On Genres

1. Talent imitates and genius steals. We cannot, however, extrapolate that imitation and theft imply talent and genius. All movements whose names are appended with “revival” are evidence of this fact.
2. For when you gaze long into the shoes, the shoes gaze also into you.
3. Post-punks re-popularized the use of messenger pigeons.
4. A chill wave is naught but a relaxed new wave, Not Waving too hard.
5. Unbeknownst to many, the epicenter of prog rock was the capital of the Czech Republic.
6. When a definition unabatedly expands, it reaches a (sharp) point where the bubble experiences a (indie) pop and ceases to mean anything.
7. Musical publications are in the absurd business of iteratively creating pigeonholes within pigeonholes, struggling to squeeze the poor bird into the ever-shrinking spaces. The pigeon subsequently adopts the shape of its crevice, and loses not only its physical capability of flying, but its will to fly.

Can - Halleluhwah

Toe - "The Book About My Idle Plot On A Vague Anxiety"

Album Review - The Life of Pablo

Travis Breese

Ever since the release of Yeezus in 2013, Kanye West’s fans have been biting at the bit for his next album, in hopes that it might fill the void that the radically experimental Yeezus never could. Three years later on Valentine’s Day the pop culture icon ended his torture of the music world with the release of his seventh studio album, The Life of Pablo. After three name changes, several different cover arts, and superfluous amounts of tweeting, TLOP had the opportunity to be the most outlandish of West’s creations. Thankfully, it wasn’t. Although it has many unique elements that only Kanye would bring to the studio, TLOP is much more in touch with its audience than Yeezus. However, for what would could be the farewell album from one of the best to ever touch a microphone, an album that is “better than the last one,” just wouldn't cut it. 

The first cut on the album, “Ultralight Beam,” is a gospel rooted grand slam that assures us that West has nothing but good intentions for the record. The chill-inducing hook, “This is a god dream,” belted by a full sounding choir exemplifies all of the hype that the album received prior to its release date. Chance the Rapper’s invigorating innocence is beautiful on his feature and seeing him on the grandest stage possible, a Ye album, garners the utmost respect. The only other song that feels this grandiose is “Waves.” The uplifting instrumental exists somewhere between soul and trap, and is easily one of the best Yeezy has ever made; huge praise to Charlie Heat and Metro Boomin for their contributions. Chris Brown’s work on the chorus is likewise great and I have expertly dubbed it the highlight of his career.

Another song with trap flavor on this project is, “Highlights.” In Young Thug’s debut track with Kanye, light hearted instrumentals and commendable singing by Thug make for a great chorus and overall feel “Famous,” featuring Rihanna, is a thundering track that stands as the most powerful cut on the record. The invigorating beat is easily the banger of the track list. Sadly, there aren’t really any other tracks on the same wavelength as, “Famous,” the closest we get is, “FML,” due to their similarities in structure. The ascending instrumental kicks in about halfway through the song with a raw drum riff that when paired with The Weeknd’s vocals makes for an unforgettable cut.

The pre-released singles, “Real Friends,” and, “No More Parties in LA,” deliver as we knew they would. The reserved, but entertaining instrumental on the first allows for West to spit what may be his best verses on the album, “I’m a deadbeat cousin, I hate family reunions, fuck the church up I’m drinking at the communion.” These lines echo through listener’s ears and makes us all ponder if we are real friends. The latter, “No More Parties in LA,” is a melodically pleasing track that captivates. Kendrick’s verse is wonderful but I will refile the complaint that I had when it came out which is that it sounds like a glorified freestyle.

The album’s drawbacks occur on the songs that are raw, uncut slices of Kanye. Tracks such as, “Feedback,” “Freestyle 4,” and, “Facts,” turn away all but a select few. Yeezy comes off as childish and barely tolerable in this light, and he more than knows this and is probably banking on the exact reaction. I respect when artists do things that they know people won’t like because of what it says about their character. But that being said, nobody wants to make a Speeding Bullet 2 Heaven.

TLOP lived up to its hype. There are countless tracks on here that blow you away, and only a few that could have been left off. Kanye met us halfway between Yeezus Kanye and MBDTF Kanye. This album is a reward for the maturing that we went through since the release of his last full length record. View it as such, and take the highroad. Bask in the pure genius and glory of songs like, “Waves,” and, “FML,” and don’t busy yourself trying to understand Kanye on the lesser tracks, because your grandma would do just as well defining Mr. West as you would.

Blondie - Hanging On The Telephone

An interview with Robert DeLong

By: Grant Sharples

Electronic-indie artist Robert DeLong released his sophomore LP In the Cards back in late August. The self-proclaimed “computer nerd” from Seattle is on the rise of popularity in the realm of alternative music. He is currently on his own headlining tour with Big Data and Coleman Hell and performed at a multitude of festivals earlier this year such as Big Guava, SXSW, and LouFest. I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to talk with Robert himself about his inspirations, his live performances, and his new album.

What inspired you to start playing music?

Music has always been a part of my life. My dad was a drummer so that was kind of how it was introduced to me. Music was always kind of around, but I was always interested in it even from an early age. Once I started playing drums, I took it up from there and started playing in punk and jazz bands and did music in school. Eventually, from being a computer nerd, I got into audio engineering and slowly but surely ended up here today.

What are you some of your musical influences?

Besides my dad inspiring me early on, I’ve always been a huge fan of Brian Eno. Growing up, I listened to a lot of things like [Pink] Floyd and The Beatles. Later on, I really got into things like Boards of Canada, and then I got into modern electronic music eventually. It’s kind of hard to trace any direct influences. I kind of take everything as it comes. I grew up in Seattle, so there was a sort of Death Cab [for Cutie]/Modest Mouse thing going on in the early 2000’s that really had a huge influence on my songwriting and whatnot. I’ve always taken all things that I’m listening to at all times and tried to combine them together into Robert DeLong soup!

Your live performances are always so intriguing and unique. How do you go about orchestrating your live show?

It’s just kind of evolved over a long period of time. I was always writing songs for myself, but it was about five years ago that this project sort of congealed into something similar to what it is now, and about three or four years ago that I really started taking it seriously and started thinking about what it was that I wanted to do. It really started with about two [production] controllers and a videogame controller. From there I just kept adding things and it just kind of slowly evolved. That was the big thing, getting out there and playing shows and seeing what people responded to, then trying to take that and figure out what was cool that I could do on stage that would visually represent what the sounds were.

What kind of software/DAW did you use when you were first starting out and what do you typically use now?

When I first started making computer music it was on Acid Pro back in 2002, but Fruity Loops was the first software I really kind of dug into which eventually became FL Studios. But it was right when I went to college that I switched to using Logic, and I’ve produced in Logic ever since, and then for live shows I use a combination of Logic and Ableton and a couple other third-party softwares. It’s a bunch of different stuff!

Describe your new album In the Cards. What kinds of themes and concepts does it adhere to?

The initial theme for the album came from the title track, “In the Cards” which was written about a year or year and a half ago. It all kind of stems from this sort of fascination with the artwork on tarot cards, and from there I started thinking more about why that was interesting to me and the ability of the human brain to take some sort of mythic concept and make up your own meaning and apply it to all sorts of things. I just started using that as a muse and thinking about how people use symbols to help them work through their life problems. So each song I kind of set out with the objective of having its own specific world and theme, like a tarot card would create an idea or narrative in someone’s mind. It was just a muse for me and that was kind of how I started writing all these songs and then I had a collection of songs that had a lot of similar ideas and themes.

When I was listening to the album, I thought the album artwork complemented the music nicely. Is there any significance behind the album artwork?

I work really closely with my graphic designer who puts it together. I initially had the idea of having this tarot-themed [artwork]. So his idea was to take some of the cards and redesign them into a modern, minimalist iconic approach. Then we started talking about what kind of aesthetic that goes along with [that idea]. We just kept coming back to desert imagery. So then we went out to the desert, and over the course of a really long day, just shot a bunch of really cool stuff in the desert, like the cover photo and the projection of me against a giant rock, which was really cool, but that was at like, four in the morning!

I feel like In the Cards is more song-based than your first album, Just Movement, which felt like one gigantic song that slowly introduced different ideas. How would you compare In the Cards to Just Movement?

I think that is the primary difference and that’s kind of the way I was coming from. With Just Movement, I had my whole lifetime to write. I was writing those [songs] over the course of five or six years and there wasn’t really any intention. It was just a collection of songs that I slowly pieced together. The intention with [In the Cards] was to create individual songs that held up on their own that didn’t need any partners in crime. That comes from a few things, like obviously today people usually listen to music [one song at a time]. This more just kind of goes back to my songwriter roots, and I think the other part of it is I really wanted to explore a lot more genres and a lot of different tempos, like there’s slow songs, there’s drum and bass, there’s some guitar, and it’s just kind of all over the place genre-wise on the album. For me, that was a lot of fun.

What song off of the album are you most proud of?

It’s hard to say. I’m proud of them all for different reasons, they all do very different things. “Jealousy” was a lot of fun because that’s a little bit outside of my norm, in a lot of ways it’s kind of bubbly and poppy. I love “Sellin’ U Somethin” because I love the vocal production stuff and that one was a lot of fun for me. I love getting into that kind of thing. I think the other one that turned out really cool was “Born To Break” just because I like the idea of taking a song and slowing it down until you can’t slow it down anymore!

What are some artists you’ve been listening to lately?

When I was writing the album I was listening to a lot of stuff like Paul Simon, Prince, [and] Flume. Right now, I’ve been touring more than I’ve been listening to music, but when I do listen to music, it’s a lot of instrumental electronic/techno kind of stuff. But I haven’t really been listening to much because when you’re touring and writing with music in your brain all the time, the only thing you ever want to listen to is something that’s weird and you can space out to and not have to pay too much thought [to].

Animal Collective - Brother Sport