Bass playing oddball Thundercat just released his newest jam, "Dragonball Durag" which pretty much sums up the artist. Deep gooey bass and drums, smooth yacht rock saxophone, and falsetto crooning silly lyrics.
The Atlanta, GA based trio The Coathangers sixth studio album is an excellent collection of their strengths; the yin and yang, sweet and sour of pop appeal and punk rawness. The Devil You Know contains twelve tracks of engaging thought provoking, challenging and ear wormy pop punk injected rock and roll.
From the opening song "Bimbo" the group (guitarist/vocalist Julia Kugel, drummer/vocalist Stephanie Luke and bassist/vocalist Meredith Franco) develop the audio version of a Sour Patch Kid candy as Kugel sings with a sweet innocence while Luke gets aggressive on the skins and the chorus. "Crimson Telephone" uses an ominous bass and drum riff before ethereal vocals as Kugel sings about hiding the scars.
The band is fiercely arraigned against certain foes. The blatant and direct "F the NRA" uses a motoring tune to deliver their message of resistance while "Hey Buddy" uses a dance laden groovy bass line delivering the title lyric while raging against hate, bigotry and those fearful souls who deliver it. Both tracks are highlights showing the band can be firm and direct and also shake a tail feather while delivering their message.
The juxtaposition of pretty and dirty is the core of the band and they do it well on the junkie ode "Stranger Danger" but they can also spread their wings encompassing new styles as "Memories" is expansive, closer "Lithium" is a spaced out drug trip and "Last Call" uses dreamy reggae before a huge arena ready chorus.
The Coathangers display a lot of range on The Devil You Know and continue to make music to protest along side of and sing along to at a happening party.
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Support the band, buy the album, stream it on bandcamp or below and peep some video:
With Mardi Gras one week away, New Orleans stalwarts Galactic have released a new single to celebrate parade season.
"Float Up" is a funky new tune which showcases the vocal styling of Anjelika Jelly Joseph as the track bounces along with a light pop appeal. It would have been right at home on their recent release, Already Ready Already.
Support the band, see them live and get ready for Mardi Gras with this new jam:
The newest full length release from Philadelphia artist lojii starts off with a slow dripping track titled "patience" finding the MC breathing out the word softly and then talking about how he has no special secret to success other than just perseverance and hard work. This is the perfect introduction to lo&behold, a smooth flowing, easy going album that never raises up to heavy or sinks to low, just blissfully bumps along and showcases lojii with his various producers skills.
The title track injects a few skittering trap influenced beats but the foundation sound is soulful R&B through and through. Producer Swarvy arrives often using smooth sounds as Pink Siifu and Akeema Zane help out on vocals for "U callin' Me". "trippin' (i like it)" delivers a loose liquid beat that recalls De La Soul as does the excellent retro looking "brite kid" with tape looping production from Jacob Rochester.
The energy hits it's highest level for "uhoh(whereyoho?)" which finds lojii rhyming his fastest over heavy beats, but producer Swarvy still includes flute breaks and smooth lining making it work in the overall aesthetic of the full length. The retro soul of "each day (i pray for)" just keeps rolling along while Nikko Gray helps out on the sweet singing retro shout out jam.
The strong efforts keep coming with the slightly disjointed sounds from Alexander Spit supporting "longwayhome" which literally delivers the artist back with an uber ride recording before the vibes, smooth guitar, and chimes deliver late night soul for the excellent "over&over/round&round" via production from Absent Avery.
In a genre where the current style is brevity and ten cent production seems the norm, this full length album is a call back to more extended and groove filled times. lo&behold runs on like a babbling brook as lojii steers the ship down river, smoothly taking his time on the bliss filled journey.
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Support the artist, buy the album, listen on bandcamp or below and peep some video:
In this ongoing Monday Series we will be exploring various artists versions of Bob Dylan song's. Today's tune is live a cover by John Cruz playing "Jokerman"
Thoughts on Original:
From the first time we tackled a cover of this tune:
The kick-start to his "back to rock and roll" album Infidels, "Jokerman" is a monster. A torrent of images, symbols, thoughts, proclamations, fears and fables; it feels like a dam was broken in Dylan's brain and all of these things just poured out. Musically it moves along but doesn't add much to the towering wordplay as the tune is dominated by the lyrics which seem almost never ending; Dylan has penned wordier tunes, but few feel as heavy as this. Flawed, but reaching for something, it is a not an all-time great Dylan song, but it is one that lets us peak into his brain a bit. For more on this tune, check out this post. Cover:
Thoughts on Cover Artist: RtBE have not heard of John Cruz before. He is a singer-songwriter from Hawaii and more info can be found on his Facebook page.
Thoughts on Cover:
A tough tune to cover and John does a great straight ahead job with some fine upbeat strumming to propel the elongated track forward.
We search the murky back waters of youtube to find full concerts and post them to the site weekly, come back every seven days to help us celebrate Full Show Friday's. These shows are of varying quality and may not be here for long so enjoy them while you can...As always, please support the artist every which way, but especially by seeing them live (if they are still playing)...This week...Selena Gomez!
Each January RtBE does a Jazz showcase and judging by the clicks, people just aren't as into it as we are. To make up for that, in February we go pop during our Full Show Friday series to blatantly attract page views.
The album was originally released digitally last year, but now it gets the full treatment with a vinyl release from Royal Potato Family and great album art.
