Lav's Music Corner

As a wise woman once said on her EP's of the year list last year, "EPs are fun little guys full of fun little songs" and while they are so often overlooked sometimes when it rains it pours and a number of short form projects that I want to talk about all drop around the same time. so lets get caught up in the world of extended plays.  This Thing Of Ours 2 EP - The Alchemist Earlier this year legendary underground hip hop producer The Alchemist released an enjoyable if slightly inconsistent EP featuring a number of high profile rap collaborations and this is the highly anticipated sequel. This time MAVI, MIKE, Vince Staples, Zlooperz and Danny Brown's Bruiser Brigade serve as the five vocals heard across these five tracks which add up to just under 12 minutes.  Instrumentally speaking the EP is full of exactly what you'd expect, low key and lo-fi jazz rap beats rich with samples of classic brass instrumentation, drums and obscure vocal samples. The issue I have wit...

Normally with these weekly-ish segments I look for a few records that have something in common with each other that I can cover together because its cute and congruent. Once we get into the last few months of the year however, there becomes a point where I just have some records that I need to talk about before the curtain closes on 2021. These are three records that I really only put together because I originally went into them anticipating they would be good, didn't quite have the time to fully review them, but still wanted to talk about them in some capacity. So without further meaningless delay here are those concise reviews.  Texis  - Sleigh Bells Sleigh Bells are one of those groups that kind of disappear in between album cycles and don't get the same level of press they once did as early 2010's indie darlings. But every time they emerge I see fans come out in mass to praise the duo for their infectious noise pop fusions. I've always had a soft spot for the band a...

If there is one genre that always had way more releases than I could possibly ever cover, its rap. But a close second is indie/singer-songwriter records which are easy to produce and there are a LOT of them. It is also one of the most homogenized genres out there with so much of it sounding functionally indistinguishable sonically and relying on the personality or story-telling of its artist to bear the entire weight of the project. This means that I typically don't enjoy these style of projects as much as most, but I still think it's appropriate to get my thoughts out there on some of the bigger ones.  Home Video  - Lucy Dacus While I haven't been head over heels for much of Lucy's work so far it's difficult to deny her talent as a vocalist and her infectious personality. When she's at her best as a soloist or member of boygenius she is capable of great things and after hearing a few good singles I was hoping that Home Video  would be her best outing yet. The r...

Okay I promise this is the last rapid fire review of the week before we jump into some actual new records. The last trio of tracks I wanted to cover are a bit difficult to categorize so they're ending up here in a slightly electronic slightly ambient haze of experimental music that I had to make sure I covered sooner rather than later.  Skitzofrenia Simulation  - Sewerslvt Sewerslvt is an experimental electronica project that I only just heard of last year on the back of the very solid Draining Love Story  which overcame its title to be quite an enjoyable experience. I was hoping that this record would achieve the same jump in quality from what you'd expect out of the title, but quite a bit has happened for the Sewerslvt brand in the past year, some of which can be very hard to collectivize. After old posts were dug up making insensitive jokes Sewerslvt apologized before seemingly leaving social media entirely, with communication via Bandcamp emails becoming the primary m...

Once again I'm clearing my to do list of EPs. While they have absolutely nothing to do with each other aside from their format they did each manage to grab my interest despite their short tracklists. Enjoy! I Tape  - Vic Mensa Vic Mensa has had a bit of a tumultuous time in the years since my personal favorite of his records, The Autobiography  came out in 2017. This includes the largely panned 93PUNX  experiment into the world of rock and punk music. I never got around to listening to his EP last year but a single I heard from Vic earlier this year got me curious to dive back into his work. Shelter  saw him teaming up with Wyclef and Chance for probably the best Vic Mensa song since OMG . That serves as the closing track to this EP and after seeing the impressive roster of producers and features working on this thing I was sold. And for the most part Vic delivers a sort of return to form featuring a blend of hard-hitting hip hop with a more introspective and conscio...