Hip Hop duo Yo Majesty take the crown for ‘Futuristically Speaking’, our Album Of The Month. Gang Gang Dance, James Jackson Toth, Keziah Jones and The Sea And Cake are also worth a spin.
Strictly speaking, we didn’t have a clear editorial favourite this month. The reader vote swung it for Yo Majesty in the end.
The midfield is quite strong this month. I’d recommend you try Gang Gang Dance’s album ‘Saint Dymphna’ for something slightly different from the norm. All tribal percussion and edgy Electronics it reminds me vaguely of UK one-hit wonders the Flying Lizards back in the heady New Wave days.
If you only want to listen to two albums this month, then Yo Majesty and Gang Gang Dance are ‘it’. But for a taste of something completely different, spare another 4 minutes to listen to James Jackson Toth’s sublime ‘Doreen’. JJ’s album only came third, but this is one hell of a song.
Watch JJ Toth Play ‘Doreen’
There were three contenders for fifth place, all with identical ratings. Jenny Lewis’ ‘Acid Tongue’ and Lambchop’s ‘OH (Ohio)’ lost by a neck length to The Sea And Cake’s ‘Car Alarm’ because the latter is the most consistent album of the three.
ALBUM OF THE MONTH/READERS’ CHOICE
Yo Majesty ‘Futuristically Speaking… Never Be Afraid’
If you like Gangsta Rap, then Yo Majesty are the antichrist. Hip Hop’s hot tempered brats spit on bling and designer schmutter, giving you nasty rhymes and dirty Electro beats instead.
For starters, Shunda and JWL are two Lesbians who dress like they’re straight out of the local Walmart rather than the Playaz Lounge. For a main course, Yo Majesty have given up on the smooth beats and the glossy studio production. The music is fast, trashy Electro stuff that sounds like it was knocked out on a $100 keyboard - Electroclash meets Space Invaders.
Curious? Watch Yo Majesty Perform Live
For dessert, they take the mickey out of Hip Hop stereotypes. Big time. All that pimpin’ and booty callin’? Forget it, Yo Majesty turn the joint upside down. Bragging ‘gangstaz’ sweat and stink under their leather jackets and utter cringeworthy chat up-lines before being put down with a ‘but I might fancy your sister’.
Even more confusing, Yo Majesty don’t knock the ‘Gs’ to set themselves up as the female equivalent. Nope, these girls live on a different planet. After trying to make it with more conventional sounding Hip Hop beats for a good few years, Yo Majesty have shrunk from a trio to a duo and have turned their back on Hip Hop fashion.
The result is an album that sounds as close to a ’70s Hip Hop jam in a Bronx community centre as you are likely to get these days. (Before you ask, I’ve heard the bootlegs.)
Dip straight in there with ‘Party Hardy’ and ‘Club Action’. Then get sucked in further by the fast Electro of ‘Take It Away’ before singing along to ‘Leather Jacket’.
Listen To Yo Majesty Now!
But even when the girls slow down the tempo you can feel the energy. ‘Get Down On The Floor’ and ‘Buy Lxxe’ are slow paced jams that can still tear the house down.
And here comes the Health Warning: ‘Futuristically Speaking’ will not be everybody’s cup of tea.
Thin digital beats, often lacking in bass, plus shouted vocals hovering on the brink of distortion make for uneasy listening. It’s a great party record when you’re in the mood, but a total stinker if you’re not.
Personally, I think Yo Majesty’s best tracks aren’t even on the album, but on the ‘Kryptonite Pussy’ EP which was released just before the album. Heavier beats, totally dope material: ‘Hey There Girl’ and ‘Kryptonite Pussy’.
Readers from the UK and Ireland can download ‘Futuristically Speaking’ and the ‘Kryptonite Pussy EP’ here from iTunes UK.
US Readers - Buy Yo Majesty On CD Or Vinyl Here!
UK And Ireland Readers - Buy Yo Majesty On CD Or Vinyl Here!
2nd Place: Gang Gang Dance ‘Saint Dymphna’
With ‘Saint Dymphna’, Gang Gang Dance morph from a bunch of abrasive Brooklyn art rockers playing for hyper-active hipsters into something resembling Bjork fused with the Afro Celt Soundsystem.
Don’t get me wrong, this is no half-arsed attempt by a ‘difficult’ band to go commercial. Gang Gang Dance sound still clued in and they are also still pretty intense.
Listening to ‘Saint Dymphna’, there is an atmosphere as if the band could have just as easy chucked their instruments at each other and called the whole ambient World Music thing off. That particular tension only contributes to the fun. Incidentally, Saint Dymphna is the patron saint of those suffering of mental illness and nervous disorders. Nice choice.
If you never heard Gang Gang Dance before, you have to watch the video below. This is the band in top form, doing their improvised, melancholic drone rock. Think My Bloody Valentine meets Sonic Youth. Once you’ve watched, read on.
Watch Gang Gang Dance Perform Live
Now that we have a common starting point, listen to ‘Saint Dymphna’ below. Positively easy listening, right? Yes, but you don’t get that tightly-packed sound if you haven’t done the improvisation bit ad nauseam beforehand.
Listen Here To ‘Saint Dymphna’
Some of the standout tracks for me are the Bjork-meets-Afro-Funk of ‘First Communion’, the Space-Invaders-raid-Bollywood sound on ‘Vacuum’ and the Dubstep-goes-to-Indonesia percussion on ‘Inner Pace’.
Gang Gang Dance actually do use Dubstep flavours judiciously on the album. For best results, check out ‘Princes’ with MC Tinchy Stryder.
The most straightforward pop tune on ‘Saint Dymphna’ is ‘House Jam’ - A tightrope walk between plain cheesy and pleasantly weird. There’s also a sanitised remix, courtesy of Hot Chip, which straightens out the beats and applies a bit of European chic to the Brooklyn sounds of Gang Gang Dance.
UK and Ireland readers can download ‘Saint Dymphna’ here from iTunes UK.
US Readers - Buy Gang Gang Dance On CD Here (sorry, no vinyl at present)!
UK And Ireland Readers - Buy Gang Gang Dance On CD Or Vinyl Here!
3rd Place: James Jackson Toth ‘Waiting In Vain’
Good songs with hooks that are hard to come by these days. Tennessee-based JJ sounds like he had Alex Chilton and the Cramps cooped up in a Memphis studio, watching over them with a shotgun. ‘Waiting In Vain’ is way rockier than any decent singer-songwriter stuff you may come across this year. And that includes Micah P. Hinson.
Hinson’s music is darker and has that ’50s feel. Toth’s album is more like a slice of 70’s rock: Music for cruising. But JJ ain’t no jock and there is a dark streak running through the album that makes you sit up and listen carefully. Sweet melodies and a touch of menace in the air - Highly addictive, but slightly scary stuff.
JJ admits to admiring the grand daddy of whacked out Southern Rock, Alex Chilton, and seminal country rockers the Violent Femmes, by the way. Fair dues to Toth, he carries the torch very well.
Listen to JJ Toth’s new album here. US residents can also download tracks directly from the MP3 player below. UK and Ireland residents would need to jump to the iTunes link further down to buy the album.
Here’s the iTunes UK link for JJ’s album ‘Waiting In Vain’.
US readers can buy the album on CD here:
UK and Ireland readers can buy the album on CD here:
4th Place: Keziah Jones ‘Nigerian Wood’
Ignore the naff word play on the Beatles’ ‘Norwegian Wood’, this is actually a pretty cool album. Jones injects Afro Funk and 60’s Jazz into the dull world of contemporary R&B and comes up trumps.
When African bands picked up the fashionable Funk sounds from the US in the early 1970s, they put their own spin on it. Just like Jamaican artists covering Curtis Mayfield’s Chicago Soul set the Reggae train going (well, Rocksteady, if you’re pedantic), the largely West African Funk merchants kick started Afro Funk. Now Nigerian-born, New York-based Jones claims the sound back.
Like Afro Funk’s best known exponent, the late fellow Nigerian Fela Kuti, Jones makes music for night clubs. Suave, mellow with the odd frenetic break to get booties on the dance floor. The smooth execution makes ‘Nigerian Wood’ pleasant home listening material, too.
Watch Keziah Jones Play Live
For the most overt Afro Funk workouts, check out the title track or the more uptempo numbers ‘Lagos vs. New York’ and ‘Pimpin’.
On other tracks, Jones adds more of a jazzy New York vibe a la Roy Ayers. Listen to ‘African Android’ or the two seriously good ballads ‘My Kinda Girl’ and ‘Beautifulblackbutterfly’.
When Jones reverts to standard R&B ballads during the rest of the album, the results are too syrupy for my taste. I mean, he’s got a cool, understated style of delivery, but stuff like ‘In Love Forever’ just lacks moxie. Jones doesn’t do the obligatory R&B bombast, however. So even the bling ballads sound sharp and crisp. Check ‘Blue Is The Mind’, for instance. Still a bit syrupy, though.
Lyrically and musically, ‘Nigerian Wood’ is a proud but critical review of Jones own roots. Born in Nigeria, educated in England and living in New York, Jones has delivered an album that aims to unite his family background with the heritage of American Black Music he reveres.
Listen here to samples of Keziah Jones’ album ‘Nigerian Wood’ on iTunes UK. Readers from the UK and Ireland can also download the album using the iTunes link above. Please note, that a CD version of ‘Norwegian Wood’ is not currently available on Amazon.co.uk.
5th Place: The Sea And Cake ‘Car Alarm’
The Sea And Cake play their guitars in that pearly, finicky 70’s style perfected by New York art punks Television. No droning notes, no chords. The band also uses electronics, but not like somebody would do it who comes from a Dance background. No, theirs is a rock approach to rhythm machines and sounds that owes a lot to German bands of the early 70’s. Think early Kraftwerk, Can or Harmonia.
Watch The Sea And Cake Video For ‘Weekend’
‘CMS Sequence’ is a neat slice of vintage electronica that could have come straight out of the tape archives of Harmonia or early Kraftwerk. ‘Weekend’ builds a shimmering Electro Funk groove that sounds just on the money for fans of Optimo, Idjut Boys or Too Many DJs.
This is the Chicago bands eight album to date. At this stage, all the bits just slot into their place and the guitar work is super slick. ‘Aerial’ and ‘On The Letter’ are super elastic, mellow guitar jams. The sound of Television floating on lilos in a L.A. pool. I know, that probably never happened. Just picture the scene and its soundtrack.
Listen Here To ‘Car Alarm’!
US Readers Can Download From The Player Below.
Quiet, soft guitars dominate the remainder of the album. Sometimes flavoured with a bit of cod Reggae, 10CC style (’Down In The City’), sometimes spiced up with a Tom Verlaine style guitar solo (’Window Sills’).
Only one track breaks with the formula. The quirky ‘Also Ran’ sounds like a busker crashing the recording sessions.
In a nutshell, I love the sound Sea And Cake captured on ‘Car Alarm’. There are four, maybe five strong songs on the album. If I have any reservations, it’s that large chunks of ‘Car Alarm’ are so ethereal they just fade into the background.
UK and Ireland readers can download ‘Car Alarm’ here from iTunes UK.
US Readers - Buy The Sea And Cake’s New Album On CD Here!
UK And Ireland Readers - Buy ‘Car Alarm’ On CD Here!
