After two singles on Hyperdub, and a release on Soul Jazz, King Midas Sound's ‘Waiting For You’ is the debut album from Roger Robinson and Kevin Martin's new group.
In previous collaborations, Roger performed as a highly respected poet, but when he opened his mouth to sing in a fragile falsetto, everything changed and King Midas Sound was born. The signature intenÂsity of their previous solo projects remains, but the mood and feeling is radically different. As opposed to Roger's spoken word pronouncements and The Bug's fierce battleground dancehall, King Midas Sound is more like an opiated aftermath.
‘Waiting For You’ is all about intimacy. Roger’s falsetto is fragile and vulnerable, a sound somewhere between Gregory Issacs and Vincent Gallo, nestled inside an intimate blanket of bass and vertiginous atmosphere. On three of the album cuts, the duo becomes a trio, as the bittersweet backing vocals of Hitomi (from Dokkebi Q) add a further disorientating swirl around the mix like memories gatecrashing the present.
Two years after Hyperdub released Burial's 'Untrue' it is still rare to find albums packed with such inÂtense and honestly exposed feelings. King Midas Sound often deals with a similar strain of musical melancholia, but instead of hyperemotional haunted garage, ‘Waiting…’ is absolutely song based, and generates the spectral bliss of a jilted lovers rock, a sublime, heartbreak reggae. We learn quite quickly that the opening fresh breeze of sound system nursery rhyme 'Cool Out' was actually the back draft of an emotional apocalypse. As we move from the yearning title track, to the ital ecology of 'Earth a Kill Ya', to the elevation of the lunar 'Outer Space' and 'Miles and Miles,' the emotional geography opens out into full, dread soul glory, a wasteland populated by songs of psychic meltdown, the sweet toxicity of love, echoed lullabies to the departed and an acidic undertone of resentment -("I wish you luck with a capital F, boy").
Tracklisting : ‘Cool Out’, ‘Waiting For You’, ‘One Thing’, ‘Earth a Kill Ya’, ‘Dahlin’, ‘Meltdown’, ‘I Man’, ‘Blue’, ‘Goodbye Girl’, ‘Lost’, Sometimes’, ‘Outer Space’, ‘Miles & Miles’.
Available here on 12" vinyl
From the HVW8 website:
“Tri-coastal trio of Stoney Rock (a.k.a. Black Spade) Ced No and Proh Mic write bloodshot tracks in the same spirit at the Mizell Brothers and David Axelrod, (mostly) shunning vocals in favor of 700 ton funk grooves that are all laid-back Cadillac cruising. â€
The Hawthorne Headhunters is a project made up of the individuals Stoney Rock (aka Black Spade), Ced No and Proh Mic and was conceived in 2007 at Ced’s recording studio in that special place between Long Beach and Los Angeles - Hawthorne, California.
Black Spade’s music is a melting pot of sounds hailing from St. Louis by way of New York, Detroit, L.A., and everywhere that hip-hop has carved a distinctive and influential sound for itself. Along with his longtime friend Ced from St. Louis and Seattle transplant Proh Mic, the trio locked it down under the shine of Hollywood Park and created songs in the great traditions of musical heavyweight projects such as Funkadelic, Soulquarians, Native Tongues Posse and Bloomfield, Kooper, and Stills’ Super Session.
The Hawthorne Headhunters are at the crossroads of funk, soul, jazz and hip-hop from players already years deep in the game. The music spans these genres seamlessly blurring the lines between the Southern-influenced tastes of singer/rapper/producer Black Spade and keyboard and studio controller Ced No with the next level northern bounce of rapper/producer Proh Mic.
Features guests such as soul singer/songwriter Coultrain and L.A. based Jimi James. Executive produced by Tyler Gibney.
Tracklisting:
Comments
0 Comments