Songs Of The Week #88: TCDroogsma

(THIS POST ORIGINALLY APPEARS ON THE TWIN CITIES BLOG NEWEST INDUSTRY)

Bad Suns, Pattern Is Movement, Big Scary, Snowmine, & MaLLy...

Well hello again, MP3 junkies!  Welcome to Songs Of The Week #88!
 
For those of you who are new to the SOTW column, here's the story:  TCDroogsma and MinneSarah are both fans of The Current's Song Of The Day podcast.  They're also both opinionated and have access to computers.  Seeing an opportunity to let them indulge in their MP3 habit and put them to work writing reviews we created the Songs Of The Week column.  Over a year later later and here we are.

Unfortunately, this week MinneSarah took the week off due to what could kindly be called "Current-based fatigue."  Trust us, her words were considerably more harsh.

As always, we strongly suggest that you follow this link and subscribe to the podcast yourself.  It's free and it's fun for the whole family!

To that end, once you've given each song a spin or two, feel free to cast a vote for your favorite song of the week in the poll to the right side of the page.  The artist who accrues the most votes wins the validation that comes from winning an anonymous internet poll, arguably the loftiest height to which a modern musician can aspire.

So... Droogsy... thoughts?

01. Bad Suns - Cardiac Arrest (from the album Transpose)

 
TCDroogsma:

     The Bad Suns is a band coming out of southern California that seems to have a real soft spot for early 2000's British music.  "Cardiac Arrest" bounces around nicely due to some solid work of the rhythm section, while lead singer Christo Bowman's elastic voice sounds as if he learned to use it by singing along to The Kooks, Kaiser Chiefs,  etc...  As somebody who was a huge fan of that type of band, this isn't a bad thing.

     However, much like the collected work of The Kooks & Kaiser Chiefs, "Cardiac Arrest," though pleasant enough in the moment, is not particularly memorable.  Despite his claim of "high voltage when we kiss," it's a low-stakes love song (he starts that same chorus by claiming, "I'll try my best..." Gripping.)  "Cardiac Arrest" is a fine, trivial spring single.  Not a bad little number, but nothing special.

Final Score: 2.5/5

02. Pattern Is Movement - River (from the album Pattern Is Movement)

TCDroogsma:

     Heading into this week I only knew two songs from Pattern Is Movement and they were both covers.  Bjork's "Enjoy" and The Smiths' immortal "I Want The One I Can't Have."  I'm not familiar with the original "Enjoy," but their take on Moz's yearning was certainly curious enough to make me excited to hear some of their original work.

     "River" rides a slinky, streaming verse of falsetto & synths that recalls Dirty Projectors before collapsing into a chorus of... well... more synths & falsettos.  Frankly, it's the same kind of song structure that has made millions of dollars for everybody from The Beatles to New Found Glory.  Pattern Is Movement puts their own Philly-white-boy-indie-soul twist on it.  That seems like a mouthful on paper, but they pull it off admirably the first couple times.  The song loses all its steam at the end when they decide to just crash the chorus into the ground and neglect to rebuild it, but up until then PTM makes an interesting racket.

Final Score: 2.5/5

03. Big Scary - Twin Rivers (from the album Not Art)

TCDroogsma:

     "Gonna have to wake up, I don't wanna have to wake up, get up, get changed, game face, I don't want to have to wake up again this morning..."

     That's how we're greeted by Big Scary on "Twin Rivers."  Suffice it to say, hearing that as I listened to the song while walking to work at 5:45 in the morning all week may have given those lyrics some extra weight.  Big Scary wraps those lyrics around some big, shuffling drums & strings that give lend those melancholy sentiments some color.  The rest of the song features some lovely boy/girl vocals, and clattering piano, and a chorus that's big in the same way a Travis chorus is big.  They don't go full Chris Martin, and that suits them.  The whole song takes its cue from those first lyrics and provides enough small glimpses of beauty to remind you that life can be so much more than the daily grind.

Final Score: 4/5

04. Snowmine - Columbus (from the album Dialects)

TCDroogsma:

     Snowmine is a five-piece coming out of Brooklyn with a crowd-funded new album, Dialects.  Just based on that information (and the picture above), you can probably gather what the band sounds like.

     "Columbus" is rich in keys, strings, gospel-esque harmonies, and a great chorus.  There's not much going on in this song that you haven't heard before, but Snowmine seems to be doing it as well as anybody.  Their great trick on "Columbus" is giving all of their ideas space to breathe.  It takes a lot of parts that are easy to dismiss on their own and deploys each with brutal efficiency.  The result is a song that, as you listen, is captivating, and yet leaves almost nothing behind when it ends.

Final Score: 3/5

05. MaLLy - A Long Day (from the album The Colors Of Black)

TCDroogsma:

     I feel like I"m cheating a bit here with "A Long Day."  When it was released as an SOTD track I spent a week with it and, despite the fact that I'm a MaLLy fan, I wasn't too high on it.  I thought the piano was a bit too saccharine while MaLLy's "life is tough" take struck me as a bit too constructed.

     However, since then I've picked up the song's parent album The Colors Of Black.  Given proper context on the album, "A Long Day" stands up as a highlight.  The album is an angry affair, with MaLLy's ire directed almost entirely at the struggle a young, black man faces in America.  By the time we get to "A Long Day," it's clear that MaLLy's not depressed, merely exhausted.  "A Long Day" is the sound of a man who's upset with the world around him, and equally upset with the fact that, despite his best efforts, he's nearly powerless to change it.

Final Score: 4/5

Well there you have it, MP3 junkies!  Another week's worth of songs downloaded, reviewed, & filed away!

As always, please keep in mind that neither Newest Industry nor our contributors are in any way affiliated with the artists above, The Current, or MPR.  We're just music fans with laptops and a bit too much time on our hands.

For more TCDroogsma be sure to give him a follow on Twitter (@TCDroogsma).  He can also be found right here on Newest Industry hosting our free weekly podcast Flatbasset Radio






For more Newest Industry be sure to give us a follow on Twitter (@NewestIndustry1) to stay up on the work being done by all of our contributors.  More importantly, we have a Facebook page here.  Trivial as it seems, stopping by and giving us a "Like" is a free & legitimate way to support the blog.

Album Of The Week: April 28th-May 4th, 2014

My Album Of The Week for the week off April 28th-May 4th, 2014:

MaLLy - The Colors Of Black

01. Child Of America
02. Two World
03. Innervisions
04. City Of Fear (w/Rapper Hooks)
05. Hold My Tongue (w/Slug & Rapper Hooks)
06. Machine Gun
07. Not Never...
08. All Of My Life (Part 2) (w/K.Raydio)
09. Everything Else But Me
10. One Million
11. A Long Day
12. Crimson
13. Grow This Way
14. To The Future
15. The Colors Of Black

This is the third time that I've had a MaLLy record as my Album Of The Week.  Back before I started writing up blog posts about my AOTW's I spent a week with MaLLy's breakout album The Last Great.... Then, back in November, I spent a week with Strange Rhythm, MaLLy's first collaboration with producer Last Word.  Now here we are in early spring and MaLLy's & Last Word are back with their first full-length collaboration.

The Last Great... was produced by The Sundance Kid and found MaLLy in a happier place.  He hadn't yet broke through here in the Twin Cities and, as such, that record found him enjoying the little things in life, staying upbeat among the day to day drudgery of being a hard working MC.

Strange Rhythm was only 8 songs, but it found MaLLy taking a different approach.  Whether it was his new found success or Last Word's more aggressive beats, MaLLy was an angrier man.  He spent most of that record celebrating his place in the the Twin Cities scene with a middle finger in the air.  It was a victory lap of sorts, but MaLLy seemed hellbent on letting anybody who had ever doubted him know just how far he had come.

Which brings us to The Colors Of Black.  As you can probably guess from the title, race plays a huge role in this record.  Last Word's beats remain dark & angry, which feeds MaLLy's new sense of discontent.  While he's no longer as consumed with sticking it to doubters, MaLLy's raps are now concerned with the experience of being a black man in America.  The injustices that he sees either as a third party or through his personal experience leave him both angry & exhausted.  With success, it seems, MaLLy no longer needs to find his peace of mind in the day to day successes of making songs and staying out of trouble.  With those battles squarely in the rear view mirror, he's turned his attention to the problems facing society at large, and he's none too happy with the lack of answers.

The Colors Of Black is the logical extension of MaLLy the artist, but more importantly, it's the logical extension of MaLLy the man.  It seems MaLLy's days of "windows down, radio up" songs have come to an end.  In it's place we have a man fuming at the world around him.

If you're interested in checking out the album I sincerely suggest you head over to Fifth Element and pick up a hard copy of the record.  It contains three bonus tracks ("Grow This Way," "To The Future," & "The Colors Of Black") that are unavailable on the download.  Plus, it's an excuse to take a walk & support Fifth Element.  That's a win/win.

Album Of The Week: November 11-17, 2013

My Album Of The Week for the week of November 11th-17th, 2013:

MaLLy - Strange Rhythm

After a few years of bubbling underground MaLLy finally staked his claim in the Twin Cities hip-hop scene with last year's The Last Great, a collaboration with producer The Sundance Kid.  His profile in Minneapolis has only grown since then.  He's released a couple of songs since then, but Strange Rhythm is his highly anticipated official follow up.

Hopefully most of you remember that I opened Flatbasset Radio: Episode #21 with "Dead Art Painting," the first track off Strange Rhythm.  That track is indicative of the project as a whole, with Last Word (of the Get Cryphy crew) providing a more sparse canvas than The Sundance Kid.  Strange Rhythm is an intriguing EP for two reasons:  First, MaLLy is no longer rapping from the position of "underdog," a stance that shines through somewhat angrily on tracks like "Guillotine" and "Every Promise."  Second, if I'm not mistaken, Strange Rhythm is the first project Last Word has produced in its entirety.

I'm not going to write much more about this one since I haven't spent much time with it yet.  I'm definitely looking forward to spending the week with it.  It's available on MaLLy's Bandcamp site and I definitely recommend that you give it a spin.

Newest Industry Presents: Flatbasset Radio - Episode #21

(THIS POST ORIGINALLY APPEARS ON THE TWIN CITIES BLOG NEWEST INDUSTRY)

Give us a drink and make it quick...

Hello again, free music fans! Welcome to Flatbasset Radio: Episode #21!
 
For those of you who are unaware of the Flatbasset Radio format, here's what you're looking at: TCDroogsma is our resident MP3 junkie. As you've probably noticed in his Songs Of The Week column, he's not always the most positive music fan. In an effort to prove that he is, in fact, a fan of music, we give him an hour each week to play the songs he's digging and talk a little bit about them. Once he's recorded his podcast we put it right here on the website for free to stream!

In this week's episode Droogsy looks forward to that cane life, admires a revenge-based trailblazer, reads to us from the New York Times, questions the drinking habits of his peers, admits to missing the point of most songs, dedicates a song to good pet owners, mispronounces both accessories & band names, finds himself in a "Remix Warp," calls for Uptown's transition to "Little Woodbury," and pays tribute to a Twin Cities icon.

You can download the podcast for free by clicking the episode's title or stream the episode by clicking on the Mixcloud player below.

Flatbasset Radio - Episode #21

Flatbasset Radio: Episode #21 by Tcdroogsma on Mixcloud

01.  MaLLy - Dead Art Painting (Intro)
02.  Bob Mould - The Silence Between Us
03.  Freddie Gibbs & Madlib - City (w/Karriem Riggins)
04.  The Chambermaids - Electric Sky
05.  Morrissey - Our Frank
06.  Madvillain - Strange Ways (Koushik's Remix)
07.  Citroën - Terminal Bliss
08.  The Promise Ring - Become One Anything One Time
09.  Speech DeBelle - The Key
10.  Turbo Fruits - Mama's Mad Cos I Fried My Brain
11.  Thurston Moore - Friend
12.  Eyedea & Abilities - Music Music

There you have it, music fans! Enjoy!

For more TCDroogsma be sure to give him a follow on Twitter (@TCDroogsma).  He can also be found right here on Newest Industry reviewing singles in our Songs Of The Week column. Previous episodes of Flatbasset Radio are archived on his Mixcloud page.

For more Newest Industry be sure to give us a follow on Twitter (@NewestIndustry1) to stay up on the work being done by all of our contributors.  More importantly, we have a Facebook page here.  Trivial as it seems, stopping by and giving us a "Like" is a free & legitimate way to support the blog.