Young Thug & Bloody Jay - "Black Portland"

Young Thug is blessed with one of the weirdest voices in contemporary rap – a kind of manic yelp that perfectly fits his tightly-wound flow, careening between staccato assault and drunken lurch. You’ll be marvelling over it for a while before you actually start paying attention to his stream-of-consciousness lyrics. Having slowly infiltrated hip-hop conversations last year with his excellent mixtape 1017 Thug, he teams up with Atlanta rapper Bloody Jay for Black Portland, an 11-track effort which, in its relative concision and collection of great beats, actually comes out on top as Young Thug’s best project yet.

Looked at from the right angle, this could be quite a conventional tape – there are some genuinely memorable hooks/choruses, and the beats, if tinged with that distinctive Atlanta weirdness, are satisfyingly high-octane and ready for the club. It’s to these two rappers credit then that Black Portland never really feels like a normal affair – their aesthetic is just too damn weird, throwing in demented ad-libs all over the place and interrupting each other’s lines.

It’s mastered better than 1017 Thug, but the fidelity is still slightly off, to the point where Thug’s voice at its most intense can actually be quite grating, especially on headphones. Whether this proves to be annoying or part of the appeal will depend on the listener. Thug and Jay’s voices are pretty interchangeable for the most part (Jay’s is lower but just as urgent), and that’s fine, it’s more like a personality overload than a clash of heads. I must emphasise that this tape is fun over pretty much everything else. It’s almost impossible not to imagine these guys having a blast in the recording booth while listening to Black Portland, and thankfully its brevity means that this isn’t one of those 20+ track efforts that run out of energy halfway through.

Anyone who’s been paying attention to Atlanta rap recently will most likely know the hit ‘Danny Glover’, a song that bears a striking resemblance to A$AP Ferg’s ‘Work’ and has had both Drake and Kanye singing Young Thug’s praises. The real keeper here though is the melodic ‘4 Eva Bloody’, which goes in straight out of the gate with its indelible chorus and a yo-yoing beat that sounds like an old Sonic the Hedgehog game.

There are two more chilled-out tracks here – ‘Florida Water’ is the major changeup, with its woozy, almost tropical vibe (it sounds surprisingly like Vic Mensa’s ‘Tweakin’), and later on Future turns up for ‘Nothing But Some Pain’ with one of his trademark hooks. Honestly, there are no bad tracks here, and loads of great ones. It’s that rare hip-hop mixtape where you’re not just combing the tracklist for keepers, everything earns its place.

Bloody Jay explained the name of the tape to the FADER – on one level it’s a funny stoner pun on Portland’s basketball team (the ‘Trail Blazers’), but more interestingly, he conceives of ‘Black Portland’ as an imaginary place, a state of mind for creative artists who aren’t afraid to break outside of regional contexts (Portland has one of the lowest black populations in America and, unlike Atlanta, isn't really know for its hip-hop scene...) Sure this tape conforms to the ‘Atlanta sound’ to an extent, but it always feels like a springboard for the two rappers rather than a net.

We learnt recently that Young Thug has done a couple of songs with Kanye, so hopefully we’ll see those in the future (damn, Thug would sound great on a Yeezus sequel). In the meantime we can look forward to confirmed projects with Rich Homie Quan and Chief Keef, and keep on bumping Black Portland. Grab it here.


Highlights: 'Signs'; '4 Eva Bloody'; 'Danny Glover'

FENNEC - Woke Up Feeling Disconnected

FENNEC's album, Let Your Heart Break, is released on February 11th, and this is the first taster from it.

'Woke Up Feeling Disconnected' starts off like a moody Chromatics cut, before gently pulsating synths quickly usher us into a more Balearic mode, sounding like a more relaxed Cut Copy.

The production is light and airy, and there are some lovely textures going on, but for me the vocal samples are what makes this track stand out - the beat may be simple, but there's a lot going on here beneath the top layers.

Fans of Poolside, Champions League or Postiljonen will definitely enjoy this. One to play next time your plane is touching down in the Mediterranean. Listen below (along with a bonus FENNEC remix of Hall and Oates!) then check the website.

Pixies - "EP-2"

Anyone complaining about the Pixies ruining their legacy with new releases is being too precious. As a test, I listened to Doolittle this morning to see if it had been tarnished and – hey, guess what? – it still sounded as good as ever. It's a separate era, and Pixies in 2014 are a different beast, especially now that Kim Deal is out of the band. I don’t think anyone honestly expected them to be writing material on a par with their classics, but still, people coming to EP-2 with any expectations will likely be disappointed.

Last year’s EP-1 was far from excellent, especially for a band of the Pixies’ stature, but it had a couple of interesting detours – veering into glistening dream-pop on 'Andro Queen' and shaking up the structure of 'Indie Cindy'. The classic Pixies quiet/loud dynamic seemed to have been replaced by a textural one – sparse/lush – and the relatively glossy production suited the more gentle songs. The best bits were the ones that didn’t really sound like the Pixies at all, but could easily stand on their own.

In comparison to EP-1, some of the more familiar elements of the Pixies sound are back in evidence on EP-2 – Frank Black’s howl, Joey Santiago’s guitar texture – but this does nothing to disguise how rubbish the songs themselves are. In all honesty, it just reminds us how poorly this new material compares to the older stuff. 'Magdalena' is probably the best thing here, sounding as it does like a Bossanova offcut with its floaty chorus, but it’s distinctly unmemorable.

Of the four tracks, 'Blue Eyed Hexe' has been given the video treatment and seems to be clocking up the most radio plays, but it plods along at an interminable speed, and is ruined by stadium-ready drums and the same annoying guitar chug as the verses in 'Magdalena'. Any sense of threat built up in the verses is immediately dispelled by the awful chorus. 'Snakes' is even worse, with the lyrics being the main offender here.

'Greens and Blues' is apparently the band’s attempt to write a new set-closer to replace 'Gigantic'. Not that you’d be able to tell from listening. It's not too bad, but the chorus never takes off the way it should do, and the old dynamic shifts that used to seem so natural are sorely missed here. Some of the riffs and little guitar measures hark back to classic Pixies, though that temporary spark of recognition never ignites into anything remotely convincing, pastiche or otherwise.

Maybe if EP-2 had been offered as a free download, then I could have approached it without any expectations. As a paid-for release, it’s incredibly disappointing, and I doubt many Pixies fans will be eagerly awaiting the third and final instalment in the EP series. 

Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - "Wig Out at Jagbags"

Wig Out at Jagbags is Stephen Malkmus’ sixth album with the Jicks – an impressive tally for this elder statesman of indie rock, and one more than he ever managed with his former band Pavement. Like previous album Mirror Traffic, Jagbags finds plenty of time for noodly guitar passages, but it’s not quite so self-consciously jammy as some of the more indulgent Jicks albums. This middle ground suits middle-aged Malkmus well – it allows his music to stretch out and breathe more than it was ever allowed to in Pavement, but the shorter song structures mean that the spotlight is never away from his words for too long.

Talking of lyrics, Malkmus is on pretty good form here. Other than the album title, there’s not much in the way of wacky wordplay – this is either a blessing or a bummer, depending on how much you like Brighten the Corners. Instead, we get a bunch of wry, vague musings on aging and comfortable living. Lyrically and musically though, Malkmus’ tongue is still firmly in his cheek, opening the slapstick punk of ‘Rumble at the Rainbo’ with a shout of “This one’s for you, Grandad!” before breaking down into a cod-reggae ending. The song’s main refrain of “Come here tonight and you’ll see, no-one has changed and no-one ever will,” is most likely an ironic joke at his own settling-down, but as always with Malkmus we can never quite tell.

As with so much of Pavement’s finest work, Jagbags is an album with a relaxed, autumnal feel. Its freewheeling nature means that even the faster songs only rarely feel in danger of falling off their axis. This is not necessarily a bad thing – after all, rollercoasters are still exciting even when we know the path set out for them. Solid guitar playing and frequent tempo shifts, like the false start at the beginning of ‘Houston Hades’, make up for some of the more dead-end meandering, and the production is impressive throughout, especially the brass section on ‘Chartjunk’ and ‘J Smoov’. The latter – a delicate ballad that builds to a subtle climax – is an easy highlight, and one of the best songs that Malkmus has written since latter-day Pavement, calling to mind the gentle lilt of ‘Major Leagues’.

Jagbags easily ranks in the upper tier of Jicks albums, possibly second only to the debut, which housed some of Malkmus’ most laser-focused songwriting. Despite the impressive production, it could do to be a bit more varied tonally, but rarely for a Jicks album, you won’t find yourself wanting to skip ahead. There are very few weak tracks, and the highlights are sensibly spread throughout, resulting in one of his most immediately satisfying albums in years. A wonderful beginning to to the year.


Highlights: ‘Lariat’; ‘J Smoov’; ‘Rumble at the Rainbo’

New Artists for 2014: Part Two

We're only a week into 2014, and there's already a load of great music to look forward to. Following on from Part One, here's the second part of our guide to the artists who'll be taking up space on your hard drive/cloud account/whatever over the following months.

Saint Pepsi
One of a handful of artists who now look set to transcend the Vaporwave trend of 2012 (think elevator muzak for the internet generation), Ryan DeRobertis' Saint Pepsi project meshes that particular micro-scene's 'everything goes' collage approach with serious pop instincts. There are loads of free Saint Pepsi albums floating about on the web - here's 'Hit Vibes' for starters, and listen to his incredible Carly Rae Jepsen edit below, where he flips the original into a rainy slowjam.




Connections
Ohio - birthplace of aviation, and incubator of the finest lo-fi garage rock. Connections are the latest in a lineage of classic Ohio bands, including their spiritual forefathers Guided By Voices, and Times New Viking, who they share members with. As well as following in Guided By Voices' fuzzed-out sound, Connections also take that band's prolific work rate - they put out two albums and an EP in 2013. Maybe start with 'Body Language', but to be honest it's all gold. Their third album is due out in early 2014, expect more of the same.




Wolf Alice
One of the hottest new guitar bands out of the UK, Wolf Alice have been putting out a steady stream of singles and EPs, each one making us salivate even more for the debut album proper that should be on its way. 'Fluffy' shows off their grungy side pretty well, and the subtle way they cram so many different passages in demands repeat listens.




Rome Fortune
Rome Fortune put out a couple of decent tapes this year, 'Beautiful Pimp' being the pick. More recently he's been putting out some even better standalone tracks - here are two of the best. 'Beautiful Pimp II' should be more than just a sleeper hit now that people are trained on this guy's next move.



Angel Olsen

Angel Olsen released 'Half Way Home' in 2012, a gorgeously weird folk record which got a lot of love in some places. Her new album is called 'Burn Your Fire for No Witness', and judging by the more electric sound of 'Sweet Dreams' and new single 'Forgiven/Forgotten', she seems to have made her Judas move. No matter, the new sound suits here well. If the first album sounded like the lonely Canadian wilderness, maybe the new one will remind us just how devastating forest fires can be in such a landscape.

Cheatahs
Huge crunching riffs + sunny vocal melodies + shoegaze textures. It goes without saying that Cheatahs would have fit in perfectly on the 1992 Rollercoaster Tour, blending together the best bits from Blur and Dinosaur Jr. Their debut album is out in February, but you really want to try and catch these guys live if you get a chance.



JUICEBOXXX

I can't possibly do justice to this insane project. One guy with a singularly weird vision. Let me just throw together some quotes from the JUICEBOXXX website. "Rap rock from the heartland. Blown out sick style American music about growing up and freaking out. Connecting the dots between Public Enemy and Suicide, Guided By Voices and Cypress Hill, Bruce Springsteen and Beck." More than anything else though, it's just the most fun you'll have listening to a record all year.

Adrian Lau
Harry Fraud is pretty much the finest young producer on the East Coast, and Adrian Lau appears to be his newest discovery. Not a whole lot of material to go on yet, but I hope 'Small Vacation' is a sign of what's to come. One of the most quotable rap songs I've heard in ages: "My plans ain't even started yet/ and you're sleeping on my blueprint like a narcoleptic architect." More like this please.