Music

New Playlist for 2016: Jubilation

Another year means a new progressive playlist (one that’s constantly updated with new tracks.) You might remember last year’s Everything Ecstatic playlist, Indian Summer or 2014’s Random Musings. And now for the last couple months, I’ve been adding tracks to Jubilation.

Peep Jubilation below and subscribe to it on Spotify to be updated whenever tracks get added (usually a handful a week or so.) You can expect Jubilation to be a mix of everything from indie rock, chilled out electronica, conscious hip-hop, some timely classics, etc… Artists like Taylor McFerrin, Jessy Lanza, White Lung, Kendrick Lamar and more.

Enjoy y’all!

AS

Other

Saul Williams Drops New Video Filmed in Ferguson

Saul Williams’ musical flame was recently re-ignited for me in The Cipher Podcast’s brilliant interview with the New York based poet, rapper, playwright, actor and all-around hip-hop Renaissance man.

The interview between host Shawn Setaro and Williams centered on Williams’ latest release, Martyr Loser King. It’s a dense, ambitious and nothing short of cinematic album that magnifies modern sociopolitical issues within the world of a cyber hacker living in East Africa…shit that’s right out of a graphic novel (of which there also is one.) But there were certain comparisons that were drawn in the episode between Williams and David Bowie (Williams dropped a 2008 release entitled The Inevitable Rise And Fall Of Niggy Tardust) and a new interest in Williams was piqued.

His art is dense and complex. He oozes idealism and activism and his work is manifested in many mediums. Discovering Saul Williams’ body of work is a thrilling endeavor and today, he released a powerful video for his latest single “The Noise Came From Here,” directed by Anisia Uzeyman. In it, Williams walks through Ferguson, Missouri and tip-toes around the epicenter of where Michael Brown was brutally gunned down by a police officer in 2014. Do yourself a favor and watch this gripping piece of art and hop over to The Fader for more details on the making of the video. One love.

Photography, Travel

My São Paulo – A Photographic Essay

I’ve been going back to my birthplace of São Paulo, Brazil every year since I first left Brazil in 1989. And the place where I was born, is unlike anywhere I’ve ever been in the world.

When I come back home to the US following a visit, everyone always asks “How was Brazil?” And there’s only so much I can convey with words. I feel like everyone’s idea of Brazil is forged on images of Rio De Janeiro, yet São Paulo is a much different place. I sought to provide a glimpse into My Brazil and My São Paulo.

With these photographs, I looked to juxtapose the old and new parts of the city of São Paulo with the beach getaways of mid-to-upper class families from the city. The city and the beach are very different places and holiday weeks at the beach are comfortable refuges for city-dwellers like my family. Where daily life is filled with the grandeur of skyscrapers and the urban sprawl & accompanying poverty of the city, weekend homes on the coast of the state of Sao Paulo seem a world away. With these 3 galleries, this is My São Paulo.

(Click anywhere on the tiled mosaics below to open the full gallery)

Old São Paulo

These photos were all taken in the Republíca area of São Paulo. It’s the historic central part of the city and just feels like a mish-mash of every aspect of São Paulo in one place. This is where poverty is the most prevalent and homeless kids riddled the streets amongst open shops, buildings, restaurants, the Municipal Theater and a major artery into the city’s core.

The Beach 

I looked to highlight themes of the typical Brazilian family and male/female roles within the household. Hopefully, you can feel the difference between one house and the other and the moments of relaxation versus potential conflict. Technology as a theme is reflected on the outer edges of the frames, reminding us that no matter how far outside of the city the family may be, technology remains ever-present.

New São Paulo

Avenida Paulista is the most important thoroughfare in São Paulo. The wide 6-laned avenue houses major financial institutions, museums, parks, shopping malls and is towered over by giant radio antennae on the top of it’s many tall buildings. New and polished public transportation is peppered throughout it’s nearly 2 mile stretch and it’s been developed into a modern hub to showcase the cosmopolitan city.

Parque Ibirapuera is the city’s largest urban park. It’s the Brazilian equivalent to Central Park, showcasing the country’s rich history, smack in the middle of a metropolis.

Music

Leon Bridges Silences Critics With “River” Video

If you haven’t seen it yet, Leon Bridges’ new video for “River” dropped earlier today and it’s deep….It’s a hard look at different walks of life of Black America, and some of the images are the stirring reality of life for the people of Baltimore.

When I watched it, I couldn’t help but think back to just last September, when NPR’s Eric Drucker, in his A Rational Conversation column, picked apart Bridges’ soul revival and video for “Coming Home,” along with UMass-Amherst assistant English professor Emily Lordi. Lordi claimed that Bridges’ “…vision of soul kind of turns the clock back on soul’s more radically political moment.”

Continue reading Leon Bridges Silences Critics With “River” Video →

Music

Kllo: Most Excellent Discovery of The Week

I stumbled onto Kllo via Ghostly International’s weekly newsletter and I’ve found myself returning to their 2014 Cusp EP over and over this week.

Recently signed to Ghostly, the Aussie electro duo remind me of Wet, but what they slightly relinquish in pop, they make-up for in trip-hop vibes. They’ve been co-signed by BBC and Majestic Casual, with good reason. Dropping Cusp below and all five tracks are fucking fantastic. You’ve been notified.

Music

The Rainy Day Playlist – 2016

It’s been almost four years since I made a “Rainy Day” playlist and with the weather in San Francisco trending wet on the regular, it’s about that time to drop another.

To be clear, these aren’t necessarily songs about rain, or with ‘rain’ or ‘water’ in the title. These are smooth & relaxing tracks, that are best heard when droplets of water are crashing against your window and you can just feel the water on the ground outside as you chill on the comfort of your couch, or desk, or whatever. This is a soundtrack for when it rains. Enjoy.

(You can also listen or subscribe to the playlist directly on spotify here)

Bay Area, Music

Green Ova South Drops Two New Tracks

We just got the first taste of music from hip-hop supergroup Green Ova South’s new album today.  Squadda B of Oakland’s Main Attrakionz and Little Rock rapper Pepper Boy flow over beats from Young God (of Blue Sky Black Death) on the “Tears In My Eyes”/”I Miss Them Days” split-single.

Fans of Blue Sky Black Death will immediately sink into Young God’s beat on “Tears In My Eyes”, as it’s the same type of comfortably spaced-out effects with rolling bass and layered drum hits that BSBD did so well for a decade. 

“I Miss Them Days” has a floating beat, smooth key samples and a sick hook. Pepper Boy comes across with a more tongue-in-cheek Southern style, where Squadda establishes a sage-like delivery. All of it builds the excitement for Green Ova South’s upcoming Kome Ryde Wits Us LP on Mishka Records. Check it:

 

Albums of the Year, Music

The Top 50 Albums of 2015

Here it is….Everything Ecstatic’s 9th Annual Best Albums of the Year List. Shouts out to everyone who’s followed along over the years and I’m excited to share the spoils of another year in music witchas. This year, I had to abandon the one album a day for 20-30 days format of the past few years, cause there just weren’t enough hours in the days leading up to this post.  But you can still see all of the archives from ’06 to ’13 here and 2014’s entries beginning here.

At any rate, this year’s list is 50 albums in one post, straight up. Each entry is brief, with some scattered notable videos, links and I made a playlist of all the albums at the bottom. Props to Abhi/Dijon, Drake and Bob Moses, who put out quality releases in 2015, but were the last 3 albums cut from the Top 50. Also, you won’t find D’Angelo on this list as Black Messiah was released on December 15th, 2014. I know some outlets are ranking it this year, but release dates are the only definitive indicator of what year an album belongs to. But ultimately, Black Messiah doesn’t need to be placed on an arbitrary list to validate it’s beauty and importance far beyond a musical context. You can read more of my thoughts on the first performance from D’Angelo’s renaissance here, and know that if it was a 2015 album, it’d be sitting at #2 on this list. With that, let us begin the annual ritual. Enjoy!

Continue reading The Top 50 Albums of 2015 →

Bay Area, Live Music, Music

PHOTOS: Empress Of at Rickshaw Stop

I had the pleasure of seeing Empress Of this past Tuesday at Rickshaw Stop here in SF. It was one of those shows when you’ve been listening to an artist and an album so much lately, that it just felt like a special occasion that they’d happen to be coming through town at the same time. There was a memorable opening set from electro R&B up and comer ABRA and Trails and Ways’ Keith Brower-Brown dropped a super sweet DJ set at the start of and end of the night that kept the vibes going long after Rodriguez left the stage. (Also, I must’ve watched this 10-second clip of Empress Of’s enchanting, “Threat”, twenty times before I hit the hay that night.)

Continue reading PHOTOS: Empress Of at Rickshaw Stop →

Bay Area, Music

Jay Stone and Monster Rally Drop Video for “Recollection”

One of our favorite hip-hop projects of 2015 has been Oakland rapper Jay Stone’s & LA producer Monster Rally’s Foreign Pedestrians EP. Stone’s complex and zany rhymes pair smoothly with Monster Rally’s psych-tropical beats, that at their core, are still forged in hip-hop.

Continue reading Jay Stone and Monster Rally Drop Video for “Recollection” →

Ending awkward silences since 1983.