#mac j

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume 9, Number 11, Part 1

Niecey Blues

Where did the year go?  Seems like only a week or two ago, we were scraping together a list of albums we had somehow missed out on in 2022.  Now we’re about to do it again, I suppose, and the number of misses seems to grow larger every year.  Still, we’re still shoveling away at what 2023 has brought so far—nouveau shoegaze and Vangelis synths, Michigan rap and free-improvised vibraphone.  Check out this month’s Dust, the next to last for 2023, for music you might have overlooked.  Contributors include Jennifer Kelly, Bryon Hayes, Ian Mathers, Bill Meyer, Andrew Forell, Ray Garraty, Justin Cober-Lake, Alex Johnson, Jim Marks, Christian Carey, Patrick Masterson and Tim Clarke. 

Like last month, we'll be doing this in two parts, here's the second one.

Bedroom Eyes — Turned Away (Ala Carte)

Bedroom Eyes, from Boston, balance the churn and drift of shoegaze. This fourth LP (the last was in 2019) floats cool, slow-moving melodies over rackety barrages of feedbacked guitars and drums. Whether cuts like “Around” are still or in furious motion is an open question. It depends on where you focus. The title track manifests itself out of the slow buzz of feedback, bits of singing, guitar and percussion taking form out of a vibrating soup. It sounds, to me, like Simply Saucer or maybe the Telescopes, submerged by fuzz, suggested rather than stated. “Brood” runs harder, the guitar notes bending with volume like MBV’s did, but the singing remains untouched and serene. If it’s calm on the surface, that’s because Bedroom Eyes is paddling furiously underneath.

Jennifer Kelly

Cherry Cheeks — CCLPII (Total Punk)

Cherry Cheeks, from Portland, Oregon, crank a wired, anxiety-ridden garage punk, the short, sharp shock of guitar stabs running through nattering bass lines and the tremulous whinge of keyboard sounds. This second LP captures their rattled energy with more force and clarity than the debut. You can hear the negative space between bursts of aggression. And yet, the sound is much the same, an aura of dread punched up until it seems to dance. “Switch” is maybe the best cut here. It cuts and jabs in antic motion, organ dopplering off from a sing-along chorus. “Explode” is nearly as pop-slanted, hopping up and down on speed, but catchy. Cuts like “Data” and “Ad Shark” make fewer concessions to anthemic-ness, but prickle and clamor with antsy sarcasm. The future is bleak, but maybe kind of fun?

Jennifer Kelly

Buck Curran — The Long Distance (Obsolete Recordings)

Buck Curran is so interconnected with the guitar, it’s easy to forget that he plays other instruments. The Long Distance shows off his skill as a synthesist. Sweeping, Vangelis-like melodies are the focus of these poignant hymns, which rest upon a foundation of sizzling analog modulation. Emotions run deep on these recordings. Leveraging reminiscence as his muse, Curran called to mind familial and foundational memories, channeling them into these moving passages. Particularly effective is “Morning Song with Lucia,” on which he adds a lovely guitar melody inspired by his daughter. The pieces are relatively short, but Curran beefs up the length of the album by offering alternate versions of some tracks. Each take offers a unique emotional angle, and the subtleties evoke an echo-like effect. The Long Distance is a surprisingly pleasant shift in oeuvre from this talented instrumentalist.  

Bryon Hayes

Great Lake Swimmers — Uncertain Country (Pheromone Recordings)

It is a very white Canadian thing to wonder whether our regional equivalent of Americana should be called Canadiana or just folk (or maybe folk rock? indie folk?). Regardless of our typical dithering over local identity, Tony Dekker’s Great Lake Swimmers have been a mainstay and exemplar of the form for 20 years now. They’d be forgiven for resting on their laurels (or around here… pinecones?) but the restless, quietly gorgeous Uncertain Country doesn’t take anything for granted. Whether adding choral vocals on the graceful “Moonlight, Stay Above” or whipping up a surprisingly dense churn on the title track, the band’s eighth album is a showcase of what they do well. The effect is perhaps most powerful on songs like “Riverine” and “Swimming Like Flying” that feel equally at home in the concert hall or sung en masse around a campfire.

Ian Mathers

The Invisible Hands—The Big Minute (Abduction)

The Big Minute, the third official release by the Invisible Hands, comes a full eight years after its predecessor. Yeah, that is one big minute. Blame it on COVID, a revolving drummer’s chair, and the fact that Alan Bishop, the one American in this Cairo-based band, has a lot of other irons in the fire. The LP’s crisp, slightly trippy sound, and wide-open but particular repertoire establishes the Invisible Hands as the biggest fish in a very small pond; can you name any other Egyptian psychedelic garage bands from with a thing for 50-year-old soundtracks? I thought not. While Bishop’s aesthetic clearly points the way, this is a band. For every one of his signature moves, there’s also a moment when it’s Cherif El Masri’s encyclopedic guitar licks, Ayawasqa’s scrappy Arabic singing, and Adham Zidan’s arrangements and production that sells the song. If you have read this far, yeah, you should give it a minute. 

Bill Meyer

The Inward Circles — Before We Lie Down in Darkness (Corbel Stone Press)

Scottish composer Richard Skelton’s previous work as The Inward Circles involves subjecting clean recordings of strings to all nature of electronic and physical destruction to portray decay and environmental collapse. On his first album in six years, Skelton manipulates a six-second fragment of Baroque recorder music taken from the run-out groove of a battered 50-year-old vinyl recording. From this already degraded source he builds haunted soundscapes that to tap into something primordial and timeless. To call them drones does a disservice to the depth of nuance and detail in Skelton’s music. He captures something elemental within layers of sound built like geological strata trapping a record of growth and death, of destruction and recovery. Before We Lie Down in Darkness is a powerfully evocative elegy to the earth and warning to its inhabitants.

Andrew Forell

Lando Bando — Family Business (The Hip Hop Lab Records)

The Hip Hop Lab’s CEO Lando Bando brought together Michigan rappers close to his studio for this tape. Family Business showcases the state of things in Michigan. That state is not great, by the way, but it’s not bad either. Quite a lot of clumsy rapping on here, and a few cuts should have been left out. Still, it shows that all three ShittyBoyz members are in excellent shape, and Lando deserves our highest appreciation for scoring not one but two Rio da Yung Og’s verses. The highlight here is “Dirty Pop,” an unexpected collaboration between Rio and StanWill on a Danny G beat.

Ray Garraty

Lau Nau – Aphrilis (Beacon Sound/Fonal)

Finnish composer Lau Nau (also known as Laura Naukkarinen) tends to make slow-moving music, but, this year at least, she makes it fast. Aphrilis marks her second release of the year, following spring's 5 x 4. She spent years developing that release, focusing on equipment (Buchla 200 modular synthesizer) and time-signature (5/4). With Aphrilis, she returns to a meditation on time and place (something her past field recordings have captured so well) through mostly acoustic instrumentation. The album opens with “April,” as both instruments and vocals suggest the opportunities of that month's bright beginnings. The mood continues into “Kielet on viritetty tuuleen,” with Hermanni Yli-Tepsa's violin providing the linear guide through the accessible yet intricate composition. The album builds off these initial expressions, settling into a sense of home that remains expansive, the unusual instrumentation — including celesta and jouhikko among other unnamed “various instruments” — maintaining a very specific sound. Múm's Samuli Kosminen produces, and the fit makes sense even as Lau Nau captures a melodic ambience in a specific setting, adding flow while mixing synthetic and acoustic sounds. The album closes with “Seitsemäs taivas,” which might mean “seventh heaven” but sounds more like the start of autumn, tracing an emotional arc throughout Aphrilis. The belief in hope lingers, the brightness reshaped into an iterative composition that finally yields to something colder but never foreboding.

Justin Cober-Lake

MJ Lenderman — And the Wind (Live and Loose!) (Anti- )

Not exactly starched and buttoned-up to begin with, Jake “MJ” Lenderman and Co. come out even more ragged and rangy on the new live album And The Wind (Live and Loose!). The 15 tracks, recorded at gigs in Chicago and Los Angeles, are drawn almost exclusively from last year’s Boat Songs and 2021’s Ghost of Your Guitar Solo, and aren’t so much reimagined in front of their audiences as revved up and deepened. A few telling moments: Lenderman’s voice finds a lower pit of wistfulness in the sighing line “I know why we get so fucked up/I do” from “TLC Cagematch”; “Knockin” – in its third recorded iteration – gets an extra few roaring seconds and snarling decibels added to its big, heart-on-sleeve conclusion; the heavy drum fills and pugilistic blasts of guitar that end “SUV” veer closer to chaos. The band’s showcase, though, comes near the end on an extended jam of “You Are Every Girl To Me,” where the players, led by the points of light spinning off of Xandy Chelmis’ pedal steel and shredding lead guitarist Jon Samuels, rip out any remaining seams before easing back down for Lenderman to make introductions. And if you haven’t met them yet, And The Wind is a good place to start.

Alex Johnson

Mac J – I  Shoulda Been Dropped This (TrueStoryEnt)

Mac J’s been lazy lately. His recent tapes sound as if he’s only put one third of his talent in his music. I  Shoulda Been Dropped This, sadly, is no exception. He’s desperately trying to make his sound more mainstream and less street. Instead of crazy punchlines, witticisms and gritty reality, we get banalities and half-assed street ballads with Mac J on Auto-Tune almost on every song. It’s a wonder how “Engine Ina Trunk,” his track with another California resident Philthy Rich, even made it to this tape. It’s the old good rapping-his-ass-off Mac J, hungry for rhymes and punching you in the guts with every line. Except for this song, he shouldn’t been dropped this. 

Ray Garraty

[raygarraty]

Mac J and Philthy sound hella good together

[marshleb]

so used to people coming and going im numb to this shit lol

[knifecat111]

most influential moment in cinema history 

[polyquestria]

Granny's got her whole beautiful queer family here to wish y'all a happy pride!

little ramble under the cut

The response to my ally Granny Smith post honestly shocked me a little, but I’m grateful for the attention it got!

A lot of people in the comments are outraged to hear that Granny was accused of being homophobic. But if you were in old, old fandom spaces, the idea that granny (and the apple family in general) were bigotted was quite common in fanart and fanfic cause, y'know, all old southern people are bigots, as we know (major sarcasm by the way).

I adore the apple family and it bugged me (and still does) to no end that people decided to make them into such stereotypes, purely because of their country accents and mannerisms. To me, the apple family is one of the most warm, open minded and accepting families out there. I mean they accepted the pies into their crew without any hard proof that they're biologically related. And Granny Smith herself welcomed Buttercup with open arms the moment her own father rejected her. If that's not ally, standing-at-a-pride-parade-offering-grandma-hugs behaviour, I don't know what is. Thus, ally Granny Smith was born!

I'm so happy she's resonated with so many people here. I'm sure she'd welcome all of you into the apple family if you needed it.

[puppy95]

Albums that are 10 years old in 2024 happy birthday indie girls feeling elderly yet

[twinktor-frankenstein]

Original by sweepswoop_ on twitter

[astroprinc3]

a mini-compilation of kind/optimistic/soft spoken cartoon characters snapping or getting angry

(don’t ask why it says “this content has been removed” i have no idea what happened there)

[rosebug3]

OG Falsettos casts Revival Falsettos in an old playbill article.

Well, one of them guessed right. It probably helped that Michael did two previous shows with Christian, during which Christian fangirled about Falsettos and Marvin. It is really cute that he did think of him.

Leslie did attend opening night and I think this is the first time I’ve heard from Jonathan since the original closed. It’s cool that he came back for this.

[dustedmagazine]

Mac J — True Story (True Story Ent)

When Young Slo-Be was killed in August it was a devastating loss for all hip hop community. It only made sense that Mac J would dedicate his new tape not only to Slo-Be but to Bris as well who was killed two years ago. True Story is a tribute album by the Sacramento MC which was released with a hashtag #LongLiveDaThugs.

True Story is a departure for Mac J. His previous efforts were short and tight. This one lasts more than an hour and consists of 23 tracks. It’s not exactly a baggy monster, but it feels that it was done in haste, like Mac J has just thrown in a few tracks which laid loose on his hard drive. It’s not that Young Slo-Be and Bris don’t deserve a full blown tribute. Trimming the disc by half might provide a moving memorial. True Story is 2021′s 7-song, 20-minute Tricky Situation, Mac J’s best to date, except he’s forgotten to delete all the mediocre tracks.

Mac J’s best weapon has always been puns, but here they’re drowned out. He jokes less and less. You have to dig through whole verses to find good quotes: “I never wear hats so I never turn a cap on”, “I get them bags to your door like I’m bellboy” or “Keep your eyes on that paper, that’s what teacher said.”

It’s not surprising that his mood turns darker. He’s writing about revenge for his fallen comrades. He mourns – and barely holds himself from spraying at the opposition. On every track, he reminds the listeners that he’s ready to avenge his friends. He raps on “Talk 2 Much”: “Make sure to count me in when it’s count time \ I ain’t give a fuck ‘bout yours but about mine.” Even when the production is playful and slappy, the Sacramento rapper has little use for play. He goes straight for threats. Maybe this is the reason why the CD lacks clarity: emotions get in the way of artistry. Half of the tracks are out of focus. Only the hooks hold attention.

As a tribute to the killed partners, True Story is as genuine as it can be. As a piece of art, not so much.

Ray Garraty

[raygarraty]

Mac J on Thizzler Cypher 2023

[squishymar]

sometimes characters don’t deserve empathy they deserve to get punched in the face @ mac and donna applebees

[coreyvuitton]

Lil’ Kim & Mary J. Blige, MAC Viva Glam Advertisement, 2000 

By David LaChapelle. 

HD

[byfulcrums]

Sun Wukong, about Rumble and Savage: Look at them. You did a great job, Mac, I'm (almost) proud of you

Macaque: I didn't fucking give birth to them, what the fuck is wrong with you