Stateless- Matilda

I will keep this brief because honestly, i do not know enough about these guys to go into any certain detail besides having a vague understanding of the group for about half a year. Metaghost mentioned them to me, having heard of them from either Gav Castleton or Wallpaper (i think), and showed me a few tunes after he had given the album a thorough listening-to himself. His recent mixes have included Stateless tracks, and after seeing yet another song of theirs among the tracks of his latest mix, it finally hit me to put down some dollars on the iTunes stores and pick up Matilda, their 2011 release. I have only heard it through once, but what has struck me is how coherent it is as a whole. It flows really well, which is something i have appreciated after digesting Dark Side of the Moon, bombed out and alone in a dark room, as a teenager. My favorite artists usually share that trait, and I always love finding a new album that flows as though not only did deep thought go into each song, but also how they relate to and blend into the others.

Ariel is track 2 off Matilda. Its spanish intro guitar lick, and the electronics that enter and sustain after the first chorus lay a nice foreground to the sparse, glitchy drums and dreamy music box ambient synths. And mentioning dudemans voice is not necessary; he carries the album with great melodies and the harmonies to back them up. Check it:



You can pick up Matilda here at the ninja tune website, or pick it up on the iTunes store.

Absence Makes the Heart Grow...

Before i get too far into this recollection of the last few weeks, possibly month, of my life and the resulting neglect of the Swords, I want to post up this list (with linked Swords articles in the artist name that include DL sources, and youtube vids for the tracks) which i feel are my top 5 songs for the start of the summer, a summation of my favorite snippits of albums i have dug deeply since this Swords bizness came up. And the list:

1.Wallpaper- Gettin' Drip
2.Organ Beats- Sleep When We Are Dead
(Also: their cover of Heaven is a Place on Earth)
3.The Pharcyde- Soul Flower
4.Ra Ra Riot- Shadowcasting (nice live acoustic version here)
5.Toe- Kodoku No Hatsumei

As a runner up who i have yet to post about, Sam Cookes Wonderful World deserves some recognition, not only because of his nostalgic and timeless perfect pop sound, but also because its use in Animal House makes such a great soundtrack for my favorite John Belushi scene.

Main Source- Breaking Atoms- 1991

While away on my incredible hiatus, i found myself in the parking lot of some conservation land, waiting for the rain to subside and the sun to finally make another appearance so we could resume filming for the Fire Pit. We were straight chilling, just killing time, and a group of the film crew decided to take a leave and head off to the Red Roof Inn to get some serious business done on the ceramic titanic, the ill toilet bowl action. Some of the actors were chilling in the car that decided to take off for the non-woodland facilities, and i invited them to chill in my car in the rain. Mike G and Keith popped in my ride, Keith hitting the back seat for some quick shut eye, and Mike G chilling shotgun. The two of us started talking hiphop, once again spurred from my love of Bizarre Ride and Madlib. Dude knows his shit; he has a serious background in loving all kinds of music, but has a large chunk of his heart dedicated to the art of rhyming and beatsmithery.

This is a dedication, and a recommendation through osmosis, from the library of Mike G.

Wallpaper-Gettin' Drip

The first video i want to share is classic wallpaper. Ive said enough about him in my more in-depth previous posts; Gettin' Drip is a track about going to the store, picking up some booze and bringing it to a friends house for the preparty before going out for a night of getting down. Its a great low budget green screen video extravaganza; love the backup vocals that those puppets provide.



DooDoo Face

Wallpaper.

Acerola posted some Facing New York a while back, an awesome band that metaghost showed me as well. They write really cool rock/pop stuff with catchy choruses you only hear once after they grow out of the evolving melodies of their songs.

In 2009, the evil twin/ arch nemesis/ parallel universe persona of the singer of Facing New York, the hard drinking clubber Ricky Reed, released his first solo album. With drummer Arjun Singh, they called themselves Wallpaper and made DooDoo Face, the autotuned narration to a night of partying from a sentimental dance freak. The lyrics are silly as hell; too many to chose from, but "I gotta say I'm looking good/ I'd hit on myself if I could" from I Got Soul (I'm so wasted) came to mind first.

I was having a very hard time trying to decide which video of his to share on here; it was a toss up between T-Rex, or Getting Drip. One about going buckwild on the weekend after working 9-5 all week, and the other about prepartying in your kitchen. Metaghost put a vote in for T-Rex, and i cant disagree. Anyone getting down in an Ed-Sinclair-from-Dinosaurs mask deserves the screentime.



doo doo face

I also wanted to post this newer track, hopefully from an upcoming album. He has done away with the autotune and decided to just write one of the most fucking catchy-as-shit choruses of all time. Dude knows his fucking synths.