Prefuse 73 – ‘Infrared’ (ft. Sam Dew)

William Skar: Speaking as someone who zoned out after One Word Extinguisher, news of another Guillermo Scott Herren album filled me with about as much excitement as tidings of a Doctors casting shake-up. More fool me – as silken knock goes, this is actually pretty addictive. (7)

Tayyab Amin: I think this’d be a nice contributor to café/bar ambience. I could definitely have a conversation over it. Probably not about it. (5)

Claire Lobenfeld: Herren says he’s at his “most comfortable” with the upcoming work he’s releasing this year and you can hear it in ‘Infrared.’ Chicagoan Sam Dew sounds so luxurious over Herren’s beatwork, which dredges up some really creepy romanticism – maybe I got Valentine’s Day on the brain, but this is for that really rough, quiet kind of bedroom bedlam. Interested to see what Herren does with Jessie Ware, who has totally lost the the thread for me – save for her contribution to The Pinkprint. Get this work, Ware. (7)

Mikey IQ Jones: Herren’s Prefuse work has never done much for me: the occasional flash of cohesive fusion aside, his attention deficit has always fatigued and bored me. I’ve enjoyed his collabs with vocalists, though, and ‘Infrared’ features a lovely, gauzy melody that sank its hooks in right away. My main beef is that it leans too far on the opposite side of the Prefuse spectrum now – Herren’s just not doing enough with the track, and it ends up sounding like an outtake from fellow collaborator Helado Negro’s last album rather than something that really stands on its own legs. I’m not hating it, but I’m not caring either, so I’m exactly in the same place with this guy as I’ve always been. (6)

Brad Stabler: I shouldn’t be taking so much umbrage to this, because it’s actually alright: the melodies are nice, the beat is balmy and thick, and the hook is pretty decent. The real fun begins when you remember that Prefuse 73 is calling this a “back to basics” record, which is hilarious when you factor in what the “basics” for Prefuse 73 actually entails. This is the guy who did One Word Extingusher, after all. So while I’m being a bit harsh, it’s hard to not write off ‘Infrared’ – this is something that’s been done, from Bibio to Baths, to half of SoundCloud from here to Los Angeles in the past five years. (5)

6

Julio Bashmore – ‘Kong’ (ft. Bixby)

Claire Lobenfeld: Cocktail lounge chic just totally bores me. I need tighter house vibes, although the concluding alteration to the synths is a nice touch. But repetitive Bixby vocals aren’t moving me. I just need a little bit more. (4)

William Skar: Lone could sue, but, at the very least, it’s good to see the little homunculus responsible for ‘Footsteppin’’ is still pottering around inside Bashmore’s skull. (6)

Brad Stabler: You can set an alarm to how frequent Bashmore puts out a new track, and you can hit the snooze button every time. It’s becoming a semi-Herculean effort to come up with original words each time, not only because he’s routinely turning out glossy runway music, but because there’s only so many ways to say, “Get rid of the fucking vocals already.” (4)

Mikey IQ Jones: Did Bashmore’s bae ask him to make them some tracks specifically to soundtrack shopping at Topman? This is wildly vanilla – the limpid beat, vaguely vaporous chords, and inane hook repeated ad nauseum don’t make for a solid dancefloor banger or an infectious pop throwdown. The worst part is that Bashmore always seems capable of really delivering on either front, yet seldom follows through. There’s actually a lot of opportunity for dynamism on ‘Kong’ that never even gets a sideways glance; we’re left instead with some Contempo Casual smear that doesn’t do anything other than paper the walls. (4)

Tayyab Amin: Bixby is singing, “Dream. Think of how it could’ve been,” and I’m thinking about Broadwalk Records’ trajectory. (4)

4.4

Kali Uchis – ‘Lottery’

Tayyab Amin: To be honest I’m just trying to figure out whether Kali Uchis is her real name, seeing as she goes by Kali plus there’s an aum symbol in her Twitter name; I can’t make out those influences in her work. She can sing and work a track, sure, though I’m catching some Amy Winehouse-through-an-Instagram-filter vibes from ‘Lottery’. (6)

William Skar: The manicured lovechild of Meghan Trainor and a Ferrero Rocher pyramid. (6)

Brad Stabler: Too precious and too forgettable. Leave the music boxes on the shelf, pour the stiffest drink you can make, and go listen to Natalie Prass instead. (3)

Claire Lobenfeld: Kali Uchis is a prime example for why you don’t judge a book by its cover. She might be a fashionable arbiter of SoCal streetwear au courant, but she’s also a slicker version of Corrine Bailey Rae. ‘Lottery’ is stripped of the slightly off-kilter elements of her mall-soul (see: ‘T.Y.W.I.G.’) though, and I’m missing them here. What worries me about how hard this song is being pushed is that it is not a realised example of how malleable her talents are, especially how elastically she can stretch within swag-adult contemporary. So, guys, stop pushing this tape with the Iggy Azalea-lookin’ album art. Uchis deserves a fighting chance. (6)

Mikey IQ Jones:I am ALL ABOUT THIS. I’m honestly shocked that more people haven’t yet explored the possibilities of fusing the warmth of vintage bedsit soul with the digital frosting of modern technology. It sounds as though Uchis is coming from a similar aesthetic place as The Compact Organization (who legitimately did explore those avenues in the 1980s), stripping back the kitsch while retaining the shine and infusing it all with a sincerity that’s often forgotten when making pop of this nature. This hits so many of my sweet spots in a way that I almost didn’t think was possible – plus she gets bonus points for sampling Delegation and rocking an aesthetic that’s like a fusion of Nicki Minaj and Mari Wilson. All signs point to yes: let’s have the album! (8)

5.8

Ariel Kalma & Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe – ‘Mille Voix’

William Skar: Stylish and evocative, but I’m not sure it’s characterful enough to escape the mood-music / OST ghetto. Still, if I had to pick a track from this week’s haul to accompany a tight over-the-shoulder shot of a cybo-Tuareg gazing into a sand portal, it would definitely be this one. (6)

Brad Stabler: This isn’t the score for Black Hawk Down, right? Because, despite the urgings of the press release to try and not make me think otherwise, this sounds more or less a spot-on recreation of it. That said, RVNG’s track record is rock solid – force me to do it now and at least four of their records will wind up in a list of my favorites of this decade so far. I’m going to give this one a low mark, but the actual album’s getting the benefit of the doubt. And if nothing else, it’s reminded me that I should watch BHD again. (4)

Mikey IQ Jones: For the sake of full disclosure, I’ll admit that Robert Lowe is a friend of mine. It makes it doubly pleasing, then, when people you love and respect are creating beautiful and inspiring work such as this, and ‘Mille Voix’ makes me even more pumped for his forthcoming LP with Kalma. Both artists have spent serious amounts of time honing and mastering their respective crafts, yet veer into different tributaries of modular meditation; what makes this so satisfying is how well their methods intertwine and flourish without one force ever overpowering or muscling the other out of view. If there’s any complaint, it’s that it definitely feels more a piece of a larger, more panoramic scaled work than a standalone composition; all the same, it’s warm, inviting, and wholly synaesthesic. Job well done, gents. (8)

Tayyab Amin: Textures so wholly encapsulating, moods that remind a heart of all it’s ever felt at once… A million voices have swept me up and blown me away. (9)

Claire Lobenfeld: The press release promised “six extended evocations of environmental ambience and entrancing naturalism.” So far they’re one for six. I was pretty sure that whatever I am is the opposite of hippie, and while I’d rather have my yoga class soundtracked with ‘Da Art of Storytelling’, this makes me want stand on my head for a little while. I’m cool with that. (6)

6.6

Cannibal Ox – ‘Iron Rose’ (ft. DOOM)

Claire Lobenfeld: This makes me an abysmal New York Old Head, but I do not care about this at all. Pretty into “my girl tough / she wear iron panties” but otherwise I’m out. Resurrect Big L, Big Pun and B.I.G. and let’s do Return to New York that way, please and thank you. (2)

Tayyab Amin: With the DOOM verse coming last I’d hoped it wasn’t a case of ‘getting there in the end’ but well, sometimes you have to just power through the schoolyard freestyle-level bars like “My favourite rock band is Iron Maiden.” The chorus is weak but it’ll get those live singalongs I’m sure. (6)

Brad Stabler: Oh boy, I was dreading this one. A Cannibol Ox record in 2015 with an obligatory MF Doom verse can only be glorified fan service, right? Well, yes, but ‘Iron Rose’ is still pretty good. It throws down in both sound and tone right from where The Cold Vein left off, and the rapping is spot on, right down to the Doom verse. This is in of itself a small miracle: Doom’s never been a good guest to have, since he doesn’t play off other MCs so much as jump off into another universe, like a Skip-It in zero gravity. A lot meaner and successful than I anticipated, but it’s either setting up a true banger (gulp), or destined to be the one bright spot in yet another disappointing comeback record. (7)

William Skar: Returning indie heroes bust face muscles trying to screwface. Those oubliette breakbeats sound great, but the pomp and bluster feels very dated – compared to, say, the open hell-vent of Chicago drill, this is Phantom of the Opera stuff. (6)

Mikey IQ Jones: Straight-up, that opening verse is pretty weak, though I love that he gives a shout to Maiden and raps about his girl wearing a chastity belt. I keep wanting to like this more than I actually do, but something about the one-dimensionality of the track just can’t unshackle itself from my iron cynicism. It’s also completely confounding that Can Ox are going to nod to The Cold Vein‘s opener without actually referencing the cosmic otherworldliness of its production; rather, they just trudge forward to the sound of a boring RZA-on-roids impression as I scratch my head and wonder if this is really going to be worth it in the end. (6)

5.4

East India Youth – ‘CAROUSEL’

Brad Stabler: This is a thing? (1)

Mikey IQ Jones: Oh god, no. The biggest problem I have with EIY’s work is that he simply doesn’t have the voice to pull his tracks off. Singer/composers like Owen Pallett and even James Blake have figured out ways to utilize their limited and quite distinct vocal timbres in gripping ways, but Doyle’s insistence on leaving his voice alone and naked in the middle of his productions does his work a great disservice, really. In all honesty, this sort of thing was made in a much more memorable way by Douglas Dare last year – anyone who’s enjoyed the East India stuff would be wise to seek that out. (2)

Tayyab Amin: Gotta get those CAPS LOCK in for CAROUSEL from CULTURE OF VOLUME when the voice isn’t COMMANDING enough. I’d expected something with a little more SPICE from the COLONIAL-BY-PROXY crooner. This is preoccupied with its own perceived vastness too much to goad any strong sentiment towards it out of me, positive or negative. (5)

William Skar: The opening and closing passages of ‘CAROUSEL’ – sedimented synths and strings, reminiscent of Eno’s Discreet Music – are just breathtaking, but the Rufus Wainwright-style balladeering in the middle feels perfunctory by comparison. 9 for the bookends, 6 for the filling – so let’s call it (7).

Claire Lobenfeld: I got so utterly lost within this track that I forgot I was listening to something, and not in a good way. Completely unremarkable and unemotive while trying oh so very hard to be. I wish we were judging the pop-bachata from the BlueCross of Texas ad that came before the track started instead – it was no Antony or Luis, but at least I was still aware that I was listening to music. (1)

3.2

Final scores:

Ariel Kalma & Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe – ‘Mille Voix’ (6.6)
Prefuse 73 – ‘Infrared’ (ft. Sam Dew) (6)
Kali Uchis – ‘Lottery’ (5.8)
Cannibal Ox – ‘Iron Rose’ (ft. DOOM) (5.4)
Julio Bashmore – ‘Kong’ (ft. Bixby) (4.4)
East India Youth – ‘CAROUSEL’ (3.2)