Links / Music
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A fantastic profile of Jonny Greenwood, best known for his work with Radiohead and The Smile, elaborating on his work as a composer of incredible film scores.
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Dan Charnas—who wrote Dilla Time, one of my favourite books of last year—digs around and highlights how a cassette tape titled Another Batch did wonders for J Dilla's notoriety. "The sounds, signatures, and techniques that actually made Dilla influential all coalesced on Another Batch."
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After reading Dan Charnas' book on J Dilla, I am even more convinced he belongs among the legends. This op-ed in the LA Times briefly explains why. If you're a fan of J Dilla—or The Roots, or Thundercat, or Kamasi Washington, or Erykah Badu, or...—I highly recommend you read Dilla Time.
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As I watched Jerrod Carmichael's latest special Rothaniel – which is really, really special – I was reminded of this conversation he had with Tyler, The Creator back in 2018. An interview unlike any other, and I've thought about it often since I first saw it.
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This 5-chapter podcast by journalist Alex Pappademas is the best podcast on music I've found in quite some time. Instead of dissecting the music beat by beat, he dives deeper into the creative process and the context in which the music was made, speaking to the collaborators that helped Kendrick make the album, as well as to the man himself. "Good Kid was the classic, DAMN. was the blockbuster, and To Pimp A Butterfly the masterpiece."
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A profile of Kendrick Lamar and the moves he's made since leaving T.D.E., the label he was with since 2007.
"It's hard to overstate the shock it caused in the rap world when Kendrick announced that he was leaving T.D.E. It was like when the Jackson 5 left Motown. When Prince left Warner Bros. When Jay-Z left Def Jam."
The last album he released on T.D.E., "Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers", is monumental, but this Big Step does feel like a clean slate, and I am so looking forward to seeing all the things he – Pulitzer Kenny – will do next.
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A lovely deep dive into Madlib's "Sound Ancestors", a highly underrated album, in which the creator identifies a parallel between the combination of Madlib/Four Tet and Miles Davis/Teo Macero.
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I've been a fan of Perfume Genius ever since he released No Shape in 2017. His latest album, Ugly Season, is out now and accompanied by the film above. I highly recommend you listen to the album in full—start to finish, no interruptions, preferably with headphones on—because it is an experience. To me, this is his finest album yet; an album that combines and builds upon all the beautiful things he's created over the years and, at the same time, takes it to another level. The visual by Jacolby Satterwhite is mind-boggling, a mesmerising tasting platter of Ugly Season.
