27fm Album Jukebox – September 2020
Conway The Machine - From King To A God
The latest offering from Griselda Records has Conway The Machine dropping his first solo album and it's a rather monumental moment of 2020 music as it marks a graduation from the gritty streets of Buffalo to the abundance of the world. While Griselda's usual producers such as Daringer and Beat Butcha provide most of the beats for FKTAG, there is a clear shift in sound from Conway's previous releases and with other producers such as Hit-Boy, DJ Premier, Erick Sermon and frequent collaborator The Alchmiest also handling the beats, the result is a soundtrack that feels like it's been plucked out of a movie.
Conway himself does a fair amount of reflection in this album and provides more variety in how he uses his voice, all of which tends to be a warning as underground artists approach more mainstream sounds and ideals. The beauty in FKTAG is the balance of embracing a more polished sound and retaining a certain level of grit. Griselda's first female artist Armani Caesar offers a lovely feature, as do Dej Loaf, Method Man, Havoc, Lloyd Banks, Freddie Gibbs and the Griselda homies. This is a celebration of achieving goals, in terms of the triumphant sound of this album and Conway's bars, yet it also feels like a line in the sand moment where there's plenty of growth to come.
Troy Kingi – The Ghost Of Freddie Cesar
If you’re looking for the funk, Troy Kingi has got the funk. This is the fourth of his 10/10/10 project – ten albums in ten years in ten different genres - and for Freddie Cesar he’s bringing out the hot-steppin’ 70s sounds of Curtis Mayfield and the rest of them for a pitch perfect rendition. It sounds like cocaine and gold chains, hairy chests bursting through unbuttoned shirts, high-heels and halter tops. Troy Kingi has always known how to jam but these tunes are really tight, the hooks go hard. Caught In The Rain, Chronophobic Disco, King Of The Powder, All Your Ships Have Sailed... and Nam Must Stay gets some sizzling wah-wah guitar on it too. There’s a full-on backstory about the titular Freddie Cesar which is either brilliantly high-concept performance art or a genuinely tragic personal story... not gonna speculate either way just in case... but regardless this record qualifies for superfly status. One of the very best albums out of Aotearoa all year.
Spillage Village - Spilligion
After a few years in which the various Spillage Village artists established themselves on the music scene, now the re-convene for Spilligion and praise Jah that they did. Consisting of EarthGang, JID, Mereba, 6lack, Benji, Jurdan Bryan and Hollywood JB, Spillage Village started as an Atlanta collective of artists as they climbed the underground ladder before tasting individual success and now aligned with J Cole's Dreamville Records. There are plenty of apperances and features, while production is provided by a long list of hip-hop's low key best - primarily members of Spillage Village - which makes it niggly to pinpoint ideas etc, although that's the joy I found in listening to Spilligion as there is a never-ending smorgasbord to lyrical deliveries, style and ideas.
Take that and amplify it by having a cohesive flow between all these different artists and producers. Spilligion serves as a bit of a spiritual experience, perhaps a perfect 2020 commentary in the sense that observation and awareness from a young crop of artists blend in with a bunch of esoteric ventures. The beats slap and the flows are catchy, so you will find yourself nodding along and give this album plenty of time to seep in as you'll find a fresh pocket of funk each time.
Osees – Protean Threat
John Dwyer and mates have put out 23 albums under the various Oh Sees names and when you’re that prolific you get to embrace all your various whims and ideas. Protean literally means varied and multi-faceted so a title like Protean Threat definitely lives up to that reputation... but while this album bounces around with a few extra electronics and some ramped up prog-iness, it’s also a return to the rapid and forceful rocking pure lightning-in-a-bottle energy that this band is best known for. Tracks like Terminal Jape, If I Had My Way, and Gong of Catastrophe! are true blue pounders. Dwyer being Dwyer, there’s a bit of funk in here as well which at times makes the flow of the album feel weird and keep it from challenging the best in the Osees/Oh Sees/OCS/Thee Oh Sees repertoire... but that’s intentional. Protean Threat. With this band you have to embrace the oddities.
IDLES – Ultra Mono
There are very few bands on a level with IDLES these days, the British punkers providing the soundtrack to the politicised youth, the folks who got dumped up the river without a paddle by Boris and Brexit. Full of righteous anger but also messages of hope and equality... not to mention some skin-tight tunes... IDLES have been on the up and up ever since their brilliant last album. Thing is, it’s tough to follow up a modern classic like Joy as an Act of Resistance and the first half of Ultra Mono feels like it carries that burden. Frontman Joe Talbot still spits and howls his uniquely excellent lyrics but there just aren’t the same level of banging tunes to back them up. Nothing nearly as scream-able as Danny Nedelko or Television. At least... not until Model Village steps in and suddenly the back half serves up some of the goods we’d been hoping for. Ne Touche Pas Mois, Carcinogenic, and Reigns come straight afterwards and that’s the heart of the album right there. They even expand their sound with the subtle sadness of A Hymn. Probably needed to adjust the track listing to spread the wealth around but no dramas.
Action Bronson - Only For Dolphins
There have been a few projects this year that lay out hip-hoppy stuff like fine art and if you've been tapped into these Album Jukeboxes, you'll know. Action Bronson's latest album 'Only For Dolphins' is another musical collection that fits the fine art kinda vibe as Bronson doesn't quite have the same vigour or brutal insights that he dropped in earlier projects, which I'm sure caught the ears of many who listened to 'Dr Lecter' or 'Well-Done'. Come to think of it, the first moments dealing with Bronson rapping were rather majestic as there was a gutter New York vibe with words I'd never heard and/or a combination of words that only Bronson could put together over a funky instrumental.
Now we have an album after years of journeying through all the different pockets of Bronson's life. The witty bars, food references and street insights are still present, perhaps lacking some of the razor-sharp captivating aspect of the earlier work, although that is easily made up for with the overall sound of Only For Dolphins. Musically, this is calls on a variety of different influences from around the world and that makes sense considering we have all seen Bronson's travels. I can't break all that down because I'm no music historian but I can guarantee that you will hear music, production and flows that you haven't come across before. Bronson deals in some of the production, along with The Alchemist, Daringer and Harry Fraud.
Whack this on and relax, enjoy the waves of musical funk and Bronson chatting in your ear.
Bully – SUGAREGG
It’s the guitar tones on Every Tradition where the new Bully album first transcends, followed closely by the vocal productions. Alicia Bognarro (who’s reset Bully as a solo project) has this raspy voice which is instantly recognisable but here that voice is deeper in the mix, which in turn allows room for those righteous grunge and shoegaze influenced guitars (lotsa 90s references in here – sweet as) and gives her songwriting abilities a welcome spotlight. The melodies that little more designed, the choruses that little more bombastic. Every Tradition is the standout jam but there’s plenty of goodness on Let You, Stuck In Your Head, and What I Wanted... this record feels like a breakthrough.
The Lemon Twigs – Songs For The General Public
Gram Parsons meets Harry Nilsson meets Broadway. That’s what you get with The Lemon Twigs, aka the D'Addario brothers, who bring a theatrical flavour to their faithful 70s rock revival. With every dish they deliver they add on all the sauce they possibly can with bonus instrumentation and backup singers and dramatic tonal shifts and whatever you can imagine. Lots like what Foxygen were doing a few years ago with their hippie psych rock throwbacks before that band imploded (Jonathan Rado has co-produced with the Twigs in the past, though this album’s self-produced). Songs For The General Public isn’t much of a divergence from what the Twigs were already up to with their previous couple albums but Songs For The General Public is better. The songs are stronger, simple as that. Hell On Wheels and Somebody Loving You and Only A Fool and Hog... you can’t call it kitschy when the tunes are this good.
Tyler Childers – Long Violent History
For eight out of nine tracks this just is some low-key instrumental fiddle music. Lovely tunes played in that traditional bluegrass fashion but if you ain’t about those sounds then perhaps not for you, each to their own. It’s pretty well done though. But then comes the final track. The title track of this unexpected release. A Tyler Childers track with all the passion and fury that he can conjure speaking directly to White America and all those who’d be silent on the racial injustices in the USA (and the world) because it’s inconvenient, because of misinformed beliefs, or because it doesn’t directly affect them. Tyler shreds those excuses to pieces in three and a bit minutes. One of the most powerful bits of music you’ll hear any time soon.
All Them Witches – Nothing As The Ideal
They must be witches because these fellas out of Nashville hit on some nasty grooves. For the most part we’re talking about hard rock rhythms bordering close to metal at times, with some blues-rock/psych guitar tones lashed to the beat, although they do mix it up on the almost country-folk tune The Children of Coyote Woman (which is one of the standouts of the whole album). It’s a heavy record, you almost feel like you oughta be wearing a dark cloak to listen and carving runes into stone walls. It’s also, fittingly, an enchanting record. And when you get to the last half of the closer Rats In Ruin things get truly magical. That song is superb. Also... they recorded the album at Abbey Road Studios which is cool.
Angel Olsen – Whole New Mess
Technically it’s the same mess and it’s not even a mess. These tunes are mostly the same ones that ended up on Olsen’s All Mirrors album (apart from two newbies) but in earlier recording versions. Not demos... but also not fully produced and you could be easily forgiven for thinking they were entirely different tunes as several arrangements changed drastically in their eventual versions. But that stripped back style is something that Olsen has thrived in going back to 2012’s Half Way Home and this collection is the closest she’s sounded to that record since. A low key release? For sure. But jeez when Angel Olsen’s voice has room to work in such subtle and stunning ways it’s like nothing else in this world or any of those beyond. Listen to Chance (Forever Love) late at night, for example, and it’ll shatter your bones into psychic dust.
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