THROWBACK: Wire-Pink Flag

Wire

Pink Flag

Ⓟ1977 EMI

Rating: Throwback

Every once and a while, for whatever reason, you discover a band or an album that has apparently been around for a very long time but, somehow, has seemingly gone unnoticed by you...well, me, I guess is what I’m saying. And this doesn’t happen to me very often (when it comes to music, quality related television programs slip through my fingers all the time). The only reason I say that is because, growing up, I was extremely fortunate to have the type of father who introduced me to more music than I possibly will ever discover for myself. He had (and still does, actually) the biggest CD collection I’ve ever seen, and our house, was a house, that when you woke up on a weekend morning, or came home from a friends house, the front door was wide open, and music would be spilling out into the street. Now, as you can imagine, this had a bit of an effect (and an affect) on myself and my two brothers. My brothers, being older than me by 5 years, and again by 9, making quite the age gap when you’re growing up, also ended up having a significant influence on the music I listen to, or have even heard. These are three distinct and massive generation gaps, so like I said, there is a rare occasion when I am surprised to find that a band from, oh the 70s, let’s say, that is completely unbeknownst to me. So when it happens and I get excited, I’ve decided to implement the throwback review.

Wire, a recent discovery thanks to a very good friend of mine and a Facebook post he made on his own wall. It was the track Mannequin from Wire’s first studio album Pink Flag. As it turns out, (even though I have only submitted hip hop reviews for this blog) I’m a massive punk fan, it was the first genre of music that I got to claim as my own, which neither my father nor my brother’s could hold any sway over what I listened to (youth in revolt...of a very encouraging non-judgmental environment, I might add). Now, technically, people consider Wire to fall under the post-punk, new wave genres, but, Pink Flag was released in 1977, smack dab in the middle of the punk movement, so for all intents and purposes, I’m calling this album punk.

I’ve done some reading since downloading the album and, it turns out, Wire is considered to be a major influence, coming out of the London in ’76. Pink Flag definitely reflects the first wave of British punk. It’s minimalistic and fast paced, as all good classic punk is (the longest track on the album being is 3:58), short bursts of attitude. Personally, I love this original style of punk, and appreciate it, not simply for nostalgic purposes, but for the energy it insights in the listeners. But aside from that, you can clearly hear the origins of post punk coming through on the tracks, with actual tempo changes and the tiniest bit of harmony on some of the vocal tracks.

This whole album is right up my alley and all kinds of good. It’s amazing sometimes that when you’re looking to find really good music, it’s been there the whole time.

Grieves-Together/Apart

Grieves

Together/Apart

ⓅRhymesayers Entertainment, LLC

Rating: 8.5/10

Okay, enough is enough. I’ve been staring at this document for almost a month trying to write this review and I’m not really sure why. I like this album and I like Grieves. How much do I like Grieves? I like him, I like him a lot. He’s probably one of the best rappers you’ve never heard of. But for some reason I just can’t seem to put this into words. He’s melodic and moody and his type of hip-hop isn’t necessarily the kind you sing along with, but damn does it make you listen. His lyrics and tracks paint images in your head of baggy jeans, ball hats, and wearing your hood up, walking around the downtown streets of some faceless city, just trying to blend in while you work through your thoughts. Cathartic, comes to mind. Together/Apart is sort of a diary for Grieves, somewhere to work through the relationship problems that come from promoting a budding recording career and consistently being on the road. I guess that’s a common theme in blossoming artists, but Grieves never makes it sounds self-pitying, as so many do. Moody? Yes. Depressing? Hardly.

This is Grieves second studio album and, I have to admit, I haven’t had all that much experience with his first, 88 Keys and Counting. Both have come out to critical acclaim and both run along the same vein, soulful but grittier than the track polishing we’re used to hearing on so many hip hop albums nowadays. Not to say that the tracks on Together/Apart sound haphazard or even a carbon copy to his first release, Grieves is distinctive in his sound, mixing his rap with his own low raspy singing, a voice which hardly belongs to a 27 year old white boy. A blend of keys, horns, percussion, and strings, mixed with Grieves poetic and personal lyrics, it makes for the best kind of hip hop.

I could go into detail about each track, but honestly, they’re all standouts. However, I will say the first track, Light Speed, really sets the pace for the album. A low tempo track with simple hand claps in the background, the lyrics giving nod to his days from childhood and all the steps that led to the present (the present being the time he sits down to write this song, literally), “It’s so simple, Superman, trick or treat, wet socks, bike rides in the summer to the best spots, could’ve sworn I was king of the best odds.” and “Started working on things that had lost all reason, now I’m sitting with a pad, moving so fast.” Setting tempo and mood, the rest of the tracks are just as mellow and personal.

Really, I’m not sure what there’s left to say about Together/Apart. Just give a listen. Hopefully, you’ll understand what it is that leaves me at a loss for words because, again, I can’t seem to describe the feeling.

Pyha - The Haunted House

Artist: Pyha (Korean for "Ruined")
Album: The Haunted House
Release: 2008 (Yeah, yeah I don't do 'fresh' reviews)
Genre: Depressive/Atmospheric Black Metal (and probably the grimiest yet)
Rating: 98% Dense and intense.


Welcome folks to an abhorrent, fifty-three minute nightmare. An agony of static and wretch fueled by a deep hatred of corruption and war. The atmosphere from start to finish both stimulating, and absolutely crushing. Devoid in its entirety of hope; stripping away emotion until you`re left with the barren tundras of loss and anathema. And this, from a Korean eighth-grader?

When the great tUMULt Laboratories first announced it was re-releasing this adolescent basement suffocation, I wasn't exactly sure what to expect (but I can assure you it was nothing positive). But the moment you open the jewel case and slide out the insert, you are struck with troubling images of a stark brutality; war. Sepia toned images of death and destruction. One image of a man hopelessly clutching the lifeless form of a friend; another of thousands fleeing from a fire-laden street. Terror, sorrow, rage, hatred, cruelty. From the first ninety seconds of the opening track "Appulyi", there was promise. Promise that, before the final few scarring seconds of the three part "Hyunnga is a Tangled Story" ticked away, was abruptly thrown into a chaotic pit of distortion and bare-bones, lo-fi odium. From the marrow-chilling vocal layers of the fifth track, "Song of the Elderly", to the eerily skeletal "Seomak" and "Message From Heaven", to easily the most driving 'black metal' track on the album, "After the Aliens", Pyha explores the foulest corners of struggle and emotional deprecation. Very nearly every second of this album is spent buzzing the red, pulsating continuously, breaking from the pained screams and doom-laden groans only for a few anguished keyboard interludes of the warmachine; for weeping mothers and terrified children.

How something so intense, so dissolute, could reside in the heart of a juvenile is well far and beyond me. Perhaps the most emotionally capturing, breathtaking, apalling album I have had the (dis)pleasure of listening to. It's albums like this that fuel my continued search to dive deeper into the obscure chasms of music. The vast fjord's of sound wherein lie the rarest of harmonious gems. Pyha, a bleakness, an utter darkness no obsidian, nor onyx, could match.