The Forever Story – JID

Atlanta rapper JID released his third album yesterday. And i’ve been listening to it. Following is a brief text about JID and the new album The Forever Story. I will preface this text with some transparency and honesty – i have never actively listened to JID before, somehow he’s flown under my radar. Which made this release of new music from him, all more exciting for me, as i get to experience a whole new artist and his artistry. I came in with zero expectations, and zero knowledge of what i was going to hear – since i had no clue of JID’s existence until like yesterday when Anthony Fantano, TheNeedleDrop, wrote a tweet about listening to this new album on his segment called New Music Friday. And i figured, hey, maybe i should give it a listen aswell. So have i done.

It’s an interesting album since it has a wide variety and range in the elements featuring the album. You got a real heavy bass, that hits incredibly hard on some tracks, following piano features, and same sample as Mos Def uses in Ms. Fat Booty. And then you have wide range in the singing, from extremely quick rapping, to RnB sounding songs, some spoken word and also some gospel. This album points in every direction. Yet, it doesn’t sound strange. Somehow the tracks come together in a beautiful way and that i find very interesting and impressive.

On some songs we get this insanely heavy rap music, with extremely quick rapping on the track Can’t Punk Me (feat. EARTHGANG). This track goes very hard. And the tracks that are similar to Can’t Punk Me are the ones that i prefer on this album. I appreciate the range, width and variety of the album but i have a hard time getting into the tracks that sound more like RnB. I do however believe that this album benefits greatly from the variety of musical genres and elements as it lifts the whole experience. And however much i love the hard hitting, fast paced rap-songs, i think that for just under an hour (the lenght of the album), it might have become a bit stale.

The lyrics are sometimes very introspective and feels like pure poetry. And from time to time i thought that we had features from Kendrick Lamar, as the lyrics and the voice got into a similar range as Kendrick Lamar does. On Genius.com you’re able to read the lyrics to all the tracks to get a better understanding of the lyrics.

For me this was a great introduction to JID, and after publishing this post i will check out his two previous albums and hear what they are about. I find it hard to rate albums and give them a score, but i am sure i will get more comfortable doing it, the more i do it. I’d rate the new album from JID as a 7/10. There are parts i thoroughly enjoy and there are parts that i found rather slow. However connecting these different elements together helps to lift the overall feeling for this album. I recommend that you give it a listen!

Until next time, take care.
SLQT.

Best of Release Radar – Week 34 – 2022.

Spotify features this thing called Release Radar, which consists of 30 songs that are newly released. The description of the playlist is, rougly translated from swedish to english, as follows: ”Listen to the newest music from artists that you follow, and also new singles that has been chosen for you. Updated every friday.”.

And i figured that this could be a fun part of the Laces Shoes & Funky Tunes website could be a consistent update. Every week, i pick my three favourite tracks from my Release Radar Playlist. I will however preface that many tracks on my Release Radar Playlist is remixes of older songs, that has been released a long time ago, and already has been remixed several times – but sometimes, these mixes are golden. An example of this would be that i this week have gotten a remix of Avicii’s track Malo, a track that was released back in 2011. So, it’s always rather fun to go through and see what’s been released lately. I assume that these remixes mostly connects to the artists that i follow, and the rest of the tracks on Release Radar can be whatever Spotify imagines that i would enjoy. I do want to preface this list with, that some weeks you get 10 absolute bangers that go into your regular rotation on Spotify, but some weeks it’s a struggle to even find one track that sticks out.

I will list the three songs that i pick, without any special order. If they’ve been picked, i enjoyed them.

The first track that i will mention on this weeks Best of Release Radar is the track called Let It Breathe by the rapper Joey Bada$$. This track was released as a single that features on his new album called 2000. I must admit that i have a somewhat of a soft spot for Joey, i’ve been listening to him for a long time and i think that most of his releases are very good. I was bumping his 2017 album ALL-AMERIKKKAN BADA$$ so much when it was released, and i still come back to it regularly.
I enjoy the sound of Let It Breathe, it’s hard to describe closer what it is, but there’s something in it that speaks to me. And i’m always fascinated by the flow and lyrics of Joey and his tracks.

The second track that i will mention on this weeks Best of Release Radar is a track called Before You and its by BCee, Charlotte Haining and Emba. This is some sort of electronic, possibly a liquid house track – let’s say that it is. I always find these kinds of songs hard to put in a genre of sorts. The track is rather soothing and it has this strong female lead voice, that a lot of songs in this genre has. However i feel like the singer, who i assume is Charlotte Haining, complements the track in a good way. I believe that Before You will go into my regular rotation of songs.

The last track that i will mention on this weeks Best of Release Radar is a track called ‘Til Dawn by Rebecca & Fiona, Chinaski. I’ve been a fan of Rebecca & Fiona for years, and i do enjoy the path and direction that they’re taking with their new music. I get the feeling that they’re not afraid to try something new and different from what they’ve done before. I have no prior knowledge of Chinaski, however i am going to dwell deeper into Chinaski and see what kinds of music has been produced by them before. ‘Til dawn gives me a feeling that i am driving in Miami in the mid 1980’s on your way to a cool party, and i enjoy it. It sounds nice and comforting. Like the world lies before your feet.

Honorable mention as the worst track that i got on this weeks Release Radar is You Make Me Feel Like It’s Halloween by Muse. This is, i don’t even really know how to describe it. Give it a listen. I feel like there are no redeeming qualities to this track. Which had me rather surprised as i do enjoy Muse a lot, and i’ve seen them live in concert once. However, this time they are completely off the rails

It seems as this was one of those weeks when the tracks on the playlist is rather weak. I had some trouble picking the three tracks that i enjoyed the most. I hope that you have an easier time picking out your favourites from this weeks Release Radar playlist.

Until next time, take care.
SLQT

Lice – Aesop Rock – Homeboy Sandman

Some weeks ago i saw Aesop Rock posting in social media, linking a new single called Catfish. It was released under the collaborative title of Lice, which is Aesop Rock and Homeboy Sandman. I’ve since before known that they’ve done projects together, but i haven’t really listened to anything by Homeboy Sandman. I really enjoyed the new single, Catfish, and i enjoyed the symmetry of the collaboration of Aesop and Homeboy Sandman – they bounce off of eachother in a unique way that empowers their respective verses on the track.

A while later i saw that Aesop posted on social media that he was releasing 3 EPs/Albums under the collaborative project named Lice over the next three coming weeks. This amped me up, i love new releases from Aesop. He rarely misses, and i really enjoyed Catfish. Homeboy Sandman pleasently surprised me with his bars, and i will surely pay him more attention in the future.

Today the first EP, Lice (Spotify-link), dropped on streaming platforms – and firstly it confused me, as i expected it to show up under ”Newest releases”, but instead it showed up as published in 2015. However after some digging it turned out that this EP was released back in 2015, but haven’t been on any streaming platforms (except Youtube, since its debut. This somehow flew above my head.

Lice is a solid EP, it consists of five tracks, that span over 17 minutes and 17 seconds and features a Fort Minor remix. Aesop and Homeboy Sandman bounces off of eachother during most of the songs and the songs differ in style. I must say that Environmental Studies easily is my favourite track of this EP. I think i will dive deeper into why that is, in another post in the future.

I see myself as a big Aesop Rock fan, and somehow i’ve completely missed this EP – maybe, and probably, because it hasn’t been on Spotify since before today. This means that this is a completely new release for me, and for that i am grateful. For others that have enjoyed, consumed and devoured Lice before, this release probably comes as a ease of life release, as it makes listening to the EP, easier than on YouTube.

I don’t know if the other two EPs also has been released before, and that they’ve flew over my head, or not. However, i am eagerly awaiting the release of them.

Until next time, take care.
SLQT.

The Weeknd – Dawn FM.

I have a friend that listen to a lot of new music and releases, every year he publishes a list of albums and artist, with a simplistic overview of the score that he gave the release. This has inspired me to try and do the same, but also try to write more here.

This weekend i listened to the new release called Dawn FM from the canadian phenomenon called The Weeknd. This is his tenth album and i believe that there are few who have missed his rise to stardom and fame. During earlier album he’s done collaborations with giants such as Daft Punk, Lana Del Rey, Kendrick Lamar, Ed Sheeran and Drake, to name a few. Giants within the business and musical sphere.

I will state that The Weeknd isn’t one of my favorites, and i rarely listen to him on purpose as his music isn’t for me. I have tried, because i don’t believe in writing any artist off, without listening to them and forming my own opinion on their work. However The Weeknd isn’t for me. However, with that in mind i listened to The new album, Dawn FM, by The Weeknd.

The Dawn FM concept runs through this album like water and it really tries to conceptualize something but it doesn’t go the whole way. The obvious concept that this album tries to connect to is the FM part of the album title. The album has soundbites that could be used on a real radio show, and there’s even a segment with a fake commercial – however, does anyone want this? Every day we’re constantly bombarded with messages from persons and business the second we jump into the car, to when we go down in the subway, to when we watch TV, or try to watch a video on YouTube. Especially in a time where atleast i, do what i can, to get away from commercials and advertisement, i do not want to hear it blown in, inside of an album. It made me think of the first of second season of Donald Glovers show Atlanta, where they had the concept of a fake tv show, within the show, filled with very well produced, but fake commercials.

The production and the sound quality of the album is very good, and the instrumentals for some of the songs are stunning and beautiful. This is the redeeming quailty of this album, however not without some criticism. A couple of months ago i read the book Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures by Mark Fisher, and since then i’ve been thinking about the concept of nostalgia and how rarely anything ”new” is published. That often the thing that is ”new” is just an old thing or concept, put in a new suit. I had the same feeling when i listened to An evening with Silk Sonic by Silk Sonic (Bruno Mars & Anderson .Paak), it’s so flirty with the funk and the disco, but it sounds better, it’s too polished, it doesn’t feel alive, or real. It’s so clearly a product that took an old concept, in this case, genre of music, and refined it with modern tools – however in the proccess, the soul within it died a bit.
I had the same feeling with Dawn FM, it’s extremely well produced and the melodies, the instrumentals and the sound is so good, but it doesn’t make me feel anything other than: ”hey, this sounds good.”.

And to the last part of this text, and what to me is the weakest part of this album.
Unfortunatley the weakest part of this album is The Weeknd himself, or atleast his singing. I’ve been watching Seinfeld lately, for the first time, and there’s the same case there, that Seinfeld himself is the weakest link of the show. This album sounds like nothing new, it feels like i’ve already heard the lyrics in his other albums, years ago.

As for some end disussion i’d like to point out that the quality of the production is stunning, yet rather lifeless, the commercials inside of the album wasn’t for me, i have however read that people have been enjoying that element. The lyrics and the singing from The Weeknd himself is the weakest link in this album, but as i mentioned in the beginning of the text, i am not a fan of his, and i want to be as transparent as possible. The Weeknd is one of our biggest artists and acts right now and his songs has been streamed hundreds of millions of times.
This album is a product that is very well put together, it’s excellent for commerce and if seen as a product, it’s good. But seen as an album with conceptual ideas, it’s not good.

Dawn FM by The Weeknd can be found on every streaming platform, and wherever you buy your music.

The weakest link of this review might be me, myself and i.

Until next time, take care.
SLQT.

New releases.

The other week we had many new releases from big artists, and as always smaller acts. However the bigger the release seems to be, the bigger the performing artist, the bigger the drum and PR around the release. When it in face should be the smaller acts that gets written about. This inquiry from me will be hypocritical since i am going to write about one of the bigger releases.

The week of releases i am thinking about is the week where Kanye West released Donda, Drake released Certified Lover Boy and Iron Maiden released Senjutsu. The smaller release that i was hinting towards in the beginning of the paragraph is Space Werewolves Will Be the End of Us All by Blockhead.

I’ve given them all a listen, however, i have very different feelings toward them all, apart from Kanye & Drake. I can’t, i was able to listen to like four or five songs from their respective albums. I’ve never been a fan of Drake, he has a couple of songs that i’ve had on repeat and that follows onto every newly created playlist on Spotify, but overall i find Drakes music rather bland.

What to say about Kanye? I don’t know.
I really enjoyed The Life of Pablo and i strongly feel like that’s the last good album Kanye has released alone and under his own name. I do however think that the KIDS SEE GHOSTS project he did together with Kid Cudi was fresh and intresting. I felt a bit let down by Donda because of the route Kanye’s been taking these last years doesn’t please me and my taste. I prefer when his album contains rap with some chorus, and not like it’s been on these last releases, chorus with some rap. I don’t want artists to be stagnant and get stuck in whatever they’re doing, i love when they try different things that might push the artform forward, and i believe that is what Kanye’s doing – he’s trying, and that, i appreciate greatly. I value his work and what he’s trying to accomplish, and i believe that something amazing will come out of it, however, Donda, isn’t that, for me. Compared to Kanye, i feel that Drake has become stagnant in his style, it works, he sells and streams a lot, but it is no longer appealing to me.

I’ve been listening to Blockhead on and off for a couple of years, i discovered him through the discovery of Aesop Rock. I read somewhere that they went to school together and through that they started to make music. Periodically i’ve been more into Aesop than Blockhead, and for periods it’s been swapped.
With that background, i’ve been listening to snippets and stuff that Blockheads been releasing for this new album, leading up to its actual release. I have a softspot for electronic artists that actually release albums. It usually tend to feel like there’s releases of singles and EPs, but rarely albums. I think that Space Werewolves Will Be the End of Us All is very well worth a listen. Blockheads style of producing and putting songs together is very well done and overall i find that this is a good album that i will be rotating for a while.

The last, but not the least.
Senjutsu by Iron Maiden. I must admit, when i saw the name of the upcoming album, i was skeptic. I felt from the name that the old rockers were trying to be woke. However, i was very wrong, and i was floored by this album. I’ve had it on repeat since release, and it keeps on growing on me. It’s full of that classic imagery that you find in Iron Maiden lyrics and i feel like that the sound that they’ve found their way back to a sound that resembles the sound of older albums. I know, this sounds hypocritical of me to say, but an Iron Maiden-album sounding like an Iron Maiden-album will always be the best sounding Iron Maiden album. Senjutsu for me is a strong contender for the best album of the year so far, and i think, and i recommend you to listen to it!

I’ve been walking a lot over the summer, i got a good application on the phone for tracking steps, so i can easily get oversight of my progress. Since May, and 4 months ahead, a couple of days ago, i registred my 750km (465 miles) in four months of walking. It feels good, and it feels like an accomplishment.

I also feel like i should adress the fact that i haven’t finished listening to the new Kanye and Drake album and the fact that i give my opinions on them here. I will finish them, and i will listen through them thoroughly and i might write something about them in the future.

Until next time, take care.

SLQT.

Medicine At Midnight by Foo Fighters.

Cheers. There’s been one of those hiatuses again – sorry about that. Had a stint where music didn’t taste as good as it usually does. However it feels like my aptite for music has come back again, and for that i am grateful.
I’ve been listening too Foo Fighters for a very long time and i always make time to listen to their new releases and i get excited for every new release, even if i wished that the evolution of their sound would’ve taken a different approach i always look forward to a ned Foo-release. This time was no different. I saw that they released the single Waiting on a war and i took a listen to it. I wasn’t floored, but i didn’t expect to be floored either. It sounded like later Foo Fighters and there’s no mistaking it for something other than Foo Fighters. I felt like the album had potential.

Fast forward a while, to the 5th of February 2021 and it was time for the album release of Medicine At Midnight, i waited some days before i listened to it, and at this point i’ve spun the record a couple of times.
I have to confess, and build on what i wrote earlier in this post – i don’t love the general direction of how Foo Fighters sound has changed over the years. I really enjoy that they really try to do different stuff and concept albums like Sonic Highways. I feel like a grumpy old man whenever i think ”their older stuff sounds better” or ”their older and rawer sound was better”; however i can’t deny it, because that’s how i feel about them. I thoroughly enjoyed the direction they took with songs like Run of off their 2017 album Concrete and Gold. That raw, heavy and harder sound is my personally prefered sound of Foo Fighters. And this new album just doesn’t hit that spot for me. Nothing against the lyrics, they sound well written and are somethimes thought provoking; however the instrumentals just doesn’t do it for me.

Medicine At Midnight will stay in my rotation and it’s easy listening. But as i keep on listening to it, i will be dreaming of their next album with a, hopefully, heavier sound.

Until next time, take care.

SLQT.

Spirit World Field Guide by Aesop Rock.

The 13th of November 2020 Aesop Rock releases his new album that’s been named Spirit World Field Guide and as before Aesop Rock is still on the Rhymesayers label.
So far two singles from the upcoming album has been released: The Gates and Pizza Alley. The latter one has stirred up some controversies online partly because people has linked it to some absurd and insane conspiracy theories that wander around social media like a ghoul. Apart from this controversy the other outcry i’ve seen online, about this song, is the mixing. I do not understand what they’re on about, i must admit. But i, on the other hand, really like the sound and i always assume that the released version of a song is the way it’s supposed to sound. And i feel like redacting and updating versions of album, like Kanye West did with Saint Pablo, just makes it hard to keep up with how an album sounds and it gives you this incentive to keep on coming back, just because you cannot be sure if the albums been changed or not. However, back to Aesop.

With these things out of our way, we’ll carry on with this text. From what Rhymesayers write on their website about this upcoming album it’s easy to get the feeling that this is a concept album of sorts that connect to literature. The album is called Spirit World Field Guide which implies that this indeed is a field guide to help us navigate the Spirit World of Aesops imagination. The 21 tracks on the album is referred to as chapters, again tying the knot of this being some kind of literature.
From the sounds of the singles we’ve heard so far, this gives me the feel like it’s tied to some 80s dungeons and dragons-fantasy, The spirit world. The track list really do enforce the feeling of this being 21 chapters that stand alone in themselves, but together they tie this field guide together.

The Gates was the first single that was released from the upcoming album. It appeals to me, i am a sucker for tracks that goes hard. And the beat together with the bass in this track holds hand and makes this slap hard. Pizza Alley has this underlying vibe that makes you a bit uneasy and it feels eerie. And how the sounds in the song switches it makes the feeling that we’re out on a DND-mission hard to ignore. Especially with the other clues we’ve gotten in form of the name of the album and the literature comparision with the tracks named as chapters. The sound of these two tracks differ a lot from each other and i have a feeling that we’ll get 21 tracks that sound very different.

I am truly looking forward to this album and to see what Aesop Rock has managed to pull together this time. I am also very much looking forward to see what lyrical masterpiece Aesop Rock has managed to do this time. As mentioned before, the album drops the 13th of November and will (hopefully) be available on all the regular places you find music.
I will, surely, write something about the album when it’s out.

Until next time, take care.

SLQT.