Lav's Music Corner

After a pretty drab July August really kicked off with some fantastic releases and a huge shake up to the album, singles and songs of the year charts, and all while doing it with only a few real disappointments. Take a quick look at all the albums I reviewed this month: First Taste  - Ty Segall On First Taste  Ty Segall is unrelentingly his own but the experiments are well within his comfort zone as he rocks his way through some of the wildest and fastest rock track all year, with a decent consistency. Review Live At Troxy - Fever Ray Troxy  fails to turn many of the uninspired songs from Fever Ray's most recent record into captivating live experiences but does provide fans a new take on some of the best tracks of her solo career so far. Review i,i - Bon Iver Bon Iver blends together the warm hearty style of their early work with the electronic coldness of their 2016 masterpiece 22, A Million  into something uniquely their own with the sensation of a cabin in the w

Powers Pleasant is a New York hip hop producer and DJ and one of the founding members of New York's own Pro Era. He has been producing music for years for various members of Pro Era including Joey Badass and Kirk Knight as well as fellow New York artists like The Underachievers. After dropping some beat tapes on his SoundCloud over the years but geared up for a new album with three singles featuring high profile hip hop artists. Review By Lavender: I have been an admirer of Powers Pleasant for a long time, particularly alongside Joey Bada$$ over the years. While I respect him a lot as a beat crafter my perception of him as a curator of talent was in dire straights after hearing the first thee singles from this record and my expectations of the album turned out dead on. There are plenty of great beats and verses across this record, but they are bogged down with rappers missing the mark on almost every song. The lead single is one of the best songs on the album and the only

Toro Y Moi is the stage name of Chaz Bundick, one of the pioneering voices in the rise of Chill Wave during the first half of the 2000's. After releasing six records under the name and a collection of side projects Toro y Moi teamed up with some acclaimed indie artists to dip his toes into the world of ambient music on  smartbeats . Review By Lavender: While I haven't always agreed with Chaz on the sounds of Chill Wave he is clearly an incredibly talented musician and has a number of albums in his catalog that I really enjoy. Earlier this year he released a record that I thought was a bit too inconsistent but highlights like Ordinary Pleasure  and Monte Carlo  have been in my rotation all year. On smartbeats Chaz switches up his approach and drops a mostly ambient album that recruits vocals from a number of indie darling vocalists to assemble some longer form tracks with minimal instrumentation and chopped up original vocal samples. The first and third tracks of the EP

Missy Elliott is a legendary hip hop and R&B crossover artist who dominated the lats 90's and early 2000's with a series of hits that influenced music for the next decade and cemented her sound into pop culture history. After a 14 year studio album break she was announced to be this years winner recipient of the MTV Video Vanguard award and timed the release of this EP with the VMA's. Review By Lavender: Anybody who tries to deny the cultural impact of Missy Elliott is crazy, but anybody who can't admit how amazingly catchy and silky smooth her best tunes sound still to this day needs to be completely discredited of all merit to their opinions, maybe that's a little harsh. But seriously Missy had an absolutely amazing run of singles that set the tone for the 2000's to blur the worlds of R&B and Hip Hop together and totally deserves the legend status she has reached. I was a little bit hesitant going into this record that Missy may not be reaching

Rapsody is a North Carolina rapper who released her debut album in 2012 to an unfortunate lack of critical attention. After signing to Jay-Z's Roc Nation label she dropped her breakout project Laila's Wisdom in 2017 to critical acclaim, and despite being quiet since then, announced the upcoming release of her third album just days before it inevitably dropped. Review By Lavender: I was introduced to Rapsody a little bit earlier than most given that she resides in my home state of North Carolina and made more than one guest appearance at Raleigh's Hopscotch festival which I frequented. So when I saw her grabbing some much deserved attention with the lead single to her second record Power  which featured Top Dawg darlings Kendrick Lamar and Lance Skiiiwalker, O was excited and happy for her. When the record this track was promoting ultimately got released I was a pretty big fan of it as Rapsody was unrelenting in her individuality and unafraid to be herself. The only m

1. Have A Nice Life - Sea Of Worry Legendary post-punk band Have A Nice Life has returned with their first single since 2014 and the announcement of their incredibly highly anticipated third studio album, frankly this weeks #1 was a runaway. 2. A$AP Rocky - Babushka Boy Fresh out of his highly publicized prison stay in Sweeden Rocky has returned to drop a song and video that mark his first solo single of 2019. 3. Pusha T - Coming Home (Feat. Lauryn Hill) King Push recruits The Fugees own Lauryn Hill for a spot on his new Kanye produced track while announcing that a second entirely Kanye produced album is likely to come by the end of 2019. 4. Pinegrove - Moment Pinegrove gear up to put their past behind them and release some of the unique brand of indie rock just in time for fall season. 5. Iglooghost - Lamb  (Feat. Kai Winston & Babii) Iglooghost follows up a wild single earlier this year with yet another collaborative track that is sure to show us a glimpse into the f

Taylor Swift really needs no introduction as one of the highest selling and most easily recognizable pop stars of the 2000's. She made a transition from the country pop sounds of her early days into full blown pop stardom on her back to back albums Red  and 1989  earlier this decade. After this she took a decidedly darker tone on her next record Reputation  and took on some of the critiques of her music and character, spawning from an ongoing feud with Kanye West. After starting off the Lover  era with one of the most maligned singles of her career to date she recovered with a number of successful and well liked tracks leading up to the albums release. Review By Lavender: I have had a very long and storied history of being perplexed and annoyed by the music of Taylor Swift, Her first three records are all among my least favorite of all time and as a trilogy make up one of the most taxing and terrible listens to get started with a discography in pop and just general music his

Brockhampton is a Los Angeles via Austin, Texas based rap group and self-proclaimed boy band who rose to prominence in 2017 one the back of three universally acclaimed records in the Saturation trilogy. Over the first half of 2018 the band quietly grew their profile while controversially losing one of their most notable members to sexual assault allegations, before dropping their chart topping major label debut iridescence  last year. After marquee member Kevin Abstract dropped his third solo album earlier this year the group geared up for their 6th record in just four years. Review By Lavender: If clout means anything in the digital age I can at least affirm one thing, I've been with Brockhampton since day 1. I reviewed their first mixtape All-American Trash  as well as Kevin Abstract's American Boyfriend  at the end of 2016 and when they hit the ground running in 2017 I was along for the ride. Saturation 1  and Saturation 2  both landed in my top 10 albums of 2017, an

Thee Oh Sees are a California rock band who have been releasing a constant stream of music under a number of different names for nearly 15 years now. The only steady member of the group is frontman John Dwyer and since changing their name to just "Oh Sees" in 2017 they have dropped three records that have all dabbled in experimental and unconventional rock sounds, a sonic element that began for the band with their two records in 2016. This act of the groups career have brought them into a new light within the world of indie music that has come paired with consistent critical acclaim leading up to Face Stabber . Review By Lavender: I would never really have considered myself a fan of Thee Oh Sees despite enjoying some of their recent music. Albums like A Weird Exits  and Smote Reverser  may not have been perfect but they pushed the envelope enough to stay interesting and create a few tracks that jammed. But more than ever before on Face Stabber  a lot of the time is bei

The Hold Steady is a Brooklyn based Craig Finn fronted rock band known for detailed narrative songwriting and a blend of classic rock sounds with indie rock song structures. The bands third record 2006's Boys And Girls In America  was released to universal critical acclaim and made the band an instantly recognizable name in indie music, but since then the band has released three albums of varying quality, none of which managed to quite match the greatness of Girls And Boys . Review By Lavender: I have always loved The Hold Steady, I first heard their landmark record Boys And Girls In America  years ago and I was hooked from the very first moments. While I enjoyed 2008's Stay Positive  quite a bit retrospectively the bands most recent album, 2014's Teen Dreams  the only one I was conscious of at launch, was a touch underwhelming for me. I liked it more than most people as I expect will be the case with just about any of the groups records but I was still hoping to hea

A$AP Ferg is a New York rapper and member of the A$AP Mob hip hop collective that rose to prominence in the early 2000's. Ferg separated himself from the rest of the non-Rocky members of the collective in 2013 with his debut studio album Trap Lord  and the breakout single Shabba . Since then Ferg has released a handful of projects that have failed to reach the same critical peak including a universally maligned second studio record Always Strive And Prosper before dropping nearly half of this EP as singles in the lead up to its release. Review By Lavender: My general distaste for A$AP Ferg's music has been known to get me into hot water. Whether it was calling Trap Lord  average or calling Always Strive And Prosper  one of the worst rap albums of the decade I have not been shy about my feelings towards Ferg, and his fans have not been shy back. So after I gave his last record yet another mediocre review I declared that it may be the final Ferg project I was willing to gi

Sleater-Kinney are an American indie rock band who released a number of critically acclaimed records in the late 90's into the mid 2000's highlighted by 1997's Dig Me Out  and 2005's The Woods . After breaking up after the release of the latter album the band took ten years before reuniting and releasing a universally acclaimed comeback album No Cities To Love in 2015. The band started 2019 off with the announcement that St. Vincent had produced this record in its entirety, as well as facing the departure of their long time drummer from the band after the recording of the record was already completed. Review By Lavender: Sleater-Kinney really need no introduction, their low-fi rock of the 90's and blistering indie records in the 2000'a left enough of a legacy for the band alone. On top of these their 2015 comeback record No Cities To Love  really surprised me with its short punchy songs full of a youthful energy I didn't predict from the band. After s

Ride is a legendary English rock band considered one of the fathers of the Shoegaze genre who released the first of Shoegaze's "Big 3" records with their 1990 debut album Nowhere . Since then the band released a triology of albums in the 90's including one of the most maligned records of their career before breaking up in 1996, and reforming for a comeback album in 2017 alongside both of the other big three shoegaze bands. Review By Lavender: Nowhere , Ride's debut record was a groundbreaking moment for Shoegaze and one of the most consistently underrated records of the 90's given how ahead of their time the band was and how brilliantly the music has held up. I also find myself consistently enjoying the bands music more than many others, their sophomore record Going Blank Again  and their early recordings album Smile  are both records I would highly recommend, and I was pretty high on their 2017 comeback record Weather Diaries . While they released a B-