Guest Mixtape – Lightning Pill (Pt. 2)
Guest Mixtape – Lightning Pill (Pt. 2)

Guest Mixtape – Lightning Pill (Pt. 2)

Dosh – Naoise (Live at K)
I remember when I used to get heavily into anticon. I loved the music for it’s inventiveness and its lo-fi, sometimes dark aesthetic. But I think it was when I heard anticon’s music that I realized my favorite music is the kind that sounds like it was made by hand. Dosh was one of those, whose music has such inventiveness, but a folktronic bent to it. Naoise was the first song I;ve heard by him that I loved, as it sounded a little disjointed, but it also sounded like that’s how it belonged. Everything was in it’s right place, and everything was gleeful. It’s safe to say that anticon waso ne of the few labels where I was as interested in the rappers as I was in the alternative acts and the beatmakers signed to their label…which explains why I am still a big Odd Nosdam fan.

The Normal – Warm Leatherette
You know you got something when your song consists of something as small as spoken lyrics, one note with alternating octaves and easily playable bass and snare drums…and it still sounds fucking awesome. Being a lover of experimental music, synthpop or synthpunk (anything aesthetically “futuristic” within listening distance), I’m not so difficult in taste that I am asking for people to go Steve Vai on the keyboards. This song sounds a lot like a slightly old transmission from tomorrow to yesterday about the dangers of motor vehicles. There’s just something about the way the synth sounds pop as they alternate. When you hear it, you will see what I mean. Also, anyone who can’t sing, can’t play piano, can’t really so much musically, this is an example of not letting such a thing stop you.

Nic Endo – Man-Eater
It must take a lot of focus and discipline musically to create something this forward-thinking, industrial and dissonant.

Danny Brown – ODB
Really I could pick anything from Danny Brown from “25 Bucks” to “Adderall Admiral” to “Worth It”. The talent of Danny Brown is that he has the ability to rap over “normal” beats as well as eccentric beats that most rappers wouldn’t touch. This one is over a really acid-washed beat that Danny Brown sounds incredibly at home on. Whether the lyrics are all ridiculous or threatening as fuck, nothing says hip-hop’s eccentric son like “ODB”.

Heems – Damn Girl
I like this song way more than I have any right to as a happily married man. The song is basically one of Heems forays into writing a pop/R&B song. The title lets us know this is about an abusive girl, but if you expand your imagination it could be about anything that people succumb to that, in the end, seeks to destroy them.

Babe Rainbow – Set Loose
Just close your eyes, listen to this, and tell me that you don’t wish tha this was a little longer. Apparently, Babe Rainbow is great at that, seeing as how he release a song on Ghostly Swim 2 named “Don’t Tell Me I’m Wrong”, which gives off the same ghostly yet tranquil feeling.

Eluvium – Don’t Get Any Closer
By now, you should already get that listening to wamr piano slathered in ambient sounds is my cup of tea. When listening to this, you should picture warm memories, a very warm shower outside, and you will feel the need to just relax a bit while listening up.

Porcupine Tree – Fear of a Blank Planet
I hear tell that Porcupine Tree is an awesome progressive rock band (it’s all true), but if there was any album that convinced me, it was Fear of a Blank Planet. The song itself is a critique of the absurdity of today’s youth, where they value boredom, drugs, anger and ignorance over anything that might help or educate them. It’s funny because I bought this album as a teen and never, myself, understood the general skullfuckery of teens. Apparently, substance within one’s lyrics is VERY important to me.

My Bloody Valentine – Sometimes
As I read the lyrics while listening to this, I was revealed in time that this album was about lack of getting true love. Any other time, My Bloody Valentine would be called emo, except the honest portrayal of lost or unrequited love is what I truly loved about Loveless and its use of thick guitar clouds smudging the performance of the lyrics…well, if you have read my review of My Secret Boyfriend, you’ll know how much I think it works and how I believe it is a really effective touch.

Wax Fang – World War Part II (or The Doctor Will See You Now)
If I were to decribe this band to you the best way I can, it would be that this band is…a(n) (slight) improvement on Modest Mouse, and this is coming from someone who likes Modest Mouse. The way Scott Carney sings, you would think that hearing this man sing anything would be mandatory. I defy anybody listening to this right now to tell me that this doesn’t inspire you to start singing, if you make music at all. Yet another band that people don’t tralk about enough, but anyone who comes in contact with their music will be VERY hard-pressed to say they didn’t like it.

The Child of Lov – Rotisserie
Openly inspired by D’Angelo, Child of Lov’s track takes funk/R&B and all of its chicken grease and creates one of those slightly romantic-sounding slow jams that transcends time with ease. If you are very averse to songs to songs longer than 3 or 4 minutes, listening to this song feels a lot like it is right in between that, despite being only 7 minutes long.

Georgia Anne Muldrow – Never In Vain
If you listen to this song and are a little freaked out by the way the chord changes between the verse and chorus, you have gotten way too use to the predictably poppy chord changes of both mainstream and indie, and perhaps, this song is effective in giving you that jolt in R&B innovation.

Simple Kid – Truck On
Simple Kid is what you get when you have a musicmaker who doesn’t mind mixing pop, blues and a little bit of hip-hop ingenuity. Someone said it sounds like Beck and Blur doing the electric slide. I can say there is that playfulness that oftens pops out in truly imaginative musicians. It’s sad that Simple Kid decided to let go of music after releasing his second album, but I will most definitely cherish the work I am able to obtain from him so far.

Run the Jewels – Angel Duster
What I loved about indie music is that musicians usually have a knack for fitting the music to its lyrics a lot like we were living them. HIp-Hop has been running with that these days. Not only with the need to be inventive production-wise, but make it feel like we are listening to a movie. This particular may as well sound like the end of a movie where at the beginning they sent runners for jewels, and they sit in their chair with all the jewels and coins with a devilish grin on their faces. Robin Hoods who successfully robbed the rich and corrupt and gave the poor a story to be inspired by, as well as the go-ahead to flip their middlefingers en route.

I have to throw a poem in just to shake things up. Written as a folky type of poem (in his words, the style of Bob Dylan), B. Dolan performs a song that examines the slight corruption or the excuses of every character that surrounds an artist. This protagonist may be Wu Tang Clan’s own Ol’ Dirty Bastard nee Russell Jones, but the genius of this poem is that it could be for anybody including Amy Winehouse, Kurt Cobain and any other troubled artist who did their fair share of drugs or went some kind of left of center in a bad way during their career.


You know how at the end of Adult Swim’s Singles Program, they have bonus music that you’ll have to wait for after you downloaded the whole mix? Welp, the bonus track for today just happens to be Sa-Ra Creative Partners, R&B musicians who were inspired plenty by Sun Ra. The fact that their brand of electronic soul/R&B hasn’t spanned farther than the Shea Butter community from what I gathered is saddening as hell. So, allow me to reintroduce you to another great group. Yes indeedy, feed the needy!

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