The other day I was hanging out with a friend and I mentioned that I'd been wanting to listen to some good hip-hop and the like since I thought I'd unfairly written the genre off.
This particular friend and I have a long history of introducing each other too new music and we have extremely similar tastes. Anyway, he said he'd do some searching to see if he could find anything good. A week or so later I jacked all the stuff he'd come up with and It was pretty good even if I'm not sure if you would call it hip-hop. In the end a lot of mixing groups turned up, which was very interesting. Anyway here's an overview of some of it...
Ok so we'll just go in alphabetical order because I'm creative like that. Along with each artist I'll provide some samples of my current favourite tracks from the albums that I've been trying to wrap my head around.
The Avalanches
This band from Australia is well known for their production of "Since I Left You" which is the album that I've now got my hands on. I have to say, it is excellent. Whether or not its hip-hop... I'm leaning towards no? Regardless I'm glad to have given them a serious listen.
Since I Left You is an impressive album where more than 3000 vinyl samples are cleverly mixed to create very groovy and coherent tracks.
The Books
Formed in New York comes "The Books". Again I think my friend found one band that he liked that mixed sound samples and then ran with that idea. This band is also very good, but also not very hip-hop
At any rate this album ("The Lemon of Pink") is basically a bunch of sound clips cut up, and I put to chopped acoustic guitar and vocals. You can get a good idea of the dimension that the voice clips add when you listen to tracks like "PS" or "Explanation Mark". These are less of tracks and more of compilations of awkward noises that people make... I like it. The rest of it can be pretty folksy at times. I recommend giving a few tracks a listen even if you'll ultimately end up not liking it. The guitar style reminds me a lot of Shugo Tokumaru... who might remind some people of a Japanese Stufjan Stevens? But whatever. The two tracks I've left for you here (Tokyo and This Right Ain't ****) are the two most "listenable" tracks both having been used for commercials. Also try "There is no There" some of the sound clips are really good.......... especially the one that I think must be Albert Einstein? I'm probably embarrassing myself with how wrong I am about that...
Nightmares On Wax
So once again... we aren't fitting snuggly into the hip-hop genre here... or at all... but kind of sort of close? In any rate of cases and stable structures of static nature, I also like this artist (who is actually George Evelyn of Leeds UK), although not as much as the previous two. Again we see a lot of sound mixing and old vinyls being smashed and mashed to make something fresh and appealing. This album is oriented on creating one sound that doesn't move around a lot or change too drastically (which is probably a limitation of this kind of music without the application of serious time, effort, and talent). That isn't to say this guy doesn't have talent... but basically some of the tracks get boring so if you're an active listener you may have trouble tolerating it if what your hearing isn't exactly what you want to hear over and over and over and over and over and over. Or at least that's my first impression.
That being said, this album does have a good collection of great sounds and many of the tracks are less repetitive. My current favourite track is probably "Chime Out".
And that's how a search for hip-hop turns into a discovery of electronic mixes. Oh well nothing was lost and something was gained. Instrumentally speaking I'm pretty sure hip hop is largely about sampling and looping so I may not be totally off base here anyway. If anyone has some good hip-hop recommendations that would also be cool - hoping that the above music might provide some kind of reference?
Anyway...