I’ve beseeched and petitioned (in the comfort of my own blog) that Burial’s astounding ‘Untrue’ duly win the Mercury Music Prize 2008 (this week), nuffin’ long. I genuinely believe it’s one of the most significant, spiritually relevant sonic masterpieces released during our generation (previously posted by Your Mum here) from a young Londoners perspective.
While we patiently wait for accolades to be allocated correctly I thought I’d distribute this mini-compilation of remixes and rarities by one’s current favourite producer amongst the British musical landscape.
If asked why I so profoundly love Burial’s sound, my response would be simple: it sounds like home & how I feel every night in this city.
P.S. Burn those fascists at The Sun newspaper (that’s a brouhaha begging Brit tabloid for my international reader’s enlightenment) for baiting up the enigma. I had faith in the geezer’s prior decision to stay a low-key, visually anonymous, clandestine force causing audiences to focus solely on the music. In his own words, “i wanted to be unknown because i just want it to be all about the tunes.”
[IF YOU WANT THE ABOVE LINK TAKEN DOWN, E-MAIL US DIRECTLY ON ibootleggedyourmum@gmail.com & IT WILL BE DONE AS SOON AS REQUEST IS SEEN.]
1. Blackdown- Crackle Blues (Burial Remix) 2. Jamie Woon- Wayfaring Stranger (Burial Mix)
3. Bloc Party- Where Is Home (Burial Remix)
4. Thom Yorke- And It Rained All Night (Burial Remix)
5. Burial- Archangel (8-Bit Boy Remix)
6. Burial- Archangel (Leif Remix)
7. Burial- Versus 8. Burial- Unite
9 Burial- Stairwell
My stand-out tracks highlighted in Bold Red above.
[IF YOU WANT THE ABOVE LINK TAKEN DOWN, E-MAIL US DIRECTLY ON ibootleggedyourmum@gmail.com & IT WILL BE DONE AS SOON AS REQUEST IS SEEN.]
1. Rape Me (Nirvana cover) 2. People = S**t (Slipknot cover)
3. Baby Got Back (Sir Mix-A-Lot cover)
4. Girls, Girls, Girls (Motley Crue cover) 5. Closer (Nine Inch Nails cover)
6. Bust A Move (Young MC cover)
7. Down With The Sickness (Disturbed cover)
8. Sunday Bloody Sunday (U2 cover)
9. Freak On A Leash (Korn cover) 10. Nookie (Limp Bizkit cover)
11. Another Brick In The Wall (Pink Floyd cover)
12. Rock The Casbah (The Clash cover)
13. Fight For Your Right (Beastie Boys cover)
14. Hot For Teacher (Van Halen cover) 15. Gin & Juice (Snoop Doggy Dogg cover)
16. Come Out & Play (The Offspring cover) 17. Badd (Ying Yang Twins cover)
18. Creep (Radiohead cover)
My stand-out tracks highlighted in Bold Red above.
Ladies & gents, I present to you, the greatest lyricist on the planet right now…
“What I put down in the sound coil is Crown Royal, It’s like I dug in the ground soil and found oil, I’m known to terrorize, paralyze a pair of guys or prepare to rise off the land, sea, air, and skies, Snatch his heart, but spare his eyes, To show him why I’m great, violate, and I annihilate, My punchlines ain’t just tossin’ jabs, they often grab to put you in a Boston Crab, Caution, they say I’m psychosomatic in the attic, My automatic stick to my clothes like static, Cling on, better kiss the fist while the ring’s on, On the winning hand, four aces, now a king’s drawn”- Fire (Euro Pass Mixtape)
(Hol’ tight my ‘those who been knowing’ associates, we waited a decade for the debut opus. This one’s as bona fide as Hip-Hop gets in the state of 2008. 14 out of 16 joints laced by Black Milk. Only concern being the key stand-out cuts were all on the prior Euro Pass mixtape. Cop it all yo.)
01. Intro (The Preface)
02. The Leak (feat. Ayah)
03. Guessing Game 04. Motown 25 (feat. Royce Da 5′9″)
05. Brag Swag
06. Colors 07. Fire remix (feat. Black Milk, Guilty Simpson, Fatt Father, Danny Brown, & Fat Ray)
08. DEMONS
09. Save Ya (feat. T3 of Slum Village) (prod. T3)
10. Yeah (feat. Phat Kat) 11. Transitional Joint
12. Talking in My Sleep
13. The Science (feat. Fes Roc) (prod. DJ Dez)
14. Hands Up
15. What I Write
16. Growing Up (feat. AB)
My stand-out tracks highlighted in Bold Red above.
1. Intro 2. That’s That One
3. Fire Feat.Black Milk
4. The Reason Feat. Phat Kat 5. Talkin In My Sleep
6. Save Ya Feat.T3
7. The Know
8. High Off Life
9. Heart Of The City Cuts 10. The Transitional Joint
11. Dedicated Feat. Trip 12. Motown 25 feat. Royce Da 5’9
13. Audio Cinematic
Disc 1: 01. 2000 Intro (prod. by Wajeed)
02. Over Wit
03. Hands High 04. Days And Nights (prod. by Jay Dee)
05. Haters f/ T3 & Nick Speed 06. The Alchemist
07. Goin’ Out
08. Get It Up
09. Boomerang Slang
10. Stroll
11. Let’s Talk (prod. by Wajeed)
12. All I Want f/ Dwele (prod. by Wajeed) 13. Where It all Begins
Disc 2:
01. Nix Productions
02. Gunna (Are U Ready)
03. Kiddo 04. Don’t Be Alarmed
05. Concrete Eyes (prod. by Jay Dee)
06. Love It Here (prod. by Jay Dee) 07. How I Feel
08. It’s Your World (prod. by Wajeed)
09. Stunted Growth (prod. by Wajeed)
10. Writer’s Block 11. Friends (prod. by Jay Dee)
12. The Letter
Elzhi deconstructs his rhyme style syllable by syllable- and educates these motherfucks on how to emcee. I rip and I rhyme, I rhyme & I ripe, that is the way the Elzhi spit!
I once had this discussion with my rap cat comrade: peering past the customary Kings (Nas, Big, Jay, etc.) that dominate many a Top 5 or Top 10 most beloved emcee listings as such actions may aswell be considered flower picking from a field that blossomed firmly in the 1990s, we tried intrepidly to compile a list for this binary-nought era (the Year 2000 onwards). Having said that a number of these rhymers first appeared in the very late 90s, though hadn’t established themselves fully or gained wider recognition until a new millennial curtain-raise hence why we saw this decade as their career’s podium. Between us we awarded distinction to Elzhi (of Slum Village), Phonte (of Little Brother), Vast Aire (of Cannibal Ox), Lupe Fiasco, Ludacris and Saigon amongst rare few others in what has arguably been a period of decline for Rap song-writing and catalogue quality. Yet conceivably the highest successor on that list which we almost synchronously agreed on was in fact, this chap, Murs.
Why Murs? Because he’s perhaps the realest motherfucker on the mic. A versifier that strikes his chrome stand equidistantly between emotionally frank, self-mythologizing lover and buoyant, kick-flipping, kerb-dwelling, rogue with obligations to his tumultuous LA birthrights. He charismatically narrates on beats with a voice that feels as if it’s drained directly from the boldness in his gut, filtered via the front of his temporal lobe and given one final push through the windpipe; reportedly 9th Wonder prohibited him from overlaying his vocals on their collaborative projects, feeling them to be forcefully dynamic enough just on their own. And like prior greats, Murs too is a story-teller, more so driven by concepts that affect the ‘every-man’ embodiment delivered with a captivatingly clear cadence; women and romantic entanglements being a recurrent note alongside friendships, allegiances, wrestling with morality and the commonplace.
In the last few of years as I’ve been in the transitional phase from adolescent to young adult I can honestly say I view Murs as one of the few artists whose songs I can directly relate to at times, so partially it’s a psychosomatic relevance that compels one to hold the dude in high regard. Still his intrinsic chemistry with former Little Brother member/beatsmith 9th Wonder, in my humble opinion, created two Noughties Hip-Hop classics (‘3:16: The 9th Edition’ and ‘Murray’s Revenge’) which cemented my appreciation for his artistry.
My main concern with the new LP is that 9th isn’t quite the potent beatmaker he once was, lacking consistency in the last 2 years (the second Buckshot collabo LP was a tad monotonous) and the poise his earlier productions once had is absent. The breaks are no longer as intoxicating and the structures sound inadvertently cluttered as if compensating for a crap job at crate digging (if I really wanna hear some Heatmakerz sounding shit I’ll just bump Diplomatic Immunity in private). Otherwise, ‘Sweet Lord’ has its moments but the previous two efforts severely exceed it. As for Mr. Making Underground Raw Shit, all I’m waiting on is his major label debut for Warner Bros. (10 years and 10 LPs later) ‘Murs For President’ dropping September, blaow!
Before I finally crack on with season 3 of The Wire (the greatest television cop drama ever?), as the evening winds down bump this sweet, sombre number off the ‘Murs & The Misadventures of The Nova Express’ mixtape that came out a while back. I personally dedicate to the prostitutes of Amsterdam who will always need love too.
Let your speakers ripple on the emerging influx of spacey, forward-thinking, progressive, slightly off-kilter, bugged-out, psychadelic, acid-Rn’B, electro-funk, soul music… or as I sometimes refer to it, Soultronica.
After a stagnant decline in the last decade (starting off tenaciously with the emerging Neo-Soul trend in the late 90s which by now seems to have deteriorated), you’ll be forced admit it’s a very exciting time for Black music. As some artists of that era struggle to maintain an athletic relevance (e.g. Musiq’s corny arse, lyrically Lloyd/R. Kelly’esque new Crunk-n’-B single ‘Radio‘ which complete with Atlanta strip-club synths, is perchance an un-wise career move as it wreaks of commercial desperation and could severely repel his unanimous core fanbase); others such as Erykah Badu embrace the offspring of this Rainbow Child generation by injecting the sound of these seeds into her latest LP alongside her own vintage sonance (i.e. ‘My People’, ‘Twinkle’, ‘Master Teacher’).
I also believe this sound I’m trying to characterize lies affectionately somewhere between…
Point A:
A Funk come New Wave god of ‘the Minneapolis sound’.
&
Point B:
A pioneering Hip-Hop prophet of ‘the Detroit sound’.
Maybe also what we’re seeing is greater than the categorization of soul music itself- as a growing number of Black artists refuse to be pigeonholed in an effort to reject mainstream mundanity and draw back the eclectic, imaginative light under which many great Black musicians have been illuminated: Chuck Berry, Jimi Hendrix, Funkadelic, George Clinton, Parliament, Prince, Joan Armatrading, Tracey Chapman, Tina Turner and most recently even Outkast to name but a few of the conspicuous ones.
The next wave is here- are you listening? (Don’t turn around in 2 years and act like I didn’t tell you so).
-J*Davey – Beauty In Distortion/Land of The Lost [2008]
As a primary example of this burgeoning genre, I assure you the following debut offering by percussive LA duo J*Davey is the most fearless and exciting soul(tronica) album of 2008; unafraid to fortify influences that suggest a hybrid of the Eurythmics crossbred with J-Dilla and even acclimatize some of these sonics to contemporary pop music (as illustrated on ‘Mister Mister’) and yet build lush, magnetic soundscapes such as ‘Enterception’ that make your heart float on a bed of protons, whilst not forgetting to emphasise one of groups key strengths- Miss Jack Davey’s labia dripping sensuality- via ‘No More’.
I believe out of any Soultronica act that has modish appeal to crack the mainstream, it could very well be J*Davey. But will those fucking record label pussies market/promote this shit right (keeping in mind they are signed to a major like Warner)? Well both Beauty In Distortion and Land of The Lost had been individually floating around the bootleg circut for the last year (I been bumpin’ since late ’07) and were only officially released this month as a double-disc package, so perhaps it’s too late for this record to seize the industry though a potential sophmore effort (no news yet) could definitely spell a landmark breakthrough. Time will tell.
Also, on a slightly less theoretical note… Jack Davey herself (bar the androgynous name) is so sexy it actually hurts my face.
Beauty In Distortion Tracklist
01. Divisions Of Joy 02. Mr. Mister
03. Touch It
04. Private Parts 05. No More
06. Gangsta
07. Might As Well
08. Cowboys & Indians
09. Enterception (originally entitled ‘Beat (Tell You Goodbye)’
10. Mr. Mister (Remix)
Land of The Lost Tracklist
01 Hi’s & Lo’s
02 Just Because 03 Lil Big Heads (co-produced by ?uestlove of The Roots)
04 Red Light (produced by J-Dilla)
05 Hi Sun 06 Dirty Love
07 Slooow
08 Thick Interlude
09 sLAyer
10 Lalaland 11 Dancehall
12 Mr. Mister (Cock Out Remix)
13 Venus 2 Mars
14 Valley of Love
15 Let It Bleed
My stand-out tracks highlighted in Bold Red above and the following tracklists below.
01. Still The Baddest (Intro) 02. Beam Me Up 03. Caos
04. You & I
05. Entrapped
06. Fuss’N’Fight 07. Hit Me With Medication 08. 6am
09. Another Glass 10. Syntax Error
11. Phone Call
12. Work It Out
13. With You
14. I’m Out!!!
1. Conflict (This Is Your Brain On Drugs)
2. Fly Away With Me
3. The Things I Do 4. Overthought feat. Bilal Salaam
5. The Art Of You 6. Spies
7. Ain’t Nobody’s Bizness 8. Reach Down In Your Soul feat. Wes Felton
9. B-Side Love Affair
10. Would All The People From Compton Please Leave?
11. Star
01. Twice
02. Turn Left
03. No Love 04. Recommendation
05. Constant Suprises 06. Forever
07. After The Rain
08. Place To Belong 09. Stormy Weather
10. Test
11. Wink
12. Scribbled Paper
-G & D (Georgia Anne Muldrow & Dudley Perkins) – The Message Uni Versa [2007]
1. Ye Olde Skit
2. GodUnit
3. On One 4. One
5. Peace Of Mind
6. Time
7. Found
8. U 9. All 4 U
10. Ye Olde Skit Too
11. Good Mornin Amerikkka
12. P.I.F.O.T.P.H. 34
13. War Drums
14. Stomp, The
15. Poppa’s Song
16. MGD – (with M.E.D.) 17. Stronger
18. Ye Last Olde Skit
19. Message, The
20. Uncle Dudley’s Outro
Name one album with which you can shuck-out (dance/gun-finger-wave) to, cry to, ride the back of the night bus to and sleep to…?
It’s ironic that in the record industry, for all it’s muscle and millions, one of the most mesmerizing and tour de force albums of 2007 came from an anonymous brere’ somewhere in South London. Question is, will those trendy bastards recognize this at the Mercury Music Prize this year?
To be quite honest, I’d never quite heard a 2 Step record quite ominously orchestral as Archangel which haunts like a dejected ghost stalking your local church rave. The more I’ve listened, the more I’m convinced the song is born out of an agonizing heartbreak the composer’s been subjected to; perversely pitch-bent lines as “couldn’t be alone…tell me how could you…but I trust(ed) you…” almost possess the listener forcing them to confront their own iniquity with the relentless repetition.
Untrue should (in a decade from now) be distinguished as that pivotal moment Dub-Step becomes a higher art form stabbing your soul with the handle of electronic-pulse paintbrushes and butchered vocal samples that bleed a cryptic narrative of disenchantment. The production over the 13 tracks is so densely tailored into a sonic whole (where alot of UK Grime/Dub-Step/Garage artists have failed to achieve when it comes to actually CRAFTING albums with an expert sense of control), the enigmatic Burial sets his artistry apart from anyone else in the field. There are layers, textures, anomalies and detail that will require attention far beyond your first listen.
It’s gloomy, unsettling, ethereal and above all else the sound of my city: London. I might even go to the lengths of saying this is the most beautiful dance-based long player I’ve ever heard. Don’t bloody sleep on it…sleep WITH it.
I Bootlegged Your Mum 