Tonight’s Retard Strength is going to be good and I wouldn’t try to put one over on you. It’s starting off with three bands playing, starting at 8:30 sharp. First there’s Monozid from Germany. Then there’s the Bootblacks playing their premiere show.
Finally there’s YOU. After they’re done around 10pm I’ll be DJing up some rocking’ rollin’ songs with J.R. from Jailbait and Jonathan Toubin from being a famous guy that people love. Also there’s free vodka drinks from 9pm to 10pm so come early for some low cal booze. Here are some photos from last week’s thing.
Thursday May 24th, 2012, 8PM
The Flat
308 Hooper
Brooklyn, NY
Blah blah blah, Varg did that. Blah blah blah, Varg said this. Who gives a fuck? Ok, sure Varg has said and done some batshit crazy things in his past but this review is about his work, not the musician. Save your hate for my critique of his music, not the man himself.
Since being released back into the free world, Varg has dropped three Burzum albums on the hungry masses. Belus, Fallen and now his 2012 album, Umskiptar. The lyrics for this album, unsurprisingly, are from a Norse poem entitled “Völuspá”.
Based on various pagan translations, Umskiptar means “Metamorphoses” and the album is a self-described return to the roots of Burzum’s early work. 66 stanzas make up its entirety and even though the lyrics aren’t in English, you can decipher their beauty through the elegant atmosphere Varg has created.
Everything about Umskiptar plays like Fallen and nothing like Belus. Whereas the latter was an obvious by-product of isolationism, Fallen began to show Varg’s return to civilization. The themes present, the power in the music and the overall feel of this release is a large improvement in Varg’s modern work but damn, it takes a bit for you to warm up to it.
There are very few tracks that I’d consider as epic as say, “Jesus’ Tod” or even his more modern music. It’s not until the fourth track, “Hit Helga Tré” or “The Sacred Tree” that I’m moved at all. There’s something familiar about the tremelo picking and the ghastly overlaid vocals. Varg’s raspy and vapid tone is eerie but there’s something very honest about the sound.
“Æra (Honour)” and “Heiðr (Esteem)” are where the album begins to fall apart. Not in any unlistenable way, just in the self-described “wholeness”. As a foreigner to the Norse tongue, it’s difficult to understand the transformation that Varg is purveying. “Valgaldr (Song of the Fallen)” continues this descent and by the time you’re in the last few cuts, it’s almost entirely spoken word with minimal instrumentation to get you through the introspective ramblings.
So where does that leave us? Probably one of the best black metal artists of all time just comes across as bored or unenthused. Still, there are those who will argue that Varg can do whatever he wants and it’ll be better than 90% of other bands. Personally, I’m not buying it. Other than the nostalgic feeling I get picking up on a few cues in his music, Umskiptar just isn’t doing it for me, especially when compared to Fallen.
Here’s a video for “Dark Pleasures”, the debut from Brooklyn based duo DUST. They describe their music as a mixture between Italo Disco and Acid House, and at first I was like “huh I wonder what that would sound lik-” which is about the point where the track kicked in and I was like “oh okay, wow this is totally great.” Here’s to fun and unexpected combos. Here’s to grape Big League Chew and David’s Barbecue Sunflower Seeds.
DUST is the work of John Barclay and Michael Sherburn. Barclay you may know from the Brooklyn party scene as the original proprietor of the ever present 285 Kent warehouse space. DUST has clearly synthesized his many years of making music as well as countless hours manning raves and parties and general debauchery. The song is even better over the fucked up fantasy of a video by Luke Wyatt. Looking forward to more from DUST soon.
This record was a long time in the making. Long before Killer Mike and El-P were connected via Williams Street (is it funny that cartoon network would have such an impact on hip hop that they’d become the impetus for this record?) there was a palpable void in the United States where hip hop had once held court. A music that had once been a potent outlet for dissent, had slowly become one mainly used to showcase wealth. But, the shift in hip hop wasn’t arbitrary. The creation of CDOs, and financial institutions’ subsequent efforts to exploit citizens through a combination of CDOs and unrealistic mortgages created a bubble of false wealth from the early 2000s through to 2008 or so.
Through CDOs financial institutions were able to manufacture false capital, and because they were abused to such an extreme extent the whole of the nation was affected by the flow of this false capital. It moved through the music industry with a particularly acute affect. If you look at rap music from 2000 through to 2008 you will no doubt find a growing legion of rappers defined by grotesque opulence, and grossly disproportionate amounts of money when compared those who came before them. This is the direct result of banks selling mortgages to citizens who could not afford them, then selling the risk on those loans to other banks at an exaggerated rate, squarely fucking the system out both ends.
The affect on hip hop was dramatic as the whole genre shifted to gradually become a giant advertisement for luxury brands, and the soundtrack for a lifestyle borne of the indulgences of false wealth. And when economic collapse ended the flow of this capital, and it all came crashing down it became painfully evident that we had gone quite some time without potent voices of dissent. Artists who in other times would have been a voice against the path our country took, were bought out with that very same false wealth that was destroying the nation. But, through all of that Killer Mike steadily built a reputation as someone who is dissenting—a real rapper who is a voice for, and in his community. During a time of struggle, Mike is offering the soundtrack to survival.
It’s almost odd that Mike’s career has run in tandem with this wave of economic fluctuation, but at the same time fitting. And so, when we need him most Mike has risen to the occasion and taken his art one step further. That’s not to say that previous efforts have been sub-par, but here we find Mike in the midst of music that is frankly indispensable. We needed this record as a nation. These are unsure times, and Mike is a very very certain voice. He is about survival, and that’s what this record is about. When we spoke earlier this year he stressed the title: “Rebellious African People’s Music”. He related the importance of many musical traditions (funk, gospel, spirituals, jazz, et cetera) to the survival of peoples of African descent. And while the obvious connection is the African part, I’m more interested in focusing on the surviving part.
Mike is a survivor for sure. You don’t last for 12 years as a rapper who never had a #1 single if you’re not a survivor. So who better than Killer Mike, who is clearly learned in survival, to guide us through the times when we have to accept that we must take our survival into our own hands? He’s a great example of that for sure. The country is burning, and Mike is one of a few people willing to talk about it, and looking to move people to prepare for how to survive after the burning embers of a decade of fiduciary pillaging and looting have cooled. And that is only the existential parts of the music. If you’ll remember from the Killer Mike and El-P interviews we published on the Bloglin earlier this year I talked to both Mike and El-P about the significance of this record in the history of rap music.
There was a time, a long time, when a record like this was not only impossible, but opposed. As the inner workings of the record industry were telling El-P that hip hop was dead, they were being financed by an institution that simply doesn’t exist any longer. And with the fall of that institution a great deal of artifice, and posturing has been removed from hip hop music. And, in this more candid state the meeting of El-P and Killer Mike comes together and rings truer than I could have ever imagined. It’s been a while since I listened to an El-P record, but just as he was there to define the beginning of a community running counter to the workings of a vapid institution, he is here again to define the ending of the same institution which ran counter to his earlier records as part of Company Flow, and later as Def Jux.
Yes, this is the meeting of two great minds, but it’s also the meeting of two distinct eras. There is so much more than just El-P making beats, and Killer Mike rapping. They essentially serve as avatars for two very distinct populations within this nation that have become increasingly indistinguishable over the course of the proliferation of the internet. There was a time when the overlap of El-P and Killer Mike’s audiences was slim to none. But not only that, the mentality behind the division was vehemently reinforced by the whole value system of hip hop. “Only this is real, and anything else that sounds like this, but isn’t this, isn’t real.” But we’ve seen hip hop turn from an incredibly reductive and emaciating means of defining itself, to this current renaissance in which all styles flourish welcomely and equally. This record is a clear indication that we are in the midst of the internet age. Without a doubt from the involvement of Williams Street, to the unlikely combination of artists, to the nature of the content, this is rap for today. Like, right now right now today. Amazing.
I do not want the Action Bronson/Riff Raff collaborative album to happen. I NEED it to happen. Preferably yesterday. After the stellar “Bird On A Wire“, which featured a Harry Fraud beat which is one of the best of the year thus far, the duo, plus Dana Coppafeel, dropped another track, “Hot Shots Part Deux” yesterday. Now it’s already got an excellent video to boot. It’s one of those animated lyric videos but not shitty and played the fuck out, because it’s got Action blowing a pile of digital coke and Riff Raff becoming Hulk Hogan and Ultimate Warrior faster than you can say “rice”.
Speaking of Riff Raff, his already next-level hair game has somehow moved onto another level: a pin straight center part mixed with with a crewcut/Ceaser in the very front. It’s actually sort of reminiscent to that look JR Smith was sporting right when he joined the Knicks. Maybe Riff Raff can date Rihanna now too. Get the hottest girl in the game wearing his Icee chain.
Last year my friend Spencer told me about an album he loved called Digital Lows by a rapper from Memphis named Cities Aviv. And I remember thinking “Cities Aviv is a rapper?” The name “Cities Aviv” was in my mind because I had seen his album on Pitchfork. The cover art and the name “Cities Aviv” made me think it was pretty far from rap. I just completely judged its genre by the cover.
Luckily, I took Spencer’s advice and gave Digital Lows a listen it really amazed me. Cities a.k.a Gavin Mays has a unique voice and sound and the album addresses all kinds of ideas from the very positive stuff to the very negative with a lot of skill and creativity. I talked with Cities Aviv via phone about his upcoming album, The Illuminati, Kickin People through walls, “Surfing,” and more…
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Nick Vogt: You were doing punk and hardcore before you started rapping, right? How did you make that transition from doing different music into rapping and into the “hip hop world?”
Cities Aviv: I feel like it was a pretty easy transition just because with punk and harcore you can be just as like “seemingly talentless” as you can be in rap [laughs] so, as opposed to yelling over crunchy guitars I’m now yelling over crunchy beats.
Is any of your pre-rap music online? No one ever links to it when they write about you. They just say you used to be in punk bands. So, I’m curious…Maybe it’s “secret?”
CA: It’s ultra secret. Ultra rare…no, I feel like it’s not talked about on purpose because it sucks [laughs]. Everyone fucks around with music in their younger years and shit. I just feel like it’s one of those things that hasn’t really influenced what I’ve done much except gear me to play. It hasn’t influenced my music much except for the performance aspect.
Yeah that makes sense. When you were in bands did you play instruments and do vocals? Or was it just vocals?
CA: No, I just did vocals. I tried to stay away from any instruments. I’m really bad at them.
But, you make beats, right? I mean computer music is pretty different than playing instruments, but it’s not so different…
CA: I make beats here and there. I try not to consider myself a producer much. I think I’m very novice at it. I just pick random sounds and try to mash them to how I’d wanna hear it sound. It is very computer based. I have some gear, but not much. I try to keep it very minimal.
How much production did you do for Digital Lows?
CA: I didn’t produce much. I didn’t even do it under my name. I put them on there under a different name. That way if people thought it sucked they wouldn’t think I suck. They’d just think “this producer I don’t even know really sucks!” [Laughs] But, yeah I did a few beats on Digital Lows. I think I’m gonna produce more for my new stuff, though. A lot of people have been sending me beats, but I feel like that’s just their interpretation of what Cities Aviv is. Which, nine times out of ten, is wrong [Laughs].
You’ve had like two singles since Digital Lows, right? “Flex Yr Gold” and “Normal Immortal.” Are those both your beats?
CA: Yeah I did the beats for those two. For those tracks I already had the idea for how I wanted them to sound… It’s so fucking hard to describe a “produced beat” [laughs] but, yeah I’m glad I put “Normal Immortal” out. I initially wasn’t gonna put it out, but then I threw it on the internet. I laughed when I saw people saying “This is like Death Grips noise rap” which is just hilarious to me.
I think the Pitchfork write-up for “Normal Immortal” described your vocals as “Blown Out” which is a pretty good description. It’s hard to make out anything you say on that and on “Flex Yr Gold,” too. What was your intention behind doing such “Blown Out” vocals?
CA: When we recorded “Flex Yr Gold” I recorded with a KOAS pad into a Karaoke machine that we put a mic up to. I wanted to do it that way because it’s not just about me rapping over a beat. It’s about the whole body of work. A lot of times I like to throw the vocals in there amongst the other shit that’s going on. You have to listen harder to hear them. A lot of people are saying “I don’t like the vocals. I think that sounds bad.” Those are the people don’t want listening to my music. It just kinda weeds out what I like are “lazy listeners,” people who I feel are just tryna jump onto “wave rap” or whatever’s popular now. It’s kinda the “art of diversion” [laughs]
I think that Digital Lows does have some similarities to “wave rap,” and what a lot of people are doing now, but it’s unique for sure. That’s why I like it. I think the album kind of has an old soul, dude. I feel like it’s very connected to what I might call “Traditional Hip Hop.”
CA: Yeah, everything about that album was gearing around nostalgia, but also moving forward. But, when I was writing it I didn’t intend for anyone to hear it how it was heard. I didn’t think it would leave Memphis or leave a very small circle of people on the Internet. A lot of people have latched onto it. But, I’m over Digital Lows. I can’t bear to even listen to it. But, I think that “nostalgic feel” is why people have liked it and can connect to it.
Something else I really like about Digital Lows is your lyrics. I think your lyrics also really set you apart from other rappers in this generation I think. Your lyrics are very insightful and thoughtful at a time when a lot of rappers aren’t going for that. I don’t wanna use the word “Lyrical” to describe your stuff, but—
CA: Yeah, I hate the word “lyrical.” I feel like people think “Oh, that’s a good word! That’s five syllables!” [Laughs] I feel like the lyrics on Digital Lows are pretty amateur. I think I’ve grown as a writer. But, at the same time, when I made the album I wanted it to have it’s own sound. I wanted it to be “sloppy” in a way. There’s this new wave where everyone’s going toward the “Trap” direction. Everyone wants to be a “Southern Rapper” even though their from different parts of the world. I don’t wanna be one of these rappers vomiting out a mixtape every week that sounds the same as everything else. I wanted to be different than those guys [laughs]
And that’s funny because you’re actually from The South. Not only that, but you’re from Memphis. I love Spaceghost, so I don’t mean to knock him by saying this, but most of his sound is bringing back the classic Memphis rap…Three Six to be specific. Memphis as a “hip hop city” is almost bigger now that it ever was.
CA: It’s everywhere now. I like to call it “Memphis Fetish Rap.” A lot of people are all about Memphis, but they’ve never been here in their lives. I wonder how long it’s gonna go before people are over it? To be honest the old Memphis rap shit is amazing. And it’s very influential. There isn’t other music that sounds like that. Memphis is a very dark place. It’s like this weird, alternate dimension that people kind of forgot about. But, now, everyone’s remembered Memphis exists for some reason.
That being said, you have a lot of things that…well, that almost fabricate the Memphis sound. A lot of the time it’s contrived when people throw out “Yeah I’m so into the occult shit! I’m so into the Memphis shit!” I’m like “Get the fuck outta here.” I’m not even gonna front like I’m carrying a torch for Memphis or anything. I personally don’t care. But, at the same time, it’s cool people appreciate Memphis. I just want people to appreciate it for the right reasons. It’s not cool when people say “oh, this is a new wave thing I’m gonna jump on it.” And they have no idea about Memphis rap at all.
Denzel Aquarius’killa Curry is no stranger to the Bloglin or to his underground/raiderklan fans, yet it’s his style and throwback mentality that him and his fellow Miami brothers have that is still very refreshing to me and keeps me coming back for more.
This one is definitely another RaiderKlan lo-fi banger for us to enjoy and will 100% be played many times in the lab while we take break from recording . This mixtape has a different tone and feel to it as compared to his past two mixtapes and it shows he is exploring different styles with these songs and is also progressing mentally as a young man at the same time.
You can really tell he’s been putting in time on listening to 90′s hiphop heros such as 2Pac, Big L, and Outkast and yet there is still always that Three 6/Bone Thugs influence there in his ryhmes as well that he can’t hide from and we all enjoy. Not to take away from his originality at all because he is a perfect example of the vision that the whole raiderklan is trying to show everybody.
That is that even though Miami is pretty and funtimes on the outside, some poeple are living a very different lifestyle in a way different world from that highclass world, which we now know as the Blackland. Here is a look at the first video for this tape made by Miami’s own Kevin Pouya which gives it a proper lo-fi feel .
Teen Daze – All of Us, Together (2012) [Lefse] // Grade: D-
If we keep getting albums more like All of Us, Together, and the actually talented stalwarts of the genre continue to move away to better things, then I fear we might one day look back at chillwave with the same powerful facepalm as Nu-Metal. That (might) be a slight exaggeration, but Teen Daze’s debut full-length is just that ire inducing.
Beyond the fact that it is recorded and mixed well, I really have nothing good to say about this record. It is so inoffensive as to become offensive. I would have been more accepting of this maybe 2 years ago, when the tenets of the genre were still being demarcated, but at this point something so obviously formulaic is basically inexcusable. Perhaps this is the pitfall of building up a series of singles and demos over several years without an official release, as Teen Daze has done. There’s something to be said for putting down a legitimate album, the finality of it that will force you to close some sort of door and move on to something at least slightly different.
There’s nothing here to make the album stand out from any other post-postal service beach inflected “chill” electronica, almost like it was constructed to replace actual songs for a company that didn’t feel like paying licensing fees. The laziness extends to the lack of vocals on several songs which are desperately in need of them. I’m sure this all sounds painfully harsh, but All of Us, Together, an album ostensibly devoted to positivity and “chillness” has managed to make me quite mad.
The name of this song by Lushlife and Styles P is not “The Doughnut Murders,” it’s called “Still I Hear The Word Progress” and it’s on Lushlife’s new album Plateau Vision. But, the video might as well be called that. Unlike a lot of music videos, neither Lushlife nor the song’s special guest Styles P show up at all. Instead, the video tells the story of a happy family. Well, they’re happy except for the fact that the father/husband (perhaps possessed by the ghost of a doughnut he never got to eat?) goes on murderous sleepwalks. During his sleep walks, the dude sees humans as having doughnut heads and kills them. His first kill he somehow bludgeons to death with a half gallon jug of milk. A plastic one, at that. Not one of those oldschool glass ones. How do you kill someone with a milk jug? I don’t know. But maybe milk is a weakness of the Doughnut People? Like how fire Pokemon are weak to water?
Surreal, absurd violence is not the only awesome thing about the “Still I Hear The Word Progress” video, though. There’s also some really clever editing, hypno eyes, chickens and more. There are a lot of chickens actually. Which I like since chickens are one of my favorite animals. Oh, and there’s a cliffhanger ending, too… Definitely check out Plateau Vision if you haven’t. And, if you missed my Bloglin interview with Lushlife from a few weeks back check it out. In that interview Lushlife told me he and Styles P are working on some new music together which, judging from how great the song “Still I Hear The Word Progess” is, should be pretty cool. Maybe they’ll give us a “Part 2″ of this video for their next collab…
So the Twitter informed me that today was actually World Goth Day. I’m not sure if this is something that’s been happening every year, but for whatever reason the internet got real excited about it this time. Yes, the one day when we get together to celebrate Goth culture. Seems a little ironic perhaps, but a good cause nonetheless. Also it falls on Morrissey’s birthday… coincidence? Or just one joyous alliance of sorrow? Anyway… Goth gets a lot of flack, but as I’m sure you know we’re all about it here at Мишка (*cough, cough* Death In June capsule *cough* the Grave Wave compilation/fiasco/awesomeness *cough, cough*). And yes, I did use that header image but this is the internet. We try to be humorous here folks.
But I also used it because I feel like (as with most subcultures) Goth usually gets boiled down to just one or two things, here being black clothes and abject sadness. Even in Goth music, people just automatically go to The Cure, Bauhaus or even Marilyn Manson (which doesn’t make sense for so many reasons) and then leave it there. So in honor of World Goth Day, here’s a little list of some great Goth albums either to get you started down the path of deeper appreciation or, if you’re already learned in the arts, bring back some fond memories of sad evenings alone in your bedroom. So Happy Goth Day everyone!
Arguably started in the late 70s/super early 80s by bands like The Cure, Bauhaus, The Birthday Party, and even Joy Division (but not really though…) the first 5 years of the 1980s were jam packed with new Goth bands, especially from the UK. One of the best was Play Dead, who’s early recording were eventually collected on the 1983 release First Flower. Full of theatrical riffage, stomping drums, driving basslinesdex and Rob Hickson’s tortured glam vocals, The First Flower is a great taste of early goth.
Another 1983 album (good year), Sex Gang Children are sometimes classified as Post-Punk, but Andi Sex-Gang’s (dibs on that name for my first child thus making it a Sex-Gang child nevermind scratch that) vocals and the insistently grim basslines say differently. This album is way over the top, from the cover art to the intense instrumentation complete with arch violins and cacophonous drums.
These guys actually ended up getting pretty famous in the mid eighties, but broke up before they entered the pantheon of truly remembered artists. Nonetheless, listening to Seduction you can hear oodles of influence on the way gothic music would be interpreted (read: sorta just stolen) by some far more popular contemporary artists. The moods are vast and precise, the vocals more controlled than their brethren, and the whole thing has a really effortless cool about it.
This album, best remembered for the earworm single “Since Yesterday”, may skew a little bit harder towards the Goth-pop area than the others, but you gotta give the two Scottish lasses from Strawberry Switchblade credit for a lot of the female goth aesthetic we see today. Big teased out hair and heavy raccoon eye makeup, torn up fishnet stockings, intense accessorizing and little punches of color interrupting swathes of black and white. Sidenote: great time for Scottish music, that early 80s.
Making this a 5 for 5 United Kingdom list (whoopsie-daisy) we have Red Lorry, Yellow Lorry (the Lorries, if you’re into the whole brevity thing) and their debut album Talk About The Weather. At its best, such as on the title track, Talk About The Weather takes the burgeoning goth sound and gives it an angrier, more engaged edge. Chris Reed sounds more pissed off than winsome, and the bass can get downright evil on this guy. Interesting, different sound.
So there are 5 picks for this World Goth Day. Let’s hope it starts raining again!
