Stream/Download SassyBlack iBeBae

If there is anything that artists like SassyBlack knows well, it’s that the best part of Valentine’s Day, whether you are single or taken, is getting to hear all of the new music dedicated to love, feeling the love, giving love, amongst other things. Who best to communicate the feeling of love than the intergalactic SassyBlack?

iBeBae digs into the bag of quiet storm, ambient and jazz to make music that is flirtatious in nature, and no songs will communicate this better than the heart-aching “Flame On” and the subtly horny “I Can’t Wait”, where guest Casey Benjamin’s sax solo perfectly illustrates the yearning within. While hot romance is a constant tackle, the title track is both a track of self-love and an indirect selling from one person to another. As an intro, “iBeBae” is celebratory in how full of love she is, and at the same time very self-loving with or without the one.

But if there is anything that SassyBlack doesn’t want you to do, it is get it all twisted. “Savvy Intellectual Bounce” may be where the pursuit for that connection gives way to a sense of insecurity (as she bemoans “I don’t want to die alone”), but she isn’t too hungry for love where she won’t cut off a philanderer who only wants her simply for that drive (“Dead of Night”, where she eviscerates a self-appointed ‘God’). To love an alpha female is to never use her for personal gain.

Released on Valentine’s Day, iBeBae is a perfect EP for those who are looking for that special someone.

Stream/Download Ly Moula’s This is Melvin Soundtrack

Those who have kept up with our coverage of pizza boy and Melvin Burch’s music at all should be able to notice one constant name in the credits: designer, producer, filmmaker and former rapper Lyle Horowitz, otherwise known as Ly Moula. Ever a prolific avant-garde producer, he has had his beats blessed not only by the all-but-forgotten pizza boy., but also with rappers such as Van Buren, Elucid and Uncommon Nasa. But he will, to those who hear his music, be tethered to the branding of Illinois’ own Melvin Burch.

As such, he instructed Melvin to create underneath the patented system named The ‘Matum, and as a way to aid Burch on his trip to upping his work ethic, he pulled out a couple of beats that he had made recently or in the past to soundtrack each episode of This is Melvin, a sitcom made not only to let you into the life of Melvin Burch, but as a rollout for Melvin Burch’s recently released album, Smile for the Camera.

Ranging from sophistifunk to disco to jazz to even a lone vaporfunk track (“Gated Community”), the christened Moulz playfully aids the ever sarcastic Melvin with beats that on its own keeps things light and funky. If, after this, you wish to hear more Lyle Horowitz projects, search The Woodside Boyz, Blahze Misfits, Night Creatures and, of course, Ly Moula upon Bandcamp and bless your eardrums, Here is to the next 10 years!

And in case you have not seen This is Melvin (why haven’t you seen This is Melvin?), check out every episode here.

 

Stream/Download EZRAKH’s PHI REX

Happy new year to all of you!

Being that the year had ended, there are plenty of artists who are making sure that you do not end the year without something to blast into the new year. One of those artists is future R&B showman EZRAKH. Trust when one says that EZRAKH doesn’t waste any time starting the party, where guitars and funky synths all coexist on the seductive burner “Extraterrestrial”.

PHI REX is another project is which you would be a massive fool to try and categorize this lo-fi collection of free bangers (which was released on the same day four years ago as PRESENT). Whether the grooves are approached with a smooth acoustic strut and post-trap skitters (“Felicity”) or hip-house bouncers (“Look (Ay)”) or even reggae bops (“Beating Heart”), EZRAKH wasn’t wasting time to try and soundtrack your party or your shuffle into the new year.

 

Stream/Download Clarence Clarity’s Think: PEACE

To understand one of music’s most popular tricksters/illusionists Clarence Clarity is to understand that he is a futurist, an artist that truly uses technology, the internet, visions of the future, and a little bit of absurdity for extra flavor  to his advantage. He is also what would happen if synthpop and alternative R&B each had their own Cheshire Cat. No Wow was a meticulously crafted album that sounds like what would happen if you add doses of acid into whatever concoction crafted NSYNC’s album in factories. If you have heard any of Clarence Clarity’s song, then the last thing you should expect is for him to take it easy on the human imagination. Anyone who “misses when music was an experience” would be surprised ten times over.

Now, most people would wait till the album comes from them to hear singles. In this case, Clarence Clarity’s one offs (that were going to be on an album named Deluxe Pain, which is now a playlist of b-sides and rarities from that era) are rooms of sorts where chrome-plated cacophony float in the atmosphere, and will destroy, if it cannot awe. Those tracks are willfully bent, twisted, misplaced, melted all into an experience you should know better than to doubt Clarity for creating.

In the midst of the songs are tracks revolving around heartbreak and slight insecurities. Almost like a Xanga page put into a pop song, “Vapid Feels Aren’t Vapid” finds Clarity fading into despair before eventually snapping back into a synthpoppy groove that trips up anyone with a set idea of what pop music would sound like. But the lyrics all speak of the inability to really survive the same way without the one you once loved. That same uncertainty shows up on “Tru(e) Love”. Before all of this is “Adam and the Evil” which can be taken two ways: one of many references to Adam and Eve, and the long lineage revolving patriarchy at its damaging, where Clarity self-examines himself as an individual that doesn’t stray far from the family tree.

“Next Best Thing” is a whole other grand beast entirely. The song is revolved around the need to overcompensate. The need to be the best at what he does, as if the need to be first colors his whole entire will to live. This and plenty other situations can make you look at the music delivered in HD format as either a stylistic level up or a distraction from such heavy subjects. Either way, you can never say Clarence Clarity has lost his ability to surprise.

Stream/Download SassyBlack’s The Best of…

For some people, three years (four, if you count her Others compilation) would be a little too soon to drop a greatest hits album. After all, her official EP, Cute Chicks came out at the very beginning of 2015. But between that time and now, our favorite intergalactic workaholic has pout in a lot of work from meditative R&b to beat exercises surrounding her biggest musical influences (respectively, three albums and nine EPs and beat tapes). For her birthday, SassyBlack decided to condense it into 14 songs of her personal choice.

Stream/Download SassyBlack’s Wakanda Funk Lounge

It’s safe to say that you will never find anyone more happy to be black than Uncle Cat herself, SassyBlack. Within the name Wakanda Funk Lounge, she hints to you that the song is meant to get you dancing with minimalist acid jazz/new millennium swing. Whether she is challenging those who claim to judge when black people do things (“While Black”), telling her story about how she became the woman she is (“Sassy”) and a little Black Panther tribute (“Wakanda Bounce”), her four song EP doesn’t play around when it comes to handing you the future funk she is most known for. For the fifth EP this year, SassyBlack continues to give you jams that would make you proud as ever to be black, even if you aren’t.