Scissor Girls, “Mr. Poison”. I always forget how great Chicago no-wave was.
Don’t remember where I downloaded this from, which are the best downloads. The band is called Population, and the album is called “Practice”. So Google is not much help. Anyone know anything about this? Fucked up post-punk jam. Seems like the internet made us all forget we are on the brink of annihilation.
UPDATE: I still haven’t shed any light on this band, but WFMU reveals the original of this cover Eisbar. Categorized as Swiss art-punk. Works for me. The original has some funny saxophoning at the end.
Sometimes I feel like joining the chorus of hate for Drake, but there are lots of bloggers better at the negativity tip than myself so I’ll just leave it at “dude is seriously the most boring rapper I can comprehend,” and get back to awesome music in a little bit.
So this dude’s mixtape has been blowing up on youtube & twitter this month. It’s blunted, and I’m into it. Wikipedia informs me that Wiz Khalifa is based out of Pittsburgh, which once upon a time would have been a crazy place to have a music career, but you have to be somewhere, and now thanks to the internet it doesn’t really matter.
Definitely click the link as Willy has some sharp observations about how this song succeeds in borrowing Southern rap elements and combining it with the local Bay Area aesthetic. As he says the great thing about the Bay Area is how its artists don’t take themselves too seriously, and this track is a great example of that.
If you’re looking for some great rap from the Ivory Coast check out this mixtape by CIAfrica. It features some really superb production. Unfortunately, my French isn’t quite up to the task of following most of the lyrics, which is too bad because from what I understand they are on the political awareness tip. I remember seeing a documentary on Link TV not too long ago about rap music from Mali (I believe?), and I saw some performers, and the documentary had subtitles for their lyrics which got into some deep & excellent points about the challenges Africans face from Western economic liberalization policies.
And let me sweeten this post by making it a 2 for 1 deal with this podcast from Brian from awesometapesfromafrica.
All this music is very beat-oriented, and that illustrates a serious annoying recent development of rock critics describing bands as having an African or tribal style drumming. Obviously these critics are being lazy and don’t know what they’re talking about, or else they would recognize the diverse range of styles that exist, and also the way the West and Africa really do share a common musical lexicon.
Anyway, shout out to mudd up! and wayne&wax for bringing all this excellent music to my attention.