INTO THE SWAMP

Lil Wayne - Something You Forgot (off The Drought Is Over 2: The...

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 14:51:56 +0100

Lil Wayne - Something You Forgot (off The Drought Is Over 2: The Carter III Sessions, 2007, internets)

pain, since I’ve lost you I’m lost too

Big Eyes - Being Unkind (off Almost Famous, 2013, Grave...

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 14:15:54 +0100

Big Eyes - Being Unkind (off Almost Famous, 2013, Grave Mistake)

Nobody’s really yelling from the roofs about how good Big Eyes’ sophomore LP is so allow me: Almost Famous is something you need playing while driving your car or making dinner (the ways I’ve been listening to it) so you can shock yourself by realising how many of the songs have burrowed their way into your brain and won’t budge. The best songs are the post-breakup accounts like ‘Being Unkind’, songs that swarm with pop nuance to sweeten singer Kate Eldridge’s bitter mantras. “Now it’s all said and done,” she growls near the song’s end, “I don’t want to hear about you.” Then again, punchier this time: “Don’t wanna hear about you!” Then a guitar solo arrives, the sound of someone shaking off their shackles and moving on to something better.

weloveyouhype: OutKast ‘Benz or Beamer’ (1995) Suddenly...

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 13:31:00 +0100

weloveyouhype:

OutKast ‘Benz or Beamer’ (1995)

Suddenly decided to start posting in my Hype Williams appreciation blog again. Watching the man’s recent videos can be mighty depressing, especially when you go back and watch something as taut and well-executed as the ‘Benz or Beamer’ video. There’s the Bankhead Bounce immortalised on screen as well as these nifty-ass EAST POINT workshirts. Would pay top dolla for one of these, just so you know.

YOU JUST A COMMENTATOR Baz Luhrman may consider himself a...

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 21:34:44 +0100

YOU JUST A COMMENTATOR

Baz Luhrman may consider himself a fabulist, but he’s an even better fantabulist. His films are drenched in sheer luminosity and crafted as overwhelming entertainments, yet they appear dizzily distant from palpable human reactions. An example: his romantic adventure Australia (2008) is an epic that believes in love but offers to settle for the comfort of gesturing at it from afar. (Same with the film’s namby-pamby well-intentioned racial politics, but that’s another longwinded blog post for another day.) Luhrman is obviously a man with a lot of heart and plenty of passion, but he throws both factors onto the screen and rarely works out how they will work successfully in tandem.

This year’s kinda-blockbuster The Great Gatsby is his most reasonable film – as layered a confection as his other films, but leavened with a healthy doze of cynicism lifted from its source material. The soft-focus, Lana Del Rey-soundtracked Dicaprio/Mulligan affair that pushes the story forward is well executed. However, the bitterness of its outcome helps Luhrman along as a storyteller. No longer does he have to sell-sell-sell the power of love, not when there’s crumbling American dreams and American lives that he can sell-sell-sell via gutsy juxtapositions of pop culture.

This means that a pitch-shifted version of NY rapper Despot ‘100$ Bill’ drowns out the sound of Amitabh Bachchan drawling wonderfully in a speakeasy. (Bachchan, probably the biggest movie star in the world, gets barely five minutes of screen time and an introduction nearly as over-the-top as Dicaprio’s fireworks extravaganza. It’s hilarious and worth the price of admission alone.) You have a white American chanting a mantra alongside Jay-Z’s timeless black cool, whilst a legend of Hindi cinema plays a Jewish gangster stereotype onscreen. It’s one of the most pleasant clusterfucks I’ve experienced in a cinema all year, a cross-cultural multiethnic celebration of men relishing the commerce of ill repute.

That has nothing on a scene about forty or so minutes into the film: narrator and audience surrogate Nick (Tobey Maguire, the purest emotional face in all of big-budget American film) scrambles to leave a party before being plied by offers of ladies, pills and alcohol. As he drinks, the voiceover paraphrases F Scott Fitzgerald’s prose: “I had been drunk just twice in my life, and the second time was that afternoon…” Maguire’s eyes bug open and the Throne’s mammoth ‘Who Gon Stop Me’ drops so loudly, its juddering bass shook the armrest of my seat.

With Gatsby and the hand of none other than Jay-Z, Luhrman and music supervisor Anton Monsted make decisions I have been dying to see in cinema culture. Hip-hop is the biggest musical genre in the world in terms of influence and record sales yet in cinema it is mainly tethered to inner city narratives or tired Caucasian irony. A month ago, I posted that Chief Keef’s ‘Love Sosa’ should soundtrack an Andrew Dominik film and I wasn’t even joking. It bores me to hear an entire genre of music soldered to specific cinematic genres and it bores me to hear few music supervisors take the chances on putting hip-hop in films. (Same with cinema culture’s treatment of metal, but that’s another longwinded blog post for another day.) So I applaud Luhrman and Monsted for their attempts, especially with ‘Who Gon Stop Me’, its drenched-in-money sheen making a surprisingly good match with the alcohol-fuelled jubilation of the Jazz Age.

While the juxtaposition of new and old/black and white/158^th St Nicholas and 147 Mercer St is a thrill, it also highlights the problem of using hip-hop in an anachronistic manner. Like ‘100$ Bill’ and a goosed-up sliver of ‘No Church in the Wild’ in the film’s opening, ‘Who Gon Stop Me’ dashes around, rapidly flashing relevant Kanye lyrics before tuning out into its instrumental. It appears to be an attempt by Luhrman and Monsted to take control of the song, to make it serve the visual narrative. But ‘Who Gon Stop Me’ has its own narrative, one too tricky to fit into the world of Nick Carraway’s shellshocked drinking and Myrtle Wilson’s broken nose. That is truly unique in hip-hop’s DNA: it jumps from topic to topic, metaphor to metaphor, chasing its own tale and making its own story as it goes from verse to verse, a celebration of language with a penchant for the non-linear. The first lines of ‘Who Gon Make It’ survive Gatsby’s cut’n’paste job, making for a jarring moment where Kanye compares the treatment of black Americans to the Holocaust over Luhrman’s meticulously choreographed partying. The Holocaust lurks around the corner from the onscreen antics, a mere seven or so years away; the only black characters on screen are servants, dancers or hookers, descendants of the same race dichotomy Kanye yells about. The usage of ‘Who Gon Stop Me’ intriguingly propels Gatsby to another level whilst refusing to comply with the limitations set by the medium. Like the story’s narrator, it is “both within and without”.

From the May 21 edition of the Combat Jack Show, here is a...

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 20:48:47 +0100

From the May 21 edition of the Combat Jack Show, here is a snippet of Bun B explaining how he can move solo dolo. If nobody makes a chorus or a full-fledged song out of Bun promising to beat you up in aisle three of your local supermarket, 2013 has failed us all.

Today in Taksim, Istanbul, Turkey, protestors were attacked by police officers with tear gas and water canons. The protest was about the Gezi Parkı, which is one of the rare places left with hundred years old trees, getting destroyed so a mall could be built. Protestors, which included babies, children and very old people, started camping there so trees wouldn't be cut four days ago. Today, around 5 am, protestors got attacked in their sleep. Tear gasses were sprayed right in their eyes and their tents were burnt. It didn't end with that. They continued attacking citizens with tear gas and and water canons and blocked their way of escape. A wall collapsed on citizens running from police officers. Tear gasses were not thrown on air, but on protestors' head. Ambulances weren't let in to treat injured people. Shops nearby let protestor hide inside, but police officers threw tear gasses inside. Trains headed to Taksim were also attacked with tear gasses, and the exit doors were closed on them. Citizens opened their houses for help. Medical students and lawyers (for people who got arrested) shared their location and numbers on internet. Hotels assured rooms for injured people and were tranformed into hospitals for the time being. Although all roads leading to Taksim were blocked, people walked their way in to help. Lots of people were seriously injured and died. The attack still hasn't stopped. Turkish media is censored, so we're seeking help from you. Please share this and let the world known.

Sun, 02 Jun 2013 14:50:53 +0100

asheerio:

mariegoemzs:

PLEASE READ THIS

Please guys read this and reblog. PLEASE

Can people pass this around and recommend some good media sources/twitter accounts to keep in touch with any Turkish friends we’ve got over there? Thx.

fans self in anticipatory excitement WILL IT BE SAD-RAP THO,...

Sat, 01 Jun 2013 22:58:25 +0100

*fans self in anticipatory excitement*

WILL IT BE SAD-RAP THO, THAT’S WHAT I WANNA KNOW

thesinglesjukebox: thesinglesjukebox: BEYONCÉ - GROWN...

Sat, 01 Jun 2013 22:25:14 +0100

thesinglesjukebox:

thesinglesjukebox:

BEYONCÉ - GROWN WOMAN

Rebecca A. Gowns: My favorite parts of this song: the Fela Kuti flavor (including some pretty brilliant polyrhythms and a brass section in the outro), the MANY layers of call and response, the pure joy, the harmony on “got a cute face and booty so fat!”…so many things. Most of all, I love the small “But of course!” line thrown in there, delivered by a bitchy passive-aggressive white girl. “I’m a grown woman! I can do whatever I want!” Beyonce belts, and in the background, there’s that tiny valley girl voice: “But of course!” That’s gotta be intentional; this song is just as much a response to her (white feminist) critics as “Bow Down” was. What makes it extra delicious is that this is the only spiteful part of the song — “But of course!” — and it’s coming from some weird non-Beyonce character (a single character, with not a single echo, chorus effect, or call and response acknowledging her). Beyonce made the hater a part of her song. This is a trophy song, a song to celebrate her and all her achievements, and it’s topped with the head of her enemy. I’m so happy.

[10]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox ]

1,000 notes!

HOLY SHIT. <3

P Money - Bring in the Katz (off #MAD, 2013, the internets) If...

Wed, 29 May 2013 21:32:55 +0100

P Money - Bring in the Katz (off #MAD, 2013, the internets)

If you’ve never heard of P Money, he is one of grime’s most reliable, an MC who bypasses overly technical rhyme schemes for full-fledged, almost old school blunt force. He can spit as fast as anybody else, trigger a rave with the best of them, but is best at sounding authoritative - a voice of burly control that you would never try crossing.

The man’s recent #MAD tape functions as a sequel of types to last August’s Dubsteppin EP: hard bars over club production, with little frills or concepts beyond turning dancefloors into DMZs. When it came to beats, Dubsteppin had the unparalleled assistance of London radio and club kings Rinse. Left to his own devices, P Money falls into a few inevitable traps (nobody needs to hear another ‘Higher’ or ‘Harlem Shake’ freestyle at this point) but also has sounds like he’s having more fun than usual. He cheekily teases rapping over ‘Gangnam Style’ before shoving it to the side for a snarling freestyle. He coins a truly guffaw-worthy punchline about “a Durex umbrella”. He does a mean “2 CHAIIIIIIINNZZZZZ”. In the midst of this clearing-the-air jokeyness, he hijacks a B-More club oldie and crafts an absolute stunner out of it.

KW Griff’s ‘Bring in the Katz’ has been floating about as a Baltimore staple for a few years before a 12” reissue on Night Slugs surfaced last year. The simplicity of the track - a ‘Think’ break here, some louder-than-bombs claps, hyperactive toasting by a dude called Pork Chop - leave it sounding as though it could have been released ten days or ten years ago. It’s a monster, unbeholden by trends or movements. P Money interestingly takes on Griff’s original mix rather than the minimalist sprawl of the more recent L-Vis 1990 remix, and it’s a decision that pays off in heaps. He’s egged on by the Pork Chop sample (“YES!” “OH!”) like he’s in the middle of the rave, turning an already energetic track into something befitting a riot, gassed off the vibes: “I’m every girl’s DREAM! Roll with ME!” His verse finishes and Pork Chop, a master of ceremonies turned hypeman, calms us down. Then Griff brings in the katz* and it’s havoc once again. The track’s all over in under three minutes, but not before P Money marks his ground: “YOUR TUNE’S DEAD, BRUV!” Even when he’s having fun, it’s through brute force.

* a reference to a sample of Kevin Aviance’s ‘Din Da Da’ scatting buried somewhere within the track. That’s an amazing song, too, by the by.

Tyler, the Creator feat. Na’kel, Jasper, Lucas, L-Boy,...

Sat, 25 May 2013 16:39:14 +0100

Tyler, the Creator feat. Na’kel, Jasper, Lucas, L-Boy, Taco, Left Brain & Lee Spielman - Trashwang (off Wolf, 2013, Odd Future Records)

I haven’t listened to Wolf for a couple of weeks because it is, to be honest, exhausting to listen to. Tyler’s flitting between vulgarity and storytelling and experiments and honesty so often, more so than on his previous LPs, that it begins to tire by the halfway mark. Tyler’s certainly a genius kid, but there’s perhaps too much Tyler on this album, more than ever.

So obviously my favourite track is the time-honoured stoopid piss-about posse cut in the spirit of ‘Tina’ and ‘We Got Bitches’. Number one, it has a Jasper verse, a rapper whose utter lack of skill is one of the most endearing OFWGKTA in-jokes. Number two, they shout out Lil B’s Task Force which come on. Third of all - and most importantly - Left Brain’s hook is a tribute to Waka’s ‘Turnt Up Niggaz’. This song would have to have tried its hardest to stink for me not to unconditionally love it.

javariscrittenton: FADE IN:CHRISTCHURCH - CITY CENTER - DAWN Our HERO is camped among the hollow...

Sat, 25 May 2013 14:04:54 +0100

javariscrittenton:

FADE IN:

CHRISTCHURCH - CITY CENTER - DAWN

Our HERO is camped among the hollow husks of buildings destroyed in savage internecine warfare. A fire crackles beside him and he appears well provisioned for the road.

CUE “LOVE SOSA” EMANATING FAINTLY FROM NEARBY RUINS

I have imagined films beginning this way, but they’re usually scumbag down-to-Earth gangster films. Still: someone should let Young Chop score an Andrew Dominik film!

Young Gully - Mislead You (off HM5, 2012, self-released) The Bay...

Fri, 24 May 2013 06:16:00 +0100

Young Gully - Mislead You (off HM5, 2012, self-released)

The Bay Area’s Young Gully is responsible for one of my favourite hip-hop songs of recent years, ‘The Go-In’, a playfully masterful example of rappin’ ass rappin’. He compares himself to a cockatoo, a Doberman and a schedule; calls his opponents vegetables and eats them; claims he’s in your girl “like a condo”, which is both a goofy metaphor and a potential Grandpa Simpson reference. “I am not trying,” he laughs as the track fades out, ruefully shaking his head as though to say: this is effortless, this is nothing to me.

By comparison, the recently released HM5 mixtape (props to Thizzler) is all effort. There’s playfulness there but it’s in brief spurts, replaced by an intensity to keep rhyming, keep proving, keep going. Gully is on his tunnel vision shit here. Once you delete the momentum-sapping for-the-ladies jams - yeah, do that immediately - HM5 reveals itself as a solid tape full of good beats and impassioned rapping. Its best track is ‘Mislead You’, containing not only one of Gully’s more intense performances, but a wordiness and a worldliness that keeps you listening: “sometimes I’m blind to the facts like they come in braille,” he spits, in total understanding of his follies, sifting through the wreckage through tumbles of words.

I worked a job once upon a time. I kept this photo of Hedi...

Sun, 12 May 2013 14:07:20 +0100

I worked a job once upon a time. I kept this photo of Hedi Slimane, a photo of Ineko Arima and a few lines from Elizabeth Alexander’s poem ‘Praise Song for the Day’ above my desk so that I had beautiful things to make me feel good about myself.

Yeah, make your desk job worthwhile, y’all.

So here is the Too $hort anecdote that I reference in...

Sat, 11 May 2013 10:25:03 +0100

So here is the Too $hort anecdote that I reference in yesterday’s TSJ review of Kid Cudi’s ‘Girls’, which got mad shitted on. (Full episode is up here.)

Annie - Tube Stops and Lonely Hearts (digital single, 2013,...

Wed, 08 May 2013 22:57:27 +0100

Annie - Tube Stops and Lonely Hearts (digital single, 2013, self-released) [via thesinglesjukebox]

Sometimes I have problems that are hard to soolllllveeeeee and I address them by writing megashort stories in place of traditional music reviews.

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: “12:30/I’m about to depart.” The night has begun, a cavalcade of bad vibes. As Norwegian public transport trundles along, Annie sits shaken and broken on the way to… somewhere. Anywhere. There’s got to be a beat on the other side, and until that appears, there’s “Tube Stops and Lonely Hearts” in her head. You can almost see the white lights flashing, those huge claps reverberating from wall to wall. With Annie, these sounds do not offer escape from the twitchiness of her words; the ability to nullify the anxiety is not on the table. Here, the club sounds are a welcome extension of bad vibes, a zone where internalized gloom is writ large as nocturnal beats. The music is unnerving and rickety, under its own spell of spookiness. But she’s not there yet. She’s stuck on public transport, keeping as calm as she can with strokes of glossolalia nonsense: “mamama oh mamama oh nanananana”. [8]

Nanananana.

Disclosure feat. Eliza Doolittle - You & Me (off Settle,...

Mon, 06 May 2013 15:50:58 +0100

Disclosure feat. Eliza Doolittle - You & Me (off Settle, 2013, PMR) [via thesinglesjukebox]

Patrick St. Michel: One day, these brothers are going to slip. They’ll release a mediocre song, or even a straight-up dud, and we will all be a little surprised. That’s because Disclosure are on a Miami Heat-like run of fantastic music. Have they even released something approaching so-so? Even more impressive is they’ve done this while sticking mostly to the same formula — straightforward intro into woozy build-up swinging into a fantastic chorus, usually featuring a guest singer absolutely slaying. This is “You & Me,” too, another impressive “W” as they march toward the NBA Fina — er, album release date. [9]

Will Adams: The pop-kissed deep house of “Latch” and “White Noise” are great, but it was the shuffling garage of “Control” that first drew me to Disclosure. “You & Me” picks that up while adding a warmth that sets it apart from its icier predecessor. Disclosure’s skill is in portraying so accurately the intense emotions one feels on a dance floor. Their synth pads wrap around the song at all the right moments, and with Eliza Doolittle’s precise vocals it’s a winning combination. These two are unstoppable.
[9]

Alfred Soto: Another in their winning string of no-fuss dance gems, “You & Me” basks in Doolittle’s warmth. It’s not a matter of pulling any punches: she creates a sonic space in which she and the listener can two-step to the “Show Me Love” template.
[7]

Edward Okulicz: So dance music in 2013 is going to have elements of the musical summers of ‘93 and ‘03 with a vocal performance that could have been straight off an underground disco pop record from ‘83? Even if it lasts just the length of this record, hopefully that movement has a nice long chart life.
[9]

Katherine St Asaph: Disclosure, so far, have managed an illustrious career of making me love vocalists I previously gave zero shits about; when they get Katy B in, it’ll either be amazing or ruin my year. (Quite the feat, that.) “You & Me” continues the streak, but only just. Too pat, maybe; too much contentness, too little tension, too much of a drift toward the coffee bar. Basically, 2015 is going to be full of worse versions of this.
[7]

Brad Shoup: The next entry in Disclosure’s “we can turn everyone icy” sweepstakes. I’m glad Doolittle’s taking a break from being Nellie McKay for nice folks, but someone like Foxes would have brought the fire to an otherwise fine 4 a.m. two-step.
[5]

Jonathan Bogart: Everyone Disclosure works with has a distinct voice and personality, but they still end up sounding like they’re singing a Disclosure song — weightless, bustling, and slightly mournful. I was going to say I’ve never had a problem with Eliza Doolittle before, and then I realized I was confusing her with Holly Golightly; she acquits herself better than that, at any rate.
[7]

Scott Mildenhall: It’s probably not a declaration you’d ever expect to see, but Eliza Doolittle is an asset to this song, her Estuary emulations almost approaching some definition of soulful. Not in the way of Sam Smith’s contribution to “Latch”; her vocal limitations probably ensure the level of restraint that keeps the all-important space intact, but there’s feeling amid the glo’al stops.
[7]

Anthony Easton: Does this sound brittle to anyone else, hiding exhaustion with jittering attention to energy? If that’s the case, it’s a difficult trick to pull off well.
[8]

Crystal Xia: Doolittle isn’t trying too hard to be clever, and that sincerity goes a long way. The way that she sings “my darling” in the chorus is so out of breath and sounds so precious, like she really believes it. But my favorite vocal part is the outro where Doolittle sings about her lover’s house on the hill and refers back to the heart that she had given him several verses earlier. It’s such a simple yet effective bit. Doolittle’s voice is put through some vocal filters that lower the volume and make her seem a little more faded. Disclosure’s done this sort of thing before, where they distort a vocal without losing the emotional intensity. The fact that it works is a testament to their production ability.
[9]

David Lee: Disclosure have this knack for summoning impassioned vocals and then running them through drum loops, stuttering basslines or glowing synths in order to create a vibrant narrative. “You and Me” encompasses the dark nightclub corners and thrilling excursions of an intense, loving relationship, torpedoing my pleasure centers with the tension and release of electric string sections and wound-up synths rising over a sea of skittering jungle and garage rhythms. Few songs, “White Noise” excepted, have racked up as many plays as quickly in my iTunes this year.
[10]

[Read and comment on The Singles Jukebox ]

My blurb, which was lost somewhere between Sunday night and Monday morning:

Perhaps it was because I stumbled upon a Simon Reynolds piece on the genre from a 2001 issue of Vibe. Maybe it was the fact I went to a club night celebrating Craig David’s thirty-second birthday. Either way, I’ve been thinking a lot about two-step the past couple of weeks and how its particularly British amalgamation of R&B, dancehall and house has surfaced in the DNA of bass-music acts like SBTRKT, Koreless and Disclosure. “You & Me” finds the Lawrence brothers exploring senses of comfort, a turn away from the sexual and emotional anxiety that traversed through “Latch” and “White Lights”. Guest Eliza Doolittle vows to her beau that she will let nobody “inside of our happiness”. It’s loyalty to the cause. Likewise, Disclosure find that underneath their bag of tricks (plutonium-bright keys, unassailable melodic approach) there is a loyalty to their two-step influence. In the final minute, Doolittle’s ode to loyalty fades away and her hosts strip the track to its bones. The bubble-pop melodies fade into the aether, revealing the heart of the track. Disclosure confidently allow the shuffling percussion to show their understanding of two-step, displaying their reverence and comfort with the genre’s murky stop-start rhythms. Doolittle’s devoted to her lover - the Brothers Lawrence are devoted to two-step. It’s lovely on both accounts. [8]

duhdoydorothy: hel-looks: Aki, 24 “Aboriginals, cyberindians...

Sun, 05 May 2013 19:49:41 +0100

duhdoydorothy:

hel-looks:

Aki, 24

“Aboriginals, cyberindians and new black rap music like Future inspire me.

I cycle everywhere so my clothes need to be practical.”

3 May 2013, Tyynenmerenkatu

“Aboriginals, cyberindians and new black rap music like Future inspire me.”

“Aboriginals, cyberindians and new black rap music like Future inspire me.”

“Aboriginals, cyberindians and new black rap music like Future inspire me.”

WAUGH FUCK

FUCK

Jarina De Marco - Main Dish (off April Showers, 2013,...

Sun, 05 May 2013 04:56:00 +0100

Jarina De Marco - Main Dish (off April Showers, 2013, self-released)

I’m not downloading a thirty-three song mixtape by Wyclef Jean on principle, even if he did put Pharoahe Monch and Kenny Rogers on the same song back when I was thirteen years old, even if he did premiere this song on it. Nuh-uh, no thanks. I should be sleeping (it’s almost five) but wanted to throw this video up on my page while I’m remembering reference points: particularly the arch post-Beasties pop of Cannonball Jane; the ensuing internet years of internet-savvy popstars accentuating their cool-kid/populist reference points (‘Big Pimpin’ sample!); early M.I.A. mythbuilding (“age five, got kicked out of [the Dominican Republic]/revolution from the start”); makeshift crayon-streaked visual presentation. All the above make ‘Main Dish’ sound like a cynical piece of groupthink pop when it’s actually quite good.

Shiina Ringo - Irohanihoheto (off Irohanihoheto/Kodoku no...

Wed, 01 May 2013 00:34:25 +0100

Shiina Ringo - Irohanihoheto (off Irohanihoheto/Kodoku no Akatsuki EP, 2013, EMI Japan) [via henachokohenachoko]

I think once we accepted that Shiina Ringo wasn’t going to make Kalk Samen Kuri no Hana pt II, once we accepted that she enjoyed indulging her weird theatre-kid tendencies, once we allowed her to exist for commissioned material from the regular TV dramas and ballets, we were going to be okay. If, say, ‘zero chiten kara’ (her last great solo moment) is 9.3 Ringo on the P4K scale, ‘Irohanihoheto’ is 7.2 Shiina. Just nod and pretend you understand, cheers.

DISCLAIMER: IT’S STILL NEW SHIINA AND IT’S A GOOD SONG. THEMATIC AND MUSICAL CONSISTENCY IS UNDERVALUED FROM OUR GENIUSES, LEST WE FORGET.

Also, we the Internet undervalued Zmed for trying to unpack Ringo’s immortal Kalk Samen Kuri no Hana LP as a celebration of its tenth anniversary, so read up because he/she went in.

"The entire point of asking ‘what is punk’ is, like, ‘Nevermind if this performance..."

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 19:36:48 +0100

“The entire point of asking ‘what is punk’ is, like, ‘Nevermind if this performance was good or not— was it undefinable? Was it slightly unsettling? Was it provocative without being political? Did it smell good?’ After that performance, lot of people were scratching their heads, like, ‘Who’s this fucking lunatic?’ It’s more interesting that way. I’m not interested in punk as an aesthetic and I certainly don’t give a shit what some hardcore kid thinks of our record. It’s a fucking arm-wrestling match, and it’s pathetic. My idea of punk is not being interested in what other people think of punk.”

- Someone come take away Brandon Cox, cheers [via P4K]