Monday Mixtape, Vol. 58

Apologies for my absence, life has occurred in the memorable month of September. I proposed to my girlfriend (she said yes!), went to two weddings, worked my butt off for my real job for a deposition and other crazy fraudster shit, moved into my finance's apartment, saw my fiancé get a killer job cuz she's a rock star. It's been one to remember. 

THAT BEING SAID, we still need to listen to music. Fortunately for you, I've got what you need. There are two human beings who are broadcasting over my entire musical bandwidth: Frank Ocean and Isaiah Rashad. 

I'll start with Frank. First off, I need to write a review for his album. There are gorgeous tracks amidst some other messy, less perfect ones. But the gorgeous tracks are symphonies to the ears, a treat of epic proportions. I' still debating what my favorite songs are - it's down to four - but I included two of the contenders. 

Isaiah Rashad, a rapper I've loved going back to Monday Mixtape, Vol. 5 (!)(in May 2015!!)(Can't believe I've been doing this so long!!!). I can't stop listening to what would either be called his major label debut or his second album. I call it his second album because his first - Cilvia Demo - was so well arranged and unique that it would be a disservice to call it a mixtape. Rashad is on the TDE label - along with luminary Kendrick Lamar and his disciples Schoolboy Q, Ab-Soul, Jay Rock - but the only one from the east coast.

His sound is like A Tribe Called Quest meets ATLiens-era Outkast with the serious separating factor of his own damn talent and vibe. I love this guy and his music only gets better and better. You may not like or love it the first time around, but it just grows and grows on you = the mark of an amazing album.

I imagine October may be a bit less wild than September, so I hope to be a bit more active on the blog. Enjoy!

Monday Mixtape, Vol. 57 (and Local Natives album review)

My most anticipated album of the year was released on Friday: Local Natives' Sunlit Youth. 

There are albums where the first track completely takes hold of you - as LN's opener "Villainy" did for me - and the next track does the same - again as LN's "Past Lives" did - and again and again until I begin to say to myself, "Oh man, this could be a REALLY great album."

If I get through an entire album like that, it's a joyful experience for me hard to replicate in any other form. A couple albums this year have come close to that. I think of Anderson Paak's Malibu and Sturgill Simpson's release. 

SO DID THIS HAPPEN WITH LOCAL NATIVES, you ask, pleadingly. It did and then it didn't. 

As I got through the first four tracks, I was starting to get very excited. "Dark Days," their best song on this album, is track three. "Fountain of Youth," one of their most anthemic songs to date ("WE CAN DO WHATEVER WE WAAAAAAAANNNNNTTT!"), a sing-along to experience live I'm sure, is track four. 

But then the albums starts to drift. The album is buoyed a bit by the mysterious and delicate "Jellyfish" - track six - the remainder wades without much direction. "Coins," an almost John Mayer-ish intro, is a weird direction and sounds misplaced on this album.

I'm not really sure what the majority of the lyrics mean either. There are all sorts of first names of different women of which no thread or theme I could deduce. There are vague references which may be specific to them but are lost on me. A few, like "Fountain of Youth," are a bit more straightforward, but overall I've never really understood their lyrics throughout their discography.

"Mother Emanuel" the other highlight on the back half of the album, soars on its catchy hook (which made me realize their singers don't really rely on catchy vocals but instead thrive on multiple vocal harmonies and lots of long "ooooohhhs" and "ahhhhhhs"), but I just haven't been able to find the rest of the album memorable.

Granted, I've only listened to the album all the way through a handful of times. I hope my feelings change on the end of the album, but I wish I got a warmer feeling from start to finish. 

It's a world apart compared (and this just isn't fair, really) to the quality and ingenuity of Tame Impala's third album. But Kevin Parker is the rock genius of this decade, the Thom Yorke of today, what Kanye has been to rap.

So those comparisons just aren't fair. Though I think I make it because I've always placed my love of both Tame Impala and Local Natives at the same heights. Now those heights are changing because Tame Impala is in the stratosphere, cementing what is probably my second favorite band ever behind Radiohead.

I STILL can't get over how amazing Currents is as well as Tame Impala's preceding two albums. It helps that I just saw them live at the beautiful Greek Theatre in Berkeley where they were the best I've ever seen in the four times that I've had the pleasure seeing them. They were light years ahead of their performance a year ago at Outside Lands right when Currents was released. And they were even better, tighter with the perfect mixing/level of sounds, than my previous favorite set of theirs at Austin City Limits back in 2013.

ANYWAYS, there's a ton of other music on this mixtape. If you haven't listened to Isaiah Rashad, whose debut, Cilvia Demo, was a favorite of mine, please see if he's your type. I love him and think his new album is pretty damn great. Though as is par the course, Kendrick absolutely steals the scene in "Wat's Wrong," as he spews,

I told them, the best rappers is 25
Been like that for a while now, I'm 29.
Any n**** that disagrees is a fuckin' liar.
Pardon me see my alter ego was gemini.

Finally, I'll leave you with the great "Leave Your Light On," from the enjoyable new album from Night Moves. Now THAT'S a hook! 

Monday Mixtape, Vol. 5

In light of Bay 2 Breakers (San Francisco's Mardi Gras) on Sunday, I will let the music speak for itself. Enjoy!