Shad
Welcome to the first edition of what I hope to make a regular weekly feature on the Lamb; the Tuesday Twelve, twelve new songs that you need to hear immediately, with no adherence to genres (this week we have everything from dancehall reggae to Canadian hip-hop to scuzzy blues rock), themes, or nationalities of the artists/bands. What I’ll be doing is searching through the blogosphere (yes, that does include Pitchfork and Hype Machine), podcasts, magazines, radio stations, my own personal iTunes, to bring you the coolest new tracks that’ll make you want to sing, make you want to dance, make you want to cry (maybe even all three at the same time). As always, feel free to comment if you liked (or disliked) a track I recommended, and tell me about the songs that you think I should hear. Enjoy!
Ghostface Killah & MF DOOM – “Chinatown Wars (Oh No Remix)”
This just in: Wu-Tang still ain’t nothing to fuck with. On this track – written as the theme song for the latest in the Grand Theft Auto video game series – Ghost (who from the likes of this track, and his recent appearance on MSTRKRFT’s “Word Up”, is having a timely career revival) spits battle raps like a true veteran, over a bubbling beat cooked up by Oh No and fake blood-in-the-streets news broadcasts. MF DOOM is no slouch on this track either, as he raps about twisting some unfortunate soul’s limbs “like pilates” – nice to see that the man who has a affinity for hiding behind a mask can rhyme about more than food and NSFW Adult Swim cartoons. If you’re maintaining any beefs with anyone at the moment, you need this song on your iPod.
Shad feat. Dallas Green and TLO – “…in the Black of Night (Freestyle)”
See folks, this is what happens when you gather a bunch of awesome artists, throw them in tour buses, and get them to play all across North America during the summer: you get awesome collaborations like this one between Calgary rapper Shad, Alexisonfire crooner Dallas Green, and his DJ TLO. Recorded during a late night on the punk rock carnival that is the Vans Warped Tour, Shad spits some clever rhymes about touring, recording and of course, Wu-Tang. Show of hands, who would like to see guest rappers on the next Alexis album? That’s what I thought. Credit to EXCLAIM! for this one.
The Rural Alberta Advantage – “Don’t Haunt This Place”
It seems that every other week, we are hearing about the next big indie rock band that hail from Toronto. Here’s the truth: a lot of the hype about these new bands is bullshit. Not to dump on the city’s incredibly rich and diverse music scene, but many of these indie rock bands are just boring, generic imitations of better bands before them. Fortunately for us, The Rural Alberta Advantage (also known by the space-saving acronym, The RAA), aren’t one of those bands. Consisting of lead singer and guitarist Nil Endenloff, keyboardist and backup singer Amy Cole, and drummer Paul Banwatt (you know him as the drummer from Woodhands), the band has seen their stock steadily rising, which has so far culminated in being signed to indie powerhouse label Saddle Creek, re-releasing their stellar debut folk-rock album Hometowns, and a (by all accounts) huge recent hometown show at the Horseshoe this past July. Expect big things from this trio in the near future.
Joel Plaskett – “Through & Through & Through”
Returning home for the first time in eight months, only to find that I had become a stranger in the eyes who people who I had once considered friends. Working in the kitchens of a summer camp that was plunged into swine flu paranoia, after several campers showed signs and were quickly quarantined. The godawful summer weather that Nova Scotia experienced throughout all of July, which is only now beginning to look up in August. Yet, for all the terrible (and terribly boring) stuff that I’ve gone through the past two months, the song that will always remind me of summer ’09 is this breezy, upbeat tune from Nova Scotian guitar troubadour Plaskett. And if there’s a pop song this summer that had better (or more Nova Scotian for that matter) lyrics than, “You be April Stevens, I’ll be April Wine /You be Israel, I will be Palestine”, than I’ve yet to hear it. Could Plaskett’s recent ambitious triple-album, Three, finally be enough for voters to give him his first – and very deserved – Polaris Prize? Only time will tell…
Apostle Of Hustle – “Eazy Speaks”
Recently Apostle Of Hustle’s frontman Andrew Whiteman told CBC Radio 3 that this song – named after the infamous rapper Eazy E – was inspired by a rock spray-painted with the words “Eazy speaks” that the band saw in rural Quebec while on route to a show in Prince Edward Island. Myself, I think its a fantastic thought: what if dead musicians could give us advice from beyond the grave? Michael Jackson would then be able to inform us of the pitfalls of facial reconstruction surgery (sorry, too soon?), Elvis would tell us to stay away from Vegas and over-eating in general, and Kurt Cobain would advise us to never, ever, <i>ever</i> trust anyone named Courtney Love. In this case, it would seem that Eazy told Apostle Of Hustle to “keep your friends close and your enemies closer” and write a catchy, riff-filled number like this one.
Major Lazer feat. T.O.K. and Ms. Thing – “Bruk Out”
Bawdy sex raps! Pitch-tweaked vocals! Off-the-wall futuristic Jamaican dancehall reggae! It can only mean one thing: globetrotting DJ extraordinaire Diplo and his fellow co-conspirator, the producer Switch, are back with a whole new bag of tricks. I’ve recommended Major Lazer – Diplo and Switch’s latest project featuring a slew of guest vocalists that you’ve never heard of (and some that you have) – to you before, but if you haven’t picked up their album Guns Don’t Kill People…Lazers Do, you should make that a priority. Just in time for summer house parties, comes the duo’s blunt-smoking, skirt-chasing (sample line from this song: “I met Jill/She was a stripper/She said she wanted to undo my zipper”) love letter to Kingston’s dancehall and reggae scene. Plus, you know you’ve made it when GQ magazine features you and recommends Red Bull and vodka as the “appropriate companion drug”. This is some next-level shit right here folks.
Grizzly Bear vs. Lil Wayne – “2 Weeks ’til Prom (The Soundmen Mashup)”
Strangest mashup album ever? New York City outfit The Soundmen recently released a three-song EP, which mashes songs from indie rock darlings-of-the-moment Grizzly Bear and the always bizarre, but usually entertaining Lil Wayne. The title of this album? Vecktaflyest. Perfect. Listen to this one for yourself and decide whether its a trainwreck or not, but anything that manages to pair “Two Weeks” and “Prom Queen” together is worth a listen at least once in my books. Download the album and read more over at Paste here.
Wale feat. Peter, Bjorn & John – “Nothing To Worry About”
Everything about this track screams “official hipster summer anthem”. The newest single from Sweden’s biggest pop music export since ABBA, the whistling, Grey’s Anatomy-endorsed trio Peter, Bjorn and John? Check. Behind raps from Washington, D.C.’s next-great-hope, Wale, who so far in his career, has free-styled over Justice, managed to find a use for Lady Gaga’s sex-cyborg “singing”, and released an excellent Seinfield-themed mixtape? Check. On a hot new mixtape called Back To The Future, produced and mixed by 9th Wonder and Nick Catchdubs, available online for the very agreeable price of free? Check. For all the hype surrounding Wale, there’s no denying the man has serious skills on the microphone. We’re still waiting for his hotly-anticipated debut full-length, Attention: Deficit, which is scheduled to be out September 22nd, but this ought to be enough to tide us over until then.
Jay-Z feat. Rihanna & Kanye West – “Run This Town”
Is there anybody worse in the musical world than Mr. Shawn Carter, aka Jay-Z, when it comes to this “retiring” business? The man’s put out two albums (the critically-maligned Kingdom Come and the much better American Gangster) after he said he was leaving the game for good, and on the not-so-subtle release date of September 11th, we can expect the third. The Blueprint III has rumoured to have been in the works for quite some time, and now some of the new songs are starting to leak, much to the delight of serious fans who consider this album to be akin to the rap equivalent of the Holy Grail. This one has Jay rhyming like he’s just getting into his prime, a nice poppy hook from Rihanna (the role she was born to play), and some hot lines from Kanye, who also produced the album. This album’s going to be a monster.
K-OS feat. Emily Haines & Murray Lightburn – “Uptown Girl”
Replace Jay-Z with a soulful K-OS doing his best Michael Jackson impression, Metric’s mistress Emily Haines filling in for Rihanna, and The Dears’ frontman Murray Lightburn providing Kanye-worthy backup vocals (okay, that one’s a bit of a stretch), and you basically have the Canadian version of “Run This Town”. While this is the second single from K-OS’ latest record, Yes!, it serves as an excellent showcase for all three artists on the track, who are arguably at the peaks of their careers. Lightburn and The Dears just put out their well-received fourth album, Missiles. Haines and her boy in Metric also have a hot new album, and have been playing summer festivals here there and everywhere, not to mention an upcoming show at Toronto’s legendary Massey Hall in October. As for K-OS, he’s been playing packed shows from coast-to-coast and this new album should solidify his reputation as one of the country’s best rappers.
Arctic Monkeys – “Crying Lightning”
They got us to put on our dancing shoes, taught us that “D Is For Dangerous”, and still think you look pretty damn good on the dancefloor. Yes kids, that’s right: everyone’s favourite Sheffield garage-rockers, the Arctic Monkeys, are back and once again preparing for world domination…I mean, a world tour. This one is in support of their upcoming third album, entitled Humbug, which is being produced by Queens of the Stone Age head honcho Josh Homme, and is scheduled to be in stores on August 25th. You can listen to the new single, “Crying Lightning”, over at the Monkeys’ MySpace here. The Toronto stop on the tour is September 28th at the Sound Academy and if you don’t have a ticket, well…tough luck.
The Dead Weather – “Treat Me Like Your Mother (Diplo Remix)”
Unless you’ve been living under a rock the past few months, you probably know already that this is Jack White’s new band. And if you know anything about me, or the type of music I usually listen to (you’ve read this far, haven’t you?), than you know its impossible for me to remain unbiased about The Dead Weather. I’ve been a fan of Jack, and a true believer that anything he touches turns to gold, ever since my father brought home The White Stripes’ White Blood Cells several years ago. As frontman for the Stripes (and of course, later The Raconteurs), he’s a true Guitar Hero, and is hopefully destined to go down in musical history as the Robert Plant or Bob Dylan of our generation. And can you blame White for getting Alison Mosshart to play a Nico-esque muse to his Andy Warhol? As the female half of The Kills, Mosshart is gorgeous, and has the pipes to match her looks. Throw in Dean Fertita of Queens of the Stone Age and a Raconteur (Jack Lawrence), and you have yourself one hell of a band. Download Diplo’s remix of Horehound’s first single for free over at RCD LBL.com.
