Trombone Shorty - Fire and Brimstone - from the album Say That to Say This

This post is because there was no official music video from Trombone Shorty's album the last time  posted or simply I was too slack to type the correct search-term, either way, here is a video for the track 'Fire and Brimstone' from the excellent album Say That to Say This. Enjoy. 

 

Trombone Shorty - Say That to Say This - released September 2013 on Verve records

Genres: Rhythm and Blues, Funk, Soul

The more I listen to album, the more I like it. It is one of the best of the year. These tightly packed ten songs fly-bye very quickly (just over 35 minutes) but each one forms a part of a whole that is satisfying. The band has the attitude of a live band, the rhythm section always pushes something to move-to but there are sure signs of production work with soaring echo on the vocals and the instruments all sounding separate. A cover of The Meters 'Be My Lady' is in the middle of the set and it fits perfectly as an updated version of the late seventies African-American music scene. It is no surprise that Raphael Saadiq, who has been reviving that sound with his solo records for years, is co-producer of the record and steps in on backing vocals for some it. The instrumentals are all precise and leave you hungry while the original songs are tight modern versions of an era of organic pop-music that has passed. Troy Andrews, who is Trombone Shorty, has surrounded himself with very skilled musicians and has drawn from them immense focus. So much focus that some of the songs, the ones with more prominent guitar work, border on hard-rock.

I didn't think this was much when I first listened to it but repeated listens reveal this one to be a joy.

RATING: 4.5/5 STARS 

Here's a 'video' of the track 'Get the Picture'  by Trombone Shorty of the album Say That to Say This

nine inch nails - Hesitation Marks - released September 2013

Genres: Alt-Rock, Electronic

Considerably brighter than the other work by nine inch nails and noticeably less indulgent, this is a very solid set of songs. Back when I was a teenager, nine inch nails, or more correctly Trent Reznor who is the man behind the music, appealed to the emotional extremes that age group has to endure. This is how I have seen his musical output  under the nine inch nails name since 1999's The Fragile, relegated to appealing only to a time and place in someone's life but not to be held onto and easily overcome with a bit of maturity. Reznor seems as if he left behind the nhilism seen on his most notable works Pretty Hate Machine from 1989 and The Downward Spiral from 1994, personally he has gone through addiction problems and record label woes, so it is refreshing to hear brighter moments like the song 'Everything' in the middle of this set with a bright pop-hook that signals a departure from the tortured subject matter. The excellent work with Attricus Ross on The Social Network score from 2010 and the soundtrack for The Girl with Dragon Tattoo from 2011 has carried over to his nine inch nails work. There is professional restraint shown on this album and the artist seems less afraid of major keys and more hopeful lyrics than in the past. This is still definitely in the 'alternative' music mindset with lingering angst but this time out the lyrics suggest acceptance rather than loathing. Songs like 'Copy of A', 'Disappointed', 'Came Back Haunted' and 'Satellite' have beats that are designed for the dance-floor  and they are much more enduring because of it. Guitars are really pushed to the back in this production and lessening their presence and taking away that compressed guitar noise that alternative and metal acts loved in the 1990's and early 2000's forms a good way to show off that Trent Reznor is in the business of making good music and not just indulging his extremes to music.

RATING: 4/5

Here is the epileptic seizure inducing video for the song 'Came Back Haunted' by nine inch nails

Hiatus Kaiyote - Tawk Tomahawk - released July 2013 on the Flying Buddah label

Genres: Soul, Rhythm and Blues

At best, this is a promising debut from an Australian act that should produce greater stuff in future and at worst it is kind of frustrating in that it doesn't play to its strengths. This Australian  soul outfit who formed in 2012 try very hard, possibly too hard, as the production choices on this disc saps energy from their talent and the lead singer fights the music to be heard. The ever present bass has an enveloping hazy sound that seems lifted from dub but it doesn't quite fit the most prominent singing style chosen here which is indebted to soul acts like Nina Simone or a slightly freakier equivalent.There is also keyboards that are way to far to the front of the mix and guitars that are buried too far in it. The vocals sound at time behind the bass and keyboard which makes the music sound like it should be center stage leading to the feeling that the songs were an afterthought.  This may have been the case, I don't know. It's just a strange fit. It would probably make more sense in a live setting and if I see this band playing near me I would definitely check them out.

I knew very little about this group past what I read in the linear notes, where I gleamed that the lead singer goes by the silly moniker of Nai Palm, but I had very high hopes on my first listen through the tracks. I was pleasantly surprised that it had the uber-cool sound of a producer like Flying Lotus, who apparently has been promoting this band, but he doesn't deal in songs much and is more in the realm of stay-at-home with headphones dance music.What is here is songs and occasionally aimless instrumentals. Overall the lyrics are stream of consciousness rants but that isn't a problem, even when the lyrics get really strange, it's that the singer seems to want to desperately stand-out  but hasn't got much to say. She caterwauls and then croons, she tries everything to fights the monstrous bass sound and the result is a knotted up album that would work better in snippets in a mix-tape or DJ set. This isn't too harsh a criticism as there is good stuff here, the track 'Nakamarra' is the least complicated by intentional weirdness and it sounds competent. The singer does, for the most part, go up and down her register and all across a wide range of vocal styles effectively but like any young act it lacks refinement.

A very promising new act but the album is mixed. If you're a DJ you'll get more out of this disc than a casual listener who will find it something worth admiring but not something to love.

RATING: 2.5/5 STARS 

Below is the song 'Nakamarra' by Hiatus Kaiyote.

Edgeland - Karl Hyde (Universal Music) - released April 2013

Genres: Electronic, Ambient, Alt-pop

Former vocalist for the electronic act Underworld, Karl Hyde's first venture into a solo recording starts with an absolute stunner in the song 'The Night Slips Us Smiling Underneath Its Dress' that has the same transcendent post-modern feel that typified his previous act's best work but with a greater focus on his lyrics. This track is filled with drugged excitement, a cold echoed piano eventually turns the corner into a warm guitar solo. The lyrics seeming to detail in a pastiche fashion a night out in Lewisham at 2am involving laughter, African Queens, a car crash, drugs and some lonely time travelling through it as a passenger in a black Mercedes with a very tired driver. It is a great start but nothing else gets to this song's high but some do come close. The following song 'Your Perfume Was the Best Thing'  is almost a standard pop song save for a few abstract lyrics and has the pronounced chorus to prove it, it is memorable. 'Shoulda Been A Painter' is a bright sounding song filled with wonder. 'Boy with the Jigsaw Puzzle Fingers' has a kind of unfurling wonderment in the face of the chaos of modern city living.

The feeling of wonderment seems to be the main feeling of all the characters on this album and it seems that these characters are all travelling somewhere in a city somewhere watching life around them. It has the perfect ambient backdrop of keyboards with electronic clicks and beeps to underscore Hyde's lyrics with copious amounts of filters over those. If I had a distinct criticism of this music it is that it drifts a bit like ambient music can, it becomes mood-music that only appeals to people in that mood, the lyrics can occasionally become meanderings. There seems to be only a few tracks that take hold of the listener but overall the album hits its mark without exceeding it.

RATING: 3.5/5

Here's the video for Karl Hyde's single 'The Boy with the Jigsaw Puzzle Fingers'

Major Lazer - Free The Universe - released February 2013 (Mad Decent)

Genre: Dance, Electronic, Dancehall

Regularly loud as hell but equally adept with quieter moments, the producer named Major Lazer who is alternatively named Diplo but also known as Thomas Wesley Pentz crafts some really enjoyable and striking fusions of Jamaican dancehall and extroverted American dance music. 

Sounding like something related at times to the loud and nasty music Skrillex, Major Lazer is far more textured and studied compared to to that producer's aggressive style and the dancehall fusion gives it a gonzo edge that works for the high-energy party music this is.

Major Lazer uses a lot of guest vocals to give the tracks some individuality and some are a little startling. He does the Jamaican dancehall/left-field dance thing best on banging tracks 'Jet, Blue, Jet' with Leftside+GTA+Razz & Biggy, 'Jah No Partial' with Flux Pavilion, 'Watch for This (Bumaye)' with Busy Signal+The Flexican+FS Green and the opener 'You're No Good' with Santigold+VYBZ Kartel+Danielle Haim+Yasmin where the Jamaican accent drives the proceedings. The track 'Jah No Partial' has a mean breakdown section that is very reminecient of Skrillex. Amber Kaufman of Dirty Projectors singing a quiet but excellent track called 'Get Free' is a definate standout. Timberlee and Peaches have a slightly nasty workout called 'Scare Me' which has a groove that is only slightly spoiled when Peaches starts her contribution with some purposefully dumb metaphors. On the topic of Peaches' lyrics, the line 'I can feel your Wiki leak' is actually just weird rather than sexual, it's a slight complaint to a fun track. Shaggy and Wynter Gordon do each side of relationship quiet well. Pop man Bruno Mars with help from Tyga and Mystic do a stupid and frothy track called 'Bubble Butt' that only missteps when Bruno gets a little too explicit. Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend does a ballad called 'Jessica' that didn't hit as well as it should but it lends to the variety. Overall the vocalists are a good mix and seem to bend themselves to the spirit of the extroverted music rather than divert from it. For any producer the art is to find a way to get the best from each artist inside the guise of his/her music and Major Lazer has carried that off well.

RATING : 4/5 STARS

Lil Wayne - I am Not A Human Being Volume 2 (deluxe edition) - released March 2013 - Cash Money/Universal Republic

Genres: Rap, Pop-Rap

Redundant, irritating, muddled and embarrassing but picks up towards the end, is how I would describe this album. A lot of rap music is dismissed as violent misogynist thuggery and this is the basic mold for this release, I believe that is simply all entertainment and being outrageous is simply a marketing tool. This isn't to say I don't know when something is bad, this album is bad, but I don't get surprised by the adolescent nonsense. If you really like hearing about Lil Wayne's penis then this album will be the best thing you've ever heard but for me it was boring.

The pop side of his sound comes out in 'Curtains' and towards the middle it stops being outright disposable hedonism in 'God Bless Amerika', rap-rock or metal comes out in 'Hello' which is carried off with intensity but for the most part the album can be avoided. These highlights don't redeem the meandering of the first half and the obnoxious lyrics.

RATING: 2/5

Here is a video for 'God Bless Amerika' by Lil Wayne