Rapology.org

I am having a love affair with Beirut.  This is no ordinary love affair.  Every word, every note, every breath rips my heart out in pleasure and pain. 

Pulse quickens.  Tears vein my cheeks.  A culmination of all emotion stirred.

When’s the last time music made you feel something?  I mean really feel something?

I’m sure indie writers the world over have already disected Beirut’s new album, The Flying Club Cup. I’ll spare you an attempt and just share with you instead, my ineffable musical affliction.

Nantes
Guymas Sonara
A Sunday Smile
Cliquot

Christ all-mighty, I’m stumped.  Wax Tailor’s music embodies so many things to gush about that I don’t even know where to begin.  I have to give all the credit to Jason (and dude’s got some street cred, yo) for turning me on to him.

His tracks possess both elements of hip hop and downtempo. I haven’t heard someone do this so well since DJ Cam was at his peak in the late 90s. The music is haunting. It echoes, resonates, churns. He uses a lot of samples from old movies, which only enhance its malefic sound. If they aren’t samples, he constructs them well enough to have me absolutely fooled into thinking they are.

His new album, Hope & Sorrow, is ridden with flirtatious female vocals and a few tracks with great hip hop flow. Although I like it tremendously, I find it a little less varied and original than Tales of the Forgotten Melodies. I’ve posted tracks from both albums for your enjoyment because though they are very different animals, they are both gems.

Hope & Sorrow:
The Man With No Soul
Positively Inclined - ft. ASM & Marina Quaisse
House of Wax - ft. The Others

Tales of the Forgotten Melodies:
Que Sera
Hypnosis Theme - ft Marina Quaisse
How I Feel

Glitch is the perfect marriage of hip hop and breaks. It appeals to me because I’m a jaded old raver turned hip hop fanatic. It satisfies my liking for two genres at once, in a no nonsense sort of way. Glitch is muddy, chunky, sexy and relentless.  It requires a lot of effort from the listener because it’s texture rich, and the landscape of the tracks change a lot. Don’t even bother if you don’t have a good woofer or a good pair of headphones.

There have been two great glitch releases of note in the past month from Modeselektor and edIT.  I heard this genre for the first time at Burning Man in 2006, and lost my head on the dancefloor to a Bassnectar set.  These days, I love listening to it, but it tends to be too slow for me on the dance floor. To my disappointment, Bassnectar has failed to impress me each time I’ve seen him since that night on the playa, even at Burning Man this year.

Another recent release of note is a remix album from Kraddy.  It’s mostly old material, but you get the full tracks, as opposed to snippets of them like in the sets posted to his site. I like him the best of the bunch because his beats tend to be a lot more high energy.

Modeselektor:
Hyper Hyper
The dark side of the sun - ft. puppetmastaz

edIT:
Artsy Remix - ft. The Grouch
Sunshine (Mos Def) - this isn’t new but I thought I’d post it

Kraddy:
The Next Episode (Dr Dre & Snoop Dogg)
Forgot About Dre (Dr Dre & Eminem)

Kraddy also does a great remix of Get Yer Freak On by Missy Elliot. If anyone knows where to find that track unmixed, let me know.