Writing about music in lieu of human interaction
Photo provided by artist K.Burns is a Brooklyn wordsmith and rapper who delivers gritty dispatches from the underside of the Big Apple. Listening to Burns's music feels like being plunged headfirst into a black & white Mafioso film, dusty drum loops and cinematic strings setting the stage for his vividly worded tales. K.Burns was kind … Continue reading Art Is The Blessing – A Q+A With Veteran Brooklyn Rapper K.Burns
Violinist Jenny Scheinman and drummer Allison Miller, two of modern jazz's most accomplished artists, team up on the new album Parlour Game (Royal Potato Family), which also includes Carmen Staaf on piano and Tony Scherr on bass. "116th & Congress," whose title is a tribute to the diversity currently present in our country's chief legislative … Continue reading Daily Discovery-Jenny Scheinman & Allison Miller’s Parlour Game-116th & Congress
Part 6 of the 2019 Deutschtown Music Festival In Review Photo "borrowed" from the band's Facebook Gentleman Brawlers are a Brooklyn, NY six-piece outfit that draws influence from afrobeat, funk, and psychedelic music. They're one of those groups that is so transcendent live that it feels almost pointless to try and describe them. Give some love … Continue reading Deutschtown Music Festival Artist Spotlight–Gentleman Brawlers
Independent New York artist Jimi Lucid makes music that is difficult to classify. His new album Doom Generation draws from the deep well of emotion that has sprung up out of the Soundcloud-based "emo-rap" genre, which features melodic, sensitive songs that are still rooted in hip-hop production and flows. But where many "emo-rap" songs are … Continue reading Daily Discovery-Jimi Lucid-Flutter
Photo courtesy of the artists' Facebook page A few weeks ago, Bored In Pittsburgh featured the song "Rocksalt" off the recently released Vain Zanni Cave (Black Mountain Airport) by the NY-via-LA electronic duo Paradot. The album is a truly strange listening experience, featuring a series of off-kilter beats and sonic sketches that sound like they're … Continue reading Does a Straw Have One or Two Holes? A Q + A With the Experimental Collagists of Paradot
Today's song comes to us from two New Yorkers, producer iblss and rapper Akai Solo, off the former's new mixtape infinity. Iblss clearly knows how to create an atmosphere with his beats. "Energy Field" loops halting drums and sparse guitar, underpinning both with a faint blanket of staticky white noise; punctuating each spin through the … Continue reading Daily Discovery-iblss and Akai Solo-Energy field
Today's find is a solo guitar piece from the newly released album Strange Protagonists by Israeli jazz musician Tal Yahalom (also of the trio KADAWA). "Tsukuru's Pilgrimage," named for a Haruki Murakami novel, is a work of spontaneous composition, which isn't exactly the same as improvisation, but still requires a musician to follow his/her spirit … Continue reading Daily Discovery-Tal Yahalom-Tsukuru’s Pilgrimage
Digable Planets-Blowout Comb (1994, Pendulum Records) I bought Blowout Comb a while back because I wanted to be able to tout my cred as a “real” hip-hop fan, and I knew that Digable Planets were considered to be one of the best acts to come out of the 90s “jazz rap” scene. Ironically, I didn’t … Continue reading Digable Planets-Blowout Comb
We have a double find today: two excellent songs by the recently formed Latin jazz trio Sabor (Spanish for Flavor). Sabor hails from upstate New York and was founded with the goal of bringing back some of the flavor (see what I did there!) of vibraphone-centric jazz music, which experienced its heyday in the 60s … Continue reading Daily Discovery-Sabor-Alonzo and Morning
This morning's find comes from the new album Emergence by the Brooklyn, NY collective Memory Music. Drawing just as heavily from the drifting textures of ambient as it does from John Coltrane-circa-A Love Supreme-style free jazz, the song "Fabric of Memory" is difficult to classify. I found it helpful to use the title as a … Continue reading Daily Discovery-Memory Music-Fabric of Memory
