This Is Book's Music

Nothing I say in this review will matter to any of Linkin Park‘s diehard fans, they have managed to keep the band going through cultural and musical changes, and good for them. But this is my review, and you’re welcome to complain. I was once a Linkin Park fan, I loved their first two albums and really got into “One Step Closer” and “In The End”. Second album was really good too, bought the deluxe edition. Then their music started to sound more, in my opinion, more pop accessible. Those pop elements were always there, you can hear it throughout those first two albums, but it just seemed to be the general focus. I was and remain a huge Mike Shinoda fan, love Fort Minor and what he was able to do with that. But this is far from being Fort Minor.

Living Things (Warner Bros.) shines differently from their recent efforts, and a big reason for that is Rick Rubin, who produced this album alongside Shinoda. In fact, the reason there’s any level of Shinoda rapping in some of these tracks is because of Rubin, who probably said “yeah, I love what you guys do, but Shinoda can’t be just mere eye candy for girls who love hapa guys”. I think the two work together, so what you have on this album is a nice blend of the pop-friendly metal that fans have come to love, accenting everything that has made Chester Bennington a stand-out vocalist. Let’s face it, if he was into R&B, he would be a variation of Justin Timberlake. Here, he can rock it out and keep it going because he has that strength. I’ll be honest, Bennington’s voice can occasionally get on my nerves because on the pop-side, he could easily be doing music with Justin Bieber as well. Songwise, all of the tracks hold up and I think it may show not only the growth in the band, but also knowing what their fans want too. This is about growth and strength in a world that sometimes feels like it lacks the need for both. While not quite being their equivalent of Metallica‘s self titled album (the Black one), it comes close to that level of maturity, as if they were doing this just in case they decided to call it a day. in other words, if this was the last, they could leave this behind feeling good about themselves.

For me, what makes these songs great is when Shinoda drops rhymes on the mic. It is what has always made Linkin Park a damn good band when they can be, and in tracks like “Until It Breaks”, he shows why he is not to be messed with, all while giving a slight nod to Biggie Smalls while he’s at it:

“here’s something for you people on the block to black out and rock ta
give me what you need, like Poppa, who shot ya
separate the weak from the obsolete
You meek? I creep hard on imposters
I switch styles on a dime, quick witted
Y’all quit trippin’, I don’t have time for your cryin’
I grind tough, sucka make your mind up
Are you in the firing squad or are you in the line up?
Bang bang, little monkey man playing
With the big guns only get you slayed, I ain’t playing
I’m just saying you ain’t gotta sliver of a chance
I get iller, I deliver while you quiver in your pants
So shake shake down, money here’s the break down
You can play the bank, I’mma play the bank take down
And no mistakes now I’m coming to getcha
I’m a Banksy, you’re a brainwash, get the picture?
It’s like that”

Now, based on that alone, if they wanted to create a remix project for this entire album where they brought in a number of rappers to compliment Shinoda, I’d welcome it. Hell, I’d love it, get me to assist in being an executive producer for it.

My high praise for what Shinoda should not take away anything from Mr. Bennington, because what he sings is the lure that keep pop and pop-metal fans listening. For hip-hop fans who aren’t afraid to rock out, Living Things is quite good and I think fits in as something that could easily compliment the band’s first two albums. The production is superb, and while Rubin definitely doesn’t need an apprentice, if this leads to more outside productions between Rubin and Shinoda, I’m all for it.

White Suns are a Brooklyn trio who go to a number of extremes. They have a minimalist tendency, but they do it with volume. On Sinews (Load), they create music that can either be frantic, sonically loud, or so irritable because of how they pace their songs, that you want to punch your speaker or headphones. When they are noisy, they take it out on their instruments through distorted bass and guitar, along with drums that could make your ears bleed. They’ll chug it out in a fashion that may make White Mice, Alice Donut, Trumans Water Big Black and early Sunny Day Real Estate fans smile, but then they’re stop and let feedback take its own journey. Then out of nowhere they return and they’ll either go where you assume they will, or most likely they’ll flip you over and suck your eyeballs out. Imagine a rusty screwdriver going into the skull of a homeless man. Now imagine that homeless man surviving and returning the favor. That’s the sound of White Suns: the echoes of an attack worth watching like the musical voyeur you are.

Portland’s Chicarones is a superduo featuring Sleep of Oldominion and Josh Martinez, who get a chance to not only become a force as one, but to share the quirks that both are known for within the context of their new musical union. Por Que? Pork Eh? (Camobear) sounds as twisted and weird as what pop music sounds like on the radio, but with a bit more… I was going to say sense, but even within Chicarones’ sense is a bit of careful nonsense that feels right, as if someone decided to revive Reaching Quiet or cLOUDDEAD, give them a shave and spray some Binaca into their mouths and ears.

When they get into hip-hop, they know how to do it with a bit of dorky touches but never too far away so that fans can’t appreciate them for simply loving and knowing how to rap. They know how to twist up their indie pop sensibilities so that if they want to come off collegiate, they could easily hop on tour with Justin Bieber and be one of the more daring groups of North America. Their coverage is done with equal passion, so just as listeners may get a bit comfortable with one style, they’re already bailing out. If Drake had testicles, he still couldn’t make music as good as that on Por Que? Pork Eh. Their brief tributes to Outkast, The Pharcyde, Rihanna, and DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince? I wish hip-hip as a whole was still as spirited as this.

While AGFA have the word “funk” in their name, what they do isn’t just funk. The All Good Funk Alliance do play music that would be good (the term “all good” sucks so let’s stop using it as a means to try to sound hipper than you are), but it’s a bit more dance oriented than just all-out funk, but within their style of dance music is soul, electronic sounds, and a knack to simply create irresistible dancers.

Jacks Of All Trades (Fort Knox) sometimes off off like Chemical Brothers‘ less hectic cousins, caught up between what they were like between Dig Your Own Hole and Surrender. Nothing is as acid-tinged as the Chemicals, it’s more a natural high for fans of soul with the scent of hashish and burlap. This is music that edits the fat out and keeps it to what fans want to hear: the good parts of songs that keep you moving and strutting, and making that the core of what they’re about, playing “all” the “good” things that make you want to scratch your crotch and wipe it on the face of your potential buck fuddy. If this was 1977, this is what you would deem as future disco. Become the Felipe Rose you always wanted to be, slap those bells on your ankles, and stomp until the sun rises.

Synchro Remixed EP One is a remixed treatment of Herma Puna‘s Synchromystic album. The multi-country duo of Pimpernel Jones (who is from the UK) and Simple X (U.S.) create music that shows what hip-hop music is and where it can be without a care for popularity or acceptance. In other words, they create music that feels good to them first and foremost, and it just so happens that they have a small but growing devoted audience. They can sometimes be pimped out in a Digable Planets or Camp Lo vibe verbally, but then they’ll take off and sound perfect in an electronic world, one that can at times be distant from hip-hop’s perceived core but is never too far from it.

The remixes here range from funky hip-hop to Afrobeat, electronica to soul and if this is what brings people to hear Herma Puna for the first time, good. It may be remixed, but this could have easily been their proper album too. Most remix albums wished they were this good.

One may see the cover of Carol Robbins playing the harp on her new album Moraga and wonder what it may sound like. Now imagine a harp being backed by a jazz sextet that features Gary Novak (drums), Darek Oles (bass), Larry Koonse (guitar), Gary Meek (saxophone & clarinet), and Billy Childs (piano). It’s the kind of jazz one may find perfect in a setting while listening to music by John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, and Herbie Hancock. One may tend to think of things beautiful and angelic with a harp, or maybe solely in classical terms, but what Robbins does is simply add it to a strong set of jazz performances and becomes one with her group and the music. There are moments where it may sound as delicate as a piano but as strong as a meaty saxophone solo.

The majority of this album consists of Robbins originals, and no joke, this sounds like an album one might have listened to in 1962, 1967, 1972, or 1978 but it’s newly recorded and released in 2012, and its vibe simply comes from hearing music that sounds like everyone is “all for one and one for all” for the love of jazz. In a track like “The Sand Rover” there is even a brief but wild harp solo, and I was almost waiting for it to be played through a wah-wah or something, just to hear how Robbins would take it. Pianist Childs plays like some of the greats, obviously showing his experiences while displaying his influences throughout his playing, explored in a song he gets to perform with Childs, “Hope In The Face Of Despair”. I get a good amount of jazz, but this is one that stood out for me because of how these songs are played and how they’re programmed on the album. There’s care in this, and I’m going to play it again.

(You can purchase the MP3 and/or CD version of Moraga from CDBaby.)

The music on Pearl Django‘s Eleven (Modern Hot) is a mixture of jazz, folk, and a bit of flamenco, I tend to hear a few Spanish origins but it may be other things, but it could be considered the kind of music that would welcome in new people from the old country at the wharf.

If you are someone who is “of the world” with the music you listen to, you will like how varied this is, for while all of the songs are unique and distinct, there is a root value to all of this, one that has to do not so much with where it originated from, but of all the travels various cultures made in order for these sounds to be distinct and unique. In a way, it shows how united we all are, as we create sounds that tell our stories that words sometimes cannot express. Eleven is a mixture of originals and well known covers by Duke Pearson, Count Basie, and Thelonious Monk. It tends to welcome self-identity by blurring it for a moment, only for the listener to take on what is loved and be overwhelmed by the possible reality that we may all be from one place, divided by borders.

Talk about a trip. Ahab is a name for a band that may bring a wide range of thoughts, and if I were to tell you that they were a rock band who mix up indie and progressive rock, you might go “oh, this might be something I could really enjoy.” Now let me add that within that, they’ll spew out various types of metal, including death and black metal. Now what?

The Giant is an album that will keep you guessing throughout, for when there are moments where it’ll enter a Danzig or Voi Vod vibe, but then two minutes later it becomes so disgusting and raw, it may make you open the bandage just to smell the wound so you know it’s real. It’s a 6-song album where the shortest track is just under eight minutes, and when they want to bring the listener into the aura of what they’re doing, they’ll play it out at a grinding and sludgy pace while decorating the soundscape with a lot of color and depth. It’s not heaviness for the sake of sounding this way, but when it’s done this way (and done very well, I may add), you want to be captured by the sonics and turn it up loud. Some of it even sounds like it could be extreme folk, if there was ever such a genre, or at least some of the melodies within are things some may not expect to hear in a style of music that at times sounds vulgar. Then again, a good amount of metal roots have origins in certain types of folk and classical, and Ahab graces itself in a number of different styles but still comes out sounding like eating mud.

It was sometimes hard to keep track of Beck when he was signed to DGC/Geffen, but now as an independent artist, he seems to be back to recording and releasing music at… maybe not furious, but at an unpredictable pace. He has released a new 45 on Third Man Records as part of their Blue Series. This one begins with the country blues of “I Just Started Hating Some People Today”, and while it may start out sounding perfect for The Grand Ole Opry, there’s a bit of funk in the drums that shows that this is a different song, equipped with the lyric:
“I just started wanting to punch your face
you might want to wear a helmet, just in case
what was once your face is gonna be replaced
and I just started wanting to punch your face”

It’s tender in a sarcastic way, at least Beck and Jack White, who joins Beck throughout the song, makes it feel that way. When the song is over, you can only hold your breath and wonder what Beck will do next, and he punks/fucks it up in a fashion that will make Beck fans pee pee in their pants. Others online have commented on why he always likes to ruin music this way. Screw them. Then Karen Elson gets sexy and evil at the end of the song.

The B-side also sounds like a country workhorse, but again, it’s Beck. It may bring to mind the rustic and raw vibe of the One Foot In The Grave album, or even Stereopathetic Soulmanure but with a bigger budget. If you’ve been a longtime fan of Beck as I have, this will please and surprise.

Nick Pride has allowed a wide range of producers to create new versions of songs from his Midnight Feast of Jazz, done in ways that may be a surprise to fans of his jazzy style of soul and funk, but not for those who are enthusiastic of the remixers.

Remixed Feast Of Jazz (Record Kicks) gets a lot of twists and turns with the help of Diester, Renegades Of Jazz, Danny Massure, TM Juke<, and Tim Shaw among other, taking the integrity and power of the original songs and taking it to new levels, whether it means making them sound like deep library soundtrack funk, or manipulating the songs to where you’ll want to make eternal figure eight’s with your hips. Don’t hesitate, pick up this now and if you haven’t heard the original album in which this is remixed from, get that too.