impressively unprofessional.
music reviews
album review: massive attack — heligoland
Feb 10th
artist: massive attack- album: heligoland
- label: virgin records
- genre: the bristol sound is dead
- street date: february 8th, 2010
- web site: massiveattack.com
- rating: 1.5 out of 5
there was once a time, back in the early 90s, that bristol england was the hotbed of the best new electronic music. acts involved were some of the biggest and most legendary names out there: portishead, tricky, roni size, smith & mighty, way out west, the wild bunch, and of course, massive attack. the sound was delicately textured, layered with ground-rippling bass, effervescent vocalists, for the appletini-sipping lounge crowds and coke-snorting dancefloor doucebags alike. it was the golden age of british turntablists that spawned an entire genre that we now call “trip-hop”.
album review: rjd2 — the colossus
Feb 8th
artist: rjd2 (aka john krohn)- album: the colossus
- label: rj’s electrical connections
- genre: turntables
- street date: january 19th, 2010
- website: rj’s electrical connections
- rating: 3.5 out of 5
as an old-school def-jux fanboy, i pretty much was a fan of everything that label released, regardless of whether or not it was actually good music. just the fact that it was one of the few independent hip hop labels reppin’ the east was all that mattered. regardless of what you think of el-p (aka james meline) personally, his cadre of musicians under his label was pretty impressive and was the who’s who of independent beatmaking. i mean yeah, it was the preeminent backpacker label, but who gives a shit, right? backpacker hip hop was basically the only decent hip hop being released for a long time. so when rjd2 released deadringer on def-jux back in 2002, an entire community basically shit their pants. hot off the heels of dj shadow’s second effort, the private press, rjd2 stepped up to the batters box to challenge for the title of turntable supremacy.
album review: emancipator — safe in the steep cliffs
Jan 22nd
- artist: emancipator
- album: safe in the steep cliffs
- label: independent
- genre: organic beatmaking
- street date: january 19th, 2010
- website: emancipator.bandcamp.com
- rating: 4.5 out of 5
as promised, here is a review of emancipator’s official sophomore effort “safe in the steep cliffs”. the website has been getting a lot of search hits for leaked copies off torrents and downloads for this album, so it looks like there’s a good number of people out there who are interested in good music. but you guys really shouldn’t try to find free copies of this album. you need to buy it. it is only $10 on his website, and he is more than generous with his music by streaming all of it for free. with that said, i waited a few days before reviewing this album, and as you can see on my last.fm, its been playing non-stop since i purchased a copy off of his website. i knew that if i reviewed it right away, i’d only be able to say good things about it without really giving it a critical outlook. well, a few days have passed and i still can only say good things about it.
