That's My Dad.

Top 100 Albums of 2012 

(High-Res Version Here)

Top 50 Songs of 2012 -

1. Purity Ring - Fineshrine
2. TNGHT - Higher Ground
3. Death Grips - Bitch Please
4. Tindersticks - Chocolate
5. Kendrick Lamar - Backseat Freestyle
6. Spiritualized - Hey Jane
7. The Weeknd - D.D.
8. Japandroids - The House That Heaven Built
9. Perfume Genius - Normal Song 
10. El-P - The Full Retard
11. Frank Ocean - Forrest Gump
12. Joey Bada$$ - Survival Tactics (feat. Capital Steez)
13. Bat for Lashes - Laura
14. Kitty Pryde - Okay Cupid 
15. AlunaGeorge - You Know You Like It
16. Theophilus London - Big Spender (feat. A$AP Rocky)*
17. The xx - Angels
18. Miguel - Use Me*
19. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis - Same Love (feat. Mary Lambert)
20. Hop Along - No Good Al Joad
21. Jens Lekman - Become Someone Else’s 
22. Tame Impala - Mind Mischief
23. Baauer - Harlem Shake
24. Young Magic - Sparkly
25. The Tallest Man on Earth - There’s No Leaving Now
26. First Aid Kit - King of the World
27. Schoolboy Q - Hands on the Wheel
28. Cloud Nothings - Wasted Days
29. Usher - Climax*
30. Jack White - Sixteen Saltines
31. Darq E Freaker & Danny Brown - Blueberry (Pills & Cocaine)
32. Mac Demarco - Freaking Out the Neighborhood*
33. Odd Future - Rella
34. Alabama Shakes - Heartbreaker
35. Jessie Ware - Running
36. How to Dress Well - & It Was U
37. Fiona Apple - Every Single Night
38. The Men - Turn it Around
39. Alt-J - Matilda*
40. Title Fight - Head in the Ceiling Fan
41. Dum Dum Girls - Lord Knows*
42. Zammuto - Too Late to Topologize
43. Beach House - Wild
44. Lil B - I Own Swag*
45. Grimes - Oblivion
46. Father John Misty - Funtimes in Babylon
47. Ondatrópica - Descarga Tropica
48. Fun. - Some Nights (Intro.)
49. Passion Pit - Constant Conversations
50. XXYYXX - About You

* - Newly Added Tracks

(Source: Spotify)

Top 50 Songs of 2012: #2, TNGHT - Higher Ground

Reaching for higher ground. 

You’re at a gorgeous party and the person of your dreams is next to the bar, looking more desirable than ever fathomable. Likewise, you make your way and without much effort, swoon the individual into a maddening and tantalizing session of fucking. The doors are slamming, the sheets are ruffling, the bed is running out of springs that work, the rug is ruined! Not only are you amazed at how unbelievably circumstantial the situation is, but also how dream-like everything is paced. And just when the metaphysical steam of the room is opening your pores and setting ablaze to all senses, the dream boy/girl eyes turn neon red and turn into a homicidal and menacing murdering robot. Tossing and turning, whilst still engaged in fucking, he/she begins shooting lethal lasers from its eyes and moving savagely for your death. Feathers from the pillows are flying, curtains are burning, furniture is being destroyed and, while dodging it all, you have never felt more turned on in your entire life. And, most likely, you will never feel that again. 

Top 50 Songs of 2012: #3, Death Grips - Bitch Please

I am the darkness creeping through your system.

Death Grips are my favorite band of 2012 and, potentially, for years to come. Abrasive hip-hop music is quite possibly the least recommendable style, yet I yearn for my friends reactions and take on the aesthetic and emotions Death Grips produce. Of the thirteen cuts from this year’s masterpiece The Money Store, “Bitch Please” was the most enthralling. Featuring the album’s dirtiest beats, drops and lyrics, front-man MC Ride turns up the misogyny and abuse to an head-thumping excess: like a pair of serial killers commissioned to produce a night club banger. Among the infectiously dance-worthy rhythms and murderous lyrical visuals, there’s a sickening catharsis to be found here.

(Source: Spotify)

Top 50 Songs of 2012: #10, El-P - The Full Retard

So you should pump this shit, like they do in the future. 

How many rappers are able to satisfy such a wide spectrum of listeners without sacrificing a drop of intellect and entertainment?  From a single lyric to a whole phrase, a sample choice to the entire beat structure, El-P gushes in on “The Full Retard” with his trademark intelligent personality, futuristic thought-provocation and a brilliant swagger for the ages. It unwraps with more detail and value upon each listen, yet never fails to excite and hype up a crowd. I cannot urge hip-hop listeners enough, “The Full Retard” is the best written song of this year and holds sustenance for years to come.

How to Dress Well - Total Loss

You were there for me when I was in trouble.

Front-man Tom Krell of R&B/ambient Brooklyn project How to Dress Well, Tom Krell wants you to dream with him. Not in a romantic or inspiring sense, more like the ‘seduce you on a beach at night and disappear by the morning’ type. His delectably under-rated debut 2009 record, “Love Remains”, an LP built for cathartic late-night drives but also marked the beginning of a slew of experimental R&B based projects in years to come. Three years later comes his sophomore effort, “Total Loss”: an ethereal sound built to please ears more R&B-laden and less lo-fi than Krell’s past work. “Total Loss” takes production cues from the likes of Michael Jackson and Prince while following similarities with his contemporaries like Purity Ring or Holy Other. In comparison to “Love Remains”, How to Dress Well achieves a set of more realized artistic sensibilities, then again, trades off large chunks of experimental value from his sound in the process. For me, Krell fits the proverbial glove of a dark and brooding ghost that he plays on “Love Remains” better than the omnipotent narrator character heard on “Total Loss”. Take your pick though. Artistic transitions are always welcome, some are just better than others. (7/10)

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Death Grips - No Love Deep Web

Read My Full Review on ‘Listen Before You Buy’

When Sacramento hip-hop trio Death Grips released Exmilitary in 2011, it snuck into our houses like a rare poisonous snake from another part of this country and terrorized us in the most comforting corners of our world. When they signed onto Epic Records and dropped The Money Store earlier this year, it was a paranoid, ferocious monster that escaped from a maximum security prison and started stalking, screaming and eating pedestrians. And when they decided to defy their label and all other expectations and release No Love Deep Web, it was like a blood-smeared, violently scribbled entry in a nihilist’s diary that declared war against morality. Also, they found a Sharpie and got their dick hard. […]

(10/10)

Liars - WIXIW

In a sense, Liars latest album, “WIXIW”, should be completely forgotten about and scrapped in the dust for being bleak, unrewarding, anti-climatic and the most throughly low-key piece of experimental rock in quite some time. However, that is exactly what these highly-reputed musicians wanted to make: a challenging and dissonant listening experience. So there’s no real meaning in criticizing a technical sonic experimental succeeding to articulate and prove its point, even if it doesn’t remotely amount to pleasurable listening or repeated visits. (7/10)

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Killer Mike - R.A.P. Music 

Just when the gettin’s good for hip-hop this year, former Outkast-attributed and Atlanta rapper Killer Mike prevails on the underground rap scene, bringing the strongest conventional (only mention ‘conventional’ due to Death Grips’ “The Money Store”) hip-hop LP of the year, “R.A.P. Music”: a multi-faceted work of supreme production qualities (special thanks to El-P), profoundly analyzed racial-societal tension matched with first-class storytelling skills and cutthroat bomb-squad styled hip-hop vigor not unlike legends Public Enemy and N.W.A. (9/10)

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Billy Woods - History Will Absolve Me

Eight years after his last album, old-school rapper Billy Woods returns with his ferocious, thunder-bolt of an album: “History Will Absolve Me”. Now, in a new-school era, independent hip-hop have continually toned back the grit to a trivial embellishment. But much like Death Grips’ “The Money Store” though, “History Will Absolve Me” is a tremendous slap in the face to a genre that fell asleep way past its alarm clock, alerting its senses with urgent and tense material. As a full-fledged work of abstract hardcore hip-hop spanning eighteen songs, Billy Woods is out with no mercy and “History Will Absolve Me” is his aberrant, massive criticism of postmodern hip-hop culture. (8/10)

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Death Grips - The Money Store

Read My Full Review on ‘Listen Before You Buy’

[…] There are three types of people: those who listen to Death Grips, those who don’t and those who are scared shitless by them. Following up from the extremely uncompromising and vicious “Exmilitary”, Death Grips’ latest LP “The Money Store” now tackles the task of exploring their intricate style presented on “Exmilitary”. They’re moving past the brutal straightforward sonic clashes between punk and hip hop, instead offering higher levels of artistic efforts, denser material and intense abstract fury on top of the original formula. Much like an “OK Computer”or a Tom Waits record, “The Money Store” is one of those rare releases that offer an abundance of material, sonically and conceptually, enough to equally baffle and satisfy the mind. […]

(9/10)

Pepe Deluxe - Queen of the Wave

While it suffers of having the repeat value of an episode of a shitty soap opera, Pepe Deluxe’s Queen of the Wave earns full marks as a bombastic psychedelic baroque pop opera gone absolutely fucking nuts. If melismatic, esoteric or eclectic music is your style; put away those prog-rock records and meet your new best friend. (9/10)

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March Music Recommendations (Playlist from tonight’s broadcast)

1. D.D. - The Weeknd

2. Some Nights - Fun.

3. Child - The Maccabees

4. Hol’ Up - Kendrick Lamar 

5. Risky Endeavors - KOAN Sound

6. Right In - Skrillex

7. Takyon (Death Yon) - Death Grips

8. Rigamortus - Kendrick Lamar

9. Es-So - Tune-Yards

10. Pelican - The Maccabees

11. One Foot - Fun.

12. Montreal - The Weeknd

Death Grips - Ex Military 

Get scared. Get really scared. This is Death Grips.

Death Grips is a California hip-hop group who’ve put themselves out there with minimum information and a lot of underground hype. The disclaimer that goes with this artist is of its over-bearing…loudness. Much like Sleigh Bells or Odd Future, these guys approach a genre with wildness. But where Sleigh Bells translate volume into style and Odd Future mold social commentary out of abrasive attitudes, Death Grips is much more grizzly with their agenda. 

With their debut release, Ex Military, there is a bold proposition both in a philosophical and contemporary context presented. On a first interpretation, Death Grips can feel like a radical group of anarchists at a music festival, waving their violent and freakish flag in a corner whilst the majority walks right by it with no serious regard. But there’s much more relevancy and meaning to what may just seem like a gimmicky ‘shock value’ artist.

The album can be represented, as a whole, through three of its most pivotal tracks. The first, Guillotine (It Goes Yah), is a dense and heavily abstract track that tips the scale back and forth between spoken word and hip-hop. The most prominent feature of the song is its basic yet unforgettable beat that sounds like God stomping its foot on the world and you hearing it thousands of miles away. It’s a viciously dark track that suffocates you with its claustrophobic production and themes of suicide, not to mention, a terrifying music video to boot. The next is Ex Military’s main single: Takyon (Death Yon), a monumental track for the album and Death Grips’ uncontrollable style. It follows closely to Guillotine, yet it packs all the punches you wouldn’t think it dared to. This is seriously as close as hip-hop will get to punk while placing both attitudes on full throttle. Towards the end of Ex Military is where Death Grips averts from the obtuse abstractness and makes sense of their motives more on the track, I Want It I Need It (Death Heated). The song works as a work of prose about our generation’s filthy urges for pleasure; sex, drugs and repeat until you die. It helps to place the entire album in a certain perspective in our minds. 

Ex Military is an album that needs to be talked about. From any possible interpretation made, this is a release that will definitely leave a mark on your psyche; some harder than others. If you’re in need of a defibrillator doused in gasoline charged to your forehead, Death Grips might be your musical match. This is not for the faint of heart, but for anyone else, Ex Military is a seriously urgent piece of art that’ll knock you out cold.   

This album was my dad. (9/10)

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Big K.R.I.T.’s Return of 4Eva -

Big K.R.I.T.’s “Return of 4Eva” is a work of wisdom beyond its years. It’s a personal, lyrical and humble work of music so innocent that it’s almost tragic to hear Big K.R.I.T. rapping about all the dreams that we’re never fulfilled in his life instead of the typical braggadocios junk southern rap is infamous for. “Return of 4Eva” may very well be the most ambitious southern rap album of 2011 from the next biggest thing in hip-hop. (8/10)