A$AP Rocky - Testing (ASAP Worldwide/Polo Grounds/RCA, 2018)

I've always liked A$AP Rocky for his experimental-ish tendencies. Namely his tracks with Clams Casino, shit like "Electric Body", "Wild for the Night" with Skrillex (hey it's a good track), etc. On Testing A$AP set out to push the boundaries even further, or at least being more brazen in his attempt at making an experimental hip hop record, as opposed to a hip hop record with some experimentation. Hence the title. There's a whole whack of interesting collaborators on here - FKA Twigs, Dev Hynes, Moby via a "Porcelain" sample, Frank Ocean, Clams Casino, Dean Blunt...as well as some less-eyebrow raising names like Kid Cudi, Kodak Black, French Montana, Juicy J...so what's the verdict? Well it sounds as unsettled and restless as A$AP likely was while putting this together - it's less an album and more a collection of experiments. I can't even confidently say it's a better album than LONG.LIVE.A$AP. or AT.LONG.LAST.A$AP. But I respect the man for putting it on here and a few of the cuts are undeniable - "A$AP Forever", featuring the aforementioned Moby sample, appears here in a remixed form with T.I. and Kid Cudi and it may be even better than the single version. "Changes", "Buck Shots" and "Praise the Lord (Da Shine)" are as accessible as anything A$AP has put out. "Black Tux, White Collar" is another favorite mainly because it features another ghostly Clams beat. The opener "Distorted Records" and "Calldrops" are some of the more overt experimentations, to varying degrees of success, although nothing touches the stunningly bizarre, need-to-give-it-a-few-more-listens weirdness of "Purity", the album's closer featuring (and co-written by) Frank Ocean. If ntohing else there's a lot to chew on here and I think I'll probably like this even more with a few plays.

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Nachtmystium/Leviathan - In the Valley of Death, Where Black Metal is King: An Homage to the Roots (Ascension Monuments Media, 2018)

What the fuck is that title. Okay I get the first part is a Judas Iscariot tribute, but did we really need "an homage to the roots" in there? Hey wouldn't it be funny if these were actually covers of the band The Roots? Anyway. This album was supposed to come out 10 years ago, but it was blocked by the bands' respective labels. Now I guess they've figured out a way, or Blake Judd needs money for drugs so he's figured out a way, to put this out. The Bandcamp version has 8 tracks, 5 from Nachtmystium and 3 from Leviathan, but I've seen a 10-track tracklisting elsewhere. On the version I have, we have Nachtmystium covering Judas Iscariot, Ildjarn (twice), Von and Burzum. Leviathan tackles Ildjarn (twice) and Von once. I seem to be missing Leviathan's Judas Iscariot cover ("Where the Winter Beats Incessant") and one of Nachtmystium's Von covers ("Von"). Weird. Wonder if there were some licensing issues or something. All four Ildjar

Sunburned Hand of the Man - Get Wet with the Animal (Manhand, 2018)

I keep up with Sunburned only intermittently these days, they seem to be taking a more rock-ist approach lately. Like this one. Each track is about 4-5 minutes of pretty ramshackle, jammy, funky, boogie rock...almost spoiled by the throaty, beery vocals shouted over the top of each one of these tunes with nonsensical platitudes. I almost shut it off after a couple tracks but I stuck it out and kinda came around on some level. I was oddly reminded of My War era Black Flag sludge punk. The band sez "these Holy Grail fueled recordings are a mix of iphone and zoom recordings run through garageband, reaper and some plug-ins. We're still working on the much more listener-friendly Black Dirt session..." and point taken, listener friendly this ain't.

Kanye West - Ye (GOOD Music/Def Jam, 2018)

For no real reason other than I guess the fact that he felt he had to put an album out, Ye was cobbled together in a month. And it shows quite plainly. As much as I praised the Ye-produced DAYTONA for making a fully formed album out of a mere 20-odd minutes, here Ye sounds like an odds-n-sods compilation - it literally sounds like a snapshop of a month in the studio with Kanye. Look, I have a lot of time for Kanye('s music). Yeezus is one of the best hip hop albums ever, to say nothing of the classics that preceded it. Obviously most people look at Yeezus as the dividing line between New Kanye and Old Kanye, but I still love it. The Life of Pablo was a little more dicey - it was slipshod, haphazard, scattered, bloated. I was hoping with this new 7-song limit we'd get back to Yeezus-style tightness. Not so much. You can count the good things on this album on one hand - the hooks on "Yikes" and "All Mine", "Ghost Town" which sounds like the only ful

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