Aphera Music

It started out as a nice day today so I was going to bike to the record store downtown that I like so that I could buy Plastic Beach but it started raining. So much for that… I’ve already heard the album about 40 times and I have a very good idea in my head of what I think about the music anyway. Unfortunately most of what I think is really hard to translate into words. Call me a bad writer, but I prefer the label of a good listener. This album is so hard to write about because it’s so vastly different from most of the music that has preceded it. In fact, even the reputation of the Gorillaz seems to precede this album. Upon reading several reviews where the writer was hung up on the fact that a cartoon band was behind the music, I seem to think Damon Albarn, the man behind the Gorillaz, might have lost some people on this one… but I don’t know where I was going with that idea (okay, maybe “bad writer” is the best way to describe me).

My hands are empty because I failed to actually buy this album today. Thursday though, I'll do it then! (Does he have weird thumbs?)

Well enough of that let’s talk about the music: this album has one of the strongest openings to an album I’ve ever heard. It rivals the opening to Radiohead’s Kid A in its sublimity and UNKLE’s Psyence Fiction in its self-absorbed and “rapped on top of” nature. Psyence Fiction was a trip hop album with which this album has many similarities. First of all, they share a collaborative lineup that is comparable in its talent, breadth, and magnitude. Also, they were created by one man with a vision. Sorry for digressing again—back to the intro: emerging from an impressionistic orchestral opening that foreshadows the grandeur of the rest of the album is a slow walking pace simple beat. It grows in complexity, finally dismissing the traditional four bar phrases to which we are extremely accustomed as to throw us off and effectively push us over the edge and into a full blown rap track. In total, the second track is a contrast of stoicism and hip hop sumptuousness. Snoop’s voice is powerful but not in the usual way you’d expect a rapper’s voice to be powerful; Snoop has a power that lies in his irony: we hear Snoop inviting us, “Welcome to the world of the plastic beach,” in his normal tone of indifference which is in stark contrast to the epic buildup of the preceding orchestral intro.

What follows, “White Flag”, seems at first to be quite the novelty. It’s a clever and artful interplay of, not only two very skilled rappers, but of their rapping and the orchestra. Though foreign in many ways, this song proves to exemplify the crazy changes Damon has made in his style and modus operandi. If you would, let me explain the something about the quantum leap that occurred in Damon’s songwriting and production: there’s a difference between those who try to mimick and use a particular type of sound as a vehicle for the song and those who embody that sound in an inseparable unit that makes a perfect song. It’s the difference between Beck’s disco parody, Midnite Vulture, and Hercules and Love Affair’s self titled new wave disco album. All throughout Damon’s career, he had been striving to get that certain sound; overblown examples include the attempt at a soul sound in the closing medley of Demon Days, “Don’t Get Lost In Heaven”/“Demon Days” and to draw from his history with Blur, most of Blur’s early albums were attempts to embody the much earlier styles of the British Invasion. Most of the time Damon hardly got the exact sound he wanted and despite the fact that this is usually evident, the result is still something extremely enjoyable as being original in its own right. However, Damon must had done some real soul searching in the process of making Plastic Beach because this album is neither hit n’ miss nor is it the product of some accidental genius; it is not a pastiche. This is real greatness.

The newest Gorillaz track, “Stylo,” leaked on Tuesday (listen to it here). It reeks of 80’s pop overtones and features the soulful singing Bobby Womack and the lyrical genius of Mos Def. This leak came just 32 days before the release of the Gorillaz new album, Plastic Beach, which comes out March 9. The album as a whole looks like it’s gonna be super killah. Everything from the lineup of musical guests to the album’s 60’s visual aesthetic is making me countdown the days till its release (as Damon Albarn is letting you do here).

What a kickass cover

In other news, the recent devastation in Haiti has gotten loads of musicians and artists trying their hardest to do something good. One of these bands is Radiohead, who in the midst of recording their new album (YAYAYAY), are going to play a show in LA. They are auctioning off their tickets starting tonight (Thursday Jan. 21) and ending Saturday with all proceeds going to relief efforts. The actual show is on Sunday. Having tried to get Radiohead tickets before for past shows, I can imagine that prices are going to be INCREDIBLE but at least this time it’s for a good cause.  Anyway, the following for our blog in LA isn’t huge so it’s unlikely that most of you reading this will actually consider going to the show.

Regardless, we should all do what we can to help, and we should all be very, very excited for Plastic Beach.