Siah & Yeshua DapoED - The Visualz

Some more hip-hop for you. This time of the old-school-vinyl-only-gem-turned-anthologized-digital-reissue variety.

Traffic records has remastered and digitalized Siah and Yeshau DapoED's The Visualz EP (originally cut on vinyl-only way back in 1996 on underground legend and hilariously named Fondle 'Em records), repacking the sucker with a ton of added bonus material and releasing it in stores everywhere as The Visualz Anthology.

The bonus material is all good and welcome, but the true jams are still the EP's original tracks. Siah and Yeshua tag-team rap over dusty jazz-sample beats, relentlessly sparring verses back and forth like they're trading hands up a baseball shaft, all the while maintaining a no-sweat, cool, nonchalance. Highlights abound, but the record's centerpice is unquestionably the eleven-minute opus "A Day Like Any Other," a grand and twisting narrative of rhymes that plays out acrosss dozens of seamless beat changes.

Check out the tracks posted below and go pick-up the full-length.

Louis La Roche - The Peach EP

One welcomed side effect of the near-embarrassing amount of time I've spent compiling the playlist for this year's Space Party has been the rediscovery of Louis La Roche. The initial credit goes to Nick J and his ever-perked ears for sending me a link to this French-House prodigy's myspace page, and it should be noted that I've heard some of his tracks on more than one of KEXP's shows in the last week (seems they've gotten his awesome 2007 Peach EP in their mailboxes recently?). Either way, it's great to see his records get some proper love and representation, so I'm gonna try and keep his hype snowballing.

The few records that La Roche has put out in his burgeoning career are in the vien of all great booty-shaking music: their insanely catchy, musically straightforward, and dance-populist. Some might find La Roche's method formulaic or repititive, even for house music, but the basslines and hooks he strings together are undeniable. They could seduce even the most timid of wallflowers.

I'm pretty sure you can still download the Peach EP from his myspace page free of charge, and I've posted an unreleased song called "Be Brave" below.

Crystal Stilts - Alight of Night

It's with a little trepidation that I start this post about Crystal Stilts--the latest buzz-band from Brooklyn whose critical stock has skyrocketed so quickly that it seems almost anachronistic to question just how good these guys really are. Just about every major taste-making outlet has certified their first full-length Alight of Night a shoe-in contender for their forthcoming album-of-the-year lists, and the immortalized bands (Velvet Underground, Jesus and Mary Chain) that critics (rightfully) cite as the Crystal Stilts' influences add several additional layers of impenetrable 'cool' cred to the band's already intimidating hype.

Which is not to say I think these folks are wrong, just exaggerating. Crystal Stilts make hypnotic, strangely beautiful pop music that floats about in your head long after the songs themselves have ended. This is music to get lost in; only there's no way to do so outside of intimate, attentive, listening settings like headphones or by yourself in a quiet room. Alight of Night takes some soaking in and some perseverance, and even then the band's brooding noise-pop and off-key mumble-singing may still alienate (or simply irritate) many listeners, including yours truly at times. This is a knotty, engaging record for sure, but not the kind that has the broad appeal necessary to validate such blind hyping.

Below are two Crystal Stilts tracks: one from Alight of Night, and another from the band's self-titled EP released earlier this year, which I actually like a little better than the full length.

Black Milk - Tronic

In posts gone by I've alluded to my former hip-hop-head self: those glory days of early high school where I would spend hours in my basement furiously downloading every underground rap album Napster had to offer. Fast-forward to the present tense and I still have an enormous soft spot for hip-hop, but am long out of touch with the genre's current output. This neglect feels legitimized each time I check out a newish rap record and am left really, really, unsatisfied, but since Monday night--when I stumbled onto a preview of Black Milk's latest and second full-length album Tronic and nearly wet myself--I'm begining to think that maybe the joke's on me.

This guy's beats bang so hard. One taste of the tracks below and I'm betting you'll be as fanatical as I am about this up-and-coming producer/emcee from Detroit. Seriously. He's that dope.






a great review of Tronic on coke machine glow.

Deer Tick - War Elephant (reissue)

Hoo-doggy! Yes sir, that's about how excited I was to read that Deer Tick's criminally underappreciated 2007 debut War Elephant is set for reissue Novermber 11th on Partisan records, complete with the saucy new cover art shown above. Hopefully the resources and support of a legit record label will help get John McCauley and his band the love they deserve.

A couple of standout tracks from their whiskey-and-sin-soaked alt-country album can be found below. I triple dog dare you to try and not dig on "Art Is Real"