“A collection of profound and epic album reviews and musical articles by former astronaut and brain surgeon, Alasdair Kennedy. Reaching levels of poetry that rival Keats and Blake, the following reviews affirm Alasdair to be a prodigy, a genius and a god whose opinion is always objectively right. He is also without a doubt the most modest man in the universe.” - Alasdair Kennedy
‘Woo this that shit you didn’t want me on’ the Louisiana rapper opens
the album with to the accompaniment of a soaring choral beat followed by some
genuinely tight flows. For a brief moment I was genuinely excited. Lil Wayne
seemed to have upped his game, finally scrapping the bland poppy beats and
actually riding these beats instead slurring over them like a drunkard.
It's that time of the week where I insult your favourite band accompanied by lots of broken Soundcloud links. Adjust your speakers and belt up.
THE BEST:
'Moving Mountains' –
Disclosure ft. Brendan Reilly
The UK house duo have slowed things down with this slinky
electroballad featuring sexy r&b vocals from London singer Brendan Reilly.
The whole song builds up to some tasty but smooth trap flavourings towards the
end. I’m now pretty psyched for these guys upcoming sophomore album, Caracal. Check out the track here whilst
it’s still available for stream (skip to 1:29:00 to listen).
‘Another Body’ – El-P
Master hip hop producer El-P has recently refrained from making
beats entirely out of cat noises in order to deliver this epic instrumental set
to appear during the end credits of the latest Fantastic Four film. It isn’t
very hip hop flavoured, but still shows off the producer’s talents, composed of
cinematic trumpets, fat strings and brooding layers of electronica. Let’s hope
the movie lives up to it’s soundtrack and isn’t a pile of wank like the
original Fantastic Four film (yeah I said it! Isn’t ‘pile of wank’ such a weird
expression?)
'Get Up Get Down' –
Mick Jenkins
I guess you could call this a party tune. The hook’s punchy
and the beat’s pretty wavy. However, Chicago rapper Mick Jenkins still manages
to drop some socially conscious rhymes in the second half, keeping hold of his witty
personality and preventing himself from turning into another Drake clone.
'Crackula' – Pizza
Tramp
‘What do you get when
you cross a horrible Welsh punk band with zero editing skills and footage shot
on a digital camera. CRACKULA.’ That video description alone has won me
over.
THE WORST:
‘Throne’ – Bring Me The Horizon
Once a shitty metalcore band, Bring Me The Horizon have now
decided to become a shitty carbon copy of Linkin Park. Too harsh? Life is
harsh. Deal with it.
‘Restless’ - New
Order
What decade is this? Out of the blue, eighties electro kings
New Order are back with a new single. Unfortunately, it isn’t very good.
Bernard Summer’s disinterested vocals always had a dark undertone to them, but
here they just simply sound disinterested. Also where are the groovy synths? With
its flat guitars and strings, the whole thing might as well be a modern U2
song.
Aussie psychedelic rock band, Tame Impala, have traded in rugged
guitars for shiny synths. The result is a sound somewhere between the Blade
Runner soundtrack and those glossy eighties power ballads that I could always
picture myself driving down a highway to at night if I could afford a car and
hadn’t failed my test five times, but anyway we’re getting side-tracked.
Cat noises and train station jingles. You can make a song out of anything these days. A lot of this week's music has been pretty strange. It's an even mixture of entertainingly good and entertainingly bad.
THE BEST:
'No Chill' - Skrillex & Vic Mensa
‘Practice? What the
fuck is practice?’ Chicago rapper Vic Mensa is sounding ridiculously
arrogant here and arrogance usually isn't my thing, but I'm willing to overlook it due to the badass beat. Who knew that the iconic dubstep producer could also
make a mighty trap beat? That brass sounds huge. It’s like a fanfare to the
apocalypse. Listen here.
'Rattle that Lock' - David Gilmour
If you’ve ever spent time in a French railway station you
may recognise the SNCF jingle sampled throughout this song. Personally the
sound brings back nostalgic memories, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of
French commuters find this rock veteran's new song intolerable.
'Like I Like It' - Vantage
Talking of France, here’s a little disco-house tune from the garlic-and-cheese-loving country itself. The funky middle section is extremely
creative and I’m loving the shimmery use of synth vox.
'Meowrly' – Meow the
Jewels
Rap duo Run the Jewels have released a remix of their 2014 single 'Early' made entirely of cat noises. The use of purring as a substitute for bass made me chuckle. I can't believe they didn't think to call it 'Purrly' though...
'I Need Chickens' –
Young Thug
After all the unwavering hate I’ve given garbling Atlanta rapper Young Thug on this blog I
almost regret admitting that I kind of like this song. I guess it appeals to my goofy sense
of humour the same way Riff Raff does. Producer Mike Will Made It delivers a
fun beat complete with 808 cowbell, and Young Thug makes hilarious chicken noises over the
top (they sound more like pigeon noises to be honest, but let's not get pedantic).
THE WORST:
Black Magic – Little Mix
UK girl group, Little Mix, wish they were American whilst promoting the idea that you need to be hot to be successful. That's just the music video.
Donnie Trumpet and the Social Experiment is a Chicago hip
hop collective consisting of Donnie Trumpet, Nate Fox, Peter Wilkins, Greg
“Stix” Landfair jr and a load of other artists I won’t pretend to have heard of.
About the only member I was familiar with beforehand was kooky emcee, Chance the Rapper, who
provides bars on most of these tracks.
As per usual, I round up my favourite and least favourite tracks from the last seven days. Enjoy!
THE BEST:
‘Sugar’ – IshDARR
This bouncy hip hop single from Wisconsin newcomer IshDARR
certainly lives up to it’s name – it’s adorably sugary. Sweet lyrics ride an
uptempo beat made up of bright synths and squeaky pitch-shifted vocals.
‘EML Ritual’ –
Chemical Brothers
Built around a sinister synth riff, this new track from EDM legends
The Chemical Brothers is a masterpiece in suspense. I was convinced there would
be a drop around the two minute mark, but the Manchester duo keep up the
teasing for another minute until finally giving in.
‘Sleep Talk’ – Diet
Cig
Few songs capture love with such realistic and idiosyncratic
detail as this new indie rock single: ‘I
can’t play instruments very well and I eat all your cereal/ but I’ll never be a
smoker cos the second cigarette makes me feel like shit’. The New Paltz duo
might not be all that instrumentally, but their lyrical wit and charm certainly
makes up for it. ‘Diet Cig’ is also one of the best band names I’ve heard all
year.
‘Raindrops’ – CONFZ ft. Jamilah Barry
East London rapper CONFZ offers some impressive wordplay, although it's not quite enough to distract from phenomenally spacey beat in the background. All that's missing from this track is a hook.
'Impression of You' - Giraffage & Viceroy ft. Patrick Baker If you're looking for a babymaking anthem this summer, look no further than this sexy electropop tune. Trap 808s, synth-harp arpeggios and woozy chords create the perfect backdrop for Patrick Baker's breathy vocals. I hate the word 'eargasm', but I think I just had one.
THE WORST:
‘Stay Up’ – Problem
'Good money, good weed/ that's the way you stay up'. These lyrics are absolute gibberish. It's like listening to a trap rap parody.
When you’ve listened to as much soul and funk as I have you
begin to get desensitised to the slinky chords and groovy basslines. Everyone
becomes another wannabe-Stevie-Wonder, another wannabe-Steely-Dan. It takes an
artist like LA producer, singer and bassist Thundercat to prove that funk and
soul still has room to evolve.
