Music Spectrum

Music Spectrum went on an unscheduled hiatus in recent months. This review is part of the “basement notebooks”—old reviews written by hand but only being posted online. Enjoy!

For well over a year now, I’ve been grooving out to Just Jack’s Overtones, continually drawn deeper by the beats and words. Just Jack (Jack Allsopp) lays down British white rap/hip hop with the right blend of pop, rock, beats, rap, samples, and such.

Despite it being somewhat of an academic exercise, there’s a way to outline a whole adult Bible study based on each track of Overtones. (There’s an emphasis on “adult” Bible study because of some of the mature themes). Like I’ve done with Strata and So Many Dynamos, here’s a quick rundown of the topics to be explored for each track.

Writer’s Block—With its lyric about being in love with Lois Lane and Mary Jane, it’s a song for talking about the balance between rejecting complacency versus living in a fantasy world.

Glory Days—Great song for saying, “Let us rejoice in the day the Lord has made,” as Jack sings, “It’s just another one of those glory days/Jump out yer bed, shake yer head, and clear the haze/Step out yer house and prepare to be amazed.”

Disco Friends—The emptiness of certain friendships.

Straz in their Eyes—One of my favorite tracks which throws up a grooving rhythm in the face of false hope and the false promises of fame.

Lost—In its starkness, the storyline unearths the temptation of adultery and the emptiness of materialism.

I Talk Too Much—If there was no other reason, I’d still use this track because it features Kylie Minogue. However, in its admission of talking too much is an opening for discussion about self-awareness.

Hold On—Both a resignation about what is and a rejoicing in what you have.

Symphony of Sirens—As the original mythological creatures worked to undo their prey, a sexual fantasy/affair leads to crashing on the rocks.

Life Stories—Focus on the other with this song; “We’re just a siphon the sounds come through/and it’s all for you.”

No Time—Reality check for real life marriage hopes. Here are the positives and negatives of a relationship.

Mourning Morning—If the reality check still didn’t help you get through the doldrums and the squalls, this song is for the day after she’s gone and what that might do to your mind-heart-soul condition.

Spectacular Failures—The title alone suggests the Christian’s dualism of being sinner/saint in this life. Or I suppose to match the title’s syntax, saintly sinners.

Just Jack
Overtones was originally released on TVT Records which was purchased earlier in 2008 by The Orchard.

A guest commentary from my friend, Emily. This was originally posted on June 23, 2006, at her blog: Dunbar ,Nebraska

I got the new Ice Cube album yesterday.

I bought it at Wal-Mart. I know. You’ll be preaching to the choir if you start telling me the ills of Wal-Mart. I saw the documentary and that was preaching to the choir. I’m no fan of Wal-Mart.

Super Wal-Mart moved in a year ago and it was scary for our small-ish town. We wondered if our local grocery and hardware stores were going to go out of business. Thankfully they haven’t. But now we’ve got an empty store carcass across the street from the new bigger store which Wal-Mart won’t sell to a competitor so it will sit empty FOREVER (unless they donate it to the Hastings Public Library to become our new facility–pipedream! But, I digress).

Living in a small-ish town if you want to buy a new cd you’re choices are Wal-Mart or K-Mart. Or you can drive a half hour to Grand Island and shop at their Wal-Mart or Kmart. I honestly think I’d have to drive 90 miles to Lincoln to find a proper record store. If I went west to Kearney (50 miles) I could broaden my big box choices by adding Target to the list, but I don’t think there’s a Sam Goody or …. I don’t even knows the names of record stores anymore. There’s no Vintage Vinyl, that’s for damn sure.

Sigh.

Back to my story: K-mart is closer (two blocks from my house as opposed to the outskirts of town) but I had three kids in tow and wanted to get Ice Cube, a bicycle helmet and some brown sugar. One stop shopping, folks, this is how they make their billions. So I succumbed and went to Wal-Mart.

And guess what! At Wal-Mart music comes pre-censored! All the naughties are silenced out on the disc!

BOO!

If you’re gonna listen to Ice Cube, you want to listen to Ice Cube. And it’s SO many words silenced out it’s hard to follow what he’s saying. It ruins the flow, bro.

On Wednesday I took Phoebe to her 4-H meeting — I know this seems like a completely random departure from my gangsta rap story, but hang in there. I left the boys in the van in the driveway, while I walked Phoebe in a spoke with the hosting 4-H mom. I stayed and talked longer than I should have. I said “I’ve got the boys in the car–I better go” about four times before the conversation actually allowed for an exit. When I got back to the van, both boys were bawling and Oliver was bleeding.

Moses had, very obviously, reached from his car seat to Ollie’s car seat and made a big fat cat scratch across his cheek. Oliver was hysterical, but he also had done a little damage to his brother. I got them settle down, at long last. There was no sense in asking “what happened?”– that was very clear. I did ask what they fought about. There was a long silence. Both boys hung their heads. Then Mo looked up with a sheepish half-grin due to the absurdity to come. He pointed out the window and said “that tree.” Oliver nodded solemnly through silent tears.

What?

I said, “That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Gasp! Horror! Outrage! Mama said the S-T Word (as they call it at school). “Why did you say that?!” “You are not supposed to say that!” “We don’t call things or people stupid!” All my words and the words of their teachers were flung back at me in an instant.

I calmly said, “I know we don’t normally call things or people stupid. But when you two are scratching each other’s faces off about that tree (whatever that means)…well…it is stupid to fight each other about something so unimportant. Sometimes only a bad word can be used to describe a really bad thing.”

And we’re right back to Ice Cube.

The CD (from what I’ve gathered from one day’s listen plus an article I read about it) has a lot of political statements and statements about the world of rap. Cube is slamming the party and playa culture of rap — it’s lost the seriousness and message that old school gangsta rap has. But, the message loses a lot of punch when Wal-Mart squelches out the bad words. I bet Ice Cube would have a few choice words about that.

Thanks again to Dunbar ,Nebraska. Click to see my non-musical musing posted as a guest at Dunbar, Nebraska (“Celery Chaw”).

Old school scratching, ghetto bass blasting, R&B and jazz samples, R&B guest vocals from Alex Watson, and world rap voices make Border Crossing’s Ominous a truly fresh Hip Hop disc. While you can imagine MC Rockwell fronting for a standard 00’s pimped-out video for “Original Heads,” there’s enough rock and soul sense in these boys (Seorais Graham, Paul Mulvey, and Alex Angol) that they go beyond trunk rattling bass. This is the Hip Hop disc for those who like that slink and slide strut rhythm, but don’t always like the same old, same old “bragging about my grill and girls” rap. Ricky Rankin’s guest raps bring a Michael Franti & Spearhead sense to the project, especially “Future Blues” which sounds like the second chapter in Franti’s “Ganja Babe.”

Thank you to the Border Crossing and Recall Group for the review copy.

Speech’s The Vagabond gives us Hip Hop that’s bright and aware of where he’s come from—jazz, R&B, and Motown. All of that musical history is wrapped up in “No One Like You.” Thematically, “Braided Hair” does that soul music blend of the street and the spiritual, the daily struggle and the Gospel. “Scandal” jams out to some Paisley Park-inspired grooves as the chorus echoes the tone of Prince’s “Diamonds and Pearls.” While “Shine” has Motown horns, “Walking in the Sun” marches along to a world beat.

Thank you to the Speech and Bluhammock Music for the review copy.

Levi (Jennifer Wilcox) is an indie Hip Hop artist from New York who doesn’t need a backup singer for the choruses and doesn’t need an MC to smash out the raps. Levi is both herself. She’s got clear-voiced raps that easily shift into a soulful R&B. This is most apparent on her 2004 release, Another Jennifer. Songs like “Made It to 18” and “How You Like Me Now” showcase her vocal range—from a little guttural soul to big ol’ R&B lungs. Yet, there’s no question that the MC is on the stage when Levi grabs the mic for “You Belong,” “Hick,” and “Ridiculous.” The rap-sing style of the title track (which tells the story of why she goes by Levi) invites you to groove along with her. Levi is backed up by the guitar of Mike Borgia which can rock out on a classic-sounding lick or jam out on a throwdown acoustic (“Lotsa Nothin’”).

Of course, I’m supposed to be here telling you about the new disc from Levi, Levi 101, the one with the “Parental Advisory: Emotionally Explicit Content” label on it. Unfortunately, overall this sounds like a sophomore release—not quite clicking. “Little Leelee” with its whistled melody and rapped life story comes on strong as the first track. However, tracks like “Contagious” and “That Wasn’t Love” darken up the guitar sound which is a little overpowering for Levi’s raps while also sounding less fresh and too derivative.

Yet, what draws me to Levi’s music is that her raps are down-to-earth and positive. There’s lots of negative things in songs like “Little Leelee,” exploring the tough parts of her childhood, but Levi has a way of lifting up the spirit, providing hope. Going back to Another Jennifer, the title track is about realizing that there are a lot of Jennifers in the world, but that she was going to be one of a kind. “Hick” is about being a country girl (from upstate New York), coming to big city (NYC), and not letting that big city kick out the hick. Even as she’s talking about lovers and relationships in “You Belong” and “Made It to 18,” there’s a sense that she knows that there’s a lot of empty promises in her world of modern relationships.

Levi was surprised when I wanted to find a way to use some of her songs in Bible studies because of their positive message. I may not find that everything Levi sings about matches what we teach in the Church, but in her music, I hear the voice of a strong young woman trying to stay strong against the world’s pressures. Those Bible studies or SongDevotions haven’t been written yet, but that would be their theme: where Levi tries to remain strong on her own, Christ comes to make women—and men—strong against the ways that the world may drag us down.

Thank you so much to Levi for the review copies.

Opening for John Brown’s Body at the May 12th Milwaukee show was Psalm One, a rapper from Chicago, accompanied by DJ Spontaneous from the Vinyl Addicts. Psalm One did her best for the early crowd of wallflowers/barflowers. She mentioned after the show that she was just pleased to get some response from a crowd of people who didn’t come to see her and had never heard of her—a humble approach in what often seems to be a prideful genre.

In fact, Psalm One’s raps often dip into humility as on her most recent album, Bio:Chemistry II: esters and essays. The opening track, “A Girl Named You,” is a honest confession before the Lord. In “Dubblewood Pipe,” she says, “I’ll never go platinum with this one, but it’s cool, though./If you listenin’ to this, God bless you.”

At Shank Hall, her organic sound tended towards a muscle heavy plodding rhythm on the first songs. However, Psalm One finds her stride when she sings it out more using the melodic sections to break up the straight-up raps. When she says, “I sit in my room and listen to Al Green,” with DJ Spontaneous cueing up Green’s croon, then you hear the soulful side of Psalm One. “Simply Beautiful” uncorked some strong, R&B/soul flavored raps.

On “East to West,” Psalm One gets a little too hard core heavy on the raps for her own good, although Spontaneous shined in the scratches. Instead, it’s that soul-jazz vibe heard under the Fast Twista Chicago-style raps that beautifies Psalm One’s raps.

Bio:Chemistry II is worth repeated spins. “A Girl Named You” tells the tale of how a girl can go from church to street, the slide in and out of faith. “Dubblewood Pipe” is just about one of the best sounding rhythmic phrases I’ve heard in awhile. The soul sounds spin the disco ball for “On and On” and “Sugar.” “You Should Know That” steps in with a little jazz flute sample. Then the acoustic guitar/bass vamp on “How Silhouette Got Out” grows out from the “Fat Albert” theme—a fun theme that breaks down into that vamp just in time to tell the story of the girl Silhouette who “likes to kill Gigapets and smoke cigarettes.”

The live set included “I Think Too Much,” where Psalm One did a great job of getting the small crowd to join in on the chorus, “You think too much/Yeah, you know that’s right/You drink too much/No, but a beer would be nice.” The original version was dropped from Bio:Chemistry II, replaced by “Think 2 Much (Remix)” which doesn’t have the same sing-along quality—a little disappointing considering that the song’s a good memory from the show.

By the way, Psalm One counted off a few too many times during the show saying, “1 for the treble, 2 for the bass. . .,” and yet, one of the best lines on the album is, “She went 1 tequila, 2 tequila, 3 tequila, floor” (“Where’d You Come From?”). Keepin’ clever, keepin’ it soulful will do Psalm One well.

Thanks to Psalm One and Birthwrite Records for the review copy.