Lav's Music Corner

Reviews by Lavender: For this week's rapid fire reviews, I'm taking a look at some rap albums I missed from earlier this year, with the underlying theme of artists who I absolutely adored at one point in their career. That's pretty much it, glad I finally got to talk about a lot of these. Enjoy! 13 Months Of Summer  - Amine My soft spot for Amine has been around for basically his entire career. Since the moment I first heard his song “Caroline,” overflowing with Amine's own charm and charisma, I was hooked on his catchy flows and sense of humor. On the flip side of that, I think most of his projects tend to be on the inconsistent side, including the last time we heard from him on a collaborative record with Kaytranada that seemed like a slam dunk, but didn't quite live up to it. In fact, 2020’s Limbo remains the only time in Amine's career that he's put it all together and made a truly great album.  13 Months Of Sunshine led off with a pair of vibey single...

KAYTRAMINE is a new collaborative project from producer KAYTRANADA who garnered massive critical acclaim for his electronica meets psychedelic debut album 99.9%  in 2016. and Amine a Portland rapper whose smooth flows and charismatic delivery have been charming fans since around the same time.  Review by Lav: To me, this album was a slam dunk. On top of loving the lead single, it also set me up with expectations that KAYTRAMINE  would be a collection of endlessly summery hip-house bops from Kay and Amine. While the actual album itself certainly isn't bad, it doesn't achieve the measure of consistency I was hoping for nor the specific style I anticipated.  In the album's defense, it does get off to a pretty strong start. Alongside the lead single 4EVA  is a strong opening song in Who He Iz  and a harder-hitting banger than I was anticipating in Westside . letstalkaboutit  is pretty much exactly what I was hoping for from the album with a glistening sunn...

Late again, sorry I was on vacation, take some deep breaths and enjoy. 5.  Weedkiller  - Ashnikko I think Ashnikko might have out-Dorian Electra'd Dorian themselves this week. In what is easily my favorite single from this new Ashnikko era so far they're getting cutthroat and living up to the song's aggressive title. While it's mostly the strong hook that wins me over I also have to say some of the clever vocalizations and stretching of their range as a singer pay off big time.  Listen 4.  Fallin'  - Joey Bada$$ If you had Joey trying his R&B side out on your 2023 bingo card, you're probably well on your way to winning. You'd be in even better shape if you correctly predicted that the results would actually be kind of good. As is often the case with crossovers like these, the hook suffers with singing that is sufficient but needs a bit more to help sell it.  Ultimately, I'm kind of surprised the sound and sentiment of the song are pulled off so well ...

Amine is a Portland rapper who broke out a few years ago with his viral single Caroline . Since then he has dropped two albums and managed to keep a foot in both the world of contemporary radio rap music, and it's more critically acclaimed and experimental counterpart. TWOPOINTFIVE  is a mixtape that is designed to bridge the gap between Amine's 2nd and 3rd albums just like it's predecessor ONEPOINTFIVE  did for his 1st and 2nd albums.  Review By Lav: For most artists I wouldn't go out of my way to write a full review for a mixtape like this. Clearly this is a step down in terms of focus, depth and in all likelihood quality from Amine's core album releases. The reason I decided to take this record on in depth is simple, I really liked Amine's last album. Limbo  was a great example of the artistic versatility he's capable of an featured one song after another of his infectious performances and immeasurable charm. So yeah, I had a feeling this thing wouldn...

2020 was the year where the only thing anyone could talk about was how bad 2020 was. Journalistically it was disappointing to see so many dive headfirst into the cliche slightly self-absorbed reactionary notions of writing about the modern day. Ultimately though I have no choice on this list but to recap the last 12 months of music as best I can, but here on the Songs list I try to take in as little outside noise as humanly possible. Regardless of where an artist is in their career, how popular or successful a song was or how critically acclaimed it is, these are my 101 favorite songs of the year as of December 30th, 2020. A year from now, month from now or even a week from now my opinions could change but as the door closes on this curious year I did everything I could to paint a truthful list of the best tracks I heard on any EP or album this year, and here it is. <3 101. Kinda Dark  - Destroyer Dan Beyar's sophisticated indie pop has never sounded as nocturnal as it does acro...