AUDIOMUTANT: Mayer Hawthorne, YC The Cynic & more
Welcome back to AUDIOMUTANT, the whole world's favorite music digest feature, as digested by yours truly. It's been a while, but we're back and today I'm reviewing Mayer Hawthorne's "Where Does This Door Go" album, looking forward to YC the Cynic's debut, plus I have some other news and good stuff for your pleasure.
Before we begin (and we do have some things to talk about!) I'd like to clear something up: there were two records I was looking forward to in the last AUDIOMUTANT, the Big Huge Truck record and Killer Mike's and El-P's Run the Jewels EP. While the BHT one did get a review later on, Run the Jewels didn't. Well, here's the Jewels review: It's great! I downloaded it a day after it dropped and by that time everybody with an internet connection reviewed it, said how awesome it is, and adding a 100000th review saying pretty much the same thing seemed pointless. Now let's get on with today's AM. REVIEW: MAYER HAWTHORNE - "WHERE DOES THIS DOOR GO"
Still, as far as I'm concerned, Hawthorne's track record has been pretty much spotless so far, so I knew I'd get around to his latest outing eventually. It's much different than both the previous albums and the covers EP, but it's not COMPLETELY different - while it's a much more contemporary sounding album, mixing many genres, it's not hard to pick up on the influences here, dating back to records from decades ago (never a bad thing with Hawthorne). The only guest vocalist on the album is the prolific Kendrick Lamar, but there's quite a lot of producers working with Hawthorne (including the omnipresent Pharrell Williams). That doesn't mean the album doesn't sound cohesive - it does, and the production on the record is uniformly clean and tight, even though the styles of the songs are all over the place. Hawthorne said that the only rule he followed while making "WDTDG" was to have fun, and while it definitely sounds like he had a good time, I can't say that a lot of the tracks here are up my alley. While sometimes the songs are just not my style, often the thing that drags the whole thing down for me are Hawthorne's lyrics. While lyrical complexity is not what I'm looking for in a MH record, some of the song lyrics seem overly simplistic and cliche. It's mainly a few instances, but when it happens, it turns me off. The songs I like the most here are "Reach Out Richard" (about Hawthorne's dad, you can listen to it below), "Allie Jones" and the titular "Where Does This Door Go". While there's few things that I can say I'm a fan of on Hawthorne's third studio album, I can't say it's a bad album (I think the few devastatingly bad reviews I've seen were really unfair). I ain't mad at it! I like what I like, and while this may have not been my thing, I'll still check for Hawthorne's next album. UPCOMING: YC THE CYNIC - "GNK" YC The Cynic is a name I first heard not too long ago. He's a young rapper from Bronx, with some mixtapes and appearences under his belt, and he's about to drop his first official album later on this month (on the 26th). Why should you care? Well, so far he actually seems to be one of the most interesting emcees of his generation. He has a good flow, good voice and his approach to making music puts him above a lot of his competition. Apparently his biggest influence is Cee-Lo Green, and from what I heard YC is no stranger to switching between rapping and singing on the records, and often incorporating both into his songs (check out the video for "God Complex", from the upcoming album). Also, check the nicely made video for the first single, embedded below, and go to his Bandcamp, check the mixtapes and maybe download something.
While I'm far from proclaiming anybody the next big thing on the strength of a few good songs, I'm certainly interested in hearing the record and checking out what an official, studio album from this dude will sound like. We'll find out soon enough, I guess. IN OTHER NEWS: A BUCK 65 BOOK, A SOLE INSTRUMENTAL ALBUM BUCK 65, who's been schooling everybody on how to run an interesting Facebook page (seriously, whether you like his music or not, the stories he posts there make the whole internet a better place, go and check his page), mentioned several times now that he's in the process of writing a book about his life. If you already checked his Fb page and the stories he posts there, then you know this is something to be excited about. He's apparently also working an a new album, but that's all I currently know.
Meanwhile, SOLE, who's been present on Trash Mutant a few times by now, announced that he will be soon releasing an instrumental album that he's been working on for a loooong time. I have no idea what to expect, sometimes I like Sole's beats, sometimes I really don't, but whatever the case, I have no doubt that it'll be at least interesting. Apparently it's gonna be out in a month or two. THROWBACK VIDEO: MONEY MARK - "HAND IN YOUR HEAD" Because you've been working way too hard and you need to relax. From 1998's "Push the Button".
That's all for now. Leave your thoughts below! If you're an artist and you'd like to submit music for review in AUDIOMUTANT or a different feature, then email us. We don't review everything we receive, but everything get's checked out. Go to our music section for more good stuff, and see you later! |
|