Cordavision Music Reviews

Ther's a great Hulk Hogan bit on here. Quite frankly, I have no idea who The Koreatown Oddity is. I’ve heard his music, especially one of the best albums of 2020, Little Dominique’s Nosebleed , and that certainly grabbed my attention for his career. To put it in perspective, I think Nosebleed is one of the best releases on the Stones Throw label, which includes classic albums like Madvillainy , J Dilla’s Donuts , and Yes Lawd! from Knxwledge and Anderson .Paak. It’s in very good company, and now, we have an official follow-up to it titled ISTHISFORREAL? , so let’s not waste any time and get into it. I should most likely state that I’m not looking for this project to top Nosebleed in any way, mainly because I think that project’s the closest thing we have to that lightning-in-a-bottle feeling in rap this decade. That being said, I still really fuck with this album. No matter if it’s an entire album or a feature, you can tell that a lot of passion has been put into this and cares ...

Is it bad to say that I want Moor of this? I’ll see myself out... I’ve spoken about Moor Mother on here before, and I think she’s one of the most important artists working right now. Her last album, Black Encyclopedia of the Air , was one of last year’s best albums and I continue to go back to it every now and then. Now, we have Jazz Codes , which could be seen as a love letter to jazz, and every section of it is written by one of the mystifying artists of this decade so far. Let’s get into what I thought about Jazz Codes . Let me just say right off the bat that, like most of Moor Mother’s records, this isn’t that much of an easy listen. While it’s still very much an abstract rap album to its core, there are many more genres of music at hand here. Multiple subgenres of jazz like spiritual jazz, free jazz, and avant-garde jazz are just as prevalent as abstract and jazz rap. Even the ambient undertones here add more and more layers to this project. Many tracks on here feel uncanny and et...

Is this a play on Capricorn or Capri-Sun? Because we literally have the same birthday and I’m a Capricorn, but Capri-Sun just really sounds like it. If there’s an enigma in music right now, it’s FKA twigs. twigs is a pretty boundary-pushing artist, and 2019’s MAGDALENE , her last album, cemented that fact in my mind. I honestly never know what she’s going to do with her music. MAGDALENE was about a woman on the edge of a mental breakdown, and it’s a beautiful album, but who would think to put Future on Skrillex production and make it work? On the same album, especially? Well, twigs has always been taking risks, but I honestly got nothing on CAPRISONGS . We only have one single from it, “tears in the club” with The Weeknd, and I think it’s great. Either way, let’s see what we’ve got going on with CAPRISONGS . Even in the few days that this has been in the public, this has proven to be a controversial project. Most dedicated twigs fans I’ve seen are quite disappointed with this for bein...

If you’re curious about Ayewa’s activism and Black Quantum Futurism, check out the group’s website here . Most of the people reading this probably don’t know who Camae Ayewa is, and that’s fine. I’ll try my best to educate you. Ayewa is a poet, activist, musician, writer, and most recently, a professor hailing from Philadelphia. She also formed Black Quantum Futurism with fellow activist Rasheedah Phillips and is the leader of the ‘liberation-oriented free-jazz collective,’ Irreversible Entanglements. Outside of her activism, she’s dabbled in music under the name Moor Mother and has collaborated with artists like Billy Woods and Mental Jewelry. However, her debut album, Fetish Bones , is what I consider her best solo project. The massive book of poetry that comes with it is also a great read. Now, we have her seventh studio album, Black Encyclopedia of the Air , and I’ve been excited for this one for a while now. Along this ride with her, we have Pink Siifu, Elucid, Lojii, Brother May,...

Everything about this makes me genuinely uncomfortable in the best ways possible. I like creepy music. Like, something that genuinely gets your skin to crawl. Chinese-German artist Pan Daijing has been working in that lane since 2015, and it’s quite frankly some of the most skin-crawling stuff I’ve heard in a while. Four years after her harrowing album Lack 惊蛰 , she’s back with some new creepy shit, Jade 玉观音 . To enhance the experience, I ended up listening to this at 1 am so I could get the whole experience of whatever the hell this was gonna be. Let’s get into Jade 玉观音 and see how it went. I’m gonna start off with a quote from Daijing herself that I think describes this album quite well: ‘Solitude is like an immense lake you’re swimming through… Sometimes you dip your head in and sometimes you lift it up.’ Jade 玉观音 is one of the most terrifying experiences I’ve had listening to music in a while mainly because I was alone while doing so. A highlight on this was on “Dictee 三月,” where...