Morphine- Cure for Pain (1993)

Morphine is a band I got into around the same time as I did Soul Coughing. They share in that they both had a unique sound compared to what was going on around them. With Morphine, their lineup alone qualified them in uniqueness: a trio consisting of bassist/ singer, baritone sax and drums, they wrote dark rhythmic tunes with nice vocals and hooks. Dark basically explains their songs and sound pretty well, but that is a statement I am just remembering as the impression I have hung on to through years of not-listening. Picking them up againwill be neat; I always enjoyed them, especially in tracks like Buena off Cure for Pain:




cure for pain

Slum Village- Fan-Tas-Tic vol. 1 and 2

Thanks go out to Greg V for this one. Slum Village were originally a crew of 3 highschool friends who liked making music together. Except those three friends consisted of J Dilla, Baatan and T3, and naturally with that kind of line up, they were producing some of the root tasty tracks Dilla refined and is still widely acclaimed for. Volume 1 was a highly sought after underground hit recorded in 1996 (though it was released in 2005), with Volume 2 serving as a more polished product of re-recordings and re-imaginings of tracks from Volume 1. With Dilla as the beat conductor, both volumes are necessary; subtlety and intricacy was his game, and with freestlying being the main rhyming style of Baatan and T3, there are vast differences between the two albums.

fan-tas-tic vol. 1
fan-tas-tic vol. 2

Dull Blade- Paul Simon (1972)

Dull Blades are weapons in the Swords arsenal that saw battle in the recent past, a collection of techniques and skills performed by legendary heroes of yore, the ones that gave you lasting, fleeting memories of their utter greatness. Sometimes its just a chance re-listening flipped to for a car ride; other times it is a skill tree you forgot to explore from an artist who obviously had tricks up his sleeves.

Thus comes Paul Simons first solo album. I knew plenty of Simon and Garfunkel while growing up; they were all over the oldies station my parents would listen to on long weekend drives. When Simon branched off, I lost connection with his music (besides the inescapable awesomeness of You Can Call Me Al). Recently, i discovered Graceland for all its beauty, and began to check out Paul Simons career directly after he broke off with Garfunkel. Garfunkel. Bleh.

I came of course to this first solo album of his, with so much awesomeness and coming out of left field in his embrace of such a drastic change in sound. Mother and Child Reunion is a fuckin' HIT of a first track, and there's no better way to start the 2nd side of an LP than with Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard: