Chewing Pine

Jet Boy Jet Girl

Plastic Bertrand originally wrote and released “Ça Plane Pour Moi” sometime in 1977. And being a singer, it necessitated Bertrand to hire musicians. Oddly enough, the same players appear on Elton Motello’s “Jet Boy Jet Girl,” which sports the same music, but different lyrics. If you’re even a passing fan of the Damned, you probably know their version as well. Since it’s Bertrand’s b-day, Idolator saw fit to post some of his videos other than this track – so here are the three versions of “Jet Boy Jet Girl” that actually matter…and yes, this is about two dudes.

Lego Stylee: Raptastic Rekkids

This all really needs no commentary. Just classic album covers of the rap genre re-created with legos. I guess I never realized that in lego land, there’ isn’t race. Everyone’s yellow, just like in the Simpsons. Well, not Carl Carlson or Dr. Hibbard…..damn. Inequality in the realm of cartoons. I’m done for the day, but check out the rest of the album covers over at Format.

DMC American Mixing Finals, 1989

Muggs workin’ out a KRS One track…Dig the tie dye.

Beans – Tomorrow Right Now (Warp, 2003)

Anti-Pop Consortium no longer exists and to most that doesn’t mean too much. But in the realm of underground hip-hop it means that there are probably going be a lot of interesting solo projects. Anti-Pop reportedly split up earlier this year and since members have been touring as well as recording. However, the first of these solo albums to appear is that of Beans. Warp, which mostly deals in electronic music, has seen fit to put out Tomorrow Right Now.

“Mutescreamer”

After unwrapping the record and being sucked into the austere looking picture of Beans in a pair of sun glasses on the front and a picture of the red stripe posted on the back of his head as well as the back of the album, plop it down in the player and prepare yourself. El-P has been touted as the most innovative beat maker in hip-hop of late, but simply by listening to Tomorrow Right Now it seems that Beans could now be in contention for that title. There are three instrumental tracks (“Sickle Cell Hysteria”, “Rose Periwinkle Plum”, “Xon”) on this offering, all of them differ in length and scope, but all of them are exceedingly electronic. Beans, for the most part, eschews the boom-bap of rap in lieu of pushing into new territory: the further merging of hip-hop and electronic music. There are drum programs, there are steady bass lines, but there are also electronic burps and gurgles, sounds and noises. The record’s rife with too many quality tracks to comment upon individually, but “Crave” easily sums up the album in one line. Beans simply figures that there are “Too many MCs and not enough listeners”. True.

Gabriel Teodros – Lovework (Massline Media, 2007)

Let’s begin with the fact that the track listing is all fucked up on here and I can easily say that after a while I gave up trying to figure out what was going on and just enjoyed the music.

If a consumer was to simply catch an earful of this release from the Seattle emcee, one could easily and justifiably categorize this as “conscious hip hop.” That term has been handed out to basically every rapper who thinks deeply, so it isn’t a slight. And further, Teodros wants to eliminate such categorization, or at-least extricate himself from it.

Lovework goes along way in explaining the rappers background, beliefs, ruminations and fondness’s. What it doesn’t do is remove him from any typical categorization. The production and guests – Moka Only and Common Market/Blue Scholars members – only solidifies the link between Teodros, the jazz, funk and soul that make up the beats and whatever it is about “conscious hip-hop” that he’s attempting to distance himself from.

Instead of examining this as a slab of ‘90s style jazz infused rap (or whatever else it could be lumped together with), it actually serves to better familiarize the world with a newer hip hop scene in Seattle. Not generally thought of when considering musics other than rock, hip hop has been pouring out of this area during the last few years. And while some of the higher profile groups are on display throughout Lovework, they all deserve examination. This release, just as other recent Seattle hip hop ventures, doesn’t go a long way to align itself with the Anticon/Def Jux contingent, but creates something very genuine, adept and true that many could use as a road-map to some sort of Northwestern enlightenment.