#mac j

Bedroom Eyes — Turned Away (Ala Carte)

Bedroom Eyes, from Boston, balance the churn and drift of shoegaze. This fourth LP (the last was in 2019) floats cool, slow-moving melodies over rackety barrages of feedbacked guitars and drums. Whether cuts like “Around” are still or in furious motion is an open question. It depends on where you focus. The title track manifests itself out of the slow buzz of feedback, bits of singing, guitar and percussion taking form out of a vibrating soup. It sounds, to me, like Simply Saucer or maybe the Telescopes, submerged by fuzz, suggested rather than stated. “Brood” runs harder, the guitar notes bending with volume like MBV’s did, but the singing remains untouched and serene. If it’s calm on the surface, that’s because Bedroom Eyes is paddling furiously underneath.

Jennifer Kelly

Cherry Cheeks — CCLPII (Total Punk)

Cherry Cheeks, from Portland, Oregon, crank a wired, anxiety-ridden garage punk, the short, sharp shock of guitar stabs running through nattering bass lines and the tremulous whinge of keyboard sounds. This second LP captures their rattled energy with more force and clarity than the debut. You can hear the negative space between bursts of aggression. And yet, the sound is much the same, an aura of dread punched up until it seems to dance. “Switch” is maybe the best cut here. It cuts and jabs in antic motion, organ dopplering off from a sing-along chorus. “Explode” is nearly as pop-slanted, hopping up and down on speed, but catchy. Cuts like “Data” and “Ad Shark” make fewer concessions to anthemic-ness, but prickle and clamor with antsy sarcasm. The future is bleak, but maybe kind of fun?

Jennifer Kelly

Buck Curran — The Long Distance (Obsolete Recordings)

Buck Curran is so interconnected with the guitar, it’s easy to forget that he plays other instruments. The Long Distance shows off his skill as a synthesist. Sweeping, Vangelis-like melodies are the focus of these poignant hymns, which rest upon a foundation of sizzling analog modulation. Emotions run deep on these recordings. Leveraging reminiscence as his muse, Curran called to mind familial and foundational memories, channeling them into these moving passages. Particularly effective is “Morning Song with Lucia,” on which he adds a lovely guitar melody inspired by his daughter. The pieces are relatively short, but Curran beefs up the length of the album by offering alternate versions of some tracks. Each take offers a unique emotional angle, and the subtleties evoke an echo-like effect. The Long Distance is a surprisingly pleasant shift in oeuvre from this talented instrumentalist.  

Bryon Hayes

Great Lake Swimmers — Uncertain Country (Pheromone Recordings)

It is a very white Canadian thing to wonder whether our regional equivalent of Americana should be called Canadiana or just folk (or maybe folk rock? indie folk?). Regardless of our typical dithering over local identity, Tony Dekker’s Great Lake Swimmers have been a mainstay and exemplar of the form for 20 years now. They’d be forgiven for resting on their laurels (or around here… pinecones?) but the restless, quietly gorgeous Uncertain Country doesn’t take anything for granted. Whether adding choral vocals on the graceful “Moonlight, Stay Above” or whipping up a surprisingly dense churn on the title track, the band’s eighth album is a showcase of what they do well. The effect is perhaps most powerful on songs like “Riverine” and “Swimming Like Flying” that feel equally at home in the concert hall or sung en masse around a campfire.

Ian Mathers

The Invisible Hands—The Big Minute (Abduction)

The Big Minute, the third official release by the Invisible Hands, comes a full eight years after its predecessor. Yeah, that is one big minute. Blame it on COVID, a revolving drummer’s chair, and the fact that Alan Bishop, the one American in this Cairo-based band, has a lot of other irons in the fire. The LP’s crisp, slightly trippy sound, and wide-open but particular repertoire establishes the Invisible Hands as the biggest fish in a very small pond; can you name any other Egyptian psychedelic garage bands from with a thing for 50-year-old soundtracks? I thought not. While Bishop’s aesthetic clearly points the way, this is a band. For every one of his signature moves, there’s also a moment when it’s Cherif El Masri’s encyclopedic guitar licks, Ayawasqa’s scrappy Arabic singing, and Adham Zidan’s arrangements and production that sells the song. If you have read this far, yeah, you should give it a minute. 

Bill Meyer

The Inward Circles — Before We Lie Down in Darkness (Corbel Stone Press)

Scottish composer Richard Skelton’s previous work as The Inward Circles involves subjecting clean recordings of strings to all nature of electronic and physical destruction to portray decay and environmental collapse. On his first album in six years, Skelton manipulates a six-second fragment of Baroque recorder music taken from the run-out groove of a battered 50-year-old vinyl recording. From this already degraded source he builds haunted soundscapes that to tap into something primordial and timeless. To call them drones does a disservice to the depth of nuance and detail in Skelton’s music. He captures something elemental within layers of sound built like geological strata trapping a record of growth and death, of destruction and recovery. Before We Lie Down in Darkness is a powerfully evocative elegy to the earth and warning to its inhabitants.

Andrew Forell

Lando Bando — Family Business (The Hip Hop Lab Records)

The Hip Hop Lab’s CEO Lando Bando brought together Michigan rappers close to his studio for this tape. Family Business showcases the state of things in Michigan. That state is not great, by the way, but it’s not bad either. Quite a lot of clumsy rapping on here, and a few cuts should have been left out. Still, it shows that all three ShittyBoyz members are in excellent shape, and Lando deserves our highest appreciation for scoring not one but two Rio da Yung Og’s verses. The highlight here is “Dirty Pop,” an unexpected collaboration between Rio and StanWill on a Danny G beat.

Ray Garraty

Lau Nau – Aphrilis (Beacon Sound/Fonal)

Finnish composer Lau Nau (also known as Laura Naukkarinen) tends to make slow-moving music, but, this year at least, she makes it fast. Aphrilis marks her second release of the year, following spring's 5 x 4. She spent years developing that release, focusing on equipment (Buchla 200 modular synthesizer) and time-signature (5/4). With Aphrilis, she returns to a meditation on time and place (something her past field recordings have captured so well) through mostly acoustic instrumentation. The album opens with “April,” as both instruments and vocals suggest the opportunities of that month's bright beginnings. The mood continues into “Kielet on viritetty tuuleen,” with Hermanni Yli-Tepsa's violin providing the linear guide through the accessible yet intricate composition. The album builds off these initial expressions, settling into a sense of home that remains expansive, the unusual instrumentation — including celesta and jouhikko among other unnamed “various instruments” — maintaining a very specific sound. Múm's Samuli Kosminen produces, and the fit makes sense even as Lau Nau captures a melodic ambience in a specific setting, adding flow while mixing synthetic and acoustic sounds. The album closes with “Seitsemäs taivas,” which might mean “seventh heaven” but sounds more like the start of autumn, tracing an emotional arc throughout Aphrilis. The belief in hope lingers, the brightness reshaped into an iterative composition that finally yields to something colder but never foreboding.

Justin Cober-Lake

MJ Lenderman — And the Wind (Live and Loose!) (Anti- )

Not exactly starched and buttoned-up to begin with, Jake “MJ” Lenderman and Co. come out even more ragged and rangy on the new live album And The Wind (Live and Loose!). The 15 tracks, recorded at gigs in Chicago and Los Angeles, are drawn almost exclusively from last year’s Boat Songs and 2021’s Ghost of Your Guitar Solo, and aren’t so much reimagined in front of their audiences as revved up and deepened. A few telling moments: Lenderman’s voice finds a lower pit of wistfulness in the sighing line “I know why we get so fucked up/I do” from “TLC Cagematch”; “Knockin” – in its third recorded iteration – gets an extra few roaring seconds and snarling decibels added to its big, heart-on-sleeve conclusion; the heavy drum fills and pugilistic blasts of guitar that end “SUV” veer closer to chaos. The band’s showcase, though, comes near the end on an extended jam of “You Are Every Girl To Me,” where the players, led by the points of light spinning off of Xandy Chelmis’ pedal steel and shredding lead guitarist Jon Samuels, rip out any remaining seams before easing back down for Lenderman to make introductions. And if you haven’t met them yet, And The Wind is a good place to start.

Alex Johnson

Mac J – I  Shoulda Been Dropped This (TrueStoryEnt)

Mac J’s been lazy lately. His recent tapes sound as if he’s only put one third of his talent in his music. I  Shoulda Been Dropped This, sadly, is no exception. He’s desperately trying to make his sound more mainstream and less street. Instead of crazy punchlines, witticisms and gritty reality, we get banalities and half-assed street ballads with Mac J on Auto-Tune almost on every song. It’s a wonder how “Engine Ina Trunk,” his track with another California resident Philthy Rich, even made it to this tape. It’s the old good rapping-his-ass-off Mac J, hungry for rhymes and punching you in the guts with every line. Except for this song, he shouldn’t been dropped this. 

True Story is a departure for Mac J. His previous efforts were short and tight. This one lasts more than an hour and consists of 23 tracks. It’s not exactly a baggy monster, but it feels that it was done in haste, like Mac J has just thrown in a few tracks which laid loose on his hard drive. It’s not that Young Slo-Be and Bris don’t deserve a full blown tribute. Trimming the disc by half might provide a moving memorial. True Story is 2021′s 7-song, 20-minute Tricky Situation, Mac J’s best to date, except he’s forgotten to delete all the mediocre tracks.

Mac J’s best weapon has always been puns, but here they’re drowned out. He jokes less and less. You have to dig through whole verses to find good quotes: “I never wear hats so I never turn a cap on”, “I get them bags to your door like I’m bellboy” or “Keep your eyes on that paper, that’s what teacher said.”

It’s not surprising that his mood turns darker. He’s writing about revenge for his fallen comrades. He mourns – and barely holds himself from spraying at the opposition. On every track, he reminds the listeners that he’s ready to avenge his friends. He raps on “Talk 2 Much”: “Make sure to count me in when it’s count time \ I ain’t give a fuck ‘bout yours but about mine.” Even when the production is playful and slappy, the Sacramento rapper has little use for play. He goes straight for threats. Maybe this is the reason why the CD lacks clarity: emotions get in the way of artistry. Half of the tracks are out of focus. Only the hooks hold attention.

As a tribute to the killed partners, True Story is as genuine as it can be. As a piece of art, not so much.

While Rio managed to record an enormous amount of songs and a plentiful features before they locked him up, it caused a major disruption. His imprisonment left the Michigan rap scene with its knickers down, confused and unsure of what to do next. The biggest regional wave of 2020 died down rapidly. Rio’s songs continued to flow even after he went to jail, but Detroit and Flint had very little to show for themselves in the first three quarters of the year. Collaborations went downhill, and solo careers didn’t amount to much. Sada Baby, FMB DZ and Cash Kidd either didn’t put out new music or released mediocracies. YSR Gramz and GrindHard E showed significant improvement, yet hardly changed the game. Peezy, after coming home from prison, dropped a disappointing album. Icewear Vezzo with his Rich Off Pints and  Rich Off Pints 2 found his niche, but it’s far from revolutionary.

So the first three quarters of the year, the Michigan rap was dragging behind his last year’s success and, more importantly, California scene. Young Slo-Be and Mac J dropped their hardest tapes, while Cashclick Boog continued to release the coldest cuts, solo and in collaborations.

But the final months turned the tables, quite unexpectedly. BandGang Lonnie Bands outdid himself with the H2K on the Way EP (and less focused Hard 2 Kill LP), Rio dropped Fiend Lives Matter EP from behind bars, and Louie Ray, after a string of mediocre solo CDs, gave us his best yet, Still Unsigned. It’s hard to say now if the Michigan scene finally has found a solid ground after the disruption, or it was just a contingency, and the Detroit/Flint rap as event will not recover. As they say, there is a great disorder under the Heavens and the situation is excellent. Who knows?  

Disappointment of the year: Roc Marciano produced albums (Bronze Nazareth’s Ekphrasis and Flee Lord’s Delgado). Roc Marci hasn’t put an album this year but he singlehandedly produced two for Bronze Nazareth and Flee Lord. Both artists are hopelessly boring on any beat, so Marci’s efforts have been wasted. He says he has the best ear in hip hop. He better check his hearing before he produces another CD for an artist with a lack of talent.

Best EP of the year: Nuez x Rio Da Yung OG’s Life of a Yung Og. Rio linked up quite suddenly with a Southern producer Nuez who made Rio rap over early Scarface-like beats. The result was Rio’s most personal tape this year.

Old Man Rap of the year: Soulful Distance by Devin the Dude. Almost unsurpassable achievement: during his 30 years in hip hop Devin’s never put out a bad CD. Soulful Distance is jammed with ironic witticisms and jokes about younger generations of rap artists, too focused on money and designer clothes.

Non-Rap album of the year: Awakening Of Nordic Storm by Diaboli. Nothing revolutionary or trendy or even for a bit experimental here. Just one of the ugliest, dirtiest, unfriendliest pieces of music released in 2021 from these Finnish barbarians. For a new Covid-like plague of woke black metal, this is a true cure.

Best releases of the year

Rio Da Yung OG loosies 2021 (unofficial)

Young Slo-Be — Red Mamba

BandGang Lonnie Bands — H2K on the Way

Mac J — Tricky Situation

Ka — A Martyr’s Reward 

Best production of the year

Cypress: BandGang Lonnie Bands — Boston George

Pdot: Cash Kidd & Jaiswan — Shipping and Handling

Sav: Young Slo-Be — Asshole

Stupid Dog: Rio Da Yung OG — Free Runtz

The existing singles were enough to fill two or three first-rate CDs, yet surprisingly none of them made the new EP Tricky Situation. On “Is Tricky” Mac J explains why he still feels the drive to create music: “I do this shit for Bris, I can’t let up.” But even when he doesn’t mention his friend and partner’s name, Bris’ presence looms over every track. More often Mac J refuses to mourn silently, like on “Gotta Grudge” when he states his feelings openly: “I can’t let it go/ I gotta grudge/ You know they killed my bro/ I gotta buss.”

Despite the obvious charges of anesthetization of violence, Mac J’s songs can’t be easily labeled as vengeance chants. Mortality is a thing we all know or come to know, and the Sacramento rapper has to deal in his lyrics with the immediate reality which itself violently seeps into his music. He’s a master of language, always playing with street lingo. His favorite method is the defamiliarization effect. He reaches for some street slang and puts it into different context, thus creating a surprising effect. By now stale street jargon takes on a new meaning (or rather helps to understand where it comes from). On “Lil Bit” it’s “I think I'm outta shape cause I stretch marks.” On “Gotta Grudge” it’s “I know alphabet / You ain’t no G.” 

Mac J has been playing with the song structure on his singles, now and again discarding the classical verse-chorus-verse scheme. Versatile with both hooks and verses, he could drop a hook and make a hard song with two or three verses only. This approach was a creative reproach to pop rappers who are so hooked on a hook (to use a pun), they forget to write a verse. On Tricky Situation the Sacramento rapper returns to verse-chorus-verse structure, showing no sign that he lost his talent for catchy hook. Nor for good punchlines: “I squeeze in this bitch til it’s no crowd / Like they are out of episodes, it’s a showdown.”

The title Tricky Situation acquires two meanings here. It is not only that Mac J’s position in the streets is unsure. His career path is quite tricky, as he’s squeezed between two approaches to lyrics, with a hook (more poppish) or with no hook (more street). It encapsulates one of the problems of current rap. Hopefully, Mac J will find a way out. He’s good at it.