[You can check in with Ralph here.]

Beak>, >>>: I’m a ride or die Geoff Barrow fan. His body of work is a veritable cornucopia of resonant analog bleakness that hits me in all the right spots. I’m talking back to back bangers! From the iconic Portishead to his Stones Throw Records hip hop project Quakers, to his work with droll german/britt singer Anika. The dude has been dropping nonstop flames for a solid 2 decades, not to mention his soundtrack work with Ben Salisbury. In 2018 him and fellow shredders Will Young & Billy Fuller (who apparently plays with Robert Plant) hit us with the Beak> album >>> (not to be confused with their 2012 release: >>) and guess what? IT FUCKING SLAPS! It’s a moody 10 song hypnotic black hole that could work as the soundtrack to a late 70’s sci-fi art film about the end of the world. Think Vangelis’s Bladerunner soundtrack, Can, John Carpenter’s Escape From New York, Dr. Who, The BBC Radiophonic Workshop with maybe a splash of Joy Division. It’s a great rainy day album.  It’s been in heavy rotation in my lab & is proving to be a prescient soundtrack to this slow-moving apocalypse. Thanks, Geoff.

Rocket Juice & The Moon, s/t: I’m also a diehard Damon Albarn fan. The guy is just full of killer ideas and has this ability to pull together these wicked collaborations. Back In 2008 someone played a song for me called “Hey Shooter.” The song featured Albarn on keys Tony Allen on drums, The Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, Flea on bass, and Erykah Badu on vocals. I mean goddamn! The project was called Rocket Juice and The Moon. The nucleus of this one-shot supergroup was Albarn, Allen, & Flea and it features a revolving cast of collaborators. After hearing “Hey Shooter” I was hyped on the IDEA of the group but for whatever reasons, I hadn’t heard much else. I didn’t see the record on shelves anywhere, I didn’t hear anyone talk about it. It was akin to seeing a shooting star that no one else saw.  But then sometime last year on a random trip to the record store with Damon Locks, we happened across a copy of the full length. A beautiful gatefold album featuring killer cover art by Ogunajo Ademola. It’s been in my steady rotation ever since. It’s a great record chock full of ill grooves & It has a fantastic looseness to it. It feels as if Albarn, Allen, and Flea went into a studio, hit the record button & just jammed  then went back & added collaborators. This album also introduced me to the Malian singer Fatoumata Diawara. I love her voice. I’d be remiss not to mention that the album  has one major shortcoming. The fucking rapping. M.anifest is the Ghanaian emcee featured on a good portion of this record, he’s not a bad rapper by any means, but every song he’s featured on is GREAT until he barges in and starts unnecessarily rapping all over it. Imagine you’re on a road trip, vibing to your favorite tune, the best part of the song is about to drop, heerrrre it comes in 1…2..thr. NOPE the voice of google maps disrupts your whole shit like “IN 500 FEET TAKE EXIT 3B” That’s what the rapping does on this otherwise beautiful album. Fortunately, there are enough great ideas on the Rocket Juice & The Moon record to keep me on board. The song “Benko” is by far my favorite. It’s a short melancholy masterpiece.

Little Dragon, New Me, Same Us: Speaking of melancholy masterpieces, this new Little Dragon record has been a great counterweight to the times. While the Beak> album feels like a soundtrack to the downfall of our dystopia, the new Little Dragon record feels more like a colorful lush reimagining of the world. Not so much subject-wise but sonically. Of all the newer records I’ve been listening to lately, New Me, Same Us is definitely the most lyrically personal and most polished production-wise. Yukimi Nagano has a voice like chocolate: it’s sweet, it’s rich, it’s comforting and if you had no idea what she looked like you’d ask yourself “Is this a Black lady?” Also, I don’t want to get so hung up on her voice that I ignore the rest of the band because these cats can write some beautifully textured songs. Little Dragon was also one of the first bands I saw do an online concert back in the early stages of the pandemic and they’ve really managed to keep doing cool things online since they were unable to tour in support of their new record. I love this band and this album. They’ve been kind of a beacon in this mess. Now here’s some word association: Swedish, alternative, r&b, synths, dance, trip hop-ish.

A.K. Paul, Landcrusin: This one’s a bit of a cheat because it’s not actually a full-length album. It’s only a single. But I have to insist on including it in my Day’s Plays because I’ve been bumping it HARD for about almost a  year now nonstop.  Here’s how it started. Fact magazine is a UK publication that focuses on electronic music, hip hop, and experimental music. They started a series on their youtube channel called Re:cover where they feature an artist or band and have them cover a song. One of these videos was a band I’d never heard of called The Okumu, Herbert, Skinner trio covering A.K. Paul’s Landcruisn which I’d also never heard. But I thought the dudes looked cool & I knew Fact usually had some pretty  interesting content  so I figured I’d give it a shot. I absolutely LOVED IT! I don’t know what it is, that catchy-ass riff, the killer tone of each instrument, the clear technical acumen of the players, the trio’s cool aesthetic vibes. the song just “got me.” But it didn’ stop there, I HAD to hear the original and let me tell you it did NOT disappoint. Imagine if Prince and D’angelo decided they wanted to produce a Devo song. Yes it is absolutely as cool as it sounds.

Reggae Anthology: Niney Observer – Roots With Quality: This 40 song, double LP is full of bangers. A collection of tunes by various artists  produced by criminally underrated reggae pioneer Winston Holness aka  Niney Observer. It explodes out the gate with the tune voiced by Niney himself, “Blood & Fire.” 70‘s roots reggae was rife with “fire and brimstone end times”-type songs. I consider “Blood & Fire” to be a flagship example of this sort of tune, lyrically evoking the wrath of Old Testament God but juxtaposing it against a tonally pleasant tapestry. It feels very appropriate and on brand with the times we’re currently living in which is probably why it’s been getting a lot of play from me as of late. The album also features a few singers I had never heard before. My favorite has to be Sang Hugh & The Lionaires. If you’re a person who is interested in early roots & dub reggae but don’t know a lot about it  i’d definitely suggest this album.

Damon Locks’ Black Monument Ensemble, Where future Unfolds: Where do I begin with this one? I spend a lot of time with Damon Locks  so I’ve been fortunate enough to watch BME grow from an idea to a full blown experience. Like the last song on the album “From A Spark to a Fire.” If you have no context whatsoever, imagine the general vibe of Sun Ra’s Arkestra, nods to Eddy Gale’s Black Rhythm Happening album, a black choir, & elements of the early Rza or Madlib -style production. This record is phenomenal.