'The Many Faces of Oliver Hart' is a side project from the vocal half of Minneapolis-based hip-hop duo 'Eyedea & Abilities'.
For the majority of the Eyedea & Abilities tracks Eyedea works the vocals, while producer/DJ Abilities takes care of the musical side of things. This time around Eyedea chose to write both the lyrics as well as the music, and it came out wonderfully.
You can hear the lack of perfection, and the 'first time around' aspect of the production. That being said, this isn't a half-assed attempt at making beautiful music. This is the real deal. This sounds like a twenty-something year old Eyedea spent hours and weeks and months living in a dingy basement pouring over exactly how to fit all these amazing samples (samples?) together. However it came together, it works.
I love that Eyedea did everything on this album, from the drum programming, to the guitars, to the old school samples, to the really really quite good lyrics.
Make sure to download this album for free now! (Needs WinRAR to unzip). Then go out and buy Eyedea and Abilities' "E&A"... it's really good as well.
As of late, Smashing Pumpkins front-man Billy Corgan has kinda losttheplot... but at one time, some 18 years ago, the Smashing Pumpkins created something amazing. Siamese Dream's production is so tight. I've never heard bass sit so well in a mix. I've never heard 40 layers of guitar turn out so dreamy and lush sounding. Songs start from a whisper, transmorph into hate-raged screaming, then gently descend back into soft, surrealistic dream pop.
In 2001 Cannibal Ox released The Cold Vein to amazing critical reception. The album was put on numerous 'best of 2001' lists, and even managed to make it on a few 'best of the decade' lists. Pitchfork Media placed The Cold Vein at number 152 on their list of top 200 albums of the 2000s. Rhapsody ranked the album #5 on its "Hip-Hop’s Best Albums of the Decade" list. El-P was named to be producer of the year, and everyone was hoping Cannibal Ox was going to be the next Wu-Tang. Cannibal Ox was a gritty, yet beautiful sounding, take on the New York life style, easily taking listeners to the core of the Big Apple regardless of whether you've actually been there or not.
And then there were financial differences, and Vodul's alcoholism and clinical depression, and all of a sudden it's 2007, and all three members of Cannibal Ox are saying that The Cold Vein is going to be their first, last, and only release.
To me, this album sounds like the future. Not necessarily the future of music, but more so a sound-scape of what the future of New York will look and sound like one day. It's like a less-jokey version of Deltron's 3030, if 3030 had been called "Deltron 2020", and Del lived in New York.
Of all of my favourite artists, Bob Dylan was the hardest to showcase a single album.
'Highway 61 Revistited' isn't my favourite Dylan album (probably either Blood on the Tracks, or Desire), nor is it even the most influential Dylan album I've ever heard. That being said, all of his albums have been incredibly important, and I ended up going with this one just because it features one of my favourite Dylan tracks.
Bob Dylan's lyrics are so much better than 99% of what's out there that his music literally changed the definition of pop-music in the 60's, and is still affecting musical output 50 years later. He's even been cited as the main reason that the Beatles stopped writing about holding your hand, and started writing about Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, and Walruses, and the like.
I got heck from the DMCA so I had to take down the link for a free download of the album, but it's not hard to find free downloads on Google. ..Then go buy his other records. They rule.
Ever since I found out that pretending to be a gangster really isn't very cool, Josh Martinez has always been a hero of mine.
His lackadaisical attitude towards life, and the fact that he's "Just a Dood" makes him incredibly easy to relate to on a personal level. He's also got some of the best lyrics I've ever heard, easily competing with lyrical greats such as Bob Dylan, or Atmosphere.
Unlike Atmosphere, however, Josh Martinez sprawls his subject matter much further than the after-hours bar, or his girlfriend's broke down bedroom. On "Buck up Princess" Josh spits about girls, the hard times of trying to make it in underground rap, tour troubles, BC's "real big trees", and even what it's like to be a hobo, trying to survive off of day-old-doughnuts, cans of beans, dumpster chicken, and river greens.
Originally from Nova Scotia, Buck Up Princess was the first record Josh made that allowed him the opportunity to take his show on the road. After travelling across the globe he eventually settled in Vancouver, BC, and Portland, OR, where he continues to throw super hyphy shows, and run his record label, CamoBear Records.
I love that this album has so much more to offer when listened to with headphones. I love the slight panning adjustments halfway through lyrics. I love the hidden background voices that 99% of people that listen to it will never hear. It feels like I have a secret with this album, and only people that REALLY want to know it get to find it out. It's like the kid that built walls not to keep everybody out, but to see who was really interested in knocking them down.
It's hard to say if this is the best Broken Social Scene album.. mostly because preference is kind of objective, and it's not really up to me to state whether one album is better than another... it's also hard to determine if this is my favourite BSS album. I might like Kevin Drew's 'solo' album, Spirit If..., more, but this was the first BSS record I got into, probably making it the most influential.
Thinking Basti would want to check out the offerings of Beautiful British Columbia, the two members of Animal Nation prepared for a week of hikes, bikes, and sights, and wound up spending the majority of the trip writing tracks to satisfy Basti's never-ending lust for new and exciting music, as suggested by the opening track, "Hey Mr. Basti!" - "...and we thought that when he got here he'd want to see the sights, but the only thing he wanted to see was us write.” Although the intro track is more of a set-up track to detail the rest of the album, it's far from filler, and contains some of the best back-and-forth rhyme-schemes that Animal Nation has produced to date.
The third track, "Reason", was the first track recorded for the "Understanding..." album, but never managed to get the attention it deserved. With Basti helming the wheel Animal Nation not only managed to complete this track, but also managed to make this ethereal sounding song one of the best on the album.
On “I Think I've Been Here Before (In Another Pair of Shoes)”, Animal Nation asks “What's in a path, but a past way to live?” This theme presents itself throughout the album as Animal Nation tries out more new production techniques in these 6 songs than they have in their last 3 albums combined.
Basti acts as the motivation behind this EP as stated in the intro track, “Basti made me do it, and we’re really glad he did.”
The amazing art work was also done by the wonderful, and talented, and wonderfully talented Paige Harley. Head over to CamoBear Records now to check it out!
After hearing Eminem for the first time in 1999 I listened to nothing but hip-hop for the next 4 years. All hip-hop. Pretty much anything hip-hop related that I could get my hands on... I listened to maintstream, (including, I'm sad to admit, the first 50 Cent album way too many times). I listened to every underground artist I could find, from Apathy, to Atmosphere, to Louis Logic, to Josh Martinez, to Zion I, and beyond. I listened to weird nerd-core hip-hop like Anticon's Dose-One. I was so mesmorized by hip-hop that my buddies and I would talk about it for hours on end, discussing who our favourite MC was, or what we thought the 5th element of hip-hop should be.. ("No! Beatmaking is the 5th element!" "No way! Groupies are definitely the 5th element!") That being said, around 2004 Crunk Music came into fashion, and I felt fucked. I felt like I'd been thrown on my back, chained up, and gang raped by what is easily the worst kind of music I've ever heard in my life, ever. I didn't get it... I thought all hip-hop was amazing? Why was this horrible music tarnishing something I held so dear? I felt fucked, and I felt alienated, and I stopped listening to 90% of the hip-hop I'd been so in love with only months before. I spent the next 2 years listening to the Beatles, and the Stones, and Bob Dylan, and Radiohead, and Broken Social Scene, and all the other non-hip-hop stuff I've mentioned on this page, and every time I heard that familiarly beautiful hip-hop sound, it would be accompanied by some douche shouting "Yeahhhhhaaa!! OKAYYY!!" and I would wonder what the heck is wrong with the people that buy these records.
So how does any of this have to do with De La Soul? After holding a serious contempt for hip-hop for nearly 2 years I heard something amazing. Throughout all those years of seeking and listening to every bit of hip-hop I could find, I managed to somehow never come across anything like De La, or a Tribe Called Quest, or Arrested Development, or even the majority of the freakin' Beastie Boys, and as soon as I heard De La's "3 Feet High and Rising" I realized that there was, and is, still so much amazing hip-hop music hiding out there. It's just not what's being played on MTV (for the most part). De La showed me that hip-hop doesn't have to take itself so seriously. De La showed me that hip-hop doesn't have to involve guns or wearing chunks of metal in your mouth. Basically, De La Soul is FUN.
Download the entire 3 Feet High and Rising album here for free, then buy another De La record.. maybe some Arrested Development, and definitely hit up a Tribe album or two.
Also - Check out our song Sky Fish (video below), as it was directly influenced by De La's "3 Feet High and Rising".
Chad VanGaalen's DIY (Do It Yourself) production ethics and amazing use of non-standard arrangments has his 2009 album, Soft Airplane, finding more than a few spins on the ol' Oracle turn-table.
The fact that he plays nearly everything on this disc himself (including the amazing BANJOing on track 1), and is described as a "notorious home-body" on his bio is what made Soft Airplane one of the more influential albums I've heard in a while.
Chad also animates his own music videos. Check out the first video to hear my favorite track of his, and check out the second to see his animation skills at work.
Feel free to download his latest album "Soft Airplane" here for free, then head out and buy his other 2 albums, his side project album "Black Mold", and a couple t-shirts or something.
This one is obvious. Who hasn't been influenced even just a little bit by the Wu? This album is so simple and easy to digest, yet packs such a huge punch with its gritty streets-of-New-York story-telling, and raw 'creaky-old-piano' sampling that 15 years after its debut it's still better than 90% of the hip-hop coming out today. At least 6 of the 9 Wu members are incredibly solid story tellers, making the fact that you've never been to the Bronx, or never seen a shorty's blood "all over the hot concrete" fine. You don't need to be a gangster to have the Wu make you feel what it's like to be a gangster. The Wu brings you into the Big Apple, and into their lives in The 36 Chambers.
This is one of the most essential hip-hop albums ever made. Download it for free here, then go out and buy the other 300 albums the Wu and their associates have put out.
The Many Faces of Oliver Hart' is a side project from the vocal half of Minneapolis-based hip-hop duo 'Eyedea & Abilities'.
