A Little Old School And A Little Soul

Leaders Of The New School.

"The Leaders of the New School were an American hip hop crew composed of Uniondale, New York natives Charlie Brown, Dinco D, Busta Rhymes and Cut Monitor Milo, Busta Rhymes' cousin. The four got their start touring with hip hop group Public Enemy, and in fact it was member Chuck D who gave Busta Rhymes and Charlie Brown their names.

The group made their first appearance on an Elektra Records compilation titled Rubáiyát: Elektra's 40th Anniversary, with a song called "Mt. Airy Groove". LONS soon joined up with popular hip hop collective, the Native Tongues Posse, along with the Jungle Brothers, De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest and Black Sheep.

In 1991 Busta Rhymes made a guest appearance on A Tribe Called Quest's hit single "Scenario," and LONS joined ATCQ on the Arsenio Hall Show to perform the track with them. Their debut album also came in 1991, entitled A Future Without a Past, which included the hits "Case of the P.T.A.", "Sobb Story" and "The International Zone Coaster". The group was praised for their light-hearted content, and old-school call-and-response deliveries. Their second and last album was T.I.M.E., released in 1993, which stood for "The Inner Mind's Eye". The album was less acclaimed than their debut, but spawned rap hits "What's Next" and "Classic Material"."

Library Tapes.

"Library Tapes consists of David Wenngren from Gävle, Sweden and is an experimental/ambient band. Per Jardsell was a member of Library Tapes but left after the release of the first album. Later releases saw the artist collaborate with Colleen, Erik Skodvin (Deaf Center & Svarte Greiner), Peter Broderick, Danny Norbury and Sylvain Chauveau."

I have only really given the two '08 releases healthy listens, but they hooked me and I had to grab up the rest of his stuff. From my limited listens today the earlier stuff is just as good but much more sparse without Broderick's help. Anyway, onto the albums.

Ali.

New Brother Ali, should be good.

Tillman.

Newest from J. Tillman.

Bondy.

New effort from A.A. Bondy, get it while it's hot.

Brand New.

Not a big fan upon first listen through. I really dug the progression between their first album which was typical TBS style nonsense (still listened though) to Deja Entendu which showed a lot of growth. Then out came The Devil... which furthered the nod to old school emo and was grand, now out comes this which I don't know how to feel about. Heard a solid song or two on the first listen, but wasn't too impressed. Honeymoon is over I spose.

Volcano Choir.

"Volcano Choir is an assembly of Wisconsinites Jon Mueller, Chris Rosenau, Jim Schoenecker, Daniel Spack, Justin Vernon, and Thomas Wincek. You might find these old friends also frequenting records and stages under different monikers, Collections of Colonies of Bees and Bon Iver. The collaboration predates the meteoric rise of Justin Vernon's Bon Iver project, with original songwriting dating back to the summer of 2005, right around the time the Bees first toured with Vernon's previous band DeYarmond Edison.

While entirely a studio record, the collection doesn't suffer from the overburdens of a digital pile up or over-thinking. Rather it breathes and convulses in equal measure, radiating an inherent dynamism found only in the voluntary bondage of intimacy. With influences ranging from David Sylvian and Steve Reich to Mahalia Jackson and Tom Waits, it might be more accurate to say the group's influence is music itself. You can hear it in the care and real love generously applied to each moment of Unmap. With the vibe of some intimate backwoods gospel, plus a spirit of patience and thoughtful repetition, the music of Volcano Choir is as dynamic as it is lovely.

Unmap ultimately came together over a weekend in November 2008 in Fall Creek, Wisconsin, at Justin and Nate Vernon's recording studio. And while it is at its heart a record about the allure of being with people you need and making something with them, it is also a document created by musicians with rare gifts getting together to exorcise their ideas about beauty. This scaffolding of loops and off grid tempos for choral style vocals offers a state of continual surprise, call it unexpectation.

Unmap marks the debut full-length from Volcano Choir, the collaboration between Collections of Colonies of Bees and Justin Vernon of Bon Iver."

New look.

Shit's looking marginally professional, no?

english 101

"it's in the earliest hours of the morning that you begin to feel most alive. Those sleepless hours before the dawn, the inevitable precursor to those wholly bad mornings. Those mornings where all you want is to crawl into bed with her but instead climb your tired bones out of bed stumbling in what resembles a drunken stupor into the bathroom to request the salvation of hot water and steam; a salvation that as is the case with all salvation always comes half cocked and with a price.

having realized your mounting debt and pretending to come to terms with it you then emerge from the bathroom, stumbling back into your room in what now resembles an only slightly drunken stupor to find something you find halfway suitable to put on in order to greet this wholly bad morning, perhaps something to appease it or at least something relatively appealing to the eye. Settling instead for the comfort of an old pair of worn jeans and the warmth of flannel, you then leave your house and stumble toward a cup of coffee, content that at least certain examples of salvation come at the bargain price of a mere dollar and fifty nine cents."