October/November 2014 Track Round Up

Try as you may to hold on to every new recording that surfaces on the world wide web, some stuff is going to slip through the cracks! This Thanksgiving break, don't get caught with your pants down when your friend asks you what you've been listening to lately. Refer to this handy list of stand-outs from the past two months, pick one at random, and tell your friend to stop putting you on the spot like that!


Azealia Banks: "Idle Delilah"- Three years of delay. Mixed outside production. Sixteen songs amounting to a consecutive hour of fast paced dance and hip hop. Any one of these things could have been the major pitfall that derailed Azealia Banks' long awaited proper debut, Broke with Expensive Taste. They are the kind of problems that sink many a career, but Banks is an exception to the rule. Her sheer refusal to fade away is what gives her a leg up over the other budding stars lost in label limbo. Some songs work better than others, but the ones that leave a mark do so because Banks places herself front and center. "Idle Delilah," with its pots and pans production, allows Banks to toy with elegant rhyme schemes, the same kind that made her smash hit, "212," truly breathtaking. A few tracks will fall by the wayside, but all in all, Azealia Banks has finally delivered a substantial collection of songs to her fans, and the majority of these songs are winners.

Beyoncé: "Ring Off"- Sound the Beyoncé alarm! To commemorate eleven or so months since she nearly crashed the iTunes servers, Queen B broke us off a couple bites of the Beyoncé deluxe edition. "7/11" is plenty fun, and is almost certainly the pregame that leads to the sloppy hook-up that is "Drunk In Love." The sunnier of the two, "Ring Off," an ode to mama, juxtaposes bright, twinkling keys with the pressure of being trapped in a loveless relationship. It is just another entry in Beyoncé's marriage saga, as she determines whether the ring is a liberating or suffocating force (her and Frodo would have A LOT to talk about). If the rumors hold true that another surprise release is on the horizon, "Ring Off" is a good indicator that Mrs. Carter still has a lot left in the tank.

Father John Misty: "Bored in the USA"- Father John Misty might come off as one of the more smug, arrogant SOBs in all of indie rock, but dear Lord, who knew the man could write a power ballad? His bitterness finally catches up to him on "Bored in the USA," a song that's as deeply moving as it is tragically funny. "Save me, White Jesus!" he pleads, paying no mind to the Christ like beard on his face. His complaints about the declining quality of American society are met with a laugh track, and his melodramatic cries for accomplishing something great are backed by a complete twenty piece orchestra. As the ex-drummer of Fleet Foxes, Josh Tillman knows a thing or two about being "a functioning cog in some great machinery serving something beyond [him]." Now, as Father John Misty, the spotlight is on him, and he's going to soak up as much of it as possible.

Flying Lotus: "Medication Meditation (feat. Krayzie Bone)"- Fresh off his most powerful, neatly choreographed album to date, Flying Lotus pulls out yet another gem from his seemingly endless recording sessions. This prized piece of psychedelic hip hop recruits Bone Thugz N' Harmony's very own Krayzie Bone for some lyrical sorcery. As a musical curator for the newly expanded soundtrack of the videogame Grand Theft Auto V, Flylo is using the platform to introduce his followers to the artists that inspired him and the ones that have taken after his own unique brand of jazz infused beat music. Ultimately, its his own enchanted, homemade mixture of haunted beats and cunning rappers that trumps the other sixteen fictional, in-game radio stations. Don't touch that dial when FlyLo FM is on.

Ghostface Killah: "Love Don't Live Here No More"- As the most active lord of the Wu, Ghost continues to show us that age is not a reason to get complacent. His storytelling abilities look mighty healthy on "Love Don't Live Here No More," the first single from one of his many upcoming projects, 36 Seasons. While Starks has promoted 36 Seasons as a concept album centered around a gangster vigilante, you wouldn't know it from the soulful accompaniment on this track. It reveals a much welcomed soft side to the MC, who walks us through the feeling of deflation that comes with being replaced by another man. As one of his more personal tracks since Fishscale's "Back Like That," it makes for a nice pairing with the carnal verses he has unveiled from his other soon to be released pet project, the much anticipated collaborative effort with BADBADNOTGOOD.

Panda Bear: "Mr. Noah"- If you're in the small camp of people who are unwilling to put a piece of themself into their music in order to get something out of it, then Panda Bear may not be for you. To be frank, the first minute of "Mr. Noah" is tough to endure (that is, unless, you are in the even smaller camp of people who enjoys loud buzzing and the sound of dogs whimpering). But see it through, and you'll witness one of the most mesmerizing transformations of the year take place. With a warbling, grumbling mesh of guitars and synthesizers, Noah Lennox, Animal Collective's most inventive member, creates a sensation of vertigo, running up and down tonal scales with reckless abandon. And yet, when you scratch through all of this sonic mastery, "Mr. Noah" is a song about never writing off the underdog, a reminder that talent reveals itself at different points for different people. Beyond all that whimpering is a beautiful voice, waiting to be unleashed.

Pusha T: "Lunch Money"- Backed by one of the most strangely brilliant Kanye West beats of the past few years, "Lunch Money" is coke rap from the world of the Jetsons. As chaotic as this slurpy, slippery beat may get, King Push never gets distracted, holding his competitors upside down and claiming any loose change that falls out of their pockets. The intensity only ramps up as the song progresses, as the G.O.O.D Music golden child gloats about pricy mink coats and diamond-encrusted watches. "This is crime by design. If the crown ain't mine, tell me who am I behind?" When backed with these Yeezus-esque soundscapes, absolutely no one.

SZA: "Sobriety"- After her underwhelming major label debut, Z, TDE's lone female signee bounces back in a big way with "Sobriety." Whereas Z contained 40 minutes of her trying to stay afloat in a sea of washed out effects, SZA takes hold of the mic and never lets go throughout the course of "Sobriety." Smooth bass provided by Thundercat underscores a tale that starts off abstruse ("Until two aliens came and chopped our heads off with samurai swords/ 'At least we died together.' That's what I thought."), but ends up in an all too real space ("I still ain't got no whip, I still ain't got no friends/ At least I got my family. Bullshit. My daddy still can't stand me"). Most importantly, SZA flaunts the vocal abilities that brought her initial recognition, proving that she can and will do much more than sing hooks for her TDE affiliates.

"Content Nausea" Review

There is mounting confusion surrounding the band behind the album Content Nausea. No, there are no lingering questions concerning their fate, and certainly none concerning their ability. At the end of the day, the question that is bugging everyone is plain and simple: What is their fucking name? We cannot overlook, as so many will, that two of Parquet Courts' last four records (all released in an impressive two year span) have fallen under the alias Parkay Quarts. What, if anything, separates a Parquet Courts album from a Parkay Quarts album? Is this mere tomfoolery cooked up by a band of Brooklyn punks, or do names still carry weight?

From a personnel stance, Parkay Quarts is a project orchestrated by singer/guitarists Andrew Savage and Austin Brown, substituting Parquet Courts' bassist Sean Yeaton and drummer Max Savage for various outside musicians. Their first Parkay Quarts experiment, Tally Up All the Things That You Broke, which included the uncharacteristically clanky, dance-y "He's Seeing Paths," was much more willing to depart from the indie garage rock template that Parquet Courts normally operates within. While Tally presented itself more as a bonus EP in between Courts albums, Content Nausea's thematic consistency and tendency to move into uncharted territory make it a fully fleshed out project that deserves to be discussed with the band's best work. 

A strong current of paranoia and self-doubt runs through nearly every song on Content Nausea. Savage and Brown take turns mutedly reciting chants of "fear's taking over" and "everyday it starts: anxiety." Twitching and moaning guitar makes this neurosis tangible, a technique that is best displayed on "The Map," a piece that lyrically unfolds much like a short story. It follows a young man who asks his shrink to pinpoint the source of his issues, and is given a physical map of all of his suffering in return. It almost sounds like a long lost outtake from The Velvet Underground's White Light/White Heat (minus all that bodily mutilation). The various interludes that are interspersed throughout ("Urban Ease," "Kevlar Walls," "No Concept") reek of uncertainty and industrial decay. While existential anguish in the big city is not necessarily a new topic in Savage and Brown's music, some of these songs take worries that they would usually shrug off in a Parquet Courts song to an unavoidable, downright apocalyptic level. 

But Content Nausea is not all doom and gloom. Courts/Quarts' ace in the hole has always been their mastery of controlling pace, and whenever the listener looks for a shot of energy, this album delivers. "Pretty Machines," with its brash horns, might be their most fun song to date, while the completely unexpected cover of "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" is a risk that was well-worth taking. "Uncast Shadow of a Southern Myth," a song far grander in scope than any of the eleven before it, is a meandering death march through the history of the American South, all told from the perspective of a man defending his home with a gun in hand. The song is a giant powder keg, and when the fire finally reaches the end of the fuse, the resulting blast is all-consuming anger unfettered by any of the cool guy dronings of a "Stoned and Starving" or an "Instant Disassembly." If the past two years have been any indication, Parquet Courts will return soon, adding another bunch of speedy jams to their repertoire. In the meantime, Parkay Quarts continue to widen their fanbase and show just how expansive their skillset is. No matter what they call themselves, their future is looking bright.