Pre-Holidays Tunage
Bikephoners! Here’s this week’s installment of Biking with Headphones – a healthy dose of hip hop this week with a (sorta) new release from MF Doom, Common, and new-to-me Nacho Picasso. Other features are Blue Sky Black Death, Pat Lok, and a freaky sounding song from Salem. GO!
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NACHO PICASSO
Photo from the Much Music blog
Okay. So, Nacho Picasso delivers some dark, gritty imagery in his rap. A Seattle rapper who is unabashedly a jerk in his songs put together a solid LP with “For the Glory”, using the instrumental production of Blue Sky Black Death & Raised By Wolves (see below).
The down-tempo beats, creative rhymes, solid production, and comic book references made this an unexpected entry this week. If you can get past the misogyny, you might be able to like N.P.
Nacho Picasso “Moor Gang (feat. Jarv Dee)”
Nacho Picasso “Sweaters” (mostly because he references an “Ong Bak attack”… seriously?!)
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BLUE SKY BLACK DEATH & RAISED BY WOLVES
Blue Sky Black Death (BSBD) came onto my radar earlier this year with their song “Sleeping Children Are Still Flying”, which is probably going to be in my top 25 of 2011. Awesome stuff.
Regardless, BSBD teamed up with Raised by Wolves (RBW, a disco/house act from Leeds, UK) to create the incredible instrumentals for Nacho Picasso’s previously mentioned full LP. The FREE DOWNLOAD above includes a full set of instrumental-only tracks, which is worth the FREE DOWNLOAD on its own.
Here are a couple of my favorites:
BSBD + RBW “NumbNuts (Instrumental)”
BSBD + RBW “For the Glory (Instrumental)”
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DOOMSTARKS
D. Dumile, also known as Madvillain, King Geedorah, and most notably MF Doom, released a long awaited collaboration track with Ghostface Killah, aka Tony Starks. After well over a year of rumors and discussions and recordings, this track “Victory Laps” is the first single to be released on what is supposed to be a full LP. Excellent work and worth the wait – I hope the full LP comes out sooner than later!
MF Doom & Tony Starks “Victory Laps”
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COMMON
Common has long been one of my favorite hip hop artists, intelligent lyrics, and progressive attitude towards stemming anti-gay slang (yea I know, I’m a total hypocrite since I just posted the Nacho Picasso songs…. I’m not perfect :-/ )
His upcoming album “The Dreamer, The Believer” promises to be off the hook (can I still say that?) with tracks like “Ghetto Dreams” and “Celebrate”, both incl. below. “Ghetto Dreams” has a brassy, classic instrumental and features one of my favorite rappers, NAS. Essentially Common paints a picture of his dream woman… I think?
“Celebrate” is a feel good tune with piano instrumentals, gospel singers, and lots of of major key goodness. I have a hunch that’s gonna be a mainstay on my playlists when I’m looking to feel good.
Common “Ghetto Dreams (Feat. NAS)”
Common “Celebrate”
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PAT LOK
Okay. so this is just a plain old good bouncy disco track. With a start that sounds like the beginning of the Ducktails TV show theme song, Pat Lok’s “No Shame” has been remixed by OHYEAH to make a highly roller-skateable track that will get you seat dancing in no time.
Play this, relax, and reset for the next track (which is not light and bouncy).
No Shame (OHYEAH Remix)
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SALEM
Okay, now that you’re all upbeat, time to go down again! Remember that song “Better Off Alone” from like ten years ago? What do you think would happen if you put it in a Cuisinart, with a bottle of painkillers and tormented dreams? This song!
Salem takes the tune and lyrics from the upbeat dance tune and rewires the whole thing to sound like the tormented dreams of the antagonist from Silence of the Lambs. Take a listen…
Salem “Better Off Alone”
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MIKE WOODWARD
http://www.tiltmag.com/2011/11/mike-woodward-prism-disco-mixtape.html
Time to get upbeat! Mike Woodward, one of the curators (?) at Tiltmag.com produced this upbeat mixtape, with lots of disco tracks (many of which that might be familiar to Bikephones listeners). The tape is all disco and house (check the soundcloud link for full tracklisting), so it might be little much for those who don’t like repetitive music, but hey, that’s not me 
Enjoy and Happy Tuesday!
Mike Woodward “Prism Disco Mixtape”
