu and the Raider Klan. At times Lowercase reminds me of my favorite parts of Deltron 3030. With vividly hazy narratives strung over dusty ravines of the ghosts of lush sounds Lowercase takes us through an obtuse narrative that occasionally becomes incredibly acute, soaring to heights far above the sum of its parts. It’s great art.

Speaking of Miami: AYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY POP THAT PUSSEH! But not quite. Imagine the uninhibited stylistic fuck all that empowers the Ying Yang Twins, then filter it through a dude who is about 10,000 times more chill. That’s Triple Black in the most basic description. When you listen to his music you’ll probably hear a lot more. While he hasn’t put out a ton of songs yet the stuff I have heard, and the conversations we’ve had on twitter make it obvious what he’s up to. Just like every other person out of the Bruiser Brigade, Triple Black is an artist witha vision working to realize that vision. So, listen to Pussy Fartin’, and take a peek inside the hyper-sexualized mind of a dude who’s really just looking to get into yours with his take on art.

And last but certainly not least Joey from Sortahuman has been workin! He just dropped this super-banger with Shady Blaze titled Double Glock. Do you think they were talking about a gun? Did you know Joey also recently dropped an instrumental album? Did you know Joey also recently dropped this track with Dizzy D? Did you know that Sortahuman doesn’t drop wack shit? Ever.

Why clouds come from the sea of course. And what is the sea filled with? Waves. Lots and lots of Waves, which is why I have to keep writing these posts every week. Originally, this post started with that new Freddie Gibbs video that just dropped. And while I’m definitely feeling Gibbs I feel like he’s evaporated out of the ocean.

He’s on some other shit that’s Wavey in essence, but he’s signed with Jeezy, so it’s a whole other hustle. But for someone like Supa from Sortahuman, the hustle is all in his hands. And this collab with Lil Ugly Mane is a product of Supa’s hard work, and it’s some blessed hard work. It’s cool to hear Supa tone it down a little bit. I love how hype he is, but hearing him zone out on some smokin tunes is a welcomed offering.

I am incredibly late on this one, but the homie Lofty dropped his Haunted Clothes album in mid December. I have a few beats on there. But there is more reason than that to check him out. Metro Zu is definitely one of the as-yet-untold hip hop stories of Florida. Folks got introduced to SGP last year, and I think he took a lot of people by surprise. South Florida is known for producing some incredible artists, we’re just not known by the rest of the world for it. But dive into this one and take some time to familiarize yourself with yet another gradation of tropicalized hip hop.

Stash Marina and Left Leberra (Leberra Marina) just dropped a new release. Honestly, I haven’t even listened to this record yet. But, honestly, I don’t have to. The whole Areb crew is really incredible, and they’re moving serious amount of molecules in this Wave. So, waste no time in getting over to the Leberra Blog to peep this one before they hurry up and drop two thousand more records.

Stay Wavy yall.

So, let me just qualify this list. Briefly. As of right now, I’m slightly more than a blip of nobody on the hip hop radar. My opinion, while valuable enough to qualify me to write for the Bloglin, doesn’t carry weight in the public sphere. While they should, the New York Times isn’t calling and asking for my input, Red Bull isn’t asking me to host Music Academy events, and I don’t get invited to Combat Jack or other popular radio shows. And so, I’m not writing this list as someone who observes rap, and orchestrates stuff off the page. I’m writing this list as a very excited artist, and fine tuning it as a uniquely informed critic (are there any other rapper/critics out there?).

Most of these folks are my friends, and I’ve made music with several of them. I’m sure there are tons of totally unknown producers out there making dope tunes, and making moves, but I don’t know that I should be watching them in 2012. Likewise I’m sure there are tons of equally-watchable producers out there who are more widely known, but I don’t know who they are. MP†C asked me to make a list of the folks to watch, and so as a rapper/producer/critic my take on this is informed by my own work as much my own observations.

These are the folks doing stuff that I’m excited about, and who have gotten enough of a buzz in 2011 that they could take off in 2012. But even if they don’t take off in 2012, these are all folks who will be delivering music in 2012 that will likely continue to raise the Wave and change the tide (with the exception of Mike Dean and Ken Lewis cause those dudes are way too big to be Wave).

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• Beautiful Lou (San Antonio, Texas)

What do you get for the man who has everything? New gear. It’s going to be an interesting year for Beautiful Lou. He’s been gaining steam steadily through 2011, as his beats on Live.Love.A$AP seem to have spread his name even further. His work with Tink has been nothing short of amazing and I’m pretty sure 2012 is going to show him a lot of love.

But the real question is what is his music gonna sound like as his rig changes? It’s not one of those “Will he still be dope when he’s not super lo-fi,” type of things because you can hear so much variety in his music that it’s clear his brilliance isn’t embedded strictly in the process. Get on it now, because once dude really hits next year it’s probably gonna be tough to keep up.

Download Beautiful Lou Thinks Ur Beautiful 2 (Click Here)

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• Skywlkr (Detroit, Michigan)

Skywlkr is in a very similar position as Lou, except without the A$AP features, so he’s not quite as fast-tracked. But again, the gear is going to play a role. I know he just got an MPC, and he’s got more new gear coming, so it’ll be interesting to see where it all takes him. Skywlkr is really good at sampling. He has a great ear for engaging samples, and he knows how to do the least that will do the most. And that’s what really good sampling is about: discovering amazing moments in sound, and finessing those moments into new soundscapes.

And with collabs from at least a half dozen Wave People already completed it’s gonna be tough not hearing his name next year.

Download Skywlkr’s Strawberry Cough (Click Here)

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• SpaceGhostPurrp (Miami, Florida)

I think SGP and Lou are in very similar boats. While you can draw some comparisons in their sounds, they are very different, but the both seem to be equally well-positioned for some heavy hitting in 2012. 2011 was definitely Purrp’s year low key. He was brought on to ensure the rise of the A$AP crew, and then promptly returned to Miami, where he has continued to mine the darker and more sinister side of Miami’s musical heritage.

Hip hop is nothing new at the bottom of the USA, but Purrp’s take on it is certainly a break from what the world might expect. And yet, with all the intrigue that has been sparked, it would seem that we haven’t even gotten the slightest clue of what he’s capable of. Yet. Expect that to change in 2012.

Download SpaceGhostPurrp’s Blvcklvnd Rvdix 66.6 (Click Here)

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• Nem270 (Ottawa, Canada)

I still don’t know much about Nem, aside from the the fact that he is grindin’ it the fuck out, and slowly building a rep as one of the hardest working dudes on the Wave. His sound is super-polished, and perhaps a bit more accessible than some of the other dudes on this list, but it’s still every bit as unique.

Nem takes very familiar sounds and rolls them out in unpredictable ways. It’s like he moved into the house of hip hop and totally renovated. Actually, no. It’s more like they tore down the house of hip hop and Nem got ahold of the best pieces of the house. And then he took them somewhere totally foreign, and used them to build something new.

Download Nem70′s Dank Worries EP (Click Here)

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• Friendzone (San Francisco, California)

This odd duo manages to crank out a steady stream of music that is anything but odd. But perhaps it’s odd that their beats have the majority of the hip hop blogs using word like “dreamy” and “peaceful”. But it’s accurate. Friendzone makes music for people who don’t like stress. Unlike a lot of other folks on this list these dudes went to school for music, and they clearly have roots in electronic musics that are not hip hop. But, that don’t mean shit because hip hop doesn’t care where you’ve been as long as you can drop bass. And drop bass they do.

But they have created a uniquely tempered sound that has played a noticeable role in the Green Ova sound. And, if everything is everything, they’ve got collabs coming with _________ and _________. The suspense could kill you, I know, so stay with these cloud seeding dudes and see what kind of weather the year brings.

Download Freindzone’s Kuchibiru Network 2 (Click Here)

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• L.W.H. (Dallas, Texas)

Imagine if you could give your video game LSD. Now hold that thought, sample it, and put some bangin drums under it. Now you’re ridin’ with L.W.H., AKA Aerobiz, aka the dude behind the camera for Unforgivable. While unexpected is a word I’d use to describe a lot of producers on this list, unpredictable seems to be more suited for Aerobiz.

His knowledge of music runs very deep, his sample library is filled with obscurities, and he can go from beats that were barely finessed into existence, right over to intensely composed works. If you like music that sounds good, you should be checking up on dude. It. Is. Just. That. Simple.

Download L.W.H.’s The Tape Hiss Hooligan (Click Here)

(more…)

That would actually be pretty sick, huh? I used to do a lot of field recordings, but I never got the chance to record a burning wave. I’m sure it would sound nothing like DJ Burn One though. You know, the sound of Yelawolf, ASAP Rocky, Pill, Starlito, and countless other notable hip hop releases of recent memory. Earlier this year Burn One dropped the much-slept on The Ashtray, which is just one amongst a slew of releases, but it also served as the singular marker for a very clear transition point. The Ashtray is Burn One’s first instrumental release, and after talking with him it’s clear that it’s a very calculated release that has involved much more than the music on it might suggest.

Burn One isn’t just a guy making beats. He’s a tireless hustler who’s first instrumental album is just one small piece of a very involved puzzle that has grown out of the space where his life and hip hop meet. Like many of us who grew up in the South, hip hop connected with him as much as he connected with it. And Burn One’s story highlights the difficulty in finding a distinction between how hip hop sounds as music, and what hip hop does as music:

“I think I had a unique experience growing up. I was raised in a city just south of downtown atlanta called Hapeville until I was 10. my family was one of a handful of white families in the area. after that we moved to the suburbs where there were just a handful of black families. it was pretty crazy because you would have these die hard rednecks with rebel flags hanging off their jacked up trucks banging pac to the fullest extent. it made no sense to me at the time but I realize now that music is one of the few things that translates to everybody, regardless of race or beliefs.”

And it would seem that the eponymous characteristics of hip hop not only informed, but also defined Burn One’s experience with this music, this culture, this vernacular of our nation. He got his start—you ready for this?—burning mix CDs in high school. He was THAT dude. The one who knew how to use a computer before everyone was rocking iTunes. But apparently he was one of the #Rarest versions of that dude type, because he also had great taste in music. And of course that led to working at a mom and pop, which lead to releasing his own proper mixtapes, which then led to making all kinds of connections, which then lead to projects of his own with various folks, which then lead to doin his own tunes and starting BLVD ST, which eventually blossomed into his label Five Points:

“I started my label Five Points Music Group about a year ago after I got together with my current team. Walt Live, Ricky Fontaine & The Professor play most of the live music you hear on my beats now. With them I can pretty much get out any sounds that I hear in my head. We work a lot of placement records and side projects with artists I believe have a chance to make it like Scotty & P. Watts. Ricky & Walt are also the first act I’m putting out on the label. they produce, write, sing, rap, record and mix all their own stuff. We just dropped a record with them and LE$ as the first single off the Cowbell Gang tape I’m doing with Taylor Gang producer Cardo. That’s going to be a double disc and hopefully it’ll be out by February. I’m also working on the soundtrack to an independent film that was shot here in ATL called Snow On Tha Bluff. We created the theme music for the trailer and have a few other songs in the actual movie as well.”

And running his label is exactly what he’s doing. From the top to the bottom Five Points is a brand under the care of a man with impeccable taste, a meticulous ear, and a connection to hip hop that is so intertwined with his life that you cannot separate the two. Burn One is in that unique transition point that comes between being part of the Wave, and being a self-sustaining enterprise. He exhibits everything that the Wave cultivates (honesty, humility, dedication to the craft, wisdom, tough tunes…), but he has outgrown the Wave. He has started his own sequel to the Wave, he’s a cloud, and he’s about to rain down an excellent example:

“at this point I’m the only one handling the administrative side of things on the daily. I have a very distinct vision with what I want to accomplish and until I find the right people to bring in that see my vision I’d rather just handle it all myself.”

And so, through Five Points DJ Burn One is not onyl able to release music, but also realize his relationship with hip hop on an even grander scheme. At this point he is undoubtedly a regional force, and unarguably an internet staple, but he has never released music as we commonly think of it. Burn One’s role in contemporary hip hop has led to the release of a lot of music, but all he’s ever done is live and breathe everything that this art stands for. He’s an artist in the purest form to quote Squadda B, and you can believe he is not only a name that we’ll be watching next year, but also a potent mind that we’ll be paying close attention to, and most likely looking to for inspiration.

Northern Lights (of Areb Crew), Himself the Majestic, and Mob No Sob (Western Tink and Beautiful Lou) recently dropped videos that took very different approaches. One of the things that defines Wave Rap is the self-produced element. You have very small teams producing music that is on par with the material produced by full-scale music machines. Industry standards most often lead to videos that are (surprise!) standardized, budgeted, and planned to the point of being completely devoid of any connection to regular life. They’re soundtracks to artifice, more than engaging visual accompaniments to relevant music. Did you ever notice how many rappers now shoot their videos in an empty sterile studio in front of a green screen? It’s the perfect analogy for their music: isolated, manufactured, all fabrication and no connection. With Wave Rap things are more immediate, and while Wave people may not have access to the kinds of means that big budgets make, they’ve got access to an ample range of possibilities. And as you can see from this selection it yields very different results, but no matter what comes out, it’s real as fuck.

To me, the most compelling part of Wave Rap is the accessibility, and the immediacy. Folks on the Wave aren’t part of some separate, and inaccesible society. They’re average citizens, with above average talents. Unlike the dominant myth—which tells us that famous musicians are somehow not like regular blue collar humans—the Wave offers another interpretation. On the Wave the musicians are just regular people who work really really hard to be able to put their music out. It doesn’t make sense for them to create videos that are big productions when folks gotta wash dishes, buy groceries, and do all this real life shit. When you’re on the Wave you just shoot the video on a regular day. These three videos all take very different approaches, but they share something in common: nothing happens. But, it’s one of those tricky post-modern, situationist type of “nothing happens” because in nothing happening, really everything happens. It’s like the John Cage quote “I have nothing to say and I’m saying it. And that’s poetry.”

In this hyperbolic age of rap music videos are usually exaggerations of what might happen, or what did happen. One of the exceptions to this, and perhaps the forerunner to the Wave aesthetic, is the proliferation of trap videos where nothing happens. Instead you have dudes posted on their block, chillin’ with the crew, waving guns, smoking substances, touchin’ on some lady parts, and imbibing drinks. The videos are usually set in someone’s front yard, or in the street in front of several front yards. And it is what they lack that makes them so potent. They lack artifice, and that’s what I mean when I say nothing happens. Because as it’s plain to see, lots of stuff happens in the video, it’s just not out of the ordinary. There’s no big splash, no shocking reveal, no resolution. Which makes sense in this era. It’s a flying fuck you to hundreds of years of stratified cultural pronouncements that told us art should be measured by it’s adherence to a stuffy framework. We live in a time when The Spectacle is not just in Hollywood studios, and Broadway theatres. As the last 5 years have shown us, the spectacle is all around us. From Reality TV, to YouTube sensations, Tumblr stars, the most routine elements of life in the United States have become just as potent as the biggest productions of yesteryear.

Basically, big productions as the standard for art are outdated. They have their place, but the idea that all art we consume should be grandiose GDP-overshadowing operations is just not realistic. We don’t live in times where gross opulence is held in high regard, because most people don’t have access to. What most people do have access to is a camera—maybe two—an editing program, and whatever happens to go down that day. The Shadowrunners videos is pretty much one shot one location. The AAA video is a few shots, in a few locations. And the Mob no Sob video (which is clearly the most produced, but also involved Billy Jetson)

is a few shots in one location. And while they each represent a different point on a spectrum (Shadowrunners on one end, and Mobbin No Sobbin on the other) of production complexity they all have pretty much the same result: they let us a little further into the lives of these Wave people. And there you go, I suppose that’s the distinction. Where most rap music this day closes the door in your face, but gives you a very seductive view through the peephole, Wave Rap opens up the doors and invites you in. It’s warm in here, right?

How nuts is it that Canibus didn’t even edit out the outtakes? This J. Cole apology video is actually 3 J. Cole apology videos, with a 50 second intro. The extent to which this video creates a dérive from the artifice of rap is compelling to say the least. And, as the big rap moon in space swings our tides into the final movements of the year, it would seem that compelling has been the theme (and not the missing ingredient *waves goodbye to the last few years of rap*).

I know I myself have made more music in the last 6 months than in any one year of my life, and I’ve definitely found out about more amazing artists this year than in any year previous (well, that I can remember. I’m sure there was a year at the height of my record collecting that rivaled this, but that would have been bands that aren’t contemporary).

In case you missed it Big Baby Gandhi dropped his Big Fuckin Baby tape with Greedhead/Mad Decent at some point in the recent past. On the surface it sounds a lot like the era that birthed Madlib, and J Dilla. Gandhi treats samples like large scale building blocks, extracting the architecture of various source musics. These blocks then set the stage for, yep you guessed it, rapper ass raps. Gandhi sounds a lot like Heems, Vic, and Lakutis, but mostly he sounds like Gandhi. It’s dope that these dudes have such a deep crew, and all these guys are rockin their own shit and it sounds similar but different.

Left Leberra, Stash Marina, and the whole Ahnemal Rebel crew just dropped this AAA record, and while some parts could be mixed a little better, the art on here is straight bangin. I don’t really know what goes down in Connecticut. I went there to buy a bicycle off of craigslist once. Other than that It’s a mystery zone to me. I know it gets cold, but apparently there is also something about it that causes people to make incredibly chilled out hip hop music. I can’t even imagine what’s coming up with these folks, but you can tell it’s gonna be massive.

Julian Wass dropped his cry§tal§ record. I love how thorough this dude is. You go to his site and he’s got you immediately. On cry§tal§ Julian takes us through a small collection of worlds that correlate to specific colored crystals.

Cry§tal§ showcases Julian’s aptitude in the studio, and his attention to detail as he meticulously constructs what sounds like sampled field recordings from an arcade and Music Inn. Get lost in there yo.

Oh shit. What other rapper you know givin away money when you download their album? Squadda Bambino of The Main Attrakionz will be coming back soon with the brand new mixtape Back $ellin Crack.

If Main Attrakz weren’t already turning the whole shit upside down clearly enough, I think this should be an obvious indication.

And finally. a video for “Skate Or Die Bitch” off of me and Silky Johnson’s Prostitute’s Yard Sale. I had fun making this video. The song is about rapping, and skateboarding. And how I feel about posers.

I have a feeling that we can expect to see a lot more releases like this though where folks link up for a minimal amount of tracks. My prediction is that we’ll see a lot of short amazing collabs in 2012. But I aint NOAA, so I could be totally off. We’ll see.

Western Tink is a positive dude, and lately the stuff that him and Lou have been dropping has been pretty uplifting harmonious music, so it’s easy to forget that there was a whole other side to Hard To Keel that was darker. It’s cool to hear Tink do whatever he wants to do, but when he picks more sinister beats like this the dynamic is different. While the music wants to overwhelm the track and turn it to a dark affair Tink pushes back against it with an endless array of solutions. 8:30 AM off the jeezy and the cloud potion I’m kinda spun, but I stand by that right there.

Did you read the article I wrote about Bandcamp? Cause if you did that would only add to seeing what Quelle Chris has goin’ on at his Bandcamp page. New CDs usually run you between $9.99 and $19.99. Of course yes, we all know that there are exceptions above and below that range, but the majority of new releases will fall in there. What you get varies, and if you shop at indie record shops you definitely know this. It’s not at all uncommon to receive promotional items, and/or bonus material when you buy music at a record shop. It’s added incentive. That’s another thing that Bandcamp will allow you to capitalize on. And again, the possibilities are basically endless, so even if it’s just as research head over to Quelle Chris’ page and see what $20 gets you.

Antwon and Shadowrunnes have a show coming up in Anaheim. It almost makes me regret leaving Los Angeles. I’m sure these dudes are gonna shut it down, and it’s a house show/party. I can’t imagine a beter way to spend the night than just loungin with some real folks and catching what I honestly feel is some of the best hip hop in the world right now. And both these dudes have albums droppin’ so watch out for those.

Just heard this dude Speak’s new record Inside Out Boy. He’s Jewish so you know I had to check for him because the tribe stays united like that. His raps are on some Kool Keith type don’t-give-a-fuck-if-I’m-crass-or-weird, but he sounds like Speak not Keith. He raps over mostly lowkey beats, talks about sex and drugs a lot, and has a pretty chill style, but you can tell he’s a competent rapper, and you can hear him go through a range of states. Definitely one to keep an eye on.

The Wave is pretty righteous right now. That’s the truth.

Head over to Dream Collabo to holler at Mondre M.A.N. new joint M A N. Beats from Skywalker, Beautiful Lou, Keyboard Kid, Silky Johnson, and Marlee B. This is a super solid release, that will definitely carry you through some serious cloud time. You already know I love all the folks involved on this one, but they really came together pretty brilliantly. And Mondre always comes correct “Tryin to get the blessings/ without the atchoo”.

Black Noi$e just dropped 2 new tracks on his bandcamp. Haunting, and seductive. Respectively. Keepin Detroit movin. You may remember him from his split remix project with Skywalker, Ex Ex Military. Thus far he’s showin out with some dope beats, and I’m really really excited to keep up with his releases and see what his sound is really all about.

Michigan-based Bruiser-affiliated Dayggs just dropped this ethered out video game twerkout Roll [1]Up. Crafty title. Crafty beat. Dayggs has a super chill style, and I’m pretty sure he has beats on upcoming records that you’re gonna care about. That is to say, you may not know his name yet, but there are dudes who’s names you know, and those dudes know Dayggs name. Do you get where this is going? Stay ahead of the curve.

And last but definitely not least is this newish track from Antwon. I think Evil is what we will come to know as quintessential Twon: introspective, drugs, a dark and seedy tinge, uninhibited and unabashed sexuality, humor, and everything good about rap and rappers. I get anxious when I think about the music that this dude is gonna drop, because I know he’s just raising the bar every single time.

As recent as 5 years ago the primary means for releasing your music was to put out CDs. And I’d say it was some time in the last 5 years that it began to change. And by change I mean that it became the norm to release music on the internet, and treat physical releases as limited edition art objects. It wasn’t just the means of releasing music that changed though, and I think at this point it’s become fairly clear that we’re in the midst of a large-scale swell that is changing the ways music sounds, the ways we listen, the ways we find music, the people we expect to see making music, et cetera. Ultimately, everything has come into question. All of the sudden it’s all Dada everything.

I’ve always been a fan of art that deconstructs the categories that it’s in while also living up to the standards. To me that’s where all the really interesting shit goes down, where folks are managing to undo by doing. It’s easy to get swept up in the obvious parts though. I mean, who wouldn’t? It’s a given that I’ll be thinking about great music and the people who make it all week because I’m reviewing records on here all the time. So, I get to see how artists are carrying out the avant garde in their music, how folks like Western Tink and Beautiful Lou have found a way to make music that is hip hop without a doubt, yet it resists all of the familiar summations of hip hop. Those are big huge pieces of the puzzle, but they’re not the only pieces when we think about the changing ways of music.

As I was walking down Market Street today, headed to have my computer fixed, and zoning out on the people in the street I had a random thought: “I should update those covers for the ICIGP records I did.” And, being that I had smoked some hash before I left the house my brain half-stumbled onto this tangential thought that boggled around for another fraction of a second until I had a realization, “EUREKA! I can go back and change my record covers at any time. I can also go back and change any other aspect of my previous releases because they’re on Bandcamp.” It’s a tiny thing, insignificant in many ways, but important in a way that is a poignant example of the times that we as musicians, audience, and otherwise find ourselves in. It’s a touch point if you will, for the future of music.

If we look back to the recent past, the means for the distribution of music have been in flux for a little bit more than a decade. For more than a century previous to that music was distributed on various physical goods. Once we entered the era of recorded sound, our society’s perception of music, and our expectations therein were tightly bound to physical goods. And because music is bound to the physical goods, eventually the physical goods feed back into the system and have an effect on the music being made, distributed, and heard. From wax cylinders, to wire, to the phonograph, to analog tape (thanks nazi scum), to compact discs—all have bound music to unchanging physical goods, and have in part arrested music a little bit more. As long as we’re tied to music that comes to us on finite media, we’re also tied to the idea of music that is finished before we ever get to hear it. But, Bandcamp really challenges that.

The product of meticulous etching, a record is a permanent and unchanging—but rapidly fading—archive of a sound. When you buy a record, you’re buying a piece of black plastic that is etched with code that can be read by your record player. As satisfying as records are, they will always be read-only devices. And the same can be said about any of the other media that we commonly found music on in the old era. But Bandcamp is a read and write device. For the end-user of course it is read only, but for the artist, Bandcamp is a container that can be broken open repeatedly. And at any point along the way in the distillation of sounds the work can be sampled. Just think of it like this:

No one records a record overnight. Records get made over time. And fthose of you who make music, or are privy to how music gets made, know that a record goes through many iterations before its final form is found. Songs are re-worked, rearranged, re-tuned, eliminated, reanimated; vocals are put in and taken out; solos linger in phantasmic form and are one day heard; drum beats begin as skeletons and may remain that way until the final moments when they’re given just enough variation to writhe their way back to life; empty spaces for guest verses wait unfilled until studio time comes through; point being the creation of a record is a DYNAMIC process. So, now all of the sudden we have the opportunity to present a work as it progresses, and to allow those who might listen a more robust depiction of the process that creates the sounds that ultimately become The Record.

Some folks might say that it eliminates the mystery and seduction, but I say that isn’t mystery or seduction, it’s just a happenstance way in which folks have benefited in the past. Not no more. I mean, I’d argue that it’s way cooler to imagine avid fans downloading your album every day and listening so intently to try and hear the faintest changes, listening so hard that they imagine things into existence, and then those imagined things then lead them to create some whole new kind of music…nah I wouldn’t say that gets in the way of mystery at all. In fact I’d say it blows the doors out a bit wider, and gives mystery a chance to really rush the place. It gives fans a reason to download an album ten times in order to have it at every point along the way, to marvel at the work their Great Artist has done, to actually feel the weight with which the artist had to lean into the universe to create their work. Bandcamp has brought music back to life, and has created a kind of home that we have needed for quite some time.

Here’s to the Wave, the Flood, the Fish, the Sea, and all the good that they will bring.

As recent as 5 years ago the primary means for releasing your music was to put out CDs. And I’d say it was some time in the last 5 years that it began to change. And by change I mean that it became the norm to release music on the internet, and treat physical releases as limited edition art objects. It wasn’t just the means of releasing music that changed though, and I think at this point it’s become fairly clear that we’re in the midst of a large-scale swell that is changing the ways music sounds, the ways we listen, the ways we find music, the people we expect to see making music, et cetera. Ultimately, everything has come into question. All of the sudden it’s all Dada everything.

I’ve always been a fan of art that deconstructs the categories that it’s in while also living up to the standards. To me that’s where all the really interesting shit goes down, where folks are managing to undo by doing. It’s easy to get swept up in the obvious parts though. I mean, who wouldn’t? It’s a given that I’ll be thinking about great music and the people who make it all week because I’m reviewing records on here all the time. So, I get to see how artists are carrying out the avant garde in their music, how folks like Western Tink and Beautiful Lou have found a way to make music that is hip hop without a doubt, yet it resists all of the familiar summations of hip hop. Those are big huge pieces of the puzzle, but they’re not the only pieces when we think about the changing ways of music.

As I was walking down Market Street today, headed to have my computer fixed, and zoning out on the people in the street I had a random thought: “I should update those covers for the ICIGP records I did.” And, being that I had smoked some hash before I left the house my brain half-stumbled onto this tangential thought that boggled around for another fraction of a second until I had a realization, “EUREKA! I can go back and change my record covers at any time. I can also go back and change any other aspect of my previous releases because they’re on Bandcamp.” It’s a tiny thing, insignificant in many ways, but important in a way that is a poignant example of the times that we as musicians, audience, and otherwise find ourselves in. It’s a touch point if you will, for the future of music.

If we look back to the recent past, the means for the distribution of music have been in flux for a little bit more than a decade. For more than a century previous to that music was distributed on various physical goods. Once we entered the era of recorded sound, our society’s perception of music, and our expectations therein were tightly bound to physical goods. And because music is bound to the physical goods, eventually the physical goods feed back into the system and have an effect on the music being made, distributed, and heard. From < a href=http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/>wax cylinders, to wire, to the phonograph, to analog tape (thanks nazi scum), to compact discs—all have bound music to unchanging physical goods, and have in part arrested music a little bit more. As long as we’re tied to music that comes to us on finite media, we’re also tied to the idea of music that is finished before we ever get to hear it. But, Bandcamp really challenges that.

Through meticulous etching, a record is a permanent and unchanging—but rapidly fading—archive of a sound. When you buy a record, you’re buying a piece of black plastic that is etched with code that can read by your record player. As satisfying as records are, they will always be read-only devices. And the same can be said about any of the other media that we commonly found music on in the old era. But Bandcamp is a read and write device. For the end-user of course it is read only, but for the artist, Bandcamp is a container that can be broken open repeatedly. And at any point along the way in the distillation of sounds the work can be presented to the audience for their consumption.

No one records a record overnight. Records get made over time. And fthose of you who make music, or are privy to how music gets made, know that a record goes through many iterations before its final form is found. Songs are re-worked, rearranged, re-tuned, eliminated, reanimated; vocals are put in and taken out; solos linger in phantasmic form and are one day heard; drum beats begin as skeletons and may remain that way until the final moments when they’re given just enough variation to writhe their way back to life; empty spaces for guest verses wait unfilled until studio time comes through; point being the creation of a record is a DYNAMIC process. So, now all of the sudden we have the opportunity to present a work as it progresses, and to allow those who might listen a more robust depiction of the process that creates the sounds that ultimately become The Record.

Some folks might say that it eliminates the mystery and seduction, but I say that isn’t mystery or seduction, it’s just a happenstance way in which folks have benefited in the past. Not no more. I mean, I’d argue that it’s way cooler to imagine avid fans downloading your album every day and listening so intently to try and hear the faintest changes, listening so hard that they imagine things into existence, and those imagined things then lead them to create some whole new kind of music…nah I wouldn’t say that gets in the way of mystery at all. In fact I’d say it blows the doors out a bit wider, and gives mystery a chance to really rush the place. It gives fans a reason to download an album ten times in order to have it at every point along the way, to marvel at the work their Great Artist has done, to actually feel the weight with which the artist had to lean into the universe to create their work. Bandcamp has brought music back to life, and has created a kind of home that we have needed for quite some time. Here’s to the Wave, the Flood, the Fish, the Sea, and all the good that they will bring.