NEW ADDS: Tame Impala, Eminem, M￥SS KETA, & more!
Happy March! It's been feeling like Spring--or really, Summer--here in LA for quite a while, but here's hoping the rest of you will get some balmy weather coming your way soon. Here are six new adds, three with full reviews by KXSC staff and DJs, plus a bonus three with quick blurbs. We'll be keeping up these extra reviews in our new adds to come! Enjoy!
- Lucy Talbot Allen, Music Writing Director
Tame Impala - The Slow Rush
This record is one we have all been desperately waiting for since Currents was released in 2015. Tame Impala has always been a band with a diverse fanbase, in that their music appeals to most people’s ears. Listening to their new album, The Slow Rush, alone is incredibly different than listening to it with a group of people. Kevin Parker is a unique artist, well-versed in writing and producing as well as the technological aspects that go into creating music. He never uses samples, but instead creates music to be sampled by other artists. Five years after the release of the collection of psychedelic rock and funky surround sound that was Currents, The Slow Rush was released on February 14, 2020. As he discusses in many interviews, Parker struggles with perfectionism and individuality in his music, which often delays his production time. I have heard very mixed reviews about this record, but the collective response is that that atmosphere sets the tone for how the tracks are received.
It is clear that Parker creates music to be listened to in a setting, not, as some music is made, to be listened to while curled up in bed with a book. Currents is different from The Slow Rush in that it feels more like straightforward rock, whereas this new album brings out all of the psychedelic nature Currents was lacking. This is an album suited to driving down the Pacific Coast Highway at sunset with a car full of friends, or lighting up and chilling in a room full of people with atmospheric lighting. The three albums Tame Impala has released previously are similar, but completely distinct at the same time. In an interview with Apple Music, Parker explains that this new record is an unintentionally Los Angeles focused album, as he was immersed in LA culture while piecing it together. Parker was also producing while living temporarily on the beach, which as a result inspired the atmospheric melodies of individual songs like Track 7, “On Track” or Track 1, “One More Year.” With The Slow Rush, it is not so much what you are listening to, but rather where you’re listening, and who you’re listening with. The record is different from any other I have heard; the music itself is automatic grounds for inspiration.
Track 5, “Breathe Deeper,” track 11, “Glimmer,” track 12 “One more Hour” and Track 4, “Posthumous Forgiveness” are the ones that stood out as being the dead giveaway songs for a destination record. What I mean by this phrase is that the atmosphere determines how you interpret the music, that is, essentially, your destination. The album’s psychedelia lies within the groovy synth and the repetitive nature of each song. The overarching idea behind this album is the concept of time and struggling to keep up with it. Each song, although entirely different, comes together to produce a timepiece, and conveys a different emotion each time you listen to it. In my humble opinion, I think this album definitely lives up to the delayed release, and will be on repeat for the rest of the year to say the least.
- Emma Goad, DJ
RIYL: Cage the Elephant, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Mild High Club
Recommended Tracks: 4, 8, 9, 10, 12
FCC: Clean
Eminem - Music to be Murdered By
If you ask me, Eminem came back with a bang in January of 2020. Especially after the 2018 release of Kamikaze, the Detroit-based rapper offered some redemption that reminded us fans why we love him. It will never match the caliber of works such as The Eminem Show, Encore, and The Marshall Mathers LP, but it reinforces Eminem’s presence as a continuous force to be reckoned with, and it holds a new and unique merit of its own.
We all know a new Slim Shady has emerged as a result of age and sobriety. His voice is recognizable but changed, his content is familiar but modern, yet his talent remains unbreakable.
I’ll be the first to say that the record has a few flops, as Marshall Mathers continues his attempts to break into the current hip-hop scene with his collaborations with mainstream artists. Many of us love the times when our idol retains his distance from traditional pop; it does, however, allow a more general audience to be exposed to and appreciate his art.
But this twenty track release has a little bit of everything: an amazing outline of the coming story through “Premonition,” the classic Eminem controversy of “Unaccommodating,” where he crudely mentions the Manchester Arena bombing, and “Darkness,” which is a first-person recounting of the horrific Las Vegas shooting, near record-breaking spit speed in “Godzilla,” clocking in at an astounding 7.23 words per second in its final verse, and some catchy hooks that Eminem has previously stated he wouldn’t sing unless he wrote them.
Another fascinating feature is its nature as a concept album. The title makes reference to the late Hollywood director Alfred Hitchcock, and Mathers establishes the connection between the arts of film and music throughout. He repeatedly ties in the theme of murder with tales of recents acts of terrorism and vengeful conspiracies to commit heinous, violent crime. This is not atypical of Em, whose aptitude for storytelling from nearly any perspective has garnered great admiration, as well as criticism, throughout the decades of his career. Whether he recites his narrative from the point of view of a father, a son, a murderer, a rapist, a drug addict, or a crazed fan, he is bound to upset some listeners in the process.
I often listen to the record from cover to cover, picking up on new details and hidden meanings each and every time. That’s one of the things I love the most about his music; the freedom to interpret mixed with the unattainable desire to solve his mysteries. I anxiously await another chance to listen to future tracks with fresh ears and piqued curiosity.
- Kelly Driscoll, Station Engineer
RIYL: Dr. Dre, Juice WRLD, Anderson .Paak, Skylar Grey, Royce Da 5’9”
Recommended Tracks: 1, 7, 8, 12, 17
FCC: Explicit (all tracks)
M￥SS KETA - Paprika
If you’re in desperate need of B.B.E., that is, bad b*tch energy—then look no further than the 2019 album Paprika by Italian rapper extraordinaire, M￥SS KETA. According to her spotify bio is:
“...a performer, rapper with a punk attitude, pop icon, and definite diva. A true goddess of the night that hypes up her devotees through her sacrilegious, excessive, and radically hyperrealistic words.”
The irreverant ways of M￥SS KETA, whose stage name would even seem to suggest no-no finger waving energy from the establishment, is the perfect artist to get you in the spirit of Pisces szn and Mercury in Retrograde, which I am especially in favor of as a Pisces (hi :3). This special time in astrology promises self-care and sexy marathons for all the signs, per the astrology experts at Allure Magazine. The hyper-femme hyper-sexual tunes of KETA are sure to get you in the dancing-stuck-in-traffic-bopping-your-head-as-you-walk-down-the-street state of mind.
Even as someone who non parla italiano, the energy of her deep house beats and technicolor visuals (just watch the music video for “LE RAGAZZE DI PORTA VENEZIA” and you’ll understand), are sure to get you in a self-assured party mood. Listening to KETA, you feel the urge to inform others that “yes I am that b*tch.” And while it might be easy to reduce this album and the work of KETA at large as being ‘party music,’ there is actually so much soul and reverence to music in her work. She speaks from the voice of the street, those loiter-ers that people in polite society might wish didn’t exist; she speaks from the voice of an empowered woman; she speaks of wealth and excess but from the perspective of being new to it; and she speaks in honor of the beauty of music. Her track “LE RAGAZZE DI PORTA VENEZIA” uses a sample from Batsumi’s, “Anishilabi.” A South African protest anthem which may seem out of place in such a club-esque hit, but it seems to work seamlessly. The music project M￥SS KETA was created as a way to shine a light on the underground clubbing, queer, and music scenes of Milan. It is the band of misfits who don’t fit into your mold of ‘normal’ that KETA speaks to. And so, if you’re a freak and you know it, I highly encourage you to take a listen to her album, Paprika.
- Violet Ames, DJ
RIYL: Princess Nokia, Charli XCX, Tommy Genesis
Recommended Tracks: 4, 11, 12
FCC: Clean (for English-speaking radio; very explicit in Italian)
Flattery - Other Essences
"Flattery" is the solo project of Anna Fuller, a recent graduate of Kenyon in Ohio where they were GM of their college radio station WKCO! Flattery's debut LP, Other Essences, is 8 tracks of dreamy bedroom pop.
James Supercave - MOWO (Money is the Only Way Out)
James Supercave is a collab between three LA-based musicians. Their latest EP MOWO (Money is the Only Way Out) uses simple yet catchy grooves to create dreamy indie rock.
Bee Appleseed - Starflower's Cosmic Soul
Appleseed's latest album Starflower’s Cosmic Soul combines his experience with homelessness and a chance encounter crashing on the couch of an elder Native American shaman. Starflower’s Cosmic Soul explores this awakening of Spirit and the resulting changes within Bee in the form of uplifting psychedelic rock ballads