The Music I Did and Didn't Hear in 2014

Trying to finish up this little series of year-end posts before we get too far into 2015...

Looking over the music I listened to in 2014, it's clear that I didn't do a very good job keeping up with the latest releases of even just my preferred narrow subgenre of underground hip hop. Thus, reviewing the albums of 2014 for me is as much about what I did listen to as what I didn't and still need to seek out.

Firstly, I already wrote a more in-depth piece about the two albums that were my favorites from the first half of 2014, The Living Daylights and Life Outside the Frame, so be sure to go give that a read.

Musically it was a great year as most of my favorite artists released long-awaited new material, including Bronze Nazareth, Madlib, Cormega, and the Wu-Tang Clan. In fact, looking back on it I spent most of the year listening almost exclusively to these new projects (while dabbling in their past catalogues plus exploring the old blind sage composer Moondog).

Rock Konducta (Parts 1 & 2) by Madlib
Was pining for this for a while. The vinyl dropped last January but those of us without phonographs had to wait until July for the mp3/CD version. Madlib, the legendary producer/sonic-trip-extraordinaire, added onto his mammoth catalogue with this newest edition of the "Beat Konducta" instrumental series, featuring a potpourri of obscure samples from the farthest reaches of 60s-70s psychedelic rock, prog rock, Zamrock, Krautrock, and every other eclectic rock, twisted, tweaked and chopped up into hip hop beats. Totaling more than 80 minutes over 50 tracks, most of them less than 2 minutes long, Rock Konducta is an enclosed universe in and of itself. There's an endless array of miscellaneous snippets, cacophonous blurts of speech, screams, Bill Murray disc jockey riffs, jangling-metal hi-hats, crunching drum lines, badass loops, synth-heavy snoozers, odd offputting tirades, the most random yelps you've ever heard (this tape has a recurrent motif featuring what sounds like a mentally disabled woman bleating "Gimme a dollar!"), ringing alarm clocks or phones, stand-up routines, and every other sonic microcomponent Madlib could cobble together to line this collage of treasures from his rock vinyl collection. There's certainly plenty of skippable material here, but you can easily distill this vast assemblage into a playlist of 30 tracks that are excellent (which is exactly what I did). Or you can listen to the full thing and drift away into the far reaches of Madlib's weird mind.

Favorite tracks: First of all, where the hell does he come up with all these track names? There are 52 tracks in all, none of which have a generic name. Among my favorites are the thumping, mildly melancholy "Motorik Matching", the rugged pysch rock jam "Black Widow", the woodwind orchestral head-bopper "Giant Okra", and the drum-heavy up-tempo controlled chaos known as "Soap Guillotine" on Part 1; deep into the more lackluster Part 2 is my favorite loop on the whole project "Dies Irae" (it's become one of my favorite Madlib beats ever), the rest of Part 2 is unspectacular aside from the rugged fiddle symphony "Teapot", the penultimate percussion showcase "Soon Over" and, of course, the beat tape's closing 30 seconds into which Madlib enigmatically inserts one of the finest, most grave-sounding beats. You'll first need to sit through a 90-second satirical skit of a botched plane hijacking because it's only after that, and a transitional distorted sample singing "though I call from far awayyyy/ you don't listen...," when the Beat Konducta decides to flip on the serious switch.

On DOOM in Slant

"feel him in ya heart chakra, chart toppa

start shit stoppa, be a smart shoppa"

 - DOOM on "Figaro"

"the suggestion thrown out by the doomster in loquacity lunacy" 

- Finnegans Wake, p. 49

My review of the new JJ DOOM (Jneiro Jarel + MF DOOM) album Key to the Kuffs is now up at Slant Magazine. Go give it a read and let me know what you think. (Certainly not the best thing I've ever written, but it's part of my attempt to get back in the groove after some time off.)

Here's the funky new video for the album's first single "Guv'nor".


DOOM recently appeared on BBC Radio 1 and basically took over the show for two hours. The host played dozens of tracks from the Supevillain's vast catalogue and there's a good 40 minutes or so worth of exclusive interview with the elusive, reclusive metal-mask-wearing savant. You can stream the show in its entirety here or if that doesn't work, here's a download link.

Also, Jneiro Jarel put out an eclectic little mixtape for the album featuring remixes, some original old songs that were the influence behind his Key to the Kuffs beats, and more. Listen to it here and if you can find a download link for it, please send it to me.

For those interested, here is my thorough track-by-track review of the previous DOOM album Born Like This.

Awakened Only to See the Wake Everywhere

It's been nearly a month since I've posted anything here, an unprecedented length of absence that is due to a number of factors. For one, I wanted to let the announcement about the Finnegans Wake group sit atop the page for a while. A weeklong trip back home to New York also pulled me away from writing for a bit. And the key reason for my absence is that I've been immersed in thoroughly reading/studying Finnegans Wake for almost two full months now.

The Wake reading experience (my first full go-round with the circular, neverending text) has been occasionally sublime, rarely tedious, and mostly fun. It gets to be kind of addictive, which is why I haven't really written anything besides daily jottings in notebooks, mostly quotes and reflections on what I'm reading.

I had hoped to maintain a regular weekly blogpost here to update where I'm at in the book and what's struck me about it but I'm finding the balance of reading/writing to be a tough one to maintain, especially when the "reading" side of the ledger is so heavily weighted with not one book but half a dozen (a devoted reading of the Wake inevitably requires a few guidebooks, plus I'm occasionally reading the Football Outsiders Almanac 2012 in an attempt to keep myself based in reality through this process).

Now that I've completed 8 chapters of the Wake and gotten into a good routine with it, it's time to slowly bring my writing back to life as I've got a number of pieces to complete that have been collecting dust the past 8 weeks or so. This little post is my attempt at loosening up the writing muscles.

The Man Who Created the Mask and the Exile Who Dons It

We knew something was up. He'd been far too prolific, rapidly growing a rabid and devout fanbase, to suddenly disappear from the scene with his reputation disintegrating into the image of an indolent pot-bellied derelict who left collaborators, record labels, and fans agitated with his inability to finish projects. Hip hop heads have longed for the completion of his two most sought-after records, respective joint efforts with Madlib and Ghostface Killah, for something like 5 years now.

Finally, we've at least got an explanation for his absence.

The metal-masked writer/producer/performer known as MF Doom (aka The Supervillain) was thwarted upon trying to re-enter the United States in 2010 after a European tour and has remained in exile living in London ever since. An article in Q Magazine explained:

British-born [Daniel] Dumile moved to the US as a baby, but was never naturalised, so avoided leaving the country. But in 2010, possibly assuming his American wife and kids would be enough to secure re-entry, he obtained a British passport and set out on tour.
On return he met with an official who "just wanted to see how many people she could make have a bad day that day." Doom didn't tell her his profession, making him the only rapper ever not to give it the Big I Am. "Imagine me saying that," he says with a laugh. "I'm no big rap star, I'm a regular guy." 

Since then he's been holed up in South London.

While stuck over there he has been recording music, though. Suddenly, he's got a new album about to drop, a collabo with producer Jneiro Jarel entitled Keys to the Kuffs, to be released on Stones Throw Records on August 21st.

Here's a new track from the record called "Guv'nor."


In an era ruled by digital music, I still find many releases from Stones Throw to be worthy of physical purchase because of their propensity to craft an all-around artful package. This album features more of the same and they're even including free copies of a 100+ page magazine fully devoted to Doom. Instant purchase for me. More on that here.

As part of the promo push for the magazine, they've put together some colorful YouTube videos including an excellent interview with the artist who originally assembled the Doom mask. Lots of New York City flavor in this one, check it out:

More Links: Madvillain Edition

Catching up with a growing stack of new hip hop material...

Let's start with the legend known as MF DOOM, one of my favorite word weavers. The quarterly publication Frank 151 will be primarily featuring the Doomster in their upcoming Spring 2012 issue. The booklet will feature illustrations, photos, articles, and more, all revolving around that most enigmatic and mysterious metal-masked lyricist. Should be awesome. Stones Throw will carry copies of it once it's available.

Any basketball fan of even the most basic hip hop knowledge could've probably seen this coming: now that the Lakers' Kobe Bryant has to wear a face mask to protect his broken nose, DigitalGravel has created a cool-looking tee shirt showing Kobe rocking an MF DOOM-style mask (pictured above). If I can rub a few nickels together, I might have to acquire one of those.

Where We're At (The Center of the Universe)

The Railway Station at Perpignan (1965) - Salvador Dali

During the year that has just concluded, a good deal of my mental energy was devoted to Salvador Dali and his paranoiac-critical method. The paranoiac method was one of the keys to my study of Dali and James Joyce. For Dali, one of his favorite means of sharing this theory was always his deep infatuation with Millet's famous painting The Angelus (this was discussed in more detail here). During the 1930s, Dali penned a book-length analysis of this seemingly simple painting, asserting that the two farmers, who appear to be observing the daily Angelus prayer devotions in their field, are actually kneeling over a tiny casket. Millet decided to paint over the casket, Dali declared, because it came across as too morbid.

Album Review: MF DOOM - "Born Like This"

Art by Shaun Edwards - www.edwords.net

"Can it be I stayed away too long? Did you miss these rhymes while I was gone?"
- DOOM

After pretty much disappearing off the scene for a few years, DOOM (who dropped the "MF" from his name) released this short but densely rich little album in early 2009. With a total running time of just 40 minutes, four tracks where he doesn't even appear, and plenty of short solo tracks, it's a minimalist approach but then again his previous solo record MM..Food played less than 50 minutes long and was stuffed with lengthy skits and interludes. This is just his style. Madvillainy and DangerDoom were short records too, each one was also eminently replayable.

A Good Morning Remix

Featuring the estimable MF DOOM and Rza.



(Rza's verse is captured a bit off-beat but he used to rap like that on purpose so it sounds normal. Also, the original song wherefrom this verse came is a classic.)

The Madlib Invasion is Upon Us

I'm very late with bringing this up, but the great reclusive hip hop master producer known as Madlib (real name Otis Jackson Jr.) gave his first interview in a long time, a cover story in LA Weekly last week. It's definitely worth a read. The article describes his background and who he is, what he's about but he is in the news because of the prolific frequency of high quality material he's been putting out the last few years now, especially this year. In 2010, he's already released 10 full length albums: 6 for his current ongoing monthly Medicine Show series (original unreleased material in the odd months and themed DJ mixes of vintage records in the even months, I'll have a post up about that whole series shortly), two jazz albums under two different jazz bands that are actually consisted of Madlib himself, and full-length LPs produced for Guilty Simpson and the new group Strong Arm Steady, the latter release considered one of the best albums of the year so far.

The piece is very well-written and sums up the so-called "mystique" concisely.

Speculating on Madlib's whereabouts is futile. Forget Twitter — he doesn't even use e-mail. The interstellar infinity of his music indicates liberation from the limitations of gravity and time. Granted, he exists as blood and marrow: two children, lives in a real home in Eagle Rock, and the Gregorian Calendar claims that he's 36. However, he is best understood as myth. In a society with a vampiric lust for information, our primitive neuroprocessors still compute in archetypes. Madlib is the man who wears masks, the witch doctor, the star of the medicine show.