Week Of 4/24 - Hip-Hop, Industrial, and some expostion

Late post today, this one contains more than music reviews - part of what I picked up was a 61-track compilation for backers of the CASH Music Kickstarter, since it's not an available-for-sale compilation I decided against a straight review of my thoughts on it, instead a little exposition on releasing music and why I backed the project... but first, some music:

New And Recent Releases:
Death Grips
The Money Store
Label: Epic
Released: 4/24 2012
Genre: Hip-Hop, Experimental, Synthpop

So, this is a strange little gem I picked up. Not quite at random, but it sounded interesting. Especially since the blurb I read had the words 'hardcore' in it and I found it under 'hip-hop' in the music store. I put it on and took a listen - it's difference. The lyrics are pure and straight hip-hop, a good at that. MC Stefan Burnett has a rhythm and delivery that reminds me a great deal of Del The Funky Homosapien without copying him. Sometimes hard, sometimes soft, sometimes smooth and occasionally staccato. But, behind that, what really sets this apart, is the music. Two musicians complete the outfit and they bring anything but standard hip-hop beats and rhythms to the party. In fact, at times it's down right industrial-ish, and on a few songs early 90s house, and many very synthpop-ish. It's really amazing how these elements work together, because it's not really in concert, it's kind of on top of each other. And, honestly, it's really good. Very different. They're releasing a second album in the fall that I will absolutely be getting.

P45K
Twist Your Blade EP
Released: 4/13 2012
Genre: Industrial

This was put out as a free EP on Friday the 13th, a quick little 4-track EP that's pretty good. Instrumental, and a kind of dark industrial sound to it. Not exactly dance-floor ready, but not overly harsh either. This is some pretty cool darker mood music. Even though I've said it's not dance-floor ready (mostly due to a lack of under riding heavy rhythmic bass) doesn't mean it couldn't slide itself into the middle of a set. Still, I like it better as background music, that seems a much better fit. If you need music that's a little harder, heavier and not thumpy-intrusive then check our P45K.

CASH Music 
http://cashmusic.org/

Alright so I contributed to a Kickstarter for a new open source musicisan and label resource website. Like places such as Bandcamp it's main purpose is to assist musicians and labels in presenting, distributing, and engaging the audience with their music. Only it's non-profit.

The Open source nature is that you aren't signing into a website and aren't beholden to another company that can be sold, exchanged, or disappear. If CASH Music ever goes under the underlying software they built will still exist (though without support). They claim that they will do for musicians what Wordpress did for Bloggers - which is decentralization of hosting, movement of the music to a Musician or Label owned site and not onto someone else's serves. (all this suddenly has me asking why I'm here on Blogger instead of using Wordpress....)

The idea is simple, they want to add the ability to share tour dates, sell music, provide artist information, connect to social networking, and I'd imagine a host of other things musicians need. All in a End User installed package running under PHP - a pretty good idea. I backed it because in this day and age of music I believe the more options open to the artist, the labels, and the fans, the better things will get. The first, and dying, method of centralized everything with major labels is proving to be a bad format once you can engage fans directly.

Given the huge number of small, medium, and large bands that came on the Compilation I think they've got an idea that many will explore and hopefully start to flourish under.

Not just tiny unsigned bands you've never heard of signed their names onto this; Amanda Plamer, Xiu Xiu, Throwing Muses, Jonathan Coulton and a host of bands in the Indie Rock Scene (which I follow very little) along with some of the smaller labels like SubPop, ANTI-, Mom+Pop and others (a full list here: http://blog.cashmusic.org/2012/03/07/we-have-a-lot-of-people-to-thank-and-a-lot-of-rocks/ )

So, it's not starting out in the cold, it looks like it could add a whole new layer of tools to the small and starting artist, and doesn't require a third party. All of which enticed me to help them finish out the full product (you can download early versions of the web-package now). I hope this becomes another tool in the music-label-listener connection.

Next Week:
The new Norah Jones, debut from Skip The Foreplay, and a bunch of EPs I picked up - Sinsect, Primal Rock Rebellion, and The Adventures Of (a new band on Tori Amos' new label).