[Originally posted on Instagram on February 12, 2020]

Cage's music is something that probably requires a little more preliminary research than others. He was tossed in a New York mental facility by his mother at the age of 16 and was kept in their for a year and a half, around 89/90. This comes after having a drug abusing father who would make Cage help him administer heroin, then a step father who would beat him and his mother, etc.

The first half of his music career has a trilogy of albums (Movies for the Blind, Hell's Winter, Depart From Me) that detail a lot of his time in there (Physical abuse by staff members, keeping the kids doped up on drugs used to treat disorders they didn't have, etc) along with a few other prevalent topics like drug abuse, suicide fantasies, satanic philosophies, abuse in organized religions, and the deaths of significant others and friends. Often he approaches these topics with -extreme- absurdity and satire, making some of the most humorous songs about serious topics to make a point. Each album sounds very distinct from the others (Depart From Me uses a ton of guitars, for instance). During this period he also did two collab albums: Nighthawks (with Camu Tao) which was basically a concept album that was an 80s movie about corrupt cops in music form and Waterworld (with Tame One) with every single song being about their love for PCP.

Ok. So. Cage has been in a new phase of music making and I wouldnt type all this shit out if I wasn't into it. 2018 saw Book ov Sam: Infernal Depths released, a mix of older songs with newer released under the name Sam Hill. It's an interesting transition phase between this new album that is intense (Both in how serene it can be and how heavy it can be) steeped in occultism and satanic philosophy. Infernal Depths is fast, weird, and unrelenting. And now, 2020, we get Book ov Sam: Death Miracles. With production like Cage has never rapped over before, spoken bits between songs, and an apparent order of events creating a narrative that isn't presented linearly. The humor lessened but still there. This is an album about a particular set of spiritual beliefs, presented in a way only Cage can give you.

[Originally posted on Instagram on December 7, 2019]

let's fucking do this. The albums that come to mind when I try & figure out what I enjoyed the most this year.

Ceschi - Sad, Fat, Luck. an album that was written for people that have lost loved ones & I've lost a few of em over the years (Still getting over em).

Sadistik - Haunted Gardens. A project that is simultaneously something you'd never expect Sadistik to do & also something that makes a lot of sense for him. It's a low key, short collection of intensely introspective songs that sees Sadistik trying to make sense of who he is.

Kate Tempest - The Book of Traps and Lessons. A harsh and beautiful look at us, them, & everyone who falls somewhere in between.

clipping. - There Existed an Addiction to Blood. Some of the best production around, some of the sickest, grimiest music to perhaps ever come out.

Nigel - Tantrum. Onry Ozzborn, the most prolific rapper you've never heard of (With 20ish albums under his belt) has released his newest project under the name Nigel (the name of the crossbow wielding jackalope on the cover) & it's damn good.

BROCKHAMPTON - Ginger. Some weird magic to these guys & this has somehow become my favorite album of theirs, maybe. The cover is of two bros hugging each other, which is pretty descriptive of a chunk of what they sing about.

Better Oblivion Community Center - selftitled. My long time favorite singer/songwriter Connor Oberst teams up w/ Phoebe Bridgers, newer but also really good singer/songwriter, to release an album together.

Dessa - Sound the Bells. Dessa, one of the most powerful lyricists in the rap game performed & recorded some shows with the Minnesota Orchestra. The result is a uniquely great album about heart break, hard work & her personal journey with being a woman (in the male dominated rap game but also being a woman in general which, because a lot of men are trash, is harder than it should be).

Malibu Ken - Malibu Ken. Long time favorite of mine, Aesop Rock plus producer Tobacco are Malibu Ken and this album is wonky. It's Aes rapping over electronic beats which works out well MOST of the time. But Aes has been writing his best lyrics lately and this is no exception.

[Originally posted on Instagram on November 9, 2019]
I think this has been an interesting album to experience. First off, Apollo Brown I know SOLELY because of his absolutely fantastic remix of Ghostface Killah's 12 Reasons To Die album. 12 Reasons to Die part 1 and 2 are albums that just intersect with so many different things I adore it is as if they were created just for me. Then Apollo Brown takes part 1 and turns this insane comic booky, story driven narrative album into was is basically a rap based old time radio show and it's just a fucking home run with me.

I wasn't too sure what to expect - Albums that are producer driven with guests brought on for each track are /usually/ more hit than miss with me but with Sincerely, Detroit everything basically clicks perfectly.

Sincerely, Detroit is a massive 21 track album featuring over 50 detroit based rappers. Many of them obviously involve more time invested into listening to them, none of them are any of the main stream Detroit rappers.

I feel like this album is probably perfect to give to older people that do dumb ass hand motions and say "hippity hoppity" whenever you hint you might like rap music. I don't mean this in a negative way. I mean, this is one big ass album full of super catchy beats and great rappers telling stories about friends and family they've lost, the hard work grind and hustle, and the strong unwavering religious faith found in rap music. It's like super accessible songs about all the shit old people say people younger than them don't care about (even though rap music has been more about faith, family, and hard work than any other genre for fucking 30 years).

I don't know, I feel like I owe a bunch of the rappers involved some listening, and Apollo Brown did a god damn impressive job producing and pulling this all together.

[Originally posted on Instagram on November 7, 2019]
One of the most memorable live shows I've been to was last year in, i think, March was seeing Dessa perform at the El Rey theater in LA. It was fast moving and had comedy skits between songs? She had this unstoppable, powerful presence the entire night.

Essayist turned rapper who continually leans more and more into pop music, Dessa has been one of my favorite vocalists and writers for years. Her new album is a collection of her work through out her decade or so career rearranged and performed with a full orchestra and it's magnificent. During a discussion about the making of it, the head of the label said (jokingly?) they wanted to call the album "Motherfucking Vigilance" initially. They ended up titling the album, "Sound the Bells" instead though.

"I think a woman’s worth
I think that she deserves
A better line of work
Than motherfucking vigilance
Don’t give me vigilance
By definition you can’t make a difference
If the big ambition
Is simply standing sentry to your innocence
That’s not a way to live
That can’t be what a woman is
That gives her nothing to aspire to
What that is
What that is
Is just a life of running fire drills"

[Originally posted on Instagram on October 30, 2019]

Okay. Let me start it off by saying that hip hop has been on a serious trend over the last two years with putting out projects that are under 30 minutes and, sure, we have got a handful of good shit in that category (Earl Sweatshirt, Kids See Ghosts, Sadistik, Denzel Curry, Danny Brown) but I was pretty excited to see an album that went longer than half an hour.

So aside from that NUMBER ONE: THIS ALBUM IS TENSE and it does not care about you.

Number two: it is at times pretty graphic and descriptive, in the most unnerving way it can be be.

This is an album that is made up of horror stories. These stories are made up of lyrics, vocals, background sounds, and music that is intricate and off-center and unusual.

Three: A solid feature line up that all add a lot of personality to the tracks they appear on.

Number four!!! This intense cacophony ends with an 18 minute track that is comparatively way chiller than anything else on the album.

It. Is. Amazing.

[Originally posted on Instagram on August 25, 2019]
It's probably difficult for me to not love a BROCKHAMPTON album, if only because each album is so... Differentish? GINGER is, largely, a low key album that did not impress me with any of their singles except for the last one, NO HALO, which is the opening track of the album and an absolute emotional gut punch. My favorite track, by far, but I'm glad to say the other singles all feel way more cohesive within the full track list than they did on their own as singles (Especially BOY BYE, where the instrumental is such a groovy stand out that I fucking adore now).

Its got a slight religion tinge to it - I might even say not enough - to be just as much feeling like a "concept" album as all their others, and while I adore this album, I really really want them to lean full throttle into their thematic concepts for these albums than they do.

MATT CHAMP (especially his DEARLY DEPARTED verse). and JOBA are still the best, though Dom is really fucking great at times... Plus a bunch of new features that all sound great.

[Originally posted on Instagram on August 14, 2019]
I didn't even realize Dope Knife had a new album out. His last one, 2017s NineteenEightyFour, was one i really liked and this one is solid too. A little less heavy and in your face as NineteenEightyFour was, Things Got Worse talks a lot about stuff like properly dealing with death and other means of losing people, the reclusive aspects of depression, and a couple heavy, grimy bangers tossed in. He always has really interesting instrumentals, too, and i especially love the beats on the last few tracks which have somewhat laid back feels to them contrasting with the melancholic, introspective lyrics.

[Originally posted on Instagram on August 4, 2019]
Not sure where to start. The middle child in the "final trilogy" of Ceschi albums (and going forward he will presumably be under a new name, making a 'separate' music catalog). The first came out on 4/4,this one 8/4,and the last one 12/4.

Is a massive album with a few rap bangers (one of which features an insane trio of features - Open Mine Eagle, POS, and Onry Ozzborn - a nice lil posse cut), some gut wrenching acoustic tracks, a few pop songs, and a massive collection of spoken word interludes. It's like a huge spider webby mass of collective tissue that spans back in time to the early 2000s, referencing every ceschi album, throwing back to his first 2019 release, calling back to earlier tracks on this damn album. It's a mess that i mostly adore.

One of the short interludes is a partial cover of the massive Britney pop hit, Baby One More Time. His first album of the trilogy had the spiritual one-two punch of Say No More and Eletrocardiographs. This album has Christ on a Cross followed by Yoni's Electrocardiographs. The first songs have the same chorus and each version of Electrocardiographs has slightly different lyrics. It's a fascinating album, especially as part of a trilogy that was written and recorded long ago literally as a trilogy instead of some "oh, in retrospect this was a trilogy i did" thing.

Makes me super interested in what could possibly be in that last album (all i know is that my man Sadistik makes an appearance).

He will be in LA again around my birthday in November and i know i will be there for it. His release show for his last album was an amazing experience.

[Originally posted on Instagram on July 21, 2019]

I already feel behind on music this year - LA rap legend Myka9 has already put out two releases, and today alone saw a literal handful of albums I was waiting for come out.

The most anticipated being the new Aesop Rock project, under the name Malibu Ken, with production by Tobacco. It's been playing all morning and it's better than I had anticipated, often times because of the production (the song Tuesday has such a crunchy, heavy beat its probably the stand out). Over the last 3 or 4 albums Aesop has been becoming easily one of the best writers out there, telling stories about tiny little parts of the big whole, the parts that get neglected despite having important lessons to teach. I find this to be a pretty gut punching emotional set of songs with my personal favorite being 1+1=13, a track about the desperate search for rationality and order in the world.

"I know you trying to find a little bit of math in your misfortune
Miss him with the supernatural, There has to be some order
There has to be something more than hoarding rabbits feet and wishbones
Horseshoes over door-frames, Feng Shui, fishbowl"

[Originally posted on Instagram on July 21, 2019]
When I left my last full time job back in September - by cashing out my retirement savings and working at my part time art studio job (that I love) and almost going pretty damn broke - I was desperately in search of some guidance. (still am). I stumbled upon a book that led me down many rabbit holes - some with answers, a lot with brand new questions. Eventually, in one of those rabbit holes, I found this book. I genuinely feel like it has changed the way my brain sees and evaluates things. Fascinating, unifying thoughts on people, animals, nature, art, love, and every other wonderful thing in this world.

[Originally posted on Instagram on July 21, 2019]

I'm kind of surprised how much I like this album. I liked Flatbush Zombies well enough and love Joey Bada$$' solo stuff (2017s All Amerikkkan Badass being the forward thinking, socially aware rap album Kendrick Lamar' s DAMN. was expected to be (by me, at least)). This album has... 9? rappers all with super distinct voices and styles with production that is equally as all over the place. It's super heavy at times, super smooth and catchy at times, and just generally super fun.

[Originally posted on Instagram on July 21, 2019]
The 30 year track record of the indie rock band The Mountain Goats is pretty impressive and I have quite liked the newer albums they've done. This year's IN LEAGUE WITH DRAGONS is certainly a pleasant listen. In keeping with a ton of their past albums, it's a theme concept album "inspired by tabletop role playing games" - although there is quite a chunk of this album where that doesn't quite come through very clearly. "Done Bleeding", "Cadaver Sniffing Dog", and "An Antidote for Strychnine" are my favorites.

BY THE WAY I'VE GOT TICKETS TO SEE THEM IN SEPTEMBER

I'VE ALSO GOT TICKETS FOR KATE TEMPEST IN SEPTEMBER. AND ABOUT THREE OTHER SHOWS I'M WAITING FOR TICKETS TO GO ON SALE FOR.

[Originally posted on Instagram on June 15, 2019]
Grieves, Seattle based rapper, had been dropping singles sporadically over the last couple years since his last official full length and he has now put them together on an EP. Obviously it's a bit all over the place, lacking the cohesion and connected-ness I usually feel with his proper albums. It's a damn good collection of songs though and, shit, Grieves' music has changed so much over the 12ish years he has been doing it but he still has such a strong personality and attitude in his songs.

[Originally posted on Instagram on June 15, 2019]

While I am currently not familiar with Kate Tempest's handful of award winning poetry books or her novel (Though at some point in the future this will change) I have adored her music for years. Always credited as a "spoken word/rap artist" her first couple albums are pretty clearly rap albums. The first, Everybody Down, was a story of two people with different lives that meet and try to form and hold together a relationship. Her next, Let Them Eat Chaos, was a series of character sketches with each song focusing on a different person in a group of strangers that all live on the same block, with the album building up to a shared experience between them all.

THE BOOK OF TRAPS AND LESSONS is mesmerizing. It's not a rap album, it's a spoken word album, with each song flowing into the next seamlessly, almost secretively. The music she talks over, also, is often understated and ever changing (Sometimes softly disappearing all together and Kate speaks to you, and only you, for a few minutes with nothing at all but her voice). "I Trap You" has an almost old timey feel to it, "Brown Eyed Man" is tense and somber, "Firesmoke" is groovy and laid back, and "Holy Elixir" is pulsing and exciting and almost futuristic.

Lyrically, it's an interesting evolution of her past musical work. Still she writes small stories about everyday people, highlighting the troubles and triumphs that are there but others would overlook. But mixed with those in, once more, a very secretive way are essays on the immense bleakness of modern life, politics, friendships, relationships, etc. And, like she has been doing for years now, she explores these topics and feelings in a way unlike anyone else could ever.

"Hold Your Own", "Keep Moving Don't Move", "Lessons" and "People's Faces" are gut punchers.

[Originally posted on Instagram on April 20, 2019]
Honestly, I enjoyed the singles leading up to this new sadistik album but I was unsure of the image they depicted of what the full album might be.

His last full length, 2016s ALTARS, seemed like a heavy contemplation on the importance of valuing yourself (perhaps even if you can't love yourself) and looking around you at the things in the world at large and in your own personal world and destroying what doesn't respect you and replacing it with something that does. At the time, I felt like it was a great culmination of what he had been doing musically all along, something he had clearly built towards.

HAUNTED GARDENS is the exact opposite in a lot of ways. It is low key, bare, and stripped down. No song reaches four minutes, most are under three, with a handful two minutes or less. It is direct. No features, just sadistik. The music often has this ethereal quality, like it's coming from an old wind up music box or some thing.

KOI hurts me to listen to. It's amazing. The two singles, SAINTS and EDEN, are even better in the context of the record. DAISIES, GALLOWS HILL, COALS... shit, man.