Myka 9 & Blu – God Takes Care of Babies & Fools
A compelling, refreshing dose of 90’s hip hop. Blu had fallen off of the Mammoth’s radar since the days of his collaboration with Exile, and somehow Myka 9’s reputation as one of your favorite rapper’s favorite rappers totally escaped him. Blu continues to craft excellent, thoughtful bars over Mono en Stereo’s soulful beats, and Myka 9 has this very affected, free-flowing character to his rapping that really captured the Mammoth’s attention. If the listener is in the mood for relaxing beats, stream-of-consciousness lyrics, and a lot of lyrical reflection, this album is a smash hit. The sole stain on this comfortable fall hoodie of a record is the track “Gang Bang”, which, even though the audio discomfort it creates was probably the point, is still unpleasant to listen to.
Highlight Tracks: Park Bench, LA CA, Illohim
Worthy of Investigation?
The Mammoth will certainly refresh his library with Blu’s recent work, and is excited to dig into the Freestyle Fellowship and learn more of Myka 9’s career.
Prewn – System
Sometimes you can hear an artist and know they create out of compulsion. They create because that’s how they have to express themselves. The appeal of their work isn’t necessarily mastery of a particular genre, the excellence of production, the out of the box creative choices, but the authenticity of what’s written to file. And that’s certainly the case with Prewn. Whether it’s the mournful cello pieces, electric guitar riffs ranging from jangly and a little unsettling to fuzzed out in anger, or Prewn’s affected singing style that had The Mammoth thinking this was a Nordic artist before realizing she’s from Massachusetts, this is the kind of hard to nail down, uncaring about genre labels style of music that so often falls into the bucket of “indie” to satisfy people’s metadata tagging. Overall, The Mammoth found this record captivating, compelling even. There’s a lot of emotion here, a lot of reflection on Prewn’s anger at past relationships, her own insecurities, and her hopes for life. Sophomore records are a huge stumble for any artist, particularly the ones who creative compulsively, particularly if they spent a decade crafting their debut, and if System is any indication of Prewn’s current skill at her craft, then her debut record would have to be an all-time classic for this to constitute a slump. Wholeheartedly recommended.
Highlight Tracks: System, Don’t Be Scared, Dirty Dog
Worthy of Investigation?
The Mammoth will spare you further prattling and just say yes.
Alfa Mist – Roulette
This record is built for fall dinner parties. It oozes elegance and professionalism. A rhythm section tighter than canned sardines, piano work that ranges from glossy accompaniment to the quiet, but menacing center of a song, excellent horn solos, this record is technically excellent. It’s the first time in a while The Mammoth has felt the need to compliment a drummer’s work on an album as “delicate”, not simplistic, mind you, but like a sonic doily – complex, yet soft and soothing. At its worst, this album is perhaps conventional. The Mammoth was reminded of many a Return to Forever record listening to this. Chick Corea is an apparent influence on Alfa Mist’s own piano work.
Highlight Tracks: Roulette, Found You, 9 Months
Worthy of Investigation?
The Mammoth is certainly intrigued in Alfa Mist’s past work – it’s the rare kind of jazz that works both as background music as well as rewarding engaged listening.
Author & Punisher – Nocturnal Birding
Is “Arena Industrial” a genre? It should be. This is a massive record. Somehow Author & Punisher is a new artist to The Mammoth – surprising when he’s collaborated with a who’s who of some of The Mammoth’s favorite musicians – but suffice to say, he’s now a fan. Tristan Shone’s music on this album has this captivating dismal quality to it. The vocals are spare and haunting, the synths are a wall of punishing distortion, the conventional instruments (when they get involved) punch you in the gut with their intensity. At times bleak, at times domineering, and at other times quiet and mournful, this record strides the middle line between Industrial and Doom Metal perfectly.
Highlight Tracks: Mute Swan, Thrush, Titmouse
Worthy of Investigation?
It certainly seems worthy, The Mammoth is already queueing up his collaboration with Tool’s rhythm section.
Today is the Day – Never Give In
This album serves as a Goofus to Author & Punisher’s Gallant – heavy music that is trite, conventional, and uninteresting. Of special disrepute are the vocals: they’re mixed very low in the track, the clean vocals are plodding and just above rapping in terms of amount of actual singing done, the screamed vocals are too bright, too hard to understand, and usually play second fiddle to the already lame clean work. The best analogy The Mammoth can come up with to describe them is a very poor imitation of Trent Reznor, lacking any of the gravitas Trent has when he veers close to spoken word territory. The drums are competent punk, the guitar has some truly annoying atonal riffs that don’t drive the songs so much as kick you out of them.
Highlight Track: Psychic Wound has its moments, but The Mammoth is sure that’s because there’s a break that veers close to drone music
Worthy of Investigation?
Absolutely not. The Mammoth has had plenty of exposure to the Noise scene via his love of Melvins, but if this is representative of Todays’ the Day’s normal fare, hard pass.