Salon's Wed A.M. Downloads • 8/11/04

[DudeAsInCool]

In Thomas Bartlett's column 'Never meta girl like you before', he offers up several exclusive free downloads at Salon.com - Madvillain's "Madvillainy" and M83's "Dead Cities, Red Seas and Lost Ghosts and Bjork." Here are some exerpts from his review.

"Metacritic compiles reviews for films, books and recordings from an impressive array of publications, grading each review's positivity on a scale from 1 to 100, and then averaging all the results to come up with a film, book, or recording's "metascore." "Madvillainy" and "Dead Seas" are 2nd and 4th respectively on the list of the best-reviewed recordings of 2004. So soak up the critically acclaimed music, people."

"Accordion," Madvillain, from "Madvillainy"

Madvillain is a collaboration between Madlib (producer) and MF Doom (MC), two of the most distinctive artists in today's underground hip-hop scene. Despite critical raves, "Madvillainy" hasn't quite generated the level of buzz that would translate into many sales outside of the core audience of underground hip-hop enthusiasts, which is unfortunate, because this is a record that could appeal to a much broader audience and even open a door (a small, oddly-shaped back door) into hip-hop for many who have never found a way in before. .... A single track gives only the sketchiest idea of that effect, so I hope you'll consider buying the whole thing to experience it in full. Go straight to the source, Stones Throw Records.

Run Into Flowers," M83, from "Dead Cities, Red Seas and Lost Ghosts"

On their debut record, M83 (the French duo of Nicolas Fromageau and Anthony Gonzalez) set about exploring the rhapsodic, romantic possibilities of tacky synthesizers, trying to create epic soundscapes out of a palette of cheap, patently unromantic sounds. It's extraordinary the extent to which they succeed.

"The Love Song, K-Os, from "Joyous Rebellion" ...Apparently he's a Canadian-born rapper/singer/producer who is preparing to release his second Astralwerks record, "Joyous Rebellion." ... It's a beautifully produced track, atmospheric and unusually well-blended, but also sparklingly clear and vibrant."

"Verandi," Bjork, b-side from "Hidden Places" singleHere's a little something for those of us eagerly (impatiently, rabidly) awaiting Bjork's upcoming "Medula." ...Jolly Mukherjee, a Bollywood composer and singer, co-wrote the song with Bjork. Mukherjee provides filmic sweep and melodrama, and, of course, a hint of exoticism -- Thanks to the excellent, unusually eclectic (and all legal) MP3 blog Fat Planet for pointing me to this track.

"Helped Us Sleep," West Dakota, from "West Dakota"

....they are on the very small and very excellent San Diego-based Swim Slowly Records, which makes them label-mates of The Robot Ate Me, a band featured in this column a few months ago. At first blush, this is a pretty typical low-fi indie bedroom tape, but then, stealthily, the oddities begin to build up: an unexpectedly brash banjo sound, the cryptic lyrics (just 15 words: "And you helped us sleep/ It was a friendly game/ But you hid the pieces"), and the extraordinary way they use silence and space in the middle of this song -- not in a restrained, tasteful kind of way, but in a purposefully awkward, disorienting, playing-with-your-head kind of way.

****

You can read the full review and get your downloads here:

http://www.salon.com/ent/music/review/wmd/.../wmd/index.html