11/28/24
Lyrica - DONE DREAMIN'
"The ends justify the means" only works when the ends aren't just as fucked as the beginning. I don't want to read about the lawsuits. I want to write around the Lyrica album I've slept on since 2017. Carlin said, "It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it." When 'woke' entered white vernacular, I daydreamed of Killarmy's "Wake Up," my alarm clock for much of my 20s, finding its way to major motion picture soundtracks, surfacing a Killa Sin solo album that never was.
11/21/24
Unknogne - Long Island Reaper
Somebody ought to invent an analog instrument that can hit phonk notes without electricity. Imagine a cross between an accordion and a bass drum, a percussive wind with murderous bellows and a balaclava mouthpiece. We'll hold practice in abandoned mental asylums, shock therapy wards for orchestra pits, sheet music scrawled in garbage on the floor and graffiti on the walls. Unknogne orates from around the Gateway's Haunted halls and far beyond its seasonal attractions. Trap or play, every house is a haunt.
11/19/24
MF DOOM - MM..FOOD THE MOVIE
The first time I heard MM..FOOD, I was up at Emerson. One day while standing in front of WERS in between classes, I struck up a conversation with some dude a year or two older than me who ended up handing me a CD-R from his backpack. Boston in the early/mid '00s was like that. Random dudes were walking around with underground rap bootlegs. Twenty years later, DOOM has returned to Latveria and on the much-commercialized anniversary of MM..FOOD's release, I'm somehow for the first time in my life seeing this seven-year-old fan-made movie version of the album. Peace to Donwill's newsletter for being the 2024 equivalent of the random dude in front of WERS. Fun side note: the best comment ever posted here asked if I was Mr. Fantastik, and I'm not, but in addition to "Rap Snitch Knishes," you can hear him on "Par for the Course" off Kurious' new and delightfully funky album Majician via Metal Face Records. RIP Kong.
11/17/24
Baibeebean - "Waiting for My Love" / "Until the Sun Comes Up" / "Perfume"
Imagine all history a beachy erotic romp. Forget literary critiques. Consider Socrates' literacy critique: "you who are the father of letters, from a paternal love of your own children have been led to attribute to them a quality which they cannot have; for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves." And in forgetting, how many across the ages have thrown it all away for a single sleepless night? No wonder even today, some consider anything written smut.
11/8/24
Lil Tecca - Plan A
You don't understand at 22. You were born after 9/11. We used to not have cell phones. Apps was something you got at Applebee's. I promise I'm not some out of touch old timer crying kids these days from an ivory tower. I have seen a police station go up in smoke from one, though. Forget handwringing. I'm doubling down. If there's any lesson to be learned here, it's these nouveau hillbillies will buy anything you sell them. Elitist, some say cosplaying redneck rapping Republican. How's this? Anything besides being rich is excuses. A now-46-year-old said so at 34. Take off another 12, rack up a billion streams, and make five figures on it. What's the difference between podcasts and AM radio? This has been a public service announcement.