Advice to Recording Artists

Quote of the day from recordingmag.com:

Spend a lot of time listening. I listen all the time; I don’t have a TV or a Sega or all that stuff. And respect the players that did it all.
- Ishmael Butler

La Musique de la Semaine

Please excuse the redecoration work. Nice mixtape of Lazaro's tracks past and present by Electric Adolescence called "The Many Moons of Digable Planets". Don't read the tracklisting, just press PLAY > and enjoy the sounds while creating.

Essay from Sound on the Sound

Dear readers,

I present you with the first lengthy rumination on SP I've come across, hopefully the first of many. I agree with everything that Sound on the Sound's Josh writes, although I would say he over-emphasises SP's 'anti-System' stance, giving the impression of it being somewhat laboured and reactionary. I prefer to view them as simply being who they are, making the music they want to make, and only incidentally slaying all these false gods. He writes,

"Cognizant that rap has lost its way, Shabazz Palaces seem to have surfaced especially to remind us, and particularly those within the hip hop community itself, that the future isn’t buying pre-made beats to rhyme over between sips of cough syrup."

It's beautiful that people feel that SP has surfaced to remind the pop rap circus, but I doubt the musicians themselves think of it like that, or even particularly care for the pop side. Rather, an artist makes music simply because he can't help but do it, and an artist (particularly a poet, historically) also presents society with truth messages in a uniquely devastating way, but not as part of an overly-conscious plan. So SP does achieve all the things the article says they achieve, but that's just how they do their thing:

Survival.
With style.

Q: But your position is no stronger, and suggests that the music is not the result of labour, vision, and calculation but merely a happy by-product of intuition.
A: Yes, that is the weakness of my argument. Of course it's all conceived, planned and every beat and word is there for a reason. But if it's 'calculation' then it's a kind of 'instinctive calculation'. Ultimately that's someting personal to each artist, and not being a very artistic person myself I would like to hear what poetic people themselves have to say about this aspect of the creative process.

(Photograph by Renee McMahon)

The Weekly Music

Handed in my dissertation: 14,000 words on Islamic Revivalism in British India in the bag. Just one exam to go (22nd June) and then... freedom. Shabazz Palaces' Sasquatch appearance had everyone raving: help me find some footage someone.

Fell in love with this the first time I heard it on the radio and after much searching, located the correct slice of wax.

Los Hermanos - Quetzal (Original Mix), (Los Hermanos, 2002)

Music of the Week: 4

The weeks preceding a dissertation deadline are bound to be intense. This has been my soundtrack:

Divine Styler f/ Cokni O'Dire - The Grand Design (Wordpower 2: Directrix, 1999, DTX Recordings)

Abercrombie and Fitchpork

Recently Pitchfork has been singing SP's praises, naming Hottabatch their favourite new song.

Then they delivered an interview with Lazaro, which was even nicer.

But then they showed their true colours and published an admiring but strikingly ignorant review of the albums. When I first read it I thought oh I've been away from 'trendy' sites like this for too long and this is some kind of ironical new way of writing that appears limitlessly simplistic and superficial. Nope. "No intelligent life here..."

On the upside, I then found a critique of the review in question by a writer whose blog is dedicated to reviews of Pitchfork reviews (seriously), and who has a low toleranace level for braindead writing. He doesn't appear to know SP's music or even to have heard them so imagine how much stronger his criticisms would be were he a fan. Over to him:

-------
"2. that review is better than the Shabazz Palaces review, which could not give you any less of a sense of how these records sound or what they’re about. for reasons i’m about to get into this review garners my rare and uncoveted Worst New Review!!! read it now if you haven’t yet.

the syntax is so stilted it’s uncomfortable, reads like an 11th-grader wrote it for a high school newspaper. like the only mention of lyrics is this: “Lazaro occasionally spits conscious verses about struggling and corruption, but he’s also not afraid to go all hardhead and talk tough. His lyrical subjects can be quotidian, frequently focusing on food and hanging out.” i’m not gonna address the meaningless-without-context, generic rap-oriented word choice in “not afraid to go all hardhead and talk tough”, but two records packed with raps and that’s all the preview we get? no quotes? are there any rhymes worthy of mention on this?

this sentence is retarded and is worst sentence in the whole review: “It’s clear that he wants his art to be taken seriously, and based on his output so far it certainly will.” who doesn’t want their art to be taken seriously? “Weird” Al Yankovic, David Hasslehoff? what the fuck kind of sentence is this? this is the 11th graderese i was talking about

and why is fitzmaurice insisting on refusing to let Palaceer Shabazz present himself the way he wants to? and NOT calling him by the name he’s asking to be called by? “Hopefully, Palaceer Lazaro— oh, fuck it, call him Ishmael” — nobody but Rick Ross still calls Diddy “Puff Daddy” and we certainly don’t call MF Doom “Zev Love X” so why be an asshole to this guy?

and then in the last paragraph, “reemergence doesn’t always guarantee eternal success, as Doom’s ever-unspooling narrative shows.” bro do you read pitchfork reviews or listen to Doom? you know his last full-length (from last year) got an 8.0? and his last EP (from this year) got a 7.2 (which is real high for any EP that’s not by animal collective)? how is DOOM unspooling? he’s been active and consistently putting out quality reords for years, i’d say he’s been among the MOST CONSISTENT presences in rap, given the volatility in the quality of work of even the highest-tier rappers. did any editors look at this review? man step your games up, it’s never too late in the day to shift this review down to the number 5 slot, or, like, replace it with whatever Tom Breihan has to say about the record

i never go in on a review like this but fuck this review"
-From Pitchfork Reviews Reviews
-------

Music of the Week: 3

As far as I know this is the only available video of an original (90s) performance of 9th Wonder on the web. The players in the band are ridiculous: major league pros. Also, the clip ends with a rendition of the 9th Wonder Amina/Dania remix which was only available on the rare 9th Wonder: Mad Slicker Remixes single. Both versions sound much more interesting compared to the recorded versions.

Digable Planets - 9th Wonder & 9th Wonder remix (live on the Jon Stewart show, 1994)