WQHS-The Blog

Looking at Little People

Little People, in all seriousness, is neither little nor “peopled”, in the plural sense of the word. Rather, it’s one dude with a big sound. The one-man, trip-hop icon derives his inspiration from all things classic(al) — whether it be Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata (cue “Moon”) or old school funk (cue “Above the Clouds”), Little People’s music simultaneously preserves and elaborates on musical canons of several genres. It’s like ancestor worship in avant garde form: pay respect to your forefathers by making trippy muses of them. Download half of Little People’s album, Mickey Mouse Operation, gratis here and his EP, Bits & Pieces, here.

- Tiffany Kang, Tiffany and Co. (Thursdays from midnight to 2am @ WQHS.org)

Mary J. Blige: My Life II…The Journey Continues (Act 1)

Born Mary Jane Blige on January 11, 1971 in Savannah GA, Mary J. was raised in the housing projects in Yonkers, NY. Mary got her musical start, when her stepfather passed along a tape she recorded in a karaoke machine in the local mall, to Uptown records. She was signed up with Uptown records as a background singer for local artist. While at Uptown, Sean “Puffy” Combs became her mentor and assisted her with the production of her first album in 1991, What’s the 411? With her bad girl urban image, Mary has always been known for sharing her life and all its drama in her music. Her musical sound has afforded her comparison with such great musical artists as Chaka Khan and Aretha Franklin. While she may share the vocal strength of these artists, she did not have their sophistication until recently. Her bad girl image has since been mellowed with a bit more maturity and class.

Grimes: Visions

When I saw Grimes open for Austra last year, I saw a meek DIY artsy girl dressed in a grungy t-shirt and dark tights wail into a microphone while expertly mixing complex tracks to produce a seriously rhythmic dance spell. Now, as 2012 has unraveled before us, Claire Boucher, the Montreal-based mastermind behind Grimes, has become the “it girl” of the indie music blogosphere. Much more than just a buzz band, Grimes has sky-rocketed in popularity thanks to the success of her previous albums (Geidi Primes, Halafaxa, Darkbloom) as well as her signing onto 4AD records to release her latest album Visions. Now when I look at Grimes, I see a meek DIY artsy girl dressed in slightly less grungy t-shirts and dark tights that has created some of the most imperative and compelling songs in quite some time (or at least since the beginning of the year).

The fruition of several years’ worth of experimentation, Visions is a mature and masterfully mixed collection of truly unique sounds. Proclaiming her work to be “post-internet,” Boucher has engendered a powerful mythos encapsulating nothing short of an aural manifesto on the current state of music, technology, and art. While this term necessarily implies a consequential distant relationship between Grimes’ music and the instantaneous and viral nature of the internet, what really matters are the globalized and anachronistic networks that have allowed musicians like Boucher to find inspiration in everything from Korean pop to 80s disco to glitch to Enya. In this sense, there’s certainly something to be said about a musician that can pull off the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink technique and remain consistently inconsistent in what has resulted in an album that resembles something more like a contagious fever dream (just take a listen to the schizophrenic chorus of “Circumambient”).

While tracks like “Oblivion” and “Genesis” (both of which have enjoyed anticipatory exposure on the internet) provide the album’s hook, the true gems of Visions lay in the murky, and sometimes menacing, moments of songs such as “Eight” and “Nightmusic,” and (thankfully) much of the album stays true to this style. Others like “Skin” and “Know the Way (Outro)” allow Boucher to stretch her voice, implanting a beautiful meditative quality to complement the throbbing pastiche of rhythms and beats found in most other tracks. To some people’s dismay, the vocals can sometimes come off as childish, warbly, weak, or piercing, but really, this is all a part of the charm. Sure, “Vowels = Space and Time” is relatively soul/R&B-inspired, but would a voice like Beyoncé’s or Mariah Carey’s really make anything better? Listening to Grimes is not about concentrating on the singing or parsing together the lyrics (which really can prove to be an impossible task). For Boucher, the vocals are just as much an instrument as the many technological devices at her disposal, something of a tip of the hat to the Cocteau Twins. What makes Visions enjoyable is precisely the intricate and compact relationship between the layered synths, beat machines, and vocals that create something like a mash-up between Björk’s art-pop lyricism, Burial’s hazy sampling, and The Cure’s post-punk goth melodies. To this end, Grimes latest album refuses to fall prey to the pits of indie music blogosphere; instead, it stands out as one of our contemporary culture’s most gripping and rarest “visions” of the current and future state of music.

- Gary Kafer, The Gary Kafer Sugar Wafer (Mondays from 2-4pm @ WQHS.org)

The Shins: “Simple Song”

After 2007’s Wincing the Night Away, the Grammy-nominated album that established The Shins as the latest indie darlings to crash the mainstream, the band seemed destined for even bigger things. But James Mercer had other plans, teaming up with Danger Mouse to release an album and an EP as Broken Bells, which seemed more than a side-project vamp at the time.

The SlapBack’s “Battle of the Week”: Q vs. Caustic

Over the past winter break, rap battle leagues took no vacation whatsoever. Leagues like “KingOfTheDot,” “GrindTimeNow,” “DontFlop,” and “Basementality Battles” continued to release top tier matches from headlining events. New battle leagues made their appearances with very impressive matchups as well. In all, there wasn’t really a “winter break” for battling this past year.

Before the Concert: Die Antwoord— A Listening Guide

The South African rap-rave phenomenon Die Antwoord is an endless fount of crude, brash and fantastically offensive media. Ninja and Yolandi Vi$$er, the frontmen of the band, brazenly spew filth from their mouths (give the 8 minute version of “Beat Boy” a listen, if you dare) while bombarding the hapless viewer with images of penis galore— boobs, too.

Of Monsters and Men

In retrospect, with a name alluding to the famous novella written by one of my favorite authors (John Steinbeck), it was inevitable that I would explore the music of the band Of Monsters and Men. This six-piece indie/folk band is just the latest Icelandic group to emerge from the small, remote island that seemingly produces more internationally-acclaimed musicians than it should, joining the likes of Sigur Rós, Björk, Emiliana Torrini and the last artist I interviewed, Ólöf Arnalds.

Blue Ivy Carter- Will She Be A Future Superstar?

Arriving on January 7, 2012 and weighing in at 7 lbs, Blue Ivy Carter has created quite a stir. Baby Blue Ivy, the newborn daughter of parents Beyoncé and Jay-Z, was met by family and friends at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. However, already Baby Blue has made her singing debut less than a month after her birth in a new single from father Jay-Z.

Introducing Icky Blossoms

Over the past ten years, a recurrent question in my life has been: “What’s in the water in Omaha, Nebraska?” While the answer might be rocket fuel, arsenic or pesticides, Icky Blossoms, the newest recruit of the mighty label Saddle Creek Records, shows us yet again that there must be something else- a chemical X of sorts that grants parched tongues beautiful gifts.

Cults @ Union Transfer (1/13/12)

I’m skeptical of buzz bands, those haphazardly assembled internet music groups with something like two or three tracks to their name. They make their way around the blogging circuit, some even fortunate enough to have a feature on Stereogum or Pitchfork, while others fall into oblivion with a “one-hit wonder” that makes everyone’s summer playlist or party sampler. Is there anything to qualify the buzz? Can, or rather should, something so ephemeral garner so much attention from trendy youth looking for the next big thing? Maybe, or perhaps not. I won’t say. But it seems like one band, Cults, has the potential to rise above their buzz, and plant their roots firmly into the quickly aging soil of contemporary indie pop.