Lav's Music Corner

Review by Lavender:  Little Simz is one of the best rappers alive. I feel pretty comfortable saying that. It began at the tail end of the previous decade when she broke through with the ferocious Grey Area . Two years later, she followed it up with one of the best albums of the decade, the staggering rap opus Sometimes I Might Be Introvert , which I gave a perfect 10 and called my favorite album of 2021. Then, just a year after that, she punctuated it with another great record in NO THANK YOU . But since then, Simz has had a falling out with her principal collaborator, Sault mastermind Inflo, whom she sued for an unpaid loan and spends LOTS of time on Lotus  attacking. And in her first outing since breaking through without Inflo by her side, her talent continues to shine through, even if some of the production and conceptualization is more hit or miss than usual.  Lotus censors Inflo's name whenever it comes up thematically, but that's the only courtesy it gives the dram...

I love R&B and I've already covered a few releases in the genre this year. But I wanted to catch up with some of the records that fell through the cracks, especially those from artists I've enjoyed in the past.  u made me a st4r  - 4batz Earlier this year a TikTok about videos that don't match the energy of the song they're for launched R&B singer 4batz to virality. While that was built around the smash hit date @ 8 , which I admittedly love, it resulted in some major cosigns for the singer from artists like Drake and Kanye West. He capitalized on the rise to fame with this short project and going into it I was mostly just curious if he would be able to break the mold of his single hit so far. date @ 8  is great with its earworm refrains and pitched-up vocals, but that wasn't going to work for a full 8 songs broken up by a few sparse interludes.  The third single from the album actually served up a potentially interesting scenario. on god?  is a decent t...

5.  Gold Coast  - Moses Sumney Moses Sumney's immense talent has persisted through basically everything he's ever done. That's why it's nos surprise that he once again delivered a hit on a second consecutive single. With  Gold Coast  he dials things back a bit with a near whispered tenor met by some fluttering strings. But underneath it all the track is still a beautiful, swaying and irresistibly elegant R&B jam.  Listen 4.  Electra  - Public Service Broadcasting The incredibly strange career of Public Service Broadcasting has taken the sample-driven and largely instrumental rock outfit to all kinds of strange places. But this time they're going back to something we all know they can do well, a song about a plane. Much like one of their breakthrough tunes  Spitfire ,  Electra  is a beautiful and fittingly soaring tribute to aircraft that comes with all their emotional instrumental poise and perfectly selected samples.  Listen 3....

One of the busiest weeks of the year for new singles resulted in a hotly contested top 5 where I had to make some hard cuts. Here's what soared to the top.  5.  Del Oro  - Floating Potins Del Oro  builds on the already exciting promise of a strong single Floating Points dropped last year. Once again its the combination of irresistible house drums that keep me moving from start to finish and the progressing dance synths fluttering in every which direction over top of them. The album serves up one breakdown after another eventually leading to its last and final moment sparking the spectacular final minute of the song.  Listen 4.  Purple Gas  - Zach Bryan Zach Bryan seemingly just can't miss right now and this song is even more proof. Just a few weeks after dropping one of the best country singles of the year he's back with a breezy, chemistry-filled duet. He continues to master his ability to pull from vintage folk and country styles and presentation but...

Tyler showed up earlier this year with credentials as a photographer and tagged along through most of 2020 penning judgement on the quality of each of the album covers accompanying the albums and EPs I reviewed for the blog. So just like I'm recapping the year musically Tyler put together a list of his 10 favorite album covers of the year for Day 2 of List Week 2020.  10. HAIM - Women In Music Pt. 3 I like this cover. Knowing the previous aesthetics of the sisters, I think this fits in well with their indie vintage photo style and it encompasses what their style is and has been for a while. It has a lot of detail packed into the simple photo and it takes time to look into all the background gems. I appreciate that the sign in the back is used as the title and it adds itself into the composition rather than sitting on top of it. Overall I think this is wildly successful and adds to the list of the other very strong covers in their discography. 9. Moses Sumney - Grae This cover is gr...

Moses Sumney is an Asheville, North Carolina based R&B singer who broke out with his 2017 debut album Aromanticism , grae  follows two EP's Sumney released over the last two years and the first half of the album was released back in February. Review By Lavender: I thought Moses Sumney's debut album Aromanticism  was pretty good and I regret missing out on doing a proper full review of it even though the album ultimately found itself on my year end list. The moment I really fell for Sumney's music was on his 2018 Black In Deep Red, 2014  EP where he fused R&B with captivating spoken word passages and tribal percussion to make for one of my favorite EP's all year. I waited on the first half of grae  because I wanted to wait and hear the record in its entirety and now that it is here I see all the things that make Moses Sumney's sound so compelling here, but at 65 minutes the album comes with some excess.  The excess parts of the record isn't the short...

Bon Iver is an indie folk collective originating from Wisconsin and founded by singer-songwriter Justin Vernon.The first Bon Iver record For Emma Forever Ago  was released independently in 2007 where Pitchfork Media played a huge role in promoting it alongside many other indie folk releases around that time and helped make Bon Iver into an indie must hear. They followed this up with yet another critically acclaimed record Bon Iber, Bon Iver  in 2011 before taking an extended period off and returning in 2016. The third Bon Iver record 22. A Million  was also met with critical praise but reached for a very different sound, interpolating electronica heavily into their previously warm and folk cetntric sound. With teaser tracks that also dipped into the abstract electronic Bon Iver seemed to predict a continuation of this path making, i,i  a quick turn around on what will likely be an artistic evolution for the group. Review By Lavender: For a time before I began ...

James Blake, has been up to this point one of the best, most creative and most consistent artists of this decade. Since coming up as a dubstep infused experimentalist in the early 2010's with EPs like Klaiverwerke and Enough Thunder, James Blake gained popularity and set the stage for his spectacular debut self-titled album James Blake. The album was met with critical acclaim and was one of only 3 10/10 scores that Music Corner gave out that year, as well as awarding it our album of the year nod. Since his experimental bedroom electronica masterpiece Blake has dropped two fantastic album sin its wake. 2013's Overgrown was a much less jagged and experimental album that relied on gorgeous layers of backing instrumentation and spacious atmospheres to succeed. James Blake vocally took more of a center stage than ever before on his third album The Colour In Anything  which was surprised dropped in 2016. Softer and more distant instrumentals and huge sparse compositions meant that...