2010

Let’s hear it for those who take risks with their live show. On recordings as Manitoba or Caribou, Dan Snaith exhibits the demeanor of an electro-psychedelic perfectionist, layering sounds and textures into a dense swirl. That’s the kind of drag-and-drop approach that doesn’t always translate well to the stage, but it’s never thrown off Snaith, who has turned his band into a ferocious live animal. With a PhD in mathematics, Snaith is aware of the Boadrum Theorem– live awesomeness increases exponentially by the number of drummers onstage– and bolsters that rhythmic attack with projections, costumes, and a willingness to expand upon a song’s recorded blueprint.

For 2009’s All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in New York, Snaith was able to indulge those practices to their fullest with the 15-piece Caribou Vibration Ensemble, a two-off (including a Toronto warm-up show) project now commoditized into a limited-edition double-vinyl live release. You want drummers? They’ve got four of them, plus a horn section led by Sun Ra sideman Marshall Allen, Four Tet’s Kieran Hebden on the knobs, and a gaggle of other friends to broadcast the noises in Snaith’s head. The crowded stage allows him to gets closer than ever to replicating the overstuffed studio sound of Caribou, while also enabling a few flashes of deep musical exploration.

The songs picked for this set were already pretty busy on record, where Snaith seems determined to find the maximum amount of sound he can pack into a song without collapsing into chaos. Here, he finds that tipping point and then unleashes Allen’s alto saxophone into the carnage on the other side. “Skunks”, from the Manitoba days, already had a healthy dose of free-jazz skronk, so it doesn’t change much under this strategy. But “Barnowl”, from 2005’s The Milk of Human Kindness, gets a full makeover, almost doubling its recording length. On the album version, the song’s motorik beat chugs along relatively unperturbed; here, it’s tormented and decimated until it flies apart into a thrilling wall of freeform noise, then reconstructed more menacingly than before.

Not everything here is so densely exhausting. “Melody Day” is a haunting exception, reversing the more-is-more premise and stripping down the original to harmonies, a moving, unnoisy sax solo, and ghostly electronics. Other songs don’t receive dramatic reworkings from their album version, but still get a fresh gloss from the large ensemble taking the place of backing tapes. Manitoba/Caribou records benefit from being played at loud volume, but here the live mix does the work for you, unleashing the overwhelming drum corps stampede of “Every Time She Turns Round It’s Her Birthday” and “Hendrix with Ko” while Allen’s horn section wails like a circus tent full of frightened elephants.

Of course, hearing that noisy ruckus on wax is likely a poor substitute for seeing the set live; the multiplicative majesty of multiple drum sets is an effect that needs to be felt as much as heard. Through home speakers, the set feels a bit claustrophobic in a way that probably didn’t hurt experiencing it live in the Catskills, where all those vibrating reeds and drum heads would wash over and through the crowd. Such is the curse of any live recording, which makes it all the more important for the event being documented to be something special, to provide more than just crowd noise and stage banter. That’s not a problem here, where the brief, fascinating existence of Snaith’s impractical ensemble was definitely worth preserving.

— Rob Mitchum, October 6, 2010

Gucci Mane’s first post-prison mixtape of 2010, Mr. Zone 6, was another successful outing for one of rap’s most divisive artists. With Gucci’s focus on nimble rap acrobatics over an almost flat-line production style, the record was a victory for lyrical density at the expense of the colorful songwriting and stylistic affects that characterized his 2007-2009 output. The multi-dimensional pop approach that congealed memorably on 2008’s The Movie mixtape had taken a backseat, a possible by-product of his court-enforced sobriety. Maybe he’s fallen from the wagon, because Jewelry Selection is a more musically dynamic record than Mr. Zone 6, and its production, much of it from longstanding collaborator Drumma Boi, again pops from the speakers.

This reflects well on both 2010 records and the Gucci project at large, his conceptual range letting fans choose their favorite approach. Jewelry Selection has its own drawbacks; despite competent rapping, “Gucci Time” is banal, a rehash of Jay-Z’s “On to the Next One” with an unnecessarily shrill Justice sample. (Someone at Gucci HQ still hasn’t figured out that it was the artist’s untainted appeal, cf. “Wasted” and “Lemonade”, that made for his greatest commercial successes.) It’s also unclear why anyone thought the rote Rick Ross-style strip club banger “Makin Love to the Money” needed to mar two of his 2010 releases. But the bulk of Jewelry Selection works in much more novel terrain. Like so many of his best mixtapes, Gucci operates by zooming in on one strain of his style and blowing it up to LP length with a multitude of variations, adding new dimensions to a massive, shifting body of work.

In this case, he fleshes out the archetype captured by The Burrrprint (2): HD’s “Coca Coca”– darker lyrical themes delivered with straight-faced detachment over ominous, gothic production. What makes this vein particularly vibrant is how it balances the more eccentric elements of his persona with street rap’s brutal, populist traditionalism. Gucci is a rap version of Heath Ledger’s Joker, his exaggerated mania grounded by the violent reality he represents, the more rote gangster formulas given new life by his colorful charisma.

This minor-key noir infects the bulk of the record’s best tracks– from the early street-level drug talk (“Block Party”, “Trap Talk”) to the whisper-flow menace of “Cleopatra” to the record’s eerie peak, the one-word concept track “Gross”. The mixtape warps its own street clichés the further it flows, ultimately draping them in horror film conceits on “Poltergeist” and “Vampires”. In between you have enough variety to keep the record’s sonic approach from feeling one-note. The tape is less concerned with technical fluency, and a few of the verses suggest Gucci may be hearkening back to the days of “no pad, no pencil,” but his lyrics and personality remain inventive. In the end, Jewelry Selection has stuck to the broad template that has paid such creative dividends for the past three years– if you didn’t like him before, this is unlikely to convert you– but it does find the rapper once again pushing into new creative terrain.

— David Drake, August 27, 2010

Hands up, who remembers the 1970s? OK, now who’s gleaned a vague but evocative interpretation of the 70s through its music? Inevitability, the latter group is going to eventually outnumber the former group, and eventually the archivists and revisionists and reinterpreters will be all that’s left. And while it’d be nice to think that this group of historical translators is going to do that weird, alternately maligned and lionized pop-music era justice, it’s easy to overlook just how received some of that wisdom might be. Yes, Curtis Mayfield and Marvin Gaye were great– but they were great when there wasn’t an established standard for what Curtis Mayfield and Marvin Gaye were yet. Following their lead might take you places, but you don’t sweat too much when shadows that tall give you shade every step of the way.

Aloe Blacc’s recently taken this classic-soul path after years of laboring under an intriguing indie-rap jack-of-all genres approach. And while he clearly studied the vintage R&B greats before creating Good Things, he’s content just building a reasonably convincing backlot replica of classic soul rather than putting a new twist on it. Blacc doesn’t display the sweet vocal flair of a Raphael Saadiq à la The Way I See It, or the modernized post-hip-hop touch of Ne-Yo in “Back Like That” mode. What he does have is a sort of straightforward emulation of that certain R&B singer-songwriter vibe, a modest, filed-down compromise somewhere between Bill Withers’ raw, aching warmth and the smooth, subtle intensity of Donny Hathaway. That voice isn’t without his strengths, and lead single-slash-How to Make It in America title theme “I Need a Dollar” is the best exhibit: His voice is strong enough to push back against the spring-step backbeat and turn the chorus into an earworm. If it’s the song people know him for from here on out, he could do a lot worse.

While Good Things is well-constructed and boasts some inspired touches (the backbone-shivering strings on “Take Me Back” and “Life So Hard”; a slick, skulking reggae groove on “Miss Fortune”), it lacks the foggy, borderline-sinister allure of the best El Michels Affair compositions it strives to match. And with Aloe Blacc’s lyrics skewing toward sentiments that straddle the line between “universal” and “so what else is new,” Good Things doesn’t do much to catch you off guard. He can tug at your heartstrings when the opportunity presents itself; good luck listening to “Momma Hold My Hand” without getting a lump in your throat when he sings, “Momma used to be strong, but she ain’t now.” But enough of his lyrics lean heavily enough on generations-old songwriting tropes– pouring his heart out for a woman by telling her that “you make me smile”; lamenting about “families in the street with nothing to eat/ Little baby boys and girls, no shoes on their feet”; calling politicians “hungry wolves dressed like sheep”– that genuinely human and heartfelt ideas, even sung as warmly as they are, come across through their words like slogans you’ve long since tuned out.

Complicating things is the fact that Aloe Blacc’s last album, 2006’s Shine Through, was an inspired and often-innovative shot at pushing hip hop-inflected R&B forward; there were a few baffling moments, but he was defiantly ambitious enough to do some pretty out-there things to minimalist disco, Tropicália, and Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come”. The one time Good Things actually hits on a comparable throw-out-the-blueprint moment, it’s with an unlikely cover– in this case, the Velvet Underground’s “Femme Fatale”, re-envisioned as a satin-suited ballad for slow dances. That’s a neat bit of unconventional thinking that this album could’ve used a little more of– less by-the-book horn charts and worn-out homilies, more era-hopping hybrids and unexpected detours. As it stands, Good Things feels like hopping into a time machine, dialing it to 40 years ago, then forgetting to bring a stack of recent 12″ singles with you to completely blow 1970’s mind.

— Nate Patrin, September 30, 2010

Lil Wayne is not back. Not yet. As of this writing, he’s due to be released from the Eric M. Taylor Center at Rikers Island on November 4. But even when he switches from inmate #02616544L to Dwayne Carter, free man, will he return as the world beater who stunned us with mixtapes like Dedication 2 and albums like Tha Carter III or will he continue to explore (um) riskier sonic territory á la Rebirth? And, considering his penchant toward exuberant rhymes and a lifestyle blissfully unaware of the word “no,” will we ever see the same Wayne that stomped straight into the camera rapping “I’d rather be pushin’ flowers than to be in the pen sharin’ showers,” in the “A Milli” video? On July 22, 2007, just hours before he would be caught with the .40 caliber pistol that would eventually land him in jail, I saw Wayne end a triumphant NYC show at the famed, fancy Beacon Theater by blaring Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” through the speakers. That night he was funny and dangerous and unpredictable. So: Even when Wayne ends his eight months of forced containment, will that Wayne really be back?

As we prepare to find out, we first get I Am Not a Human Being, an album’s worth of material recorded before his jail stint and featuring some tracks originally intended for his proper return LP, Tha Carter IV. The record is supposed to act as a reminder of his existence and a precursor to his freedom. And, since it’s a genuine hip-hop record with Wayne rapping most of the time, it helps to put his guitar-torturing, choke-throttling Rebirth incarnation to rest. I Am Not a Human Being is the latest in a long line of songs and videos Wayne has appeared on since entering Rikers on March 8; we’ve seen green-screened versions of him in clips with Eminem, along with his Young Money cohorts Drake and Nicki Minaj. These appearances are meant to show his resiliency and relevancy but oftentimes come off a little depressing– since he’s usually standing in front of an obviously phony and confined backdrop, the videos emphasize his absence more than anything else. I Am Not a Human Being draws a similarly conflicted response. He’s there but he’s not there.

We get Wayne spouting classic Weezy-isms– explicit sex, cartoonish gunplay, and allusions to the intricacies of the digestive system abound– over at-least-decent original beats, several of which attempt to replicate the space-snap wallop of his biggest hit, “Lollipop”. But there’s a lingering sense that the rapper is not in top gear; his flow is often slow and static, his wordplay lively yet less energized than what we’re now used to. When he says, “I been fly so long I fell asleep on the fuckin’ plane,” or, “So far ahead of them, I feel outdated” in this context, the lines could be taken as a boasts or sighs. And while Wayne was presumably aware of his impending jail term during the recording of some of these tracks, you’d never know it. The most real-life anxiety shown is on the title Run-D.M.C.-style track, when he admits, “Still get a stomach ache every time I see cops.” It’s a far cry from his “A Milli” invincibility: “Tell the coppers: ‘Hahahaha!’/ You can’t get him, you can’t stop him.”

There is one distinct upshot. The finest three songs on I Am Not a Human Being all feature the man who has quickly become Wayne’s best-ever counterpart, Drake. The two rappers’ contrasting qualities– Wayne is coarse and random and hoarse while Drake is smooth and exact and clear– bring out surprising sides of each other. On the sweet-soul track “With You”, the Pretty Toney-style beat and Drake’s croon draw out Wayne at his most human. Meanwhile, the superhero-synth track “Right Above It” would seemingly fit well on an idealized Tha Carter IV with Drake rhyming breathless as Wayne handles the Auto-Hook. The two have teased at a full collaborative album and, considering the tracks here– along with worthy past collaborations like “Miss Me” and “I’m Goin’ In”– it has the potential to be one of those rare dream projects that lives up to its promise.

Speaking of Drake, he had this to say about I Am Not a Human Being when talking to MTV recently: “I think it’s just a lotta Wayne songs that… you know, it’s just that pre-… it’s that pre-… it’s that stuff that people wanna hear– but I think Carter IV is gonna be on another level.” Not really a sticker-ready quote. His hesitation is justified– this release has neither the conceptual, lasting power of Tha Carter III nor the inspired spontaneity of Wayne’s best mixtapes. And since it was recorded before such a traumatic, life-changing event, it’s likely to serve more as a clearinghouse than an indication of what’s to come. In one of the more lucid moments in the must-see documentary The Carter, Wayne– then 25– looks into his crystal ball and says, “[When I’m] 28, 29 you’ll be lookin’ for a Lil Wayne album to be full of rap– the best rap. Full of singin’– the best songs, not the best singin’. Full of music. Not just whatever you look for now.” Wayne has already done better versions of almost every song on I Am Not a Human Being, which was released on his 28th birthday last week. It’s not exactly what we’re looking for now.

— Ryan Dombal, October 5, 2010