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

also the opening two tracks on lese are so inviting that i just think of those opening vibes and immediately feel compelled to put the record on

Ha, that's how I feel about Black Up.

ha black up is also inviting for sure.

also i have really been digging theesatisfaction's EarthEE, tried a while back and it didn't really stick but i am really enjoying it right now

EarthEE is fantastic

"lavishments of light-looking" track from WOKE, new group w/ fly lo + thundercat + shabazz - https://soundcloud.com/adultswimsingles/woke, this tune has george clinton on it too

more info

http://pitchfork.com/news/61398-flying-lotus-talks-woke-his-new-project-with-shabazz-palaces-and-thundercat/

http://www.thefader.com/2015/09/28/flying-lotus-shabazz-palaces-thundercat

in a spa or

sometimes ppl need spas

new song: https://shabazzpalaces.bandcamp.com/album/quazarz-born-on-a-gangster-star

Quazarz is out there now. kookoo good

This is a group that feels like they should be way more massive than they are. Reminds me a little bit of Animal Collective pre MWP in terms of it being a mass kept secret.

two new albums

http://www.npr.org/2017/07/06/535282090/first-listen-shabazz-palaces-quazarz-born-on-a-gangster-star

http://www.npr.org/2017/06/25/534316470/first-listen-shabazz-palaces-quazarz-vs-the-jealous-machines

think the first one's got a little oboe solo on it

or an english horn or somethin

im more into what his son's doing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzwIX4GwN8U&t=2s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzwIX4GwN8U

Keep thought leading!

The new albums are great. I feel like I'll be spending the rest of the summer unravelling them.

i like the albums but ive a feeling nothing will be as good as blackup from these guys. obv these two albums are going to take a long time to figure out, but these two sound much looser than the last two. kind of relaxed, like its just two albums from a group not really striving to do anything in particular, and releasing the results (i know theres some sort of narrative at work, but im not sure it was that sustained).

The problem with these two albums to me is that it's basically just a sketched out version of a story that was also there on Lese Majesty. But, some of the details are great. I'm not the worlds biggest hip-hop expert, has there been much talk of 'Quasars' before? It's brilliant as a concept, not a star (which were negative on Lese Majesty, too corporate, too gilded pharaoh) but a quasar, QUAsi-StellAR, star-like but in fact powered by a black hole at the center. That's kinda afro-futurism at it's finest, imo.

cuz there's no theesatisfaction thread - classic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2powgJ-7t_Y

Yes. Their second album, especially.

Is it just me or did these guys peak already? Def some interesting stuff on what they've done since but they seem to (despite the big concepts that they seem to adore) have become much more low key, like they just keep making music and putting it out, without any great game plan...

They peaked with Black Up. That is one of the top 10 best hip hop albums of the 2010s for me, nothing they’ve done after feels as concise and visionary.

Yeah, I feel the same. Also just weird that they went from black up to almost totally avoiding anything that sounded as tough. Maybe black up was an anomaly, and they approached it diff as it was their sub pop debut and after that they just went back to what's their comfort zone, kinda trippy, ethereal, stoner ish, less concrete material.

The first two EPs were pretty tough, and are still my favorite even if the production sounds kinda thin/DIY (though it works in their favor imo). Black Up sounds like the full realization of those EPs, and from there it seems like they kept getting more and more into ornate synth-psych production. I haven't kept up with the last couple tbh.

Last year's release was good.

Jordan xpost every word otm

i treasure my early-DIY copies of the EPs and Black Up holds up, but after that...

Theres no ambition to their post black up stuff. Or maybe its just too spacey, idk. But it seems like stuff that's fairly easy for them. Or maybe they're just taking a hell of a lot of drugs, idk.

EPs prior to Black Up are great I agree!

It’s the stuff after Black Up that has let me down. There’s still some good ideas here and there, but they don’t get even close.

I've liked most of their stuff but Lese Majesty was a peak for me

I think I preferred lil b doing ambient weirdness

I'm relistening to Lese Majesty and it sounds way better than how I remember tbh

lese majesty is at least as strong as black up, songwriting-wise, but the heavy-hitting sonics of black up put it over the top for me.

Lese Majesty was a peak for me

same here. don't think I've ever been so awed by an album on car speakers. also really liked what I heard from Don of Diamond Dreams, should probably go back to that.

same for me too

id like instrumental versions of their last few albums, esp lese majesty

Lese Majesty feels like you're lying on the floor staring at the ceiling in a darkened room where someone has different coloured spotlights trained on a spinning disco ball

I thought lese would be cool music to have playing if your masseuse was rap inclined

Hip hop spa beats

best way to experience Lese Majesty is at a laser show out of your gourd on edibles. I haven't really connected with any of their post-LM material tho. I've also just had mixed feelings since Tendai was transphobic to me in person -_-

ugh, i'm sorry.

I should give their albums more proper listens, LM sounded really cool but didn't have tracks that were as immediately arresting as a lot of Black Up, and I don't think I heard the Quazarz albums in their entirety. The last time I tried to see them live was at the Sub Pop anniversary party on Alki and the bass was so ridiculously loud that it drowned out everything else. The show I saw a couple years earlier was excellent though.

damn i'm sorry to hear that EM

he's not in the group anymore, left sometime between the last two albums so it's just a butler solo project these days i think

revisiting the first two EPs now ... shit felt revolutionary at the time.

and still does, kinda

ish butler has a new e.p. out, it’s really nice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEoE_1-Ctq4