Desiigner - L.O.D. (Life of Desiigner) (GOOD Music/Def Jam, 2018)

There's something in me that wants to root for Desiigner even though most of the rest of the music world has turned on him. Or maybe it's because everyone is so down on him. I'll be the first to admit his first release, New English, was junk. Maybe rushed to capitalize on the success of "Panda", but either way - it showed that Desiigner was and is a very immature songwriter. But the guy can write hooks - "Panda", "Tiimmy Turner", and the first single off this release, "Priice Tag", bear that out. Maybe that'll be his niche - writing hooks for other, better rappers. No shame in that. L.O.D. is still not a great release (still not a full album yet) but it shows steps in the right direction. Does he still sound like Future? Sure and he probably always will. As mentioned, "Priice Tag" features another bomb hook, but instead of repeating it 20 times for a 4 minute song, here he keeps it trim - just 1:50 in length. Is it revealing that Desiigner couldn't build a better/longer track around the hook? Also yes, but at least now he seems to acknowledge his limitations. Mostly. "After Party" is still mostly repetitive and annoying. "Tonka" is a better example of a more fleshed out, actual track that doesn't grate. The slow, hazy "Destiination" may be his most interesting track yet, and "HOOD" is a similar slow-burner trap-y tune that shows a bit more songwriting strength. Desiigner has a lot of ground to make up but this release shows there's definite progress, if nothing else.

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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.

Jan Jelinek - Zwischen (Faitiche, 2018)

Last year's reissue of Jan Jelinek's Loop-Finding-Jazz-Records put him on his radar for me forever. This is an shortened version of a radio play he put out called Zwischen. Jelinek sources interview clips from a pretty diverse cast - John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Slajov Zizek, Lady Gaga, Yoko Ono, Marcel Duchamp - and extracts all the pauses, silences, gaps, ums, ehs, ahs, hahas, etc from their answers. So you get track titles like "Yoko Ono, you were born into a rich, aristocratic family in Tokyo. Do you see that in yourself?" and "Karlheinz Stockhausen, which difficulties are involved in conserving electronic music on magnetic tape?". On top of that the audio cues present trigger synthesizers creating undercurrents of sound amidst the quasi-verbal utterances. It's a cool concept, interesting listen - all the responses have different moods. Zizek's is particularly stressed as he seems to be rushing through an explanation of something important ...

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