Northernheads New Releases vol. 1 (2021)

Before you slag Taylor Swift the real star on this alternate version of HAIM's "Gasoline" is the drum beat that middle sister Danielle lays down binding the song together. It was Swift's agency that took HAIM to another level, but they are by no means a 'girl group'. For our money HAIM is pound for pound the best new pop group of the past decade bar none. Women In Music Part III, which landed near the top of many year end lists, only cemented that stature. Swift lends her star making machinery taking lead vocals on "Gasoline" (although the original is still largely better). On "3 A.M.", a song almost ruined by a skit of a late night booty call voicemail (inspired by Andre 3000's The Love Below), oldest sister Este Haim is joined by Thundercat also on the bass (thankfully minus the skit) highlighting the silkiness of the groove.

El Michels Affair is the name that American producer and multi-instrumentalist Leon Michels releases his music under. Michels, whose releases are often defined by a crisp boom bap live drum sound, is best known for his work with various members of the Wu-Tang Clan. After performing live with Raekwon at a concert, the group began working with other members of the group releasing instrumental versions of their classics and solo work on 2009's Enter the 37th Chamber then 2016's Return to the 37th Chamber. Michels is also a frequent collaborator with Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys and has recorded for artists such as Lana Del Rey, Dr. John and Action Bronson. On "Ala Vida" from the forthcoming album Yeti Season (coming out March 26 via Michel’s label Big Crown) you hear all the hallmarks of the El Michels Affair sound.

Michels is a founding member of The Menahan Street Band which features musicians from Antibalas, El Michels Affair, Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings and the Budos Band. The group was founded by Thomas Brenneck while living in an apartment on Menahan St. in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bushwick. Their debut album, Make the Road by Walking, was released in 2008. Various songs from Make the Road by Walking have been sampled by hip hop artists including Jay-Z, Kendrick Lamar, Kid Cudi and 50 Cent. Menahan Street Band's new single "Devil's Respite" is textbook sample ready material produced by Brenneck in the collective’s own Diamond Mine Studios in Long Island City, NY. The instrumental appears on the just released album The Exciting Sounds of Menahan Street Band (out February 26 on Daptone Records).

Montreal electronic phenom KAYTRANADA new release "Caution" debuted on the Chinese intelligence gathering platform TikTok as part of their Black History Month celebration. KAYTRANADA's release was for users (presumably highly sexualized children) to blend into their videos only later being uploaded more broadly to streaming platforms. TikTok also commissioned a cover of the 1971 gospel standard “Like A Ship” by Leon Bridges which premiered alongside the KAYTRANADA track.

There have been so many post humous releases attributed to J Dilla born James Yancey that there's good reason to be skeptical. "Anthem" (featuring Frank 'n Dank) isn't a particularly well known Jay Dee track from the 2013 double single Anthem/Tracks with instrumentals, a capella and Dilla's original mix ready for the club. Ric Mayes "Anthem" remix is that strangest of things, adding virtually nothing to the original- if anything taking away far too much. For some reason he's buried Frank 'n Dank's vocals in the mix making them sound murky (unless that was intentional). Similarly he's backgrounded the best non-quantized MPC drum rhythms of Dilla's on the original as well as a sort of snake charmer sounding flute sample. The choices are so odd it's worth listening to the original alongside it for comparison because it's unclear how he managed to so royally fuck up the original track.

Last week Freddie Gibbs, the rapper from the Jackson 5's hometown of Gary, Indiana, released a cover of Gil-Scot Heron and Brian Jackson's (no relation) 1974 track "Winter in America". Gibbs version of the song, which was produced by Leon Michels co-owner of Diamond Mine studios (El Michels Affair and The Menahan Street Band), appears on his newly released EP Black History Always/ Music for the Movement Vol. 2, which also includes contributions from Tobe Nwigwe (“Wake Up Everybody”), Tinashe (“I’m Every Woman”) , Brent Faiyaz (“Eden”), and Infinity Song (“Undefeated”). But Gibbs surprised fans when also this past week he released a deluxe version of his landmark 2014 collaboration with Madlib titled Piñata. The extended version runs nearly four hours long and is divided into five different parts. The first section is made up of Piñata’s original 17 tracks, which included appearances by Danny Brown, Raekwon, Earl Sweatshirt, Mac Miller, BJ the Chicago Kid, and others. Part two features loose tracks and their instrumentals, such as Gibbs’ “Cocaine Parties”—a take on Kanye West’s 2016 track “No More Parties in LA.” The third section is instrumentals of Piñata songs, the fourth and fifth sections are Alex Goose remixes and their instrumentals, respectively.

DRAM (which stands for Does Real Ass Music), born Shelley Marshaun Massenburg-Smith, made a splash with his debut album Big Baby DRAM including the massive single "Broccoli" featuring Lil Yachty. After the follow-up the 2018 EP That's a Girls Name the artist went awol. Shelley announced his return via Twitter recently saying after the flurry of attention he "took some time to focus on my health, voice, and growth—focus on me.” Now the artist returns with his new single "Exposure" under a new moniker the easy-to-remember FKA Shelley DRAM. By whatever name "Exposure" is textbook DRAM who has a really singular super positive R&B voice that leans away from the ebulient humour that's characterized his earlier releases.

"Unpleasant Breakfast" and "Heavy Covenant" (the lead single) play back to back at the midpoint on the group's new release Open Door Policy (produced by Josh Kaufman who worked with singer/lyricist Craig Finn on his solo album We All Want The Same Things and is a member of Bonnie Light Horsemen who had one of the best albums of last year).  Open Door Policy is textbook Hold Steady with lyrics in "Unpleasant Breakfast" about "twisted sheets on the trundle bed/ and the anti-psychosis meds/ made you feel all marooned" suitable to any of their albums. That particular track though has a bit of a funked up groove that almost eludes to electronic music that's not totally indicative of the band's sound over all (although that's certainly one influence, think "Most People Are DJs"). "Heavy Covenant" is more your straight ahead Hold Steady anthem in the vein of 2006's Boys and Girls In America (which if you want to feel old was 15 years ago). "Heavy Covenant" opens with the the lines "with the wine glass on the microwave/ and the ashtray in the kitchenette", reminding the listener, the clever kids in the Hold Steady audience, of Finn's hero poet William Carlos William's central dictum "no ideas but in things". The things, the wine glass, the ashtray are inextricable from the themes represented in the song themselves, much of which is pretty standard Hold Steady fare. The protagonist is Finn's idea of a modern day Willie Loman from Death of a Salesman, only his character stays over an extra night to score some party stuff: “I sell software made for offices/ It increases their efficiency/ Hospitals and local governments/ It’s a pretty heavy covenant.”

"Hall of Death" is the second track released from Bonnie Prince Billy and Matt Sweeney's forthcoming album Superwolves (a follow up to 2005's Superwolf).  Sweeney is likely best known as a member of Chavez and the supergroup Zwan, composed of Billy Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlin, lead singer/guitarist and drummer of The Smashing Pumpkins, bassist Paz Lenchantin, of A Perfect Circle, and guitarist David Pajo of Papa M and Slint. As a session musician and engineer Sweeney is known for his work with Johnny Cash, "Cowboy" Jack Clement, Iggy Pop, Adele and Run The Jewels. In recent years his work on Sturgill Simpson's breakout album A Sailor’s Guide To Earth is of particular and historic note. Sweeney and Oldham's collaboration extends back to 2005 when they released the 5 song EP I Gave You under the moniker Bonny Sweeney. Then again in 2011 they put out another couple singles "Must Be Blind" backed by "Life in Muscle".  In 2020 the duo again collaborated on two singles "Make Worry For Me" and "You'll Get Eaten, Too". "Hall of Death" was co-written with Ahmadou Madassane and features another Tuareg guitar phenom Mdou Moctar, electric bassist Mike Coltun, and drummer Souleyman Ibrahim. The real standouts on the track, which ends up sounding like a psychedelic sub Saharan sea shanty when Oldham is through with it, aren't however Oldham and Sweeney it's the prolific guitar work of Madassane and Madou Moctar which bring the track to life.

"I Want To Go To The Beach", from Iggy Pop's 2009 experiment Préliminaires, is just one of a slew of recent covers that Bill Callahan and Will Oldham have been putting out together. The track features Cooper Craine (a member of Chicago bands like Bitchin’ Bajas and CAVE). The cover follows Hank Williams Jr's 1979 song "O.D.’d in Denver", Yusuf / Cat Stevens’ 1967 song “Blackness of the Night" and their deceased friend David Berman (Silver Jews) song "The Wild Kindness" (from 1998's American Water) sung in harmony with his wife and former bandmate Cassie Berman.

Craig Finn's "Eventually I Made It To Sioux City" off of 2021's All These Perfect Crosses, which first received a limited release through Record Store Day, is a collection of outtakes, demos, and acoustic reworkings from his three previous solo records. As with 2019's I Need A New War the lyricist expands his cast of characters, to include for instance Ulysses S. Grant on "Grant At Galena", rather than dig into the horde of characters who populate his song cycles in the Hold Steady. “I guess I felt...that visiting them for a song at a time might be more interesting than putting them through a number of phases,” said Finn after the release of 2019’s I Need a New War. On Finn's solo output there's less if any of the stabbing syllabic, sing along hooks that HS fans adore. Still, absent the guitar twang the lyrics to "Eventually I Made It To Sioux City" with a different instrumental backing could easily be a Hold Steady song: "He said that I should call you at this number/ He said that he'd make sure you knew my name/ He said let him know you're new in town/ And you could really use a friend right now/ Tell him that you want to come and hang".

Ignorance, the new release by The Weather Station (Tamara Lindeman), represents a stark departure sonically for the artist who has become associated with the stand and deliver solo acoustic folk vernacular. Consciously struggling with environmental guilt, including from her own resource intensive occupation, Lindeman broke with the past and hired a group of musicians from Toronto's jazz scene crafting slick sonics that scarcely resemble her prior work. As a lyricist Lindeman is a fascinating creator whose lyrics on the page more closely resemble prose or short stories, causing her songs to rarely follow the ABBA or AABA song structure. It's hard not to draw a parallel between the almost quasi-naive sentiment in Joni Mitchell's Big Yellow Cab, ironically an artist whose penumbra has often engulfed Lindeman's own light. "Parking Lot" seems particularly apt today as residents in Toronto's East York recently went viral with their pleas to save a parking lot "the hub and heart of their community" from being turned into housing for the homeless. Of the song Lindeman has said:

"'Parking Lot' is my strange gentle disco song about a humble encounter with a bird and being tired and being in love, and being heartbroken in ways I didn't quite yet understand. I don't fully know how everything connects in this song other than it obviously does. I wanted to make the recording very passionate and beautiful while also being very muscular while also being very gentle, and so I did."

The Who's "Pictures of Lily", like nearly all of their material, was written by guitarist and primary songwriter Pete Townshend for inclusion on the 1971 album Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy, a compilation of previously released singles. In a May, 1967 interview with NME, Townshend actually coined the term "power pop" to describe the song.  The song is ostensibly about the singer's lamentating about his inability to sleep. In order to sooth him his father gives him a picture of the song's titular hero Lily, who may be an old Vaudeville star Lily Bayliss, or Lillie Langrie an old music hall star and mistress of Edward VI. After feeling better and drifting off to sleep the son wants to meet the person in the photo, asking his father for an introduction. His father informs him, sadly, that "Lily" has, in fact, been dead since 1929. Initially, the singer laments, but before long turns back to his fantasy. Townshend has been quoted as having written the song as "merely a ditty about masturbation and the importance of it to a young man." The song was first played live in 1966, and they continued to play it on tour until 1968. It returned to make a one-off appearance at a show in Passaic, New Jersey on 11 September 1979, where singer Daltrey forgot the lyrics and they went straight to Free's "All Right Now". During the period that the song was recorded, in 1967, Kit Lambert, the band's first "real" manager, according to Townshend, mixed the song. He filmed the band recording the song, showing the four bandmates performing, with Keith Moon being recruited for the high notes in the song (even though Pete Townshend can be heard telling Keith he "keeps jumping on John's part", however, other live video footage shows John Entwistle, the band's bassist harmonizing and playing the French Horn). Daltrey has said the French horn solo was an attempt to emulate a World War I klaxon warning siren, as the Lily girl was a World War I-era pinup. This version of "Pictures of Lily" (Pete Townshend Demo) is from The Who's forthcoming new Super Deluxe Edition of The Who Sell Out which features 112 tracks, 46 of which are unreleased. The Who Sell Out was originally planned by Townshend, Lambert and Chris Stamp as a loose concept album including jingles and commercials linking the songs stylised as a pirate radio broadcast. The concept was born out of necessity as their label and management wanted a new album and Townshend felt that he didn’t have enough songs. The original plan was actually to sell advertising space on the album but instead the band opted for writing their own jingles paying tribute to pirate radio stations and to parody an increasingly consumerist society. The sleeve features four advertising images, taken by the renowned photographer David Montgomery, of each band member Odorono deodorant (Pete Townshend), Medac spot cream (Keith Moon), Charles Atlas (John Entwistle) and Roger Daltrey & Heinz baked beans. The story goes that Roger Daltrey caught pneumonia from sitting in the cold beans for too long.

Is Fats Domino's November, 18, 1956 performance of "Blueberry Hill" on the Ed Sullivan Show the greatest 1:38 seconds of televised music ever? Yes. Recently released as a single the historical moment now exists as an audio document as well. 

It's a reasonable question to ask how much a listener modestly interested in The Band will get out of the 50th anniversary reissue of their third album Stage Fright. Rather than simply remixing or remastering the album, Robbie Robertson has made a somewhat gutsy decision to completely revisit the album by changing the order which the tracks appear in.  The album, which emulates The Band's live show, came at a difficult juncture for the group as members Levon Helm, Rick Danko and Richard Manuel became mired in alcoholism and heroin addiction. Robertson took some slack for the merited decision to include some still photos of Levon on the nod from smack sleeping it off during the Stage Fright sessions which was recorded by Todd Rundgren (an odd choice) on a small vintage play house stage in Woodstock, New York. Apparently the track order was upended by a decision to put Levon's songwriting contribution "Strawberry Wine" and Manuel's "Sleeping" as the first two tracks in order to encourage them as song writers. The Band was out on their historic Festival Express tour, crossing Canada by train with everyone from the Grateful Dead, Buddy Guy and Janis Joplin, while the album was being mixed- something they'd been intimately involved with previously. On the re-release of the album Robertson, apparently going with the running list they originally intended, kicks off with the one two punch of "W.S. Walcott Medicine Show" and "The Shape I'm In" then side B ends with "Sleeping" seeming like a premonition of Manuel's death by suicide in 1986. Most of side B has ended up on side A and vice versa to good effect.  You'd have to be a real audiophile to notice the difference between Bob Clearmountain's remixes and Rundgren's own, but the alternate mixes of "Sleeping" and "Strawberry Wine" (which crackles like a front porch ditty with a suitably hoarse throated Levon giving the song a totally different sentiment) are noteworthy. The best part of the collection is the complete concert from Royal Albert Hall, London England in 1971, the sort of high quality bootleg that would have previously only been available to bootleggers and live concert trading devotees, from which this version of the seminal "King Harvest" was pulled. Probably the best songs or those from Calgary Hotel Recordings 1970 including two versions of a new song "Get Up Jake" which Robbie is taking the band members through. "Get Up Jake", a song which hasn't been butchered by constant radio airplay, would get a live airing on the famous New Years residence at the Academy of Music in 1971. The version of "Get Up Jake" which appears on Rock of Ages is from the December 30th show. Here in this hotel recording you hear that rarest of things: Robbie Robertson's voice. In actuality there are very few songs by The Band where Robbie sings lead vocals, or vocals at all, "To Kingdom Come" is one, and not even on the final version of this song. 

Requiem - Oddisee & Phonte (Persona - Mello Music Group compilation 2015)

Requiem is the lead track off the phenomenal label compilation from Mello Music Group entitled Persona.  Were this a lesser label full of lesser artists undoubtedly this release would quickly become part of the background noise and dust bunnies accumulating in the expanding/collapsing musical universe.  Mello Music Group is a constant.  Quality, Consciousness and Intelligence are their mandate.  Admittedly this shouldn't be so revolutionary in Hip Hop (admittedly Common fucked the 'genre' for micro-ages).

It's safe to say that Oddissee, who has made a name for himself on a handful of his own releases, production moves, but mostly as the braintrust behind the groundbreaking (second) Diamond District release March On Washington (along with yU and XO) is the bald wizard behind the curtain.

Requiem is an interesting opener though. Oddissee, deeply akin to producer Phonte (of the influential mid-west group Little Brother)  who is known for his phenomenal ear for soul and unique sample flips echoes the Detroit sound as championed by J Dilla, Black Milk and younger producers like Denmark Vessey.  Every hip hop reviewer hears something Dilla in the Requiem cut but its likely owing to laziness or vague ancestral sample memories (more likely lazy cellphone search engine research).  Admittedly a track was released in 2012 on Rebirth of Detroit credited to J Dilla and Allan Barnes entitled Requiem.  More recognizably Dilla, born James Yancey, samples Requiem on one of his more popular Unreleased Instrumentals Trashy.  But Trashy bares little resemblance to Requiem except perhaps in spirit.  As to who Oddissee is sampling in the opening bars and throughout that remains a minor mystery for a hot minute.  You know it though. Or you think you do.

For what it's worth later at the midpoint of the release Oddissee delivers Word To The Wise which samples indelibly - if you like - the original sample of (You) Got What I Need  by Freddie Scott as recalled through Biz Markie's Just A Friend. Slick.

Northern Heads celebrates 60,000 visitors

Northern Heads began as northernheads.com (a very lo-fi website, essentially a proto-blog covering largely Canadian improvisational 'jam' based music) from 2001-2005.   The website was founded by Canadian Luke Bowden and American Abe Robins and might best be described as jambands.com meets The Onion on ketamine.  

After some dark and hairy times Northern Heads was revived by Luke Bowden as a blog at first primarily focused on Detroit Hip Hop.  The notion behind this limited focus at the outset was that there are countless general interest blogs and music blogs out there and the world of music is so vast that once one starts down a path (say Blues from the 1920's) you could literally spend a lifetime trying to understand that little niche.  From an initial focus on the preternatural J Dilla, his protege Black Milk and many in his camp including Elzhi, Guilty Simpson, Sean Price and (Hybrid-era) Danny Brown the scope of coverage has grown.

Gradually the focus of the blog dilated to include its namesake the Grateful Dead, Phish and the immortal Prince - but more importantly progressive improvisational groups such as The Slip (now The Barr Brothers) as well as a variety of Electronic musicians influenced by a deep musicality (The Gaslamp Killer, Flying Lotus etc.).   Swinging to the other end of the spectrum my other area of specialization is Roots and Americana music with a fervent interest in Canadian groups with spine and spirit such as The Golden Dogs and their kin Zeus. 

As a freelance music writer I have always operated on the margins of Canada's nepotistic and clingy world of music journalism.  As a rule I do not feature any music which I am not deeply passionate about- setting a standard of requisite craftsmanship rarely present in the glut of releases pumped out on a daily basis.  Put plainly I listen to all the shit so that you don't have to.

As the New Year approaches we'll be highlighting the best of 2014's releases as well as highlighting long form interviews from the past year originally published on No Depression (the Roots music authority since 1995).  Thanks for reading and coming back - if you don't currently follow the blog please consider following it in the future.  I promise to bring you more music, more diverse music and insights, and more frequent updates over the coming year.

sincerely,

Luke C. Bowden

Black Milk w. Bun B - Gold Piece

We need not mention here at Northern Heads that Black Milk (born Curtis Cross) - the foremost of many proteges of the immortal J Dilla- is one of the most important artists in Hip Hop today.  Where much of contemporary hip hop has become a laughingstock, and admittedly Milk has had a number of career missteps, still there is hope.  His last full length No Poison No Paradise (2013) followed shortly thereafter by Glitches In The Break (2014) restored faith in his deep production talent.  Cross sees himself as a producer/ rapper and his work suffered in recent years due to his focus on his lyricism.  Poison represented a through point where Milk again brought his production into the forefront while stepping up his lyrical game.  Glitches focused more basically on his production strengths.   Cross constantly baits his core audience - ourselves included- with a 'vault' of material he's constantly producing and moving beyond.

This new collaboration with self-determining Hip Hop legend Bun B only further raises the stakes on what listeners should anticipate from this determined artist.

Church Remix - Slum Village, Skyzoo, Focus prod Young RJ

With two of three founding members of Slum Village passed (Baatin and Dilla) and Elzhi no longer fleshing out the new lineup these days Slum Village= T3.  And frankly T3 is a goof.  This is not simply a personal opinion, beyond his vaguely passable flow there is a sense in various interviews that T3's lazy style was a source of frustration to the more serious members of the group particularly Dilla. 

Here the highlight is the production of the consistently deft and melodic producer Young RJ (at one time half of BR Gunna with Black Milk) and Focus' verse deserves a nod too.

Waajeed (DJ Jeedo Dilla Tribute) Live From Dallas 02.8.13

 

Waajeed (arabic for 'finder' or 'seeker') born Robert O'Bryant is strongly connected to J Dilla and the career of Slum Village. An art student prior to becoming a DJ and producer (which he came to relatively late in life) - it was Waajeed who designed the cover of Slum Village's Fantastic Vol. 2.  He also introduced the group to their fourth member Elzhi and produced a handful of cuts for their third album Trinity (Past, Present, Future).  Waajeed is best known as one half of Platinum Pied Pipers.

 



Thank You Jay Dee Act 3 tracklist (mixed by J. Rocc)

In appreciation of the birth of James Yancey, celebrated this 7th of February now and forever after, there have been many world celebrations on what would have been his 39th birthday.  A handful of interesting new developments have taken place with regards to the Dilla estate, Ma Dukes attempts to conserve that estate (including Yancey' record collection and rare test pressings finally retrieved from a storage locker) through selling individual records from the collection (lacking historical  value) on Ebay with a certificate of authenticity from Maureen Yancey herself.

Likewise label Stones Throw has released a 4 track EP Lost Scrolls Vol. 1 which contains Dilla rapping on Dewitt To It.  While Donuts represents the heights of Dilla's instrumental efforts since his passing the most thoughtful representation of his ouevre has been from long-time collaborator J. Rocc and his Thank You Jay Dee Act 1-4 mixes released as Stones Throw podcasts.  J. Rocc is well known for his established place in turntablism (Beat Junkies), for being the third live touring member of JayLib (Jay Dee and Madlib's collaboration Champion of Sound) and a spirited contemporary in the world of abstract contemporary hip hop.  Originally conceived as a three act suite Rocc ultimately produced a 4th which serves as a denouement for the late career of the icon.

There seems to be some international confusion about the actual tracklist for Act 3 at the moment.  It is as follows:

Thank You Jay Dee Act 3 tracklist

"Les Mogol - Sunset In Golden Horn" (original sample for Welcome 2 Detroit Intro (0:00)
"Welcome 2 Detroit Intro" (0:48)
"The Other Side (Instrumental)" (0:51)
Beat (2:35)
Beat (3:48)
Beat (?) (5:19)
"Gobstopper" (3:20)
"No $ No Toke" Original/No EFX mix. (6:06)
"The Oxtopuss" (7:23)
Beat (8:58)
"The Message (10:30)
"Show Me What You Got" (12:06)
"The Rhyme (Slum Village Remix) (13:50)
"Thought U Wuz Nice (Instrumental)" (15:30)
"Stakes Is High" (18:04)
"Stakes Is High (Remix f/Mos Def & Truth Enola) (18:22)
"His Name Is Mutty Ranks (Instrumental)" (19:10)
"Payback Is A Grandmother (Instrumental)" (19:45)
"It's Goin' Down" (20:14)
"Somethin' That Means Somethin'" (20:40)
"Start It Up (Instrumental)" (21:00)
"Word Play (Instrumental)" (21:12)
"Find a Way (Instrumental)" (21:20)
"1nce Again (Instrumental)" (21:24)
"Keeping It Moving" (21:30)
"That Shit" (21:49)
"Conant Gardens" (22:18)
"I Don't Know" (23:03)
"Beej N Dem" (23:39)
"2U4U" (Original Version) (24:22)
BLEND "2U4U" Instrumental w/ "Climax" (25:22)
Fantastic Mix (All four "Fantastic" interludes from Slum Village's "Fantastic Vol. 1" plus the intro from FV2) (26:14)
"Hold Tight" (OG & RMX) (28:13)
"Orignal beat tape version of Jaylib's "D 2 LA" (29:33)
"Pillz" (30:11)
"Reckless Driving" (30:30)
Beat (31:12)
Jaylib Interlude (31:22)
"Make Em NV" (32:08)
"Let's Grow (Instrumental)" (34:19)
Beat (35:50)
"Signs" (Full Version) (36:44)

        
Thank You Jay Dee Act 2 tracklist

Thank You Jay Dee Act 1 tracklist
 

Karriem Riggins - Alone Together

When you speak of J Dilla's protege, Black Milk is usually the character that comes to mind.  But certainly the accolade would be just as well suited to jazz drummer and hip hop producer Karriem Riggins.  Riggins, who moved to New York at the age of 19 from his native Detroit, joined the Ray Brown Trio in 1998. He has recorded and performed with Donald Byrd, Hank Jones, Mulgrew Miller, Milt Jackson, Oscar Peterson, Cedar Walton, Roy Hargrove, and Bobby Hutcherson and Paul McCartney.

The dulcid tones of his touring life as a member of Diana Krall's quartet contrast obliquely with his production work for hip hop artists including Slum Village, Erykah Badu, Common, J Dilla, The Roots, Talib Kweli, Phat Kat, Consequence, and Dwele.

Most famously Riggins completed production on J Dilla's post-mortem release The Shining which was 75% complete at the time of his death.  Hip Hop lore attributes to Riggins having found the Bobby Caldwell sample Open Your Eyes that became one of Dilla's most anthemic productions The Light from Common's Water For Chocolate.

Karriem Riggins released his first solo album Alone Together on Stone's Throw in 2012. The title is taken from a jazz standard by Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz that begin with the words, “Alone together, above the crowd.” 

The songs or productions which range from 14 seconds to a little over three minutes bear a vein of similarity in both their audaciousness and alacrity to those of James Yancey's.  On J Dilla The Greatest his tools are fittingly a sparse Gretsch drum kit, a Rhodes synthesizer and an MPC 3000.  The New York Times described the release well as:

 

a collection of intuitive sketches made in his Detroit home studio, an unvarnished take on the sounds in his head. It’s ’70s-obsessed crate digger’s music, with tiny unnamed looping samples — he credits his digital gear, but not the song sources — from all kinds of soul and pop and Brazilian records, and other recorded sound. Beneath all that lie Mr. Riggins’s own synthesizer melodies and his programmed or live drum-set beats, slow and deep with delayed groove.
 

 



Black Milk - Demo Beats 2012

Black Milk, a producer/rapper as well as drummer/percussionist, who appears on the cover of his landmark album Popular Demand with an MPC tucked under his arm, plays the 'instrument' live and in the studio better than most any human being (Pete Rock's up there too).  Which is part of what makes Demo Beats 2012- a recently dropped teaser of his current output so fascinating.  This future-forward material veers out into some new bracing territory (sounding at times unabashedly similar to even Dilla's Donuts with it's style of constant revolutions of sound) that suggests a much broader sonic palette and production environment.  Where his last full length release Album Of The Year was definitive for how he captured the live sounds of instrumentalists Daru Jones (drums), AB (keys) and bassist Tim Shellabarger (not as much for his personal lyrics of the crushing year he had marked by loss) here we see a man tossing off, literally, a series of tossed off beats (one of 400 produced in the last year he'd rather hold onto for now) that echoes at points his deep crates neo-soul lineage while pointing to something else entirely.

Black Milk - Demo Beats 2012

Nothing could please us more than word today that our man Curtis Cross- the impossible Black Milk- was pouring over a folder of some 400 (!!!) demo beats he'd been working on over the course of the year.  Late in the day he dropped a file to his soundcloud account called Demo Beats 2012 that is certain to create a quiet storm in the Hip Hop community.

In a year that's been dominated by micro cycles of hype and canonization in 'independent' Hip Hop (see Kendrick Lamar) it was reasonable to question what place was there at the table for the last great hope Black Milk the protege and heir apparent to the neo-soul throne of his mentor J Dilla.

Cross has left no place for doubt.  This 6:57 is more future forward than one might expect from the garrulous  producer.  With his most recent production efforts (after his 2010 signal Album Of The Year) he's produced a variety of projects revered by his acolytes all of which however failed to launch anywhere near commercially or critically.  His highly anticipated collaboration with Danny Brown the Black and Brown EP admittedly didn't amount to more than the sum of its parts (and was fairly thoroughly drubbed critically).  Similarly Random Axe the Hip Hop supergroup composed of Guilty Simpson, Sean Price and Black Milk yielded varied results.  Two recent collaborations with Jack White (Brain and Royal Mega) were promising in principal as was a live set at White's Third Man Records.  His much vaunted collaboration Searching For Sanity with vocalist Melanie Rutherford has yet to appear.

Demo Beats 2012 drops like something of a clarion call from a man who may feel like he has something to prove.  The futuristic style of the transmission harkens back to his own 2008 release Tronic which largely put him on the map particularly with collaborations like The Matrix (featuring Pharoahe Monche and Sean Price).  His first releases 2005's Sound Of The City (as well as 11 untitled tracks from August 2005), 2006's Broken Wax EP and the landmark Popular Demand (2008) established Black Milk as a strong advocate of the neo-soul tradition highly adept with the MPC 2000.  The Music Production Center 2000 has signal processing qualities that are highly pleasing to the human ear as most sample based music we're familiar with has been produced with this device.  Some producers would say that it is the loss of signal, a pleasing 'woody' quality to the sample, as much as the transmission that satisfies the listener aurally.

Milk, a drummer and percussionist, who appears on the cover of Popular Demand with an MPC tucked under his arm plays the 'instrument' live and in the studio better than most any human being.  Which is what makes this teaser of his current output so fascinating.  This material veers out into some new bracing territory (sounding at times unabashedly similar to even Dilla's Donuts with it's style of constant revolutions of sound) that suggests a much broader sonic palette and production environment.  Where Album Of The Year was definitive for how he captured the live sounds of instrumentalists Daru Jones (drums), AB (keys) and bassist Tim Shellabarger (not as much for his personal lyrics of the crushing year he had marked by loss) here we see a man tossing off, literally, a tossed off beat (one of 400 he'd rather hold onto for now) that echoes at points his deep crates neo-soul lineage while pointing clearly to a whole new bag.

The Gaslamp Killer - Boiler Room DJ set

In a long line of Turkish American musical visionary producers and genuine lovers of music, including Ahmet Ertegun and Arif Mardin, Willliam Benjamin Bensussen (also know as The Gaslamp Killer) stands alone.  Listen here to the Killer at London's Boiler Room debut the bulk of the stupendous Breakthrough LP, just released on Brainfeeder, in this devastating hour and a quarter DJ set.  Seeing The Gaslamp Killer execute his own material beyond-deftly in a club context is illuminating.  His raw enthusiasm for music- as expressed in his sufi-mental dance style - is only the entry point.  Hear him redefine so-called 'Bass Music' to suit his dervish instincts.  In his typically amped fashion  as the set dances through material of his own featuring Gonjasufi as well as recent releases from (Brainfeeder label honcho) Flying Lotus (Pattern and Grid World EP) and his cohort Thundercat including DMT Song, a hilarious Mark Wahlberg sample from The Fighter, new instrumental hip hop bangers from in demand producers Hudson Mohawke (solo) and with Lunice as TNGHT (which actually sound good in a well executed mix for once), some Ghetto Tech from both DJ Rashad and a quick cut of Danny Brown, Dilla, Wu-Tang's Ice Cream, Portland producer EPROM's Regis Chillbin,  Frank Ocean's Pink Matter, Clark's Fantasm Planes, the jungle classic Dead Dred, Zomby, Flosstradumus Lana's Theme, Coki, Zebra Katz, and Dimlite.  The cherry on the sundae likely comes just past the hour mark with Andre 3000 and Pimp C's verse off UGK's International Players- suddenly his whole system drops out on him and without losing any momentum at all gets it back up and wobbles the opening of Glory by Domo Genesis.  Somehow the whole set culminates with Jimi Hendrix's Star Spangled Banner mixed pitch perfectly into Pink Floyd's Great Gig In The Sky. Psychedelia. 

Then in several deep bows of reverence he closes his set with a sad, erstwhile Mariachi trumpet ballad.

Thank You Jay Dee, Act 2 (tracklist, mixed J. Rocc)

 

 

Thank You, Jay Dee Act 2

00:00 J.Rocc Intro
01:02 Jaylib - The Official
04:04 sample mix
04:41 Slum Village - Fall In Love
07:16 Slum Village - Fall In Love (Remix)
08:48 The Pharcyde - Runnin'
10:50 A Tribe Called Quest - 1nce Again
12:13 De La Soul ft. Truth Enola and Mos Def - Stakes Is High (Remix)
16:13 Common - Dooinit
17:45 Frank N Dank - Pause
19:55 Dabrye ft. J Dilla and Phat Kat - Game Over
23:28 Jaylib - LA To Detroit (Instrumental)
24:20 Dilla Beat
25:36 Dilla Beat
26:20 J Dilla - Busta
27:04 J Dilla - U And Ur Smile
27:47 Dilla Beat
28:45 Dilla Beat
29:33 Dilla Beat
30:41 A.G. ft. Aloe Blacc - Hip Hop Quotable
32:00 MED - Push
33:04 Oh No ft. J Dilla and Roc C - Move Pt. 2
38:10 Four Tet ft. J Dilla and Guilty Simpson - As Serious As Your Life (Jay Dee Remix)
43:15 Brother Jack McDuff - Oblighetto (J Dilla Remix)
46:35 J Dilla ft. Dwele - Think Twice
48:13 J Dilla - Rico Suave Bossa Nova
49:30 Dilla Beat
50:42 Common - Funky For You
54:29 De La Soul - Verbal Clap
56:11 J Dilla - Stepson Of The Clapper
57:16 J Dilla - Fuck The Police
60:08 Slum Village - Get Dis Money (Remix)
61:28 Slum Village - Get Dis Money
62:12 A Tribe Called Quest - Find A Way
62:36 A Tribe Called Quest - Get A Hold
62:56 Slum Village - Raise It Up (Instrumental)
63:28 Busta Rhymes - Genesis
64:31 Busta Rhymes - Woo-Hah!! (Got You All In Check) (Jay Dee Bounce Remix)
65:05 Busta Rhymes - Enjoy Da Ride
65:21 Busta Rhymes - So Hardcore
66:00 Busta Rhymes ft. Q-Tip - You Can't Hold The Torch
67:17 Jaylib ft. Yesterdays New Quintet - Turn It Up
67:50 Common - E=MC2 (Instrumental)
68:24 Common ft. J Dilla - Heat
70:57 Dilla Beat
71:31 J Dilla ft. Frank N Dank - Ma Dukes
73:40 Dilla Beat
74:18 Jaylib - Blaze Up (better known as No $ No Toke)
75:10 Dilla Beat Outro

Thank You Jay Dee, Act 1 (tracklist, mixed by J.Rocc)

Thank You Jay Dee, Act 1 (soundcloud)

Act 1 Tracklist:

1. Macy Gray - 'I Try (Remix)'
2. Pharcyde - 'She Said (Remix)'
3. De La Soul - 'Peer Pressure (Remix)'

4. Cam & Cam - 'Love Junkee (Remix)'
5. J Dilla - 'Crushin'
6. Busta Rhymes - 'It Ain't Safe No More'
7. Busta Rhymes - 'Enjoy The Ride'
8. Slum Village Interlude
9. D'Angelo - 'Me & Those Dreamin' Eyes Of Mine (Remix)'
10. Modd - 'Secrets Of The Sand (Remix)'
11. Q-Tip - 'Do It, See It, Be It'
12. Common - 'Nag Champa'
13. Toshi Kubota - 'Nothing But Your Love (Remix)'
14. Busta Rhymes - 'Turn Me Up Some'
15. J Dilla - 'Let's Take A Ride'
16. Slum Village - 'Untitled'
17. Janet Jackson - 'Got Til Its Gone'
18. Lucy Pearl - 'Without You (Remix)'
19. Slum Village - 'Players'
20. J Dilla - 'Reckless Driving'
21. De La Soul - 'Stakes Is High'
22. Pharcyde - 'Runnin'
23. Slum Village - 'Fall In Love'
24. Slum Village - 'We Be Dem'
25. Common - 'Dooinit'
26. A Tribe Called Quest - 'Find A Way'
27. Phife Dawg - 'Bend Ova'
28. QD - 'Supa Shit'
29. Jaylib - 'The Red (O.G. Version)'
30. Dilla Outro

 

True Story/ Dub Rock (Will Sessions vinyl)

It's very difficult to appreciate the sincerity and breadth of Detroit 'funk' band Will Sessions recent voluminous vinyl output unless you're as versed as they are in both Funk and Detroit Hip Hop.

As their name suggests they're a backing band for hire for fellow Detroit hip hop artists like Elzhi, Guilty Simpson and Black Milk.  They're also fully capable of backing actual Detroit soul heavyweights like Dennis Coffey who was one of Motown's original Funk Brothers studio band as well as having a substantial soulo career.

They're output of late (available on their bandcamp) represents intricate efforts to replicate live the productions of various hip hop producers; as they did on both Elzhi's recapitulation of Nas' Ilmatic as Elmatic with note perfect re-workings of beats by Pete Rock, Large Professor and L.E.S, or their Mix Takes One and Mix Takes Two which crams musical cues like a DJ set from the pillar of Detroit hip hop and neo-soul legend J Dilla, to his protege Black Milk, Guilty Simpson as well as rare funk cuts (and epochal hip hop samples) like Bob James Nautilus.



Here though on True Story they've truly out done themself.  True Story (moreso True Story Part 2 from Phat Kat's Carte Blanche)  is one of the most beautiful hip hop songs ever created with lyrics and vocals by Phat Kat (Ronnie Cash) and production by the notoriously underlooked and gifted producer Young RJ who with Black Milk were briefly BR Gunna .

In referencing the history of their contemporaries so flawlessly and with such reverence they are both doing something truly unique and making interesting statements about live music culture and sample based music culture.  Will Sessions are winking at the DJ, winking at the bedroom purist, the music writer and the crate digger.  More importantly they're winking.

Madlib and J Dilla in Brazil, 2005 (photos by B+)

“The photos B+ captured of Dilla have become the some of the most definitive images of the producer. In another, he got Madlib & Dilla together on a short trip to Brazil in 2005. We planned to get pictures for Donuts, but Dilla’s unstable health during that time caused him to cut the trip short.” - Jeff Jank / Stones Throw

Elzhi - Sound Clash Festival, Toronto (setlist)

Elzhi (elZhi)
Sound Clash Festival
Harbourfront Centre Stage
July 14, 2012
setlist

Blue Widow (from forthcoming album The Weather Report)
Halftime (prod. Will Sessions, orig. prod. Large Professor)
Life's A Bitch (prod. Will Sessions, orig. prod. L.E.S./ NAS co.)
D.E.M.O.N.S. (prod. Black Milk from The Preface)
Fire (Remix) (prod. Black Milk from The Preface)
Tainted (prod. Karriem Riggins, from Trinity Slum Village feat. Dwele)
Deadly Medley (prod. Black Milk from Album Of The Year)
Hiding Place (prod. 9th Wonder from The Minstrel Show Little Brother)
The World Is Yours (prod. Will Sessions, orig. prod. Pete Rock)
Come Get It (prod. J Dilla from Welcome 2 Detroit)
Do You (J Dilla from Detroit Deli (Taste of Detroit) Slum Village)
One Love (prod. Will Sessions)
Memory Lane (prod. Will Sessions, orig. prod. DJ Premier)
Represent intro>
Represent> (prod. Will Sessions, orig. prod. DJ Premier)
C.R.E.A.M. (prod. GZA, Wu Tang Clan)
Motown 25 (prod. Black Milk from The Preface)
It Ain't Hard To Tell (prod. Will Sessions, orig. prod. Large Professor)
Detroit State of Mind (prod. Houseshoes, orig. prod. DJ Premier)

Will Sessions Mix Takes (Take One)

Will Sessions Mix Takes LP - Take One (partial tracklist)

Nautilus (on One) - Bob James (1:44)

Made You Look (on God's Son) - Nas (2:22)

The Clapper (on Welcome 2 Detroit) - Blu/Jay Dee (3:05)

Antiquity (on Love Is The Answer) - Dwight Trible & The Life Force Trio/ J Dilla (4:09)

untitled/fantastic (on Fantastic Vol. 2)- Slum Village (5:10)

Nasty Ain't It (on Carte Blanche) - Phat Kat/ J Dilla (6:39)

Will Sessions Mix Takes is a limited edition vinyl LP out this month on Fat Beats. It plays through like a DJ set with each side an uninterrupted instrumental: Take One and Take Two. Will Sessions is a normally 8 piece soul-funk band known for backing such guitar and Motown luminaries as Dennis Coffey (one of the original Funk Brothers) as well as swelling up to 15 pieces as the Guilty Simpson Big Band. They've likewise backed other Detroit hip hop luminaries like Phat Kat and in particular trumpeter/keyboardist/arranger Sam Beaubien and bassist/keyboardist Tim Shellaberger both made measured contributions to Black Milk's standout Album Of The Year.

Here the 5 piece is rounded out by their longstanding bandmates: Ryan Gimpert (guitar/keyboards), Bryan Arnold (Drums) and Eric Kacir (Percussion, MPC). But it's the repertoire not the personnel that is so bloody fascinating about these two takes of music- two sides of a slab if you will. I haven't pegged the opening cut but at 1:44 on the nose they clearly launch simultanueously into Bob James Nautilus - one of the most sampled songs in hip hop history. It is so pervasive a sample that most people of this generation will recognize it solely from Ghostface Killah's Daytona 500 breakthrough single with the singular video. Elsewhere on their Real Sessions release the band plays this number as So Gone/ Nautilus with Black Milk. They're sticking largely to the Bob James original, admittedly chopping the sample or portion that suits them, but the punch and recontextualization in a hip hop setting suggests that they are playing whatever the listener hears: Nautilus/ Daytona 500/ So Gone.  Slamming two tracks together that might not have met otherwise Will Sessions leaves the listener aghast when they drop the strangled guitar line from Nas' Made You Look exactly at 2:22.

Then at 3:05 they do one of the singularly coolest things I've seen an instrumental, at least hip hop, group cook up.  What they do is they play The Clapper production attributed to Blu/Jay Dee from his first solo album Welcome 2 Detroit.  The Clapper's a funny choice for a number of reasons the least of which is its name.  Particularly if you're familiar with the near constant revolts and revolutions of sound that define his seminal (and final) Donuts full length, The Clapper in comparison sounds like that records redheaded stepchild.  It seems highly unlikely that Yancey (Jay Dee, J Dilla) would have imagined his early beat tapes circulated to MC's with their jokish and tossed off track names would later become a source of deep reverence- but they have become just that.  The Clapper itself is a funny by appearances fairly simple beat to knock off.   This is a sign in of a great craftsmen, the apparent ease with which they seem to render their creations.  It seems likely, and the members of Will Sessions all studied musicians render it with due humour and revery, this track was odiously hatched together from god knows what arcane sources because Yancey liked the particular clap sound (or likely a number of claps) he was able to sample then manipulate through his MPC (Midi Production Centre).   This process itself, the effect that an MPC has on the sound of original source material, gives certain sounds a 'woody' or in any case a pleasing sound to the ear.  Every hip hop sample you've ever heard has been pushed through one sort or another of these little boxes- some would say the loss of information from the signal is sometimes just as pleasing to the ear.  For Will Sessions then to play a fairly simple little diddy, a melody, a couple of rhythmic conceits in 2/4 time off  the floor live is for them no big challenge.  It's in the winking self-referential nod to all that Jay Dee was aware of and put into the track in the first place that gives the moment it's grandeur.

Then Take One just continues to build with nuances only the deep Dilla heads and crate diggers are going to chin wag too.  Having not only dropped The Clapper the group seamlessly progresses into a deep instrumental entitled Antiquity, which would typically have out jazz vocalist Dwight Trible's gravelly sentient voice overtop.  Adding insult onto injury this again morphs into a vaguely recognizable untitled number from Slum Village's Fantastic Vol. 2.  The piece de resistance though has to be the clarion call of the signature Dilla siren from Nasty Ain't It off Phat Kat's benchmark Carte Blanche LP.  Here Shellaberger ever the rock liquid bottom switches from bass to the bass pad and punches out the distinctive and hard line.

J Dilla/ Jay Dee Mythology

A popular clothing company has hatched together some thoughtful interviews from a handful of operators that worked with or became aware of the growing body of work of Jay Dee's later J Dilla.  The mythology surrounding the man born James Yancey is so substantial post-mortem it's helpful to get a relative chronological run through of his career and the level of regional and international awareness around him in respective creative periods.  This particular documentary scans over his emergence as a producer of beat tapes and then member of Slum Village with the release of their album Fan-Tas-Tic (Vol. 1).

Where it particularly succeeds is in the thoughtful if at times ponderous (with for instance Stones Throw label founder Peanut Butter Wolf) reflections on how players first encountered Jay Dee's material and how the mythology grew rightly around him.  But that mythology didn't spring fully formed and armoured like Athena from the mind of Zeus- it built gradually and then with his death precipitously.  In the oral culture of hip hop fandom various accounts of Dilla's career are told and the nuances lean towards the story teller's vantage.  The 'truth' seems to be that in reality Dilla's frisson of greatness was vaguely and fairly narrowly felt by other hip hop producers and performers in his earliest incarnation as a producer. This particular documentary focuses, and sheds broad light,  in its second part on the nature of his (late-life of a young man) creative partnership with Madlib which would result in their mutual landmark Champion of Sound.  Likewise it places well his transit on the well travelled musical highway from Detroit to Los Angeles and his reception in the underground scene there. 

This particular doc, perhaps owing to the sponsor and also reasons of artisitic license, leaves aside for others the height of his mid-90's popularity as a producer qua producer for artists including: Pharcyde, Tribe Called Quest, Busta Rhymes, Janet Jackson and De La Soul.  There is scant if any mention of his solo album Welcome 2 Detroit, and Ruff Draft is equally skated past.  Nor is his so-called championing or definitive 'neo-soul revival' sound, and perhaps fairly so as these are critical terms that suit writers rather than listeners after the fact.  For these considered oversights the weary tale lands heavily in it's third part on Yancey's dogged work, even while in the hospital wrapped in his failing mortal coil where he withered from complications of lupus and a blood disorder thrombocystosis, and completion of Donuts (which Peanut Butter Wolf attributed to a stream of beat tapes with junk food titles like Pizzaman).  Thoughtful commentary from DJ Houseshoes, Frank Nitty and in particular Donuts engineer Dave Cooley illuminates the central pillars of his mythology being genius, prodigious output, emotional depth and technical audacity.  In the truest sense of cyphers and illuminati implication is cast clearly that Yancey new Donuts would be his gravemarker in the century of sound.  Etched into its surfaces references both lyrical and in the original source material to Death's shuffling stride.   The sound a ride cymbal makes well after it's been struck.