unpiano: music

I have no idea where I first heard this record but it blew my mind that members of Souls of Mischief and The Pharcyde had cut something together. Not only that, but the whole concept had a porn theme complete with fake porn star names and photos. I expected it to be joke but the beats were sick and they talked about “burning down the burbs” and rhymed words like vicodin. What? Exactly. I haven’t seen this anywhere since I bought it and I could hardly find out anything else about it so I had to use my terrible needle again to do a vinyl transfer. It’s such a good pressing that it blew the whole sound out.. sorry. Someone send me $60 so I can buy an new one. Please?

Almyghty Myghty Pythons - Curb Your Nerve
Almyghty Myghty Pythons - Amp

After Del made No Need For Alarm in 1993 he went on to record his third album Future Development which he planned to release on Elektra. Unfortunately they sent him a letter right before it was supposed to come out and told him they were dropping him from the label. Hiero made an attempt to release it and featured a downloadable version from their website, but for while it was a Japan-only cassette meaning that essentially it was lost to the public. I was lucky to get a dubbed copy made for me back in the nineties and found out that the unreleased album was tight as hell. My tape has long since worn through but luckily Hiero gave it a full release in 2002 and I picked it up on vinyl. This is really the last Del album that contains that nineties style of production and his ‘everyday rhymes’ since most material to come out after this seems to feature that “weirdo” version of Del (i.e. Deltron 2020). All of that aside, Future Development has a really good feeling to it and is one of those albums you can just have on repeat for the afternoon. I couldn’t find it anywhere online so I had to make some vinyl transfers. I noticed that I need a new needle so please excuse the sound quality.

Del Tha Funkee Homosapien - Why Ya Want To Get Funkee..
Del Tha Funkee Homosapien - Love Is Worth
Del Tha Funkee Homosapien - Corner Story
Del Tha Funkee Homosapien - Stress The World

Bonus:
I feel like if I’m going to make a Del post I have to include the video for ‘Catch A Bad One’. If somehow you have never heard one of his songs before, this one will convince you right off the bat. It’s so good, it even inspired me to name a zine after the title.

Del Tha Funkee Homosapien - Catch A Bad One (video)

This was a nice surprise, I heard this track on KDVS while driving home last week. A solid slice of power-pop influenced indie-rock from Chicago. I could have sworn this lead track from their first 7″ was a cover, but I gave up trying to find it. Best thing is, you can download this whole record for free off their website.

The Laureates - I Want To Miss You

Good 70’s vibes with a reverby 60’s recording, this band has been getting a ton of attention, and after spinning this endlessly for a week I’m going to say they deserve it. Tight, delicate vocal harmonies over chiming guitars at summer’s pace. This band is getting compared to The Shins way too often, and really, outside of one humming melody I’m not seeing much of a resemblance. This is closer to a mix of CSN&Y and The Association than indie-dom’s favorite quirky nerds. Kind of has me thinking of what Hopkirk & Lee would have been capable of releasing if they hadn’t disappeared into the firmament back in the 90’s.

Fleet Foxes - He Doesn’t Know Why
Fleet Foxes - Your Protector

The rambling, ramshackle country-folk of Seattle’s The Dutchess And The Duke has been a good soundtrack to the hot summer nights we’ve been having. A departure from their previous punk outfit The Flying Dutchmen, Jesse and Kimberly pull together a record of rootsy, familiar hooks and lyrics that smack of sincerity without being cheesy. Its not a happy record, but not a hopeless one either.

The Dutchess And The Duke - Reservoir Park
The Dutchess And The Duke - Mary

Ever since one of my favorite San Francisco bands The Mall moved to New York and broke up, I have been feeling a weird sort of void that only keyboards and high pitched screams could fill. Luckily I just got my hands on some rough edits by Screens (which features some former Mall members) and I feel much better. Actually I feel ten times more optimistic.. Listen to the drums on ‘Saturdays 4 Eva’ and tell me you don’t think something good is about to happen.

Screens - Saturdays 4 Eva
Screens - Berkeley Kids

I don’t know what took me so long, but I’ve started tracking down all my favorite music from the show Samurai Champloo that was on television a while back. Most of the stuff used on the show was written by Nujabes and Fat Jon (of Five Deez fame) who both have a very cool-out jazz influenced style of making beats. I’ve also noticed that there is a very distinctly Japanese version of hip hop that producers hailing from there see to adapt to (see DJ Honda, DJ Krush, etc..). Very clean, very subtle, but always with content. Anyways, this could have been a much more comprehensive blog since both of those guys have extensive catalogs, but I’ll let you dig that stuff out for yourself. And go watch that show if you haven’t seen it already. You girlfriend will probably hate it, but what does she know anyways (ps.. you know you’re a total geek right?)

Nujabes - Latitude Remix (ft. Five Deez)
Nujabes - The Final View
Nujabes - Kumomi
Nujabes - Feather (ft. Cise Starr & Akin)
Nujabes - Next View (ft. Uyama Hiroto)

Bonus:
Samurai Champloo Opening (video)
Samurai Champloo Closing (video)

We’re pleased to announce that you can now download the blog in podcast form via the nice folks over at The Hype Machine. All you need to do is subscribe to the url below using Itunes and viola! You got your self a podcast. We’ll get some fancy new media player up here at some point or maybe an easy to use podcast subscribing tool, but this is the quick and dirty.

http://www.hypem.com/playlist/blog/3002/rss/1/feed.xml