Best Album Rome Cee’s The Extra Mile Maybe hip-hop needs more students. We’ve had plenty more teachers than just “the teacher” KRS-One, of course—MCs ready to tell you how to live in the world, how it is, what’s wrong with it, how to fix it. And we’ve
Best Band Future Islands
Best Live Band Needle Gun
had even more MCs that just don’t give much
There are great bands and game-changing
We remember Needle Gun from years ago,
time and check out this Patron in my glass.
bands and bands that the internet really loves
banging on shit and generally creating pure
Less so MCs that come at the world, and at
and maybe Future Islands fits into all of those
sonic hell, when suddenly noise music seemed
lyricism, from the perspective of growth,
somehow or other. But something else has
like about the most perfect teenage catharsis
change, and maturity. And humility. Rome
struck us over the past couple of years: its
ever. Figures, the guys were but teens then, a
Cee came up in much the same rap world
ability to convert people, to slowly pry open
crew of way-young kids that had fallen into
as the dudes still stuck in street-corner rap
a listener’s chest until it’s just blood and guts
a storied underground culture dominated by
battles, probably got into some of the same
and heart all sloshing around in there, totally
bands like Nautical Almanac. Figures, the
kinds of shit—but here we are a decade or so
exposed. Maybe it happens when you realize
guys were but teens then, a crew of way-
later, listening to the deftly delivered poetry of
that singer Sam Herring, nearly theatrical in
young kids that had fallen into a storied
a man grown and humbled by the world. The
his gut-deep delivery, is totally for real and
underground culture dominated by bands like
record, released on Under Sound Music, isn’t
earnest, and that you’re totally bored of indie
Nautical Almanac. They’re all growed-up now,
very flashy, but it dishes a whole lot of guests
singers acting bored on stage. Or that “synth
relatively speaking, developing into the kind
and a different producer for nearly every
wave” doesn’t begin to describe the palette of
of demented yet razor-sharp freakazoid noise-
track—and one J Dilla freestyle—filling in
programmer/keyboard player Gerrit Welmers.
rock powerhouse—with still a plenty keen ear
Rome Cee’s vision piece by discrete piece. It’s
It’s enough to make you feel silly for having to
for nonsense—that’s quite well outfitted to
not backpack, it’s not “indie,” nor is it street
have been converted in the first place. And we
level a house show near you.
rap or holier-than-though rap preaching.
of a fuck, all swagger, all number one all the
suspect forthcoming new album On the Water and the shows that will take place in its wake will create an army of new converts.
Best New Band White Life No matter what tangential musical concept project local musician and songwriter Jonathan Ehrens decides to pursue—speed pop Art Department, lo-fi Repelican— the result is always delightfully original and overwhelmingly catchy. The newest incarnation of the Ehrens-fronted band, White Life, a five-member ensemble that released its debut self-titled album with Ehse Records earlier this year, is easily the most infectiously appealing, with synthy, ’80s-inspired dance jams, saxophone solos, and the added vocal stylings of Jonathan’s sister, Emily Ehrens. Heartfelt lyrics and elegantly structured tunes make for an album’s worth of instant hits, and the siblings’ natural stage presence turns their live performances into instant dance parties. In particular, “Time Is Wasting” and “I Want Love” scratch a nostalgic itch, feeling at first
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LEFT: FUTURE ISLANDS, RIGHT: WYE OAK