Sounds to Brighten Your Day: My Mid-July Playlist
1. Clams Casino: Rainforest EP (June 27, 2011, Tri Angle)
New Jersey hip-hop producer Mike Volpe, who lifted his handle from an Oysters Rockefeller-related hors d'oeuvre, has expanded here upon the platform he laid down with hazy, tragically beautiful tracks like "All I Need," and "I'm Official" that re-emerged on his Instrumental Mixtape earlier this year, and simply pushed past the limits that a traditional MC-featured project might impose. The weighed-down samples on each track transform what were perhaps simple, unnoticed moments in their previous lives into drawn-out, emotional experiences. Soothing yet dramatic, Volpe's compositions on Rainforest can ease you down for a codeine nap, then rip you from its icy clutches with an earth-rattling blast of drums, like the crashing resolution at 3:34 on "Gorilla," that might be the hardest drop since the 2:44 mark on El-P's "Tasmanian Pain Coaster."
2. Shabazz Palaces: Black Up (June 28, 2011, Sub Pop Records)
This shit right here!?
3. Def Dee: Cheap Heat (April 7, 2011, self-released)
As Seattle's Def Dee has demonstrated before (on his full-length Gravity collaboration with LA, for example), he certainly has a firm grasp on quality beat-making. There is a very warm, East Coast feel to his production: "LISA" sounds a bit like Hi-Tek's "Thieves in the Night" (off of Black Star), and the rest reeks of Madlib ("New Keys," among others), which, as they might say in Intro to Understatement, is saying something. Bonus: on the intro track "All I Need," Dee mentions that Gravity 2 is in the works. I needs that.
4. The Globes: Future Self (May 10, 2011, Barsuk Records)
Spokane's the Globes are outstanding songwriters. The track that opens their debut Future Self, "Haunted by Bears," is as clever lyrically ("The fool that decides to stay in with the bears/That corners you down, and teach you to care/Everyone knows to play dead, but you don't/So you stay in your room and you are torn apart") as it is structurally, and is as well-balanced as the record is as a whole. They can rock when it's warranted, and are confident enough to include slower, more subdued movements that allow a song grow naturally into something much greater.
5. Battles: Gloss Drop (June 6, 2011, Warp Records)
Battles' sophomore Warp Records release is on point. Although the New York math-rock now-trio seem to have misplaced lead singer Tyondai Braxton somewhere between their ground-breaking debut Mirrored and here, they haven't missed a beat, and over 12 tracks, they jump from goofy pop dance tracks like "Ice Cream" to heavy guitar beats like "Futura" and thumping rockers like "White Electric." The album is more groove-centered than previous Battles material, but is by no means less sophisticated. In the face of skeptics, the Battles brain trust continues to innovate.
6. Prometheus Brown and Bambu Walk Into a Bar (July 6, 2011, Beatrock Music)
Warm production from a stable of primarily Seattle producers play host to Prometheus Brown (Geologic) and Bambu's everyday Hawaiian-centric flow that even your average haole can appreciate on a cloudy day in July.
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