Lav's Music Corner

Shabazz Palaces   is the Seattle pairing of rapper Ishmael Butler with producer Tendai aka "Baba". The Don Of Diamond Dreams is the projects first album in three years and it's first as a predominate solo project of Ishmael Butler, serving as producer, performer and primary song writer across the record. Review By Lavender: Back in 2011 Shabazz Palaces showed up with an absolute bang when they released their Sup Pop debut album Black Up . The creative song structures, heavy lyrical focus and rich instrumentals made for one of the more unique rap albums of the past decade, but they have only declined from there. 2014 brought the sophomore record from the duo Less Majesty and while I don't hate the record it is certainly less exciting then their debut. The real drop off comes with the pair of 2017 records Quazars vs. The Jealous Machines and Quazars: Born On A Gangster Star . While the latter is better than the formal neither of the records possess the creativity...

Battles are a New York math rock and electronic rock band who got off to a great start with their first two records Mirrored  and Gloss Drop  being incredibly interesting, technical and unique pieces that captivated fans and critics alike. They released the very poorly received and incredibly maligned La Di Da Di  in 2015 and since then have dropped from a trio to a duo for the release of Juice B Crypts . Review By Lavender: There was a point in time where I quite enjoyed the music of Battles, the debut record Mirrored  was a wild experience that I enjoy to this day and the entire era of their second record Gloss Drop  including the two EP's released surrounding it. But part of the disappointment of 2015's La Di Da Di  also led to severely lowered expectations for me and many other fans, and it seems like the band has lowered their own expectations of themselves as well. I skipped detailed listening and analysis of the singles from this record due ...

Steve Ellison better known as Flying Lotus is a Los Angeles based producer and rapper as well as the founder of Brainfeeder records. He first garnered critical acclaim and praise from indie, electronica and hip hop fans with his wild 2010 album Cosmogramma . Since then he has dropped two more albums including 2014's much loved You're Dead  and the long absence since then has made this new record one of the most anticipated in all of music this year. Review By Lavender: Flying Lotus is one of the best artists of the 2000's. I have been a fan for years and it is because of his sharp and unique take on instrumental hip hop and abstract electronica. He has been an incredibly influential sound that has been attempted but never truly duplicated and even though not all of his albums are a sharp 10/10 he has been a spectacularly consistent artist for years. Unfortunately while he retains a lot of his sharp sound play on Flamagra  a lot of what made previous works so cohesiv...