Lav's Music Corner

Review by Lavender:  McKinley Dixon is a Virginia rapper who has spent this decade rising higher and higher as a critical darling of hip-hop. That began in 2021 with his album For My Mama And Anyone Who Look Like Her , which I liked a lot. That trek continued onto 2023's Beloved! Paradise! Jazz!?  which I was equally fond of. I got the chance to interview McKinley at the end of 2023, and he sounded like someone who knew their work wasn't done yet. which is why I was so excited to hear from him again. On Magic, Alive! , he delivered everything I could ask for and more.  After a short intro, the album begins with its lead single “Sugar Water,” whose jazzy instrumental with wandering sax lines and bouncy piano kick-starts the record immediately. McKinley pops up three times on the song, and he's pretty much flawless with each and every appearance. Guest rapper Quelle Chris can't nearly match that energy, and as a result, the vibrant instrumental kind of floods him out, wh...

Review by Lavender:  Tune-Yards is an Oakland indie-pop duo who emerged as a surprise critical darling in the first half of the 2010s with the combination of their frenetic, world music-inspired tunes and frontwoman Merrill Garbus' unique, striking vocals. Though their 4th and 5th albums weren't quite as acclaimed as projects like W H O K I L L and Nikki Nack , I certainly think both records have something of their own to offer, and I went into Better Dreaming expecting more of the same based on a strong trio of singles. But just as the album has its strokes of excellence, it also has some real head-scratching moments.  The trio of singles released in the lead-up to Better Dreaming got the record off to a really promising start. The best of the bunch is “Limelight,” an absolute fucking banger to kick the era off. It has an absolutely irresistible bassline and verbose, playful verses that just drill into my head. On the hook, it all erupts into an absolutely perfect chorus that...

Review by Lavender:  caroline are a British 8-piece post-rock outfit who, despite denying its influence, seems to blend the sentimental flavors of Midwest emo with their winding instrumental passages and compositional flexibility. Back in 2022, I called their first album caroline  , one of my favorite debut records of the year , and I was really looking forward to what the band had in store. Now, 3 years later, they're rapidly becoming critical darlings as praise and attention for this record has begun to pour in. Though I don't love the record quite as much as some, I still think it's both an improvement on their debut and a very strong statement.  caroline 2 led off with one of the best singles I've heard anywhere this year, “Total euphoria.” It introduces the album's signature combination of fluttering emo-influenced motifs with vibrant post-rock instrumentation, and the cooed-out vocals have been stuck in my head for months. It's an entrancing combination t...

Lonesome Drifter  - Charley Crockett  Charley Crockett has long been a bubbling up figure in a country music scene that exists outside of the tightly controlled Nashville country mainstream. His prolific output has resulted in a pretty dedicated fanbase in love with his throwback country sentiments and dusty vintage outlaw cadence. I've covered his music twice now, but heard several more or his albums and I pretty much always come away with the same impression, mixed. While every record he releases has its high points, they also tend to repeat themselves and occasionally slip into even too obvious country cliches. More importantly, the “character” of Charley Crockett as The Man From Waco , The $10 Cowboy , or in this case, the Lonesome Wanderer , can start to feel a little routine.  I think Lonesome Wanderer starts off strong with its title track and the dejected “Game I Can't Win.” But from there it slips directly into the first song that feels like pure parody, the sau...

Rather than locking in on a super-specific genre of experimental rock, this time we're just going to do a sweep of several already difficult-to-define records from under that umbrella, enjoy.  Lower  - Benjamin Booker Even though I'm not a particularly bit fan of Benjamin Booker's first two album's in the 2010s, I went into Lower  all the way back in December with genuine hype. That's because he had made a few notable appearances on various billy woods projects where he slotted into the world of the mysterious rapper nicely. Additionally, one of billy's frequent collaborators, Kenny Segal, normally a hip-hop focused producer, is on board for wall to wall production on Lower . That all came together on singles like the solid "SAME KIND OF LONELY" and the even better "SLOW DANCE IN A GAY BAR" where Segal's production gave Booker's muted rock stylings a nocturnal and hypnotic boost that I found pretty infectious.  Lower  gets off to a pr...

Review by Lavender: billy woods is simultaneously one of the most prolific and most acclaimed voices in the rap underground. Releasing multiple projects a year, pretty much every year, with a variety of collaborators, he seemingly never runs out of clever turns of phrase and stories to tell. While his talent is obvious, I've often expressed my issues with his prolific output, which often creates multiple solid records when one great record could have easily sufficed. That's not the case with GOLLIWOG , an album whose conceptual ambitions and frequent highlights feel like they come from another world than even some of the more acclaimed billy projects in recent years. It's why I can recommend the record full stop, even to those who haven't been as in love with billy woods as some critics, as I think it's his best album of this decade so far.  I went into GOLLIWOG already more excited than I would be for any old billy woods record. Much of that was because of the lea...