Tag: New Music

Smooth Tuba Tuesday!

It’s Tuesday, and you know what that means…

If you didn’t know, every Tuesday I release a smooth tuba cover of a popular song, complete with a music video that’s full of surprises. This week’s video was the Isaac Hayes classic “Walk On By.”

Tuba Walk On By

Here are more Smooth Tuba Tuesday videos that have come out this month, including a funny take on a modern classic, and a tuba ode to a smooth legend. You can watch the entire catalog, which contains nearly 200 videos to date, on the Slapsauce YouTube Channel!

Smooth Tuba Runnin’
Tuba Margaritaville

Maxo Kream – Punken

Now that we’ve heard some good old New York boom bap from Dave East, it’s time to switch things up to that Houston trap. Maxo Kream sounds great in his debut here, flowing over crispy Southern-fried beats with confidence and ease. Like Dave East (and most rappers, for that matter), he’s heavily invested in proving his own authenticity. Also like Dave East, he accomplishes this by telling real stories of his life on the streets. Maxo’s stories are more like quick anecdotes, though, none of which as far-reaching as Dave East’s track-length epics. This is because Maxo Kream is a man of the streets, and he makes it clear that he doesn’t aspire to anything greater than that by keeping things as simple as possible.

In Ben Westhoff’s book Dirty South, he attributes the rise of Southern hip-hop in the last few decades to their popular appeal. Rather than dazzling with quick-fire lyrics and complex rhyme schemes, Southern rap focuses on hard-hitting hooks that are simple and accessible. Maxo Kream captures that spirit perfectly.

N.Flying – The Hottest: N.Flying

A couple of weeks ago I explored J-pop with Shuta Sueyoshi’s solo debut, and today I’m trekking across the Pacific once again, this time to South Korea. I think K-pop and J-pop share some features, but it’s important to remember that they’re not the same thing. While both are based on the Western model of the corporate-manufactured boy band, they vary in the way that they treat these influences. K-pop seems to embrace rapping more readily, as this group exhibits. Perhaps K-pop has more dance influences and less of a rock bend than J-pop, but I’m really not qualified to say that with any certainty. Indeed, the more I listen to this music the less I seem to understand about it.

I mentioned in my earlier post about Shuta Sueyoshi’s album that I considered forward-driving harmony a staple of J-pop, but N.Flying also has this tendency, particularly in the opener “Don’t Forget This.” As I listen to more K-pop and J-Pop bands, I’m sure I’ll develop a more accurate idea of what differentiates these kinds of music. Of course, the only thing that really makes this K-pop is the fact that the members are Korean. Much like the dreaded “singer/songwriter,” I’m cautious of genres like these that are defined by non-musical factors. K-pop is such a cultural phenomenon, though, that I can’t really see this music being described as anything else.

Anderson East – Encore

The title “Singer/Songwriter” seems like a death sentence—anyone garnered that title occupies a gigantic pit of musicians who seem to have nothing in common other than the fact that they ostensibly write songs and then sing them. To think that Anderson East is in the same category as Paul Simon, Nick Drake, Joni Mitchell, Tom Waits, and Sufjan Stevens is kind of absurd when you think about it. East’s music fits much better into the category of blues, with plenty of soul and Southern rock to make it his own. There’s something about the frontman, though, the singular musical force who is the voice behind all of the musical material, that is stigmatizing to us as listeners. In other words, people would rather know that this is a one-man show than have any idea what kind of music it is. As a music nerd, I’m always intrigued when extramusical factors like this play into people’s perceptions of music. Would this album be received differently if it were released by the Anderson East Band? What if Anderson East wasn’t even in the band name?

With the exception of the Beatles and maybe a few others, almost no band has ever achieved the iconic status of singular artists by the likes of Michael Jackson, Elvis, Madonna, Prince, Stevie Wonder, David Bowie, etc. So it would seem like the title of “Singer/Songwriter” is no more than a cheap attempt at that kind of glory by association. None of the above artists, though, would be considered singer/songwriters (though most of them did, in fact, write songs and then sing them). This is because they transcended the category, inspiring future imitators and eventually becoming entirely new genres.

Tonight Alive – Underworld

My first thought when cracking open this album was, “since when did Underworld play rock?” Indeed, had I realized that Underworld was the name of the album and not the artist, I probably wouldn’t have listened. That’s no diss to *double-checks artist name* Tonight Alive, it just means that I have my listening predilections just like anyone else. This is exactly why I listen to as much music as I do—it often forces me into strange new corners that lie outside of my musical comfort zone.

My second impression was that this was a pretty decent Christian rock band (wrong again). The hyper-slick production quality, conventional song forms, square riffing, and vague lyrics about love and spirituality all seemed to point to one of the world’s most despised genres. Again, I need to temper this by saying that I myself don’t mind Christian rock, it’s just that those who don’t like it seem to hate it passionately. Once religion gets added to a musical idea, it opens a whole can of worms that incites opinions far beyond the music. I personally respect people who use music as a vehicle of praise and worship.

This, however, is not Christian rock. Somehow, knowing that a band sounds like this and doesn’t even have a divine mission is especially disappointing.

Jiří Bělohlávek & Czech Philharmonic Orchestra – Smetana: Má Vlast

This is interesting for a change. As someone who studied classical music theory through six years of college, I should have sound opinions here. I would never claim nearly the same expertise as the Czech Philharmonic, though—Smetana is their national composer, their J.P. Sousa if you will. And this is Smetana’s most admired work, even if most of us today only know the second movement. It was written at a time in which the Czech Republic was pining for statehood, and Smetana quickly became a voice for his people. Má Vlast (“My Country”) is full of this nationalist passion, a sentiment that was extremely fashionable in European music of the time.

The orchestra performs the piece incredibly well—they obviously know the piece thoroughly (they’ve also recorded this in the past with Rafael Kubelik at the baton). The Moldau flows as effortlessly as I’ve heard any orchestra perform it. Through the impeccable smoothness of it all, though, it’s sometimes difficult to hear that passion that fueled the work’s composition. You almost want to hear this orchestra become a little emotionally unstable as they perform their crown jewel. This is a Decca recording, though, and they have a reputation of high-quality productions to maintain. Now I wonder how the orchestra would sound live, free from the slick hands of studio producers. Probably awesome.

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – Wrong Creatures

You would think that there are certain rules you have to follow if you’re going to name your band “Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.” These four words, much like “Wolf Trident Eclipse” in yesterday’s album, seem to evoke something very particular—here I imagine thick beards, loud engines, and an endless highway. What happens instead is comparatively… tame. This music comes as more of a moan than a growl, plagued throughout by the passivity of understatement. It’s not bad music, it’s actually well-played alternative rock. But because motorcycle culture is rife with stereotypes of AC/DC and Judas Priest, this band’s music inevitably pales by comparison for its soft corners.

Maybe this is the music that motorcyclists dream to… Full of decadent reverb, luscious hooks, and just enough attitude to get through the night. I’ll never know, though–I don’t ride a motorcycle.

Watain – TRIDENT WOLF ECLIPSE

Trident. Wolf. Eclipse. What comes to your mind when you think of these three words? I figure the album art comes pretty close to whatever that may be, and so does the music. Indeed, frontman Erik Danielsson cites these three words as the three main concepts that fuel the band’s creative output. I have to say that’s quite a unique combination of influences.

It never ceases to amaze me how thrash bands continue to innovate by bashing the same few chords over and over again. In this case, Watain even takes a conservative approach to doing so, using conventional harmonies and instrumentation. If you’re looking for innovation here, then, one can only point to their relentless energy. At points it’s as aggresive and violent as grindcore, but somehow they are able to maintain these jams for several minutes at a time. Amazingly, the music carries on for so long at such an intense dynamic that it can seem both chaotic and contemplative at the same time.

Weedpecker – III

Stoner rock is a fun genre of music, for more than just the drug references. It seems to occupy a peculiar harmonic space that toes the line of many other genres, all the while maintaining its unique identity. Weedpecker is one of the best at this—they can sound like Soundgarden, Pink Floyd, Tool, and King Crimson, sometimes all in the same song. Unfortunately, I think that many people ironically treat stoner rock they way they do Christian rock, with a stubborn derision owing more to a dislike of the underlying principles than to the music itself. Those people are missing out, though, on an epic musical ride, contained here in five monumental songs of equal merit.

On top of all of the rock influences you can list here, there are also distinctive folk elements. Where does this come from? Modes! “Liquid Sky” and “From Mercury to Mars” contain the Dorian mode, which is sort of a minor-major mix, and “Molecule” is in Mixolydian, more of major-minor mix. Both of these modes are common in rock music, and offer a soft reprieve to the hard blues scale seen in more traditional rock music.

Certain Creatures – Nasadiya Sukta

I find it incredibly difficult to describe ambient music. It seems so understated to me as to offer as little musical information as possible, and I’m more often left with vague feelings than precise thoughts. Luckily, the Certain Creatures themselves (or himself, Oliver Chapoy) offers some context to the music on his bandcamp site. He describes the album as “a study in timelessness — crystalline, heartfelt ambient music designed to push light through shadow.” Aha, now it all makes sense!

Even the creator of this music seems limited to ambivalent feelings as he attempts characterize the music in words. This is because the music is very inexpressive for the most part, leaving much of the work to the listener to follow along on the listening journey. I think this is why discussion of ambient music is often so fantastical (Chapoy calls it “music for space travelers”). It does offer its moments, but they seem to blend into one another in a way that can’t be traced. Even the tracks lack much distinction from one another, as each new moment seems to swell out of what came before it. It’s an altogether different listening experience, for a very special kind of listening journey uninterrupted with the normal distractions of contemporary life. I do like it, but often find I just don’t have the time for it.