Category: Music

Arizona isn’t the first place you’d think of when discussing hotbeds of hip hop. In fact, I’d struggle to name a hip hop artist from Arizona outside of DJ Z-Trip. However, KonGeror has come to change all that and his new record, Raphood & Authenticity is a great showcase of his talent.

Bringing both the beats [save the P.O.S. produced Asterisk*] and the vocals, KonGeror is clearly a man with talent and a desire to never let his audience the chance to settle down for a nice comfortable listening session. This album has music that jitters and clashes its way around your head and yet at the same time has a single-mindedness to get its message across.

Standout tracks Still 50’s, Gold Fronts and No Goons all display the variety in Kon’s production, and standing up on a track with P.O.S. and not being overshadowed shows just what an accomplished wordsmith he is. But the best track, which you can hear by clicking above, is Fees, with its brilliant drums and liquid vocal hook, it’s a winner from the very start.

The album is up for free download from August 1st, so head over to records.gahed.com and pick it up!

Abjekt.

In 2006, our ears were treated by the unpretentious disco-pop of crazily clad Brazilians CSS‘s first album: a happy-shiny disc of joy filled to the brim with the perfect mixture of guitar frolics and synth lines topped off with cute pop culture references from the oh-so sexy mouth of the impossible to ignore, Lovefoxxx.

Timed to perfection, in the midst of our somewhat short summer, they’ve scrambled together another collection of tracks as colourful as the girls’ seemingly endless collection of ridiculous (in the good sense of the word) dresses. Except this time, the fun seems slightly sub-dued.

This isn’t necessarily a flaw however; while the purposefully silly mentions of celebrities and adorable language jumbles are absent from Donkey, and the lyrics suggest that the band are genuinely ‘tired of being sexy‘, there is still a huge array of jubilance and guitar twangs that compliment the summery images it conjures. Lovefoxxx’ vocals are as irresistible as ever and there are enough funky bass lines in here to keep me satisfied, and that is saying something let me tell you. It’s not as upfront and bawdy as the eponymous, but it’s still got the funk and will surely sound wonderful live alongside the ever-colourful costumes and lost-in-dance moments. Let’s reggae all night baby.

Cansei de ser Joe

Newly signed to Matador Records, everyone’s favourite Canadian progressive sweary bootboy punks return with their first release for Matador; a reissue of last year’s Vice Record’s released eighteen-minute ‘Year Of The Pig‘ single.

This time, however, the band have edited the full eighteen minute version into a more radio friendly edit that comes in at under five minutes. While we’re not sure of the punk integrity of radio edits, at least some of the pure fucked up glory of ‘Year Of The Pig‘ will be heard on the airwaves and the full version is available on the CD version, alongside three different edits and some storming extra tracks.

For those of you yet to experience the full joy of ‘Year Of The Pig‘, cast aside all of your pre-conceived notions of what you might expect a hardcore punk band like Fucked Up to sound like and soak up eighteen minutes of undiluted forward thinking punk rock. The less adventurous among us can listen to the radio edit.

James Sherry