Mark Kolezek & Jimmy LaValle - Perils From the Sea

Somehow the Wonder of Life Prevails - Mark Kolezek & Jimmy LaValle

Long song. Listen if you get a chance.

Really highlights both Kolezek's strengths and weaknesses. Opens very strong, and you should at least listen up until the first chorus.

Soft spoken folkster Mark Kolezek has returned once again to serve up interesting stories and soulful musical memoirs, but this time he's teamed up with Jimmy LaValle (of a band called The Album Leaf) to create an album with a twist - Folk-Electronica. While bizarre it might sound, it works. I know, I'm confused too.

I'm always a little half and half with Mark Kolezek. On one hand he's brilliant at telling stories and always has been - Gustavo, What Happened to My Brother, Somehow the Wonder of Life Prevails are three shining examples from the record. He's got a habit of making these strange stories from his life seem human, beautiful, highlighting the damage that the subject of his songs has suffered and the way it moved him.

Problem is though, his lyrics are simple, his rhyming ability is weak in places, and the songs he spends talking about his travel damage the record by creating uninspiring tales of how he's been to all over the world and can't create a human emotion from the trip, the absolute polar opposite of the songs he spends talking about people he knows. I swear to god, if I have to hear him sing about Copenhagen one more time, I'm going to go Dutch on his ass. Whatever that means.

Now the interesting and somewhat ground-breaking aspect of the album comes from the usage of electronic music to back Kolezek instead of his usual guitar, which is a folk standard. This hasn't really been done to the length of a whole album before but it works. It's simple, but beautiful.

I can't help but think, however, that it could have been done better. They've definitely broken ground with the combination but the music might be a little too simple and Kolezek's writing trailed off in places. Watch this album though. I guarantee this is going to set a little guy somewhere up to big things. Get on it.

Run the Jewels

Came across this album the other day whilst looking for new music and only once I’d hit the website was it that I realised that Killer Mike, responsible for making R.A.P. Music last year (pretty sure I reviewed it? Was AWESOME) had teamed up with producer EL-P in order to make a new, free to download boom rap record. I was in rap heaven. Completely stoked. On top of this the album was fantastic, which is why I’m reviewing it. Free amazing rap record? People NEED to know.

Now there’s multiple reasons this album works. I like to think of Killer Mike as Kanye for people who don’t listen to Kanye. Killer Mike is about delivering heavy raps with a strong sound behind him. He's got a way of handling lyrics which has a certain cleverness that GZA knew how to exploit, and that's  the how and when of it - he knows the exact thing to say at the exact time, in the exact way. It makes him sound louder than he really is.

EL-P's contribution - the music - is full on. Big beats. Really big beats. My bass speaker was pumping out elephant footsteps and my housemates were loving it. The rest of the music was really different from what I expected from any sort of rap record. It was more, I dunno, trance? Very electro, focused on good synths and not so much what you’d expect from your typical rap album which usually relies on instruments and samples. This almost seems like the antithesis of the surge of club-hop that artists like Dizzy Rascal (and unfortunately, Roots Manuva too. Way to sell out.) have been putting out lately. As in Run The Jewels isn’t terrible and a fucking insult to music. Quite the opposite.

Anyway, here’s a link to it. You're 20 something and poor. Just do it.

http://foolsgoldrecs.com/runthejewels/