Weekly Roundup: Jun 12 – 18, 2011
Weekly Roundup coming at you, read on for some freshly dug songs and videos.
J. Cole – Work Out / Big Sean – Don't Wait For Me (Ft. Lupe Fiasco)
J. Cole – Work Out
Big Sean – Don't Wait For Me (Ft. Lupe Fiasco)
A couple tracks dropped last week that I've been really digging on. The J. Cole track is the first official single from his upcoming album. He's one consistent MC and I always seem to like his bouncy tracks best. There's also Kanye and Paula Abdul samples in there somewhere.
Big Sean's track with Lupe is the best I've heard from him so far. A lot of his other tracks have sounded too radio-friendly, but the beat for "Don't Wait For Me" does the jubilant Kanye sound well, and throwing a Lupe verse on a track always helps.
Read More...Aurelio – Laru Beya
One of my favorite releases of this year so far is Laru Beya by Aurelio Martinez. Aurelio is from Honduras and a member of the Garifuna culture. The journey through 12 songs of a totally different style of music than what I regularly listen to (though still highly accessible) has been one absolutely worth taking, and I encourage all you reading who might be looking for something to expand your horizons to check it out. It is a rich listening experience and a beautiful album.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. – It's A Corporate World
Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. strike me as composers, but not in a grand, conceptual kind of way. It’s just that their music is perfectly made up of so many brilliant little moments that the whole ends up being intricately constructed. Their debut album, It’s A Corporate World, envelopes you in sound while allowing their emotional honesty to float to the surface.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. – Nothing But Our Love
Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. – Skeletons
Read More...Dawes – Nothing Is Wrong
There’s a weird phenomena that occasionally happens when I sit down to write about a band that I really, truly love. I end up having nothing useful or interesting to say. It’s like all that will spew out of my brain is a string of “dude, shit’s so awesome” or “man, this song’s just, like, great” inane one-liners. This is happening to me with Dawes and their new album Nothing Is Wrong as we speak.
Dawes – So Well
Dawes – Coming Back To A Man
Read More...Weekly Roundup: Jun 5 – 11, 2011
It's time once again for another Weekly Roundup, featuring some new tunes & videos we've been digging lately.
XV – Phobia
It's been a minute since we featured some new music from our boy XV, but he dropped this new track today and it's too good not to post.
XV – Phobia
Read More...Dave King: Indelicate
Dave King's Indelicate is a welcome assault on your preconceptions about jazz. It is an album I've lived with since it's release in 2010 but still feel as though it were my first listen every time I put it on. Indelicate is a perpetual breath of fresh air and a must own for all serious fans of music.
Although Dave King is best know for his rhythmic work alongside The Bad Plus and Happy Apple, listeners of this album are now privy to both his piano playing and drumming – each recorded separate of each other and then combined in the studio. Considering the high level of virtuosity and obtuse rhythmic interactions between the piano and drums, this staggering feat is not one to be missed.
Dave King is a juggernaut of contemporary jazz, a conduit of sound, and an unrelenting badass. You dig?
Dave King: Homage: Young People
Dave King: Bees
Dave King: I See You, You See Me
Read More...Songs to Listen To While Reading Jack Kerouac [by Beat Radio]
All Time Top 5 is an extension of our feature for the Paper Crane Collective where we compile music lists on various subjects. Here on our main site, we outsource the work, and allow some of our favorite artists to create lists and commentary based on a topic we provide. Once we add in the music it magically becomes an artist-curated mixtape list. What more could you want?
We're very happy to kick off the All Time Top 5 feature with Brian Sendrowitz of the great band Beat Radio. Being a man of words and a lover of all things Kerouac, I knew Brian would be able to make a solid list of songs to listen to while reading Kerouac. He was all over it.
Read More...Phineas Newborn Jr. – Lush Life
The blogosphere has been on a serious dry spell of great Phineas Newborn Jr recordings, and I am here to change that. His rhythm was infallible, his sound was implacable, and his style was undeniable. Recently, I came across this video of a live performance of Lush Life which he featured on his album, A World of Piano!.
His playing aside, I was also immediately enamored with the introductory turn of phrase in this video where he is described as performing "…the durable Billy Strayhorn melody…". What a wonderful setup to a beautiful performance. Please take a moment today and enjoy the dulcet piano playing of Phineas Newborn Jr.
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