Hip-Hop Thursday #3 - Pigeon Hole - INVASION EP

Okay, I know it's hip-hop Thursday and this would probably be considered more “bass music” or “dubstep” or something. I don't even know with the subgenres anymore. (I got into the electronic game too late and I don't care to figure it all out. I just want good music.) All I know is good hip-hop hits a certain place in my brain and Invasion hits that hard. This helps me indulge my love of hip-hop and satiate my thirst for bass.

A couple years ago, a little while after the release of their still-regularly-played-by-almost-everyone-I-know album Chimp Blood, I was watching Pigeon Hole smash up a stage while standing next to local hip-hop guru and Keeper of the Knowledge, Degree One. We were both head-nodding like crazy when he turned to me and said, “Man, I love these guys. Every time I see them they bring something new. Always new ideas.” I agreed and I continue to agree. Since then, seemingly without ever taking a break, Pigeon Hole has been relentless in driving forward, establishing themselves as a force in bass. That was a few years ago and the duo continues on that incredible arc with their latest anvil-heavy offering, Invasion EP. The homies go 3-for-3 here, each track devastatingly heavy but fantastically smooth in their devastation. Picking a favourite here seems arbitrary, but let's go with the title track, “INVASION.” I won't argue if you pick something different because you would also be right.

If you were going to hunt dinosaurs or some other large and terrifying creature, you couldn't find a more appropriate soundtrack than Invasion. Maybe you don't even wanna hunt the monsters. Maybe you just want to tame them to ride them or you're looking to toughen up with a simple fight against a majestic beast (Seriously, this shit makes me wanna suplex a lion). Like, you were in that TUROK game (Remember TUROK?) and you and your crew went out to have some battles then you all came back and celebrated with a forest rave. This is really fucking good party music that would be perfect for a deep forest rave. In fact, you should get familiar because you're probably going to hear the tracks from Invasion at every deep forest rave you do in fact attend this summer. Deep, dark hip-hop bass on that mega future shit that gets your head bobbing and your hips winding. [Sleeveless Records]

Hip-Hop Thursday #2 - Grand Analog - Survival

The first great hip-hop of 2018 has landed in my ears courtesy of Grand Analog. Their latest, Survival EP, is a incredibly fine-crafted piece of hip-hop. As I get older I have less time to spend obsessively dissecting music – especially something like hip-hop that demands such a high degree of attention – my music needs to work equally well on my headphones as walking through the city or bumping on the speakers with a group of people, and few things lately have hit both sides like Survival. Starting your night off? “Ballad of the Beast” is going to get heads bobbing something fierce. At the height of the party and need something silky smooth and deeply groovy to get help peoples' hips moving? “Quiet Life” is going to be the thing you need. Ending your night and need something a little more gentle and pretty in your hip-hop? “Survival: The Levy” is sure to scratch that chilled-out itch.

As expected as a live-band oriented hip-hop group, the beats here are unfathomably lush, popping and dripping with the warmth that only a unified whole of moving parts can deliver. The flourishes of electronic music are used to great effect (As Grand Analog is want to do), pushing the groups trademark future old-school sound ever-gently forward. Good on the headphones, good on the dancefloor (As we discussed). The sequencing here is similarly deft – everything meticulously laid out, giving a strong sonic arc to an EP, something that often goes overlooked on such releases. The instrumental tracks here are indispensable little bridges, pulsing with depth and feeling. MC Odario Williams is as fly as ever, hitting each track with well-earned confidence. He's not here to overwhelm the ears with speed. Homie is here with that direct flow, giving his thoughtful, witty and clever wordplay raps space to breathe and be heard. Some incredible guest spots – including show-stealing spots from Posdnous of the mighty De La Soul (“Mutations”) and one of Canada's true treasures, Shad (“Ballad of the Beast”) – round things out and compliment Williams' lyrical stylings perfectly. (Special props to the basketball raps too, from both Odario and Shad. I feel like I don't get enough basketball references in my modern hip-hop.) It all adds up to making Survival the first gotta-get-in-ya rap release of the year. Go listen to it.

Survival is available on vinyl over at Grand Analog's site. Or digitally on bandcamp.

Lee 'Scratch' Perry & Subatomic Sound System, 04.11.17 - Capital Ballroom, Victoria, BC

For more than four decades Lee 'Scratch' Perry, the original Upsetter, has been pushing reggae into the cosmic depths, mining the mysteries in the veins of the heavy heart of dub. No amount of listening to the man's ridiculously vast catalogue can truly prepare the mind for witnessing the dark, colourful Upsetter dub live. Perry made his return to Victoria in top form, unbridled and confident as ever in the colourful, reckless weirdness that has has been the lifeblood of his career.

Touring in support of the recently released Super Age Returns to Conquer – a rerecording of the seminal Super Ape with his longtime touring band Subatomic Sound System – Perry led the audience on a spiralling journey of creative energy. I have a hard time with accents and often don't understand Perry on my headphones let alone in a live setting, but it doesn't really matter. His whole presence is so huge and mystical and immediate that you couldn't help but be sucked in, even if you only picked up one out of every two or three words he says. The sound of his voice, whatever it was doing, was almost hypnotic. When the more familiar refrains like “This is the Ape Man...” broke through out of the haze, the feeling was straight-up sublime.

While Perry is the centre of everything, the colour, the driving engine of the whole thing is the deeply hypnotic bass of the powerful Subatomic Sound System. The bass of dub is heartbeat bass, seemingly moving at the pace of blood, and there aren't many people I've heard lately harnessing that dub like SSS. When the show started with dropping the bass to deep, air-shaking frequencies and had the crowd hold their hands in the air to confirm that those bass vibes were indeed now in the air, I got real excited and there was no disappointment. For nearly two hours I couldn't stop moving even if I tried. Subatomic had control of my motor functions.

Helping the hypnotizing process along was the incredible saxophone work of Troy Shaka Simms. Weaving and supple, his sound floated around and above the heavy, earthy bass and complimented Perry perfectly. And within all of this relentless musical glory was the percussion of Jamaican legend Larry McDonald. Punctuating the wall of sound that Perry and Subatomic had built was McDonald's nimble and guttural riddims, splashing the space-out dub with the unmistakable rhythm of human life. Hands on drums is the most basic musical sound we know. It is embedded in our shared collective knowledge and way out there in the vast unknown of cosmos McDonald relayed that knowledge in a way that reminded me of a feeling I didn't I think I'd find all the way out there.

That was a fucking great show. I love dub reggae. Few sounds sooth my soul the way Lee Perry & Subatomic Sound System did last night.