Anatomizing Trump, New Sandman, Rediscovering Au Revoir Simone and More
Our Spilt Milk returns with My Spilt Milk's contributors sharing the things they're into this week. What do you want to share?
My Spilt Milk has a number of new contributors, and there's no better way to get to know them than by what they're listening to, reading, watching and playing. In "Our Spilt Milk," we'll share our passions from the last week, and we invite you to share yours. Tell us what you're excited by in the Comments stream, or email your thoughts to alex@myspiltmilk.com and we'll include your entry next week.
Hailing from Queens, New York, rapper Homeboy Sandman ("Sand" for short) makes a point of staying true to his roots. He's carved out a niche in the underground hip-hop community with his smooth baritone vocals that can shift from slow, spaced-out bars to bursts of explosive lyricism on a moment's notice. Last Friday, he released Kindness for Weakness, his sixth full-length album and his third with Stones Throw Records, an indie label whose roster boasts artists including legendary producer Madlib, funk/R&B singer Mayor Hawthorne, and the late, great J Dilla. The album finds Sand true to form, christening a series of jazzy beats with his quirky, disjointed flow.
It's easy (and probably fair) to lump Homeboy Sandman in with backpackers, but unlike many of these rappers who refuse to acclimate to hip-hop's mainstream trends, Sand keeps it interesting. Rhythmically, he's got a million different flows and a knack for finding beats that accent them perfectly. Lyrically, he continues to stretch the limits of language in ways that can be impressive (he rhymes "pack it in" with "saccharine" on the track "Real New York") or just funny (on "Talking (Bleep)" he rhymes "gumption" with "dumbshit"). Whether you're a fan of old school hip-hop or not, you've got to respect an artist trying to find life in it. (Raphael Helfand)
I first came across this New York-based producer Wingtip on Soundcloud in the form of a remix of Chance the Rapper’s “Brain Cells.” Since then, Wingtip has consistently put out tracks that are fresh with the same happy vibe. From the simple and abstract graphics, to the sweet, endearing lyrics, Wingtip is joyful. It's the kind of EDM music that you don't hear often.
To be fair, he only has a few tracks posted, maybe six or seven, but so far it’s a matter of quality over quantity. Most songs have an obscure quote pasted on the song title page—think a passage from Waiting for Godot or a line from a Frank O’Hera poem—each ending with the artist’s de facto mantra: put your dancing shoes on. Finding these little lines caused me to dig deeper, and think about the effort that went into the production. Whether or not the hints mean something significant isn't as important to me as the time that went into making that moment special. (Piper Serra)
Slate.com’s Jacob Weisberg hosts a podcast that can’t stop picking the national scab that is Donald Trump on Trumpcast. Each episode of the weekly-or-so podcast tries to find another way into the “national emergency”—Weisberg’s words—continues to defy explanation. Plenty of other candidates have tried to harness voter anger with less success, and no other candidate has been able to wing it so transparently without hemorrhaging support. He has survived and even benefitted from gaffes that would have sunk almost any other candidacy and continues to do so (See Samantha Bee take down of Trump’s taco bowl tweet), and Weisberg wants to know how he does it.
He has interviewed people who have been sued by Trump, asked others if supporting Trump was a sign of mental illness, and in one episode let another Slate staffer talk to her mom who plans to vote for Trump. Weisberg can be a little heavy-handed, but most of his interview subjects work to be fair, as in the debut episode when Slate political correspondent Jamelle Bouie carefully sorted out the difference between Trump’s appeal to racists, Trump’s racism, and Trump’s consciousness of his racism. In episodes on the white working class, Trump’s business practices, and his notion of negotiation, Trumpcast shines some genuinely valuable light on a political sideshow that would be crazily comic if Trump wasn’t one election from flying the country into the side of a mountain. (Alex Rawls)
In the midst of the upheaval rocking the music world in the aftermath of surprise releases by Beyoncé and Radiohead, I have been listening to an album almost a decade old in an attempt to satiate my unabated hunger for dream pop. In 2007, when Au Revoir Simone released their second album The Bird of Music, I was 13 and listening to pop-punk to release my angst. Now that I’ve settled in to the uncertainty of early adulthood, I listen to dream pop to momentarily trick myself out of depression.
The songs on the first half of the album are pretty but lack the euphoria that I look for. They feel like wallowing, and are perfect for a listener who, as the lyric in “Sad Song” goes, wants someone to make them cry. The first five songs lead to “Don’t See The Sorrow,” a song that serves as a turning point for the album, transitioning toward the more hopeful, energetic feeling in “Dark Halls,” “Night Majestic,” and “Stars.” It begins: “Don’t see the sorrow, don’t let it creep up through your skin.”
This is why I listen to dream-pop—to stave off sadness, to prevent depression from creeping over me, and drowning me in a pool of sorrow. The title of the album itself, The Bird of Music, hints at this soaring feeling. As Emily Dickinson’s poem goes, “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers.” (Nicole Cohen)
Music, controversy, news, video vixens, comedy skits, viral videos all have a home at WorldStarHipHop. Worldstar updates its content all day, everyday as new music, information, and racy videos surface. The blog's content began as the latest hip-hop and R&B music and mixtapes, but has transformed into one of the most popular and controversial aggregators of shared media in 2016. Worldstar offers a wide range of content from Kanye West tormenting the press and even his own staff, to pranks, and political debates and speeches. It’s also heavy on amateur video of disturbing, even shocking acts caught on tape, and they’ve become such a part of the site’s identity that a new trend has started. People filming or witnessing a hilarious or shocking moment may now shout out "WORLDSTARRR!!" while the camera is rolling in hopes that their own video will be featured on the website's video feed. (Ryan Knight)
