HOME FEATURES COLUMNS FILM LIT MUSIC THE WIRE BLOG CONTACT		Reviews from The Wire Automato Walk into the Light Dim Mak Having pretty much re-resurrected the premise of danceable rock (or dance music that contorts?) on the strength of one single, New York production duo DFA cavalierly foists their magic wand in the general direction of hip-hop. The results-for an off-kilter downtown rap band that's yet assimilate their many influences-are surprisingly pedestrian. DFA's beat noodles around with little squiggly spurts of anxious guitar, a faraway synth and the occasional handclap, but it's neither clever nor compelling enough to sustain interest-no skronk, no centripetal groove and, worse of all, no cowbells. (Where have all the rap cowbells gone? At least there's a thumb piano here.) Perhaps more aggressive drumming would have assimilated all the cute side effects. Jumbo from the Lifesavas shows up for a more traditional remix but his go-Lonnie Liston Smith's Expansions with molasses drums-overpowers the vocal-uncredited, shouty stream-of-consciousness; sounds a bit like Sole or a less lippy Aesop Rock-and makes it sound like an afterthought. I'll say it again: more cowbells! Blockhead Insomniac Olympics Ninja Tune Blockhead, best known for his work with emo heartthrob Aesop Rock, debuts with a four-cut EP that seems to aspire toward that downcast feeling of getting the football yanked away right as you approach it. The clunking chug of "Insomniac Olympics" is a tad dry for my tastes; despite its tasty horn refrains and lightning-of-the-Gods guitar solo, the melody's piano sounds more tired than elegiac. "A New Day" shows a more chipper resolve as intricate bass-lines tangle beneath a sampled guitar line and a bluesy vocal snippet about fresh beginnings. "Triptych Part 3" distills Blockhead's best ideas-thick, strident bass-lines and tender piano bits-and does nothing to challenge the stereotype that the post-Shadow stitch-and-sew posse only makes music for the lonely. A fuzzy rock bass-line is plucked from its dirge and forced to serenade a crestfallen pianist whose voice has been pitched down to a mournful warble. Bravehearts Quick to Back Down Columbia Where Jay-Z's most fatal flaw is his affection for bad pop (e.g.- the game show camp of new single "Change Clothes"), at least it's still pop. Nas' weakness for bad beats has inspired such violent backlashes that they've practically killed his career on many occasions. On paper, the slow, overdressed "Quick to Back Down" should be one of these failed experiments. The beat plays like a sequel to the Youngbloodz's "Damn," a syrupy, towering epic of clock-tower crunk from producer Lil Jon, who guests here. But Nas raps on this beat like he owns it, lambasting "soggy cornflake niggas" and bringing enough attitude and confidence to carry his whole squad. Claiming to face "more drama than the President with North Korea," this is Nas' most topical work since his ghettovet guest verse ("I'm like Saddam Hussein/Still alive, lookin' at his childrens' burnt remains") on Alicia Keys' "Streets of New York." Controller 7 Expansions EP Bully Bay Area cut-and-paste producer Tommy Controller did some production work for Anticon in the late-1990s and he released the sketchbook-ish Left Handed Straw collection last year. This nice EP finds him at his meticulous best: the layering is tight and precise, the drums are crisp and there's just enough gloom to feel icky but not depressed. "Reactionary" is a fantastically subtle gem built around a sneering guitar bit, drowning flutes and some hypnotic tick-tocks. He starts "Shades of a Former You" with a perfect sounding acoustic guitar sample; it manages to sound troubled yet carefree in its simple repetition. Either of these first two sublime cuts would have been find minus the staunch drumming, but the same can't be said for the other stuff here. The powerful break and off-kilter dressing of "I Tried to Speak, But Couldn't" give it the feeling of a demented breakers' anthem while "Bad Blue (last chance)" consists of variations on the theme of heavy-duty pounding. Diplodocus Epistemology Big Dada This page has been a longtime supporter of Diplodocus and it's good to see his perverse blend of hopped-up, psych-hungry crunk get some proper distribution. The four-part Epistemology Suite opens with a crispy-fried guitar phrase boomeranging to and fro above a rhythmic heap of trashcan handclaps and erratic, Timbaland-styled typewriter rat-a-tats. Game show horns soon wash away the mess. Elliott Smith-ish strums and a looser Southern bounce beat take over next, leading the fray as the baby gurgles from Aaliyah's "Are You That Somebody?" shows up with some chirping birds. The B-side features "Summer's Gonna Hurt You," Diplo's versioning of some unknown psych side. It's moody and blissful like Shadow's "Six Day War," but Diplo takes more liberties contradicting the melody, summer bumming the singer by outfitting him with a stiff, clip-clopping rhythm. DJ Language New Wave vs. Negroclash Promo There are all sorts of eclectic mixes floating around nowadays but few of them are as well crafted and perfectly executed as this Language set. Language, a member of NY's slick Negroclash posse, manages to begin with Pierre Henry, transition to Willie Colon, find time for D.I.T.C. and Knights of the Turntables and end up at deep-ish house without forcing a thing. Djinji Brown's beautiful, Latin-tinged "Mujuba" gives way to New Flesh's "Communicate, a jumpy, overeager single that sounds perfect bridging Brown's congas with a pensive Premier instrumental. D.I.T.C.'s "Internationally Known" seems like a funny choice until it's escorted out by the blare and titter of Cat Stevens' "Was Dog a Doughnut," which then melts into the circular paranoia of Max Bill's "Goochi." Metro Area affirms its position as proper disco/house in-betweeners by protecting Maze and Frankie Beverly's sublime "Twilight" from Ade Sosa and Ibile's tribal-ish "Ka Ranti." Ghislan Poirier Beats as Politics Chocolate Industries Stokely Carmichael once said, "Everything is political." I generally find this to be true-all the actions and decisions of one's daily life don't exist absent of politics, and the sooner you realize this the sooner we can slap you on your back and point you toward self-empowerment-but I'm not sure how any of this makes Ghislan Poirier's latest album as political as its title, sleeve epigraphs or sleeve graphics. The talented Canadian producer specializes in choppy, short-attention-span compositions just like his Chocolate cousins and there are some great moments here. "Astheure" consists of miscellaneous bleeps, some stunted guitar half-moves and a stuttering drum kit, but it all manages to settle into a nice, thick groove. The robotic bass punches and backwards sounds of "Gray Space" perfectly complement Diverse's focused, Monche-ish vocals. "It's Fear of a Black Planet/They'd rather see crack addicts," Diverse accuses before pointing out that, before you metric-types judge, you haven't "walked a meter in my Wallabees." "Montreal Dans Ma Tete" is a nice, loping creeper that wouldn't be out of place on a Sixtoo record-the politics of lonely walks, perhaps? Timbaland and Magoo Indian Flutes Blackground/Universal The hotly anticipated new single from Timbaland occurs at the intersection of two annoyances. Annoyance #1: Indian samples. The fad has nearly run its course. While earlier entries in the hip-hop exotica mini-genre were good dancefloor cuts-see: Missy's "Get Your Freak On" or Truth Hurts' "Addictive"-Timbaland's latest effort is the same slow, boring joke over and over. While an "Indian flute" coos dutifully in the background and an "Indian voice" sings the cumbersome hook, Timbaland and Magoo rap about dirty things in totally harmless ways, all leading to Annoyance #2: rappers talking to their sample. Since he can't understand the sample he's trying to bed, Timbaland just shrugs his shoulder and smiles, "I can't understand a word you sayin'!" It's a lethargic effort and that's before Magoo-a "Clean Version" rapper if there ever was one-gets involved. "Thanks for the props but to me you the star!" Timbaland smacks with aw-shucks modesty. "Don't you ever forget it," his samples mutter to themselves, thinking about residuals. Various Artists No More Prisons 2 Raptivism Imagine if this compilation actually brought an end to the prison-industrial complex-that would be something. The latest installment of Raptivism's music-to-organize-by rounds up some familiar faces (Dead Prez, Zion I, the Coup) and some unlikely ones (David Banner, Lil Dap of Group Home). Saigon's fantastic "Letter to Omnipotent" is a song to the friends he left behind in prison, and its honesty is overpowering: "I kinda miss walkin' the yard/Talking wit' y'all/Cause now I'm in New York and it's hard." "Rich Get Rich" is a bizarre posse cut that works thanks to the veteran wisdom of Edo G. ("A lot of cats get scared so they hold back/Thinkin' that they won't get paper sayin' 'Pro-Black'/But they think they get rich screamin' 'Blow gats'") and the always-blustery Chubb Rock. Dead Prez contribute one of their most human songs, "Behind Enemy Lines." Rather than spouting turbo-pissed vagaries, it's a song for the young daughter of Fred Hampton, Jr., an around-the-way political organizer incarcerated on trumped-up charges of international arms dealing. "Drug Warz" is typical Coup bombast, which is to say it's great-"Wouldn't be no dope-slangin' if McDonald's paid right," Boots offers passionately. If only it were that simple. Various Artists War (If It Feels Good, Do It!) Hip-Hop Slam Oakland's super-earnest Hip-Hop Slam crew takes a breather from their turntable academics for this excellent collection of political raps and liberated-and-rearranged Presidential jibber-jabber. Steinski's "It's Up To You" is like the sad offspring of "And the Motorcade Sped On," his touching paean to the Kennedy charisma. This time around, Stein puts together a beat out of classic B-boy breaks and lays a bunch of Bush, Sr. rhetoric over the top. Two minutes in and it's a pretty depressing chunk of wartime rhetoric, but he cleverly salvages hope by stringing together a recurrent hook-"Peace...it's up to you"-and combating Bush's beady-eyed N.W.O.-isms with a rooftop plea from Berkeley freedom fighter Mario Savio. Azeem spoofs Sally Struthers and the Peace Corps before leading a call-and-response of "George Bush is a gangsta!" Ten songs later, Boots begs to differ: "George Bush is a Bank Manager!" The diversity of moods is what keeps this single-minded comp interesting: the numerous cut-and-paste dialogues ("Emcee Dubya vs. Guvna Aaarnold" or "Fox News vs. The Word Biiiaaatch") and 4AM's brilliantly absurd fake newscast "InDaClub" are as funny as Quiet American's "Once Over" and O-Type's "Blood and Sad" are sad and dour. The mysterious Guerrilla News Network contributes a series of cuts featuring the most surreal bursts of administration dialogue over beats. After a while it's impossible to tell the splice from the truth. On the closing cut, DJ Killabush and Embedded DJ replace the "Chaka Khan/Chaka Khan" bit from "I Feel For You" with "Shock and Awe!/Shock and Awe!" It's funny until the substance of those words sink in.