There are times, doing this, that I feel like a real fraud. Who am I to be writing this stuff up? I’m not a musician, I’m not a writer, I have no training in any of this, I don’t fundamentally know what I’m talking about. On many levels. I feel like I’m just an ape, ooking at the pretty noises.
This feeling eventually passes, usually, but it’s hitting me pretty hard today.
[Read More]Kiwanuka’s second album, Love & Hate, is an ambitious album that roams all over the R&B and soul maps, unafraid to stretch out the songs, play with lush arrangements, and challenge listeners. It’s an album that I really prefer to listen to as a full album, because I think it builds on itself well.
DJ Shadow followed up his excellent 2016 album The Mountain Will Fall with an EP the next year, called The Mountain Has Fallen. It features a couple of nice collaborations with Nas and Danny Brown, and then it has this. The spastic pace, blurting synths, and swaths of noise seem deliberately hostile paired up with some of his most accessible stuff. Overall, though, it’s a solid EP.
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