#1677 Ed Schrader's Music Beat - Party Jail

A sulky // brash record that sheds its post-punk throb and reserve in slashes of noisy gesture. This is that rare album that's made by someone who doesn't stick to the structures, that just careens off when it feels the need - that alone's pretty exciting. The actual battering clattering of guitar and hard-lined garagey rush is just a bonus 3.5/5

#1676 Freestyle Fellowship - Innercity Griots

Early 90's LA underground - this is great, complex, hard-edged stuff, never letting its jazzy angles interrupt its flows. Just a dash. There's freedom here, it's sprightly, alive - guys having a blast showing off their craft, considerable mastery of wordplay, banged out effortlessly thanks to putting the work in 4/5

#1675 DJ Format - Music for the Mature B Boy

Still packed with knotty underground rhymes and a general slick English hip hop sensibility, but this early Format LP lacks the confidence and flair of Statement of Intent. Totally solid stuff, just not quite as exciting as this dude gets later 4/5

#1674 DJ Format - Statement of Intent

Sounds so much like Edan that when Edan guested on the 2nd track I went "is this some Edan side project?"

This is definitely a compliment.

Two great things combine here:

1) deft, complex hip hop tracks, as Format wrangles a cavalcade of expert guests, all fitting right in with the production style and eachother, full of twisty angles that keep you on your toes.

2) When the guests step aside, the instrumental tracks pull the same vibe, booming out partyready, effortlessly busy, relentlessly exciting.

This is unassumingly intricate,packed with flow, one of the most flat out entertaining records I've heard in ages 4.5/5

#1673 The American Analog Set - Late One Sunday: Bliss Out v.9

A year later, TAAS put out a much better little EP. By stripping down the vocals and any pretense of trying to make pop // indie pop, by committing to 10+ minute songs and an ambient agenda, they made something that works, as a meandering, atmospheric little piece of evocative background music 3.5/5

#1672 The American Analog Set - The Fun of Watching Fireworks

No escaping the Yo La Tengo comparison, down to the boy/girls, the drones.

I think, given the band name / album cover, that I'm supposed to be in love with all the little details of this recording, but there's not enough here, the long sections lacking heft and pacing, the pop moments not landing, the wispy singing drifting past unheard. It's lazy, stumbling as ambient and doing too little to rise above it 2.5/5

#1671 The Sonics - This is the Sonics

You'll read this a lot, it's all true: the 60's garage legends are old as shit and they still got it, ripping and kicking out the couldntgiveafuck like some lightspeed paradox landed them in 2015 and they picked up right on the beat. It's everything a revival like this should be an never is: messy, noisy, electric with the same spirit that charged these guys a million billion years ago 4/5