Sound Check's Blog Posts Tagged 'Check' (125)

Yesterday, May 19th was Malcolm X's birthday. Had he not been gunned down at age 39, Malcolm would have been 88 this weekend. Despite being often mentioned in the same breath as Dr. King, it doesn't seem likely we'll see a nationally recognized Malcolm X Day in the US any time soon. The firebrand Civil Rights leader's legacy is still being dissected even among his admirers, and probably will be for a long time. So in honor of his immeasurable impact on Civil Rights, Black…

R&B and soul took a dark turn when synths got good enough to almost realistically replicate the sound of a full orchestra in the late 80's. A sound more or less defined by raw human emotion and lush (AKA expensive) arrangements traded a big chunk of it's human element in exchange for “sure that sounds enough like a violin and just saved us a few hundred bucks in session fees!” So it's encouraging to see the triumphant return of the orchestra in R&B. The latest in this…

There are some collaborations that seem like they'd make perfect sense on paper, and yet somehow fail to work. (I remember being so excited when I first heard that one of the 90's greatest singers - Chris Cornell - would be teaming up with the 90's greatest rhythm section - Rage Against the Machine - for what turned out to be the 2000's most meh band. No matter how good they may taste separately, nobody wants a peanut butter and goat cheese sandwich.) Then there are other…

The eclectic, eccentric, and prolific Labtekwon has just released 2 new tracks from his upcoming record Evolutionary: The Omar Akbar Album – State of the Art and you definitely owe it to yourself to check it out. Like his previous jams the vocals are less rhymes or lyrics and more stream of conscious beat poetry. There are no hooks. The lyrics only occasionally rhyme or fit any consistent rhythm. And that's sort of why it's glorious.



The first track…

Metal has always had a fixation on the mystical and magical. From the occult and demonic fixation of doom metal to the D&D Monster Manual of power metal. The fierce low guitar, thundering drums, and classical technicality convey something larger than life, something more epic than ordinary reality. So it makes perfect sense that UK based Vodun would base their music around West African Vodun rituals and Loa (Haitian elemental spirits).…

It's hard not to love pop music that you can get lost in. Far too often the artists get as far as a killer hook and declare “good enough.” More and more pop music just kind of coasts without bothering to flesh songs out with arrangements worthy of their hooks. So you have to respect a band like Meridian who pack their tracks with layers upon layers of texture and detail.…

Happy May Day! It's class warfare week at SoundCheck apparently (ok fine, it's always class warfare week). The appropriately named Rhetoric out of Springfield, MA are an explosion of political metalcore. Their songs are almost more anti-capitalist polemics than songs. (Polemic would also be a pretty rad band name. Just saying.) Brutal bursts of guitar and drums thunder and rattle beneath AP member …

There's something about a song that captures the feel of a house party. Many many have tried, but it's a tough balance. Too live and it feels amateurish. Too polished and it feels phony. But Young Fathers hit the right mix with their single “Deadline.” It's built around the most minimal of pieces, a distorted kick drum, a 4 note buzz-saw bassline, and an almost chanted melody. It's got the hand-made raw chaos of a Death Grips production, but with a kind of hypnotic vocal…

UK indie rapper Mikill Pane's main appeal has always been his endless cleverness and charm. He just seems like the kind of guy you'd like to get a beer with. Maybe go bowling. His lyrics are a tangled web of references, meta-references, and elaborate puns. They've always been deep from a writing perspective, but never exactly deep emotionally. On…

Vernon Reid is the legendary guitarist of the band Living Colour and the founder of the Black Rock Coalition. He'll be performing as part of a retrospective of the career of the late great poet, performer, and teacher Sekou Sundiata at the…

Pretty much since the beginning, punk rock has been split between the pranksters and the revolutionaries. For every Joe Strummer hell-bent on changing the world with his music there are 20 guys who just want to have a few drinks with their buddies and play some songs loud and fast. South London's Emergency Bitter aren't likely to reinvent music, but that's not the point. They're here to put on a show…

Psychedelic pop duo Pyyramids emerged on the scene two years ago with their Human Beings EP. The collaboration between He Say / She Say singer Drea Smith and OK Go bassist Tim Norwind delves into unfamiliar territory for both artists. More aggressive than He Says / She Says while slower and more atmospheric than OK Go, Pyyramid's debut full length Brightest Darkest Day is the best of both worlds.…

On a warm April afternoon, I walked over to the Daptone offices to meet soul singer Charles Bradley. Just a few blocks away from my apartment in northern Bed Stuy, the label office and studio are housed in an old Brooklyn brownstone. So unassuming, I nearly missed it. This is the famed Daptone records headquarters? I walked by three times before realizing where it was. Inside I met Charles. 64 and just getting started, the Screaming Eagle of Soul somehow matched the building. On…

Oakland's Afro-indie-pop quartet Bells Atlas released their debut EP this week and it's a beautiful beautiful thing. The band combines minimal beats with lush textures and the multi-layered vocals of lead singer Sandra Lawson-Ndu. The three songs and two remixes on the EP show a young band in complete control of their sound. With influences ranging from chillwave to samba to indie rock to Afrobeat, the Bells Atlas EP sounds like almost nothing else on the planet. It's rare that…

Are you psyched for the new Baby Baby record? Of course you are. My informal poll of everyone sitting in front of my laptop, with a sample size of 1, showed that 100% of people are way into Baby Baby. (Eat your heart out, Nate Silver.) Their new record Big Boy Baller Club doesn't drop until this summer, but they just taped an acoustic session of the new track “Best Franz”as part of Blue Indians “Acoustic Alley” series.…

Shoegaze tends to live and die on its atmosphere, so it's refreshing to hear a band like Brooklyn's Maquina Supervium actually put as much stock in melody as on atmosphere. “Far Away,” the first single from their debut record Tomorrow and the Celestial Geometries, is naturally cloaked in some serious reverb and a constant drone of feedback. But underneath the paint-peeling guitar is something minimal, melodic, and even beautiful. The track has a post-punk propulsion…

You hear a lot of artists say things like “If I don't make it by the time I'm 25/27/30 I'm going to hang it up.” It ends up being a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy standing on two faulty premises: 1. that artists have either “made it” or are starving, and 2. that creativity has an expiration date. The cult of 27 is strong in a lot of minds. (as I get closer to 30, I admit I feel kind of ridiculous for every minute of my life wasted comparing the timeline of my successes to…

The thing that differentiates good prog from bad is whether the complex poly-rhythms and spontaneous key changes feel necessary or like the band is just sort of showing off. Galaxy of Tar's songs may be complex, and certainly Elias Diaz V.'s musicianship is on full display, but on their latest EP Barretta, they earn every atonal guitar solo and sudden drum breakdown.…

After the 20 year reign of hipsters, it can get hard to tell what's cool and what's not. Conventional wisdom is that Nirvana came and saved us all from the hair bands who committed the sin of being “uncool.” Now you can appreciate Van Halen ironically, but lord help you if you just straight up think their self-titled is a good record. (fun fact: it is.) Then along comes a band like Radiorelics who take all the sleaze and grime of Diamond Dave era Van Halen, add just a…

I was 14 when I heard “Rebirth of Cool vol. 4” for the first time. I had just finished digesting the complete canon of Classic Rock. Zeppelin didn't thrill me anymore. Aerosmith never really did. I was dipping my toes into indie and punk, but hadn't quite found my way into that world (we didn't have the internet yet. I distinctly remember getting into an argument with someone that summer in which I took the position that “punk can't be dead, because The Dead Kennedys!” Not…