Shabazz Palaces - Most important musical group/moment in Seattle since Nirvana at OK Hotel?

and the packaging for this is seriously good

i think the vinyl comes in some sort of felt sleeve!

Anyone notice that he covers the Last Poets' "Black Is" for a second time? (It was also on the first DPs album.)

preorders come with a patch designed by Ish:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/matsononmusic/2015414528_album_of_the_year_black_up_by.html

although i guess the time for preorders has passed

free SP show at easy street queen anne (seattle) this evening, as a sort of record release non-party thing

album requires that i engage my low filter ;_;

plan to steal the patch from an unwary child

so, uh, what's the line right before the first "upwards or don't toss it at all" on free press and curl. that's my favorite musical moment, and it is just a moment. "god means come price arsenal?" probably not :\

I think it's "gun beats comprise arsenal"

see, that makes some sense

this sort of "second" career/crit revival is sort of.... unusual? especially for hip hop. Kool keith being maybe the only other example I can think of

DJ Quik is having that kind of moment

With quik its more like critics just caught up to what hed been doing all along

and Quik never won a grammy

40 and Quik never really stopped/changed they just kept cranking shit out under the radar. But Butler's been through three iterations/name changes without being particularly prolific.

this sort of "second" career/crit revival is sort of.... unusual? especially for hip hop. Kool keith being maybe the only other example I can think of

DOOM!

ooh yeah duh

yeah, they even shared the mask gimmick, though butler dropped it p quickly

this album doesnt make as much sense in headphones as it does on a good system

you really need to play it loud or just on speakers

dunno about headphones, but it sounds MASSIVE coming through 4 big speakers

like how "a treatease dedicated to the avian airess..." kind of flirts with "i'll take you there" (and namedrops "where i'm from")

Yeah, the bass in this record is huuuuuge.

I would go down to Easy Street, but I've been feeling like a zombie all day and going into town might not be in the cards.

Finally got a better copy -- what a difference.

totally

Decided I will be going to Easy Street tonight. Contenderizer (or anyone else), if you see me, say what up to u mans and dem.

hey rev, missed u at easy street but did go out. solid crowd! boring though. not the show, the crowd, no one dancing or anything. felt like the music wasn't really connecting due to apathy, but did like it. bought the LP and got a patch, which i will likely put in a box and never see again.

Yeah, I thought the show itself was great. Agree about the crowd, though. The unreleased songs they did were :O

digables were awesome and this is awesome.

review in clash magazine (crappy uk music mag) that i saw excerpted in press release said something along the lines of "the only reference point for this is Odd Future" which made me weep for the paucity of knowledge at the fingertips of indie-rock-crits-writing-abt-hip-hop today.

"his album doesnt make as much sense in headphones as it does on a good system"

You must need new headphones cos it sounds prime through mine. My headphones ARE my "good system" anymore though.

The unreleased songs they did were :O

yeah, there were a few songs i wasn't unfamiliar with. one ("black is..." or something like that? awesome) turns out to be a bonus moment at the end of "swerve" on the LP. wasn't in the leak i've been listening to.

have listened to this on a bunch of different media and stereo setups now. more than most albums, it sounds p radically different depending on how you're listening to it.

SP is kinda similar to odd future in a sense tho - both seem like genuinely fresh versions of stuff happening in indie rap in the late 90s

yeah, very much, and in SP's case, i think you can hear some early 90s conscious fallout, slam rapping, not a bad thing

completely forgot about the Easy Street show, just bought a ticket for Friday night

i have come to really hate slam rapping/poetry in the last 10 years so im pretending i dont hear it on this album

one thing it really makes me think is that j beez came along about 18 years too soon wit the remedy

j beez were basically predicting the dark/experimental underground rappers from NY a few years too early

i still havent heard the unreleased version of that album

it's not the greatest thing in the world, every version i've ever heard has sounded way too muffled, like it was never mixed properly, even (especially) the "crazy wisdom masters" EP tracks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoBlsDzc3Tg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s32wzXywWUc

^^^ NUTS in an AWESOME way

forget seattle, most important moment in underground rap since i dont know when?

i think the vinyl comes in some sort of felt sleeve!

so does the CD version, fwiw

LP sleeve feels soft and sort of velvety/felty, but i think it's just nice paper?

This is one of the best albums I've heard all year and I rarely listen to hip hop. It has an authentic cross-genre appeal. I guess that in the end being released through Sub Pop was undoubtedly a sign that it would be picked up by white indie kids such as myself.

raises eyebrow at inauthentic cross-genre appeal

I phrased it wrong didn't I? I meant that it's an album that has the potential to attract listeners that usually listen to other genres and it doesn't even seems like it's trying. Some artists and albums try too hard.

kind funny how many factory sounds from the sp404 end up on the shabazz records (lots of drum sounds, the "break!" sample etc).

the new lp is growing on me, though at first i kept turning it off and going back to the eps. the first two + last two songs would have made a killer ep.

his rapping is really what holds the album together imho - the beats/music are great but they are very disjointed and fractured, the vocals are what keep it tied together

totally, i don't think it would work at all as instrumentals