“However Do You Need Me”
[Jan-Mar 2010 // 2]

Second mix from the first quarter. A handful of bangers.  First mix is back here.  Third should be here anytime.

Mix 2: “However Do You Need Me” | 192k | 45:58 | 63.3mb

1. RJD2 “Let There Be Horns” (RJ’s Electrical Connections) According to my ledger, this guy’s got two (2) all-time instrumental soul jams–”1976” and “Good Times Roll, Pt. 2“.  He’s far past whatever prime he had–that pop album he tried was valiant, effort-wise–but still more than capable of a cop-show car-chase style banger, like this one.  Works so well as fanfare, no?
2. Nas/Damian Marley “As We Enter” (Def Jam) I’ve not cared about Nas since this, and about anyone in the Marley family since this, so yeah: color me surprised that I can’t stop playing “Enter” no matter how hard I try.  Here’s why: the percolating, fuzzed-out soul backdrop that turns into a fist-pumping jock jam for the B part.  Second, the pair’s sing-song back-and-forth, a dialogue not triggered by traditional breaks in bars, but some other, more conversational logic that makes this thing so incredibly repeatable.
3. Kings Go Forth “Don’t Take My Shadow” (Luaka Bop) Typically, I like to think of my tastes as resistant to reverent retro pastiche unless the song is an undeniable jam (”Tears Dry on Their Own,” “My Baby Left Me“).  I don’t give Sharon Jones or Eli Reed as much patience as I should, because I convince myself that they’re another Big Chill-type nostalgia mine, which is a hard habit to break.  Then I hear Kings Go Forth, and I want to reassess everything.  They’re not Motown, not Stax, but straight Philly Soul, with a bit of That’s the Way of the World mixed in for good measure.  In other words, the precipice of disco, that cliff that killed 60’s soul until Chill and took R&B about a decade to recover from (New Jack Swing, IMO).  Can this become a thing, too?  Please???  KGF are reverent as all hell about this moment, and it works better than all hell too: they managed to lasso the actual Tom Moulton to produce “Shadow” (the 12″ single preceding the album) to drop one of his trademark dramatic extended breakdowns.
4. Club 8 “Western Hospitality” (Labrador) No real clue who these guys are or were, before this album–this song, really–but it’s intriguing that a band so fascinated with Television Personalities would’ve stirred this thing up.  A lot of “Apache“, a bit of what Malcolm McLaren was into on Duck Rock…is that a Farfisa?  I’m anticipating digging into the rest of the record.  Please tell me it’s all like this, because that’d be awesome.
5. Vampire Weekend “Giving Up the Gun” (XL) The “pop” song from Contra, the one with the dorky video that marks the band as stars as much as their SNL gig did, the best use of a glockenspiel since “Someone Great.” The simplest, most universal track on Contra, not seeking to unpack the sociological activations of trendy beverages, riff on genealogies and landed gentries, but merely to ask the question: why’d you stop giving a shit?  Wouldn’t it be great to do it again?  Actually, now that I think about it, “Gun” can be explained by a line from an earlier Contra song: “here comes a feeling you thought you’d forgotten.”
6. Yeasayer “O.N.E.” (Secretly Canadian) Yeasayer didn’t quite break like they thought they would with Odd Blood, but it’s not for lack of trying.  More like trying too much.  “Ambling Alp” and “O.N.E.” are the best results of the experiment: arena-sized, mega-dorky pop anthems, full of hooks and tribal drums and plain old sunny aspiration (what I was holding out hope MGMT would do, to tell you the truth).  And the video takes the slick, gaudy electropop sugar-rush to grotesque heights (anyone else suss out a slight bit of leftfield inspiration there?).
7. Big Boi “Shutterbugg” (Def Jam) Scott Storch is back, with something that sounds like nothing he’s ever done–a psychedelic stew of steely synth stabs, a Zapp-style talkbox, some mangled vocal sample that sounds like it’s filtered through a didgeridoo.  And Big Boi, pugilistic as ever, effortlessly contrasting Gomer Pyle and Sgt. Slaughter, then dismissing snitching with the perfect turn “No doubt/ We don’t speak”.  Oh, right, and that “Back to Life” break.
8. Fat Joe f. Young Jeezy “Ha Ha (Slow Down)” (E1) A “Back to Life” break, you say?  Between “Shutterbug” and “Ha Ha,” that song might as well be “Funky Drummer” to me right now.  Up-and-comer Scoop DeVille’s use of the opening few seconds of the acapella version of “Back to Life” over those trunk-rattling drums is the best beat of 2010 thus far (with “Soldier” a respectable second and “Inkredible” third).  All Joe and Jeezy need to do is be themselves, work with it, which they do.  I don’t know what else to say, really: it’s my most played track of 2010 so far, by a fair amount.
9. New Boyz f. Tyga “Crickets” (Shotty/Asylum) Style-first Cali jerk-rappers issue their manifesto for the Skinny Jeans Movement (that’s what they call it), and will brook no dissent during their drive.  Me, I like songs about jeans I guess (like this one).  I also, as it were, like to rock skinnies, and finally I have my retort for the haters.  The incessant haters. And yeah, the inseparability of a relentlessly positive youth social group from expensive fashion is a bit of friction.  But all of this is just way too catchy and charming to deny, come on.
10. Teedra Moses “Kisses Never Taste So Sweet” (teedra-moses.com) In 2004, Moses’s debut Complex Simplicity lived up to its name–too overdone for its own good, too-schizo arrangements obscuring her strong voice and negating contributions from Jadakiss and Raphael Saadiq.  Moses more or less dropped off the map she was barely even on in the first place.  And six years later, as these things happen, she’s hosting a mixtape on her website.  But it’s not all as sad as this sounds: there’s at least one bonafide great song on that mix. “Kisses” is stark and simple Amerie-style R&B, with a wonderful hook and a sympathetic backdrop that stays out of her way.
11. High Places “On Giving Up” (Thrill Jockey)  Lately, the song I play when I’m driving the 4-5 minutes to the bar on a Friday night.  And that I play on the 20-25 minute walk home a few hours later.  It’s like one of the many tiny miniature buds from their earlier work suddenly bursting into a fat bulb.
12. Caribou “Odessa” (Merge)  See also.  See ya later.

(pic via)

Filed under: Big Boi  Caribou  Club 8  Damian Marley  Fat Joe  High Places  Kings Go Forth  mixes  Nas  New Boyz  RJD2  Teedra Moses  vampire weekend  Yeasayer  Young Jeezy