Free legal all-around excellent music from the Internet
This month’s Radio Silence digs through the bowels of the Internet and comes up with a Mid-western gangster horrible wordplay and a victory lap from a local boy done good. All free and legal of course for your downloading pleasure.
Freddie Gibbs — Midwestgangstaboxframecadillacmuzik
Freddie Gibbs takes the name of his latest mixtape Midwestgangstaboxframecadillacmuzik from an Outkast song (“Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik”) and with good reason. Though Gibbs’s hometown of Gary Indiana is far removed from Andre 3000 and Big Boi’s Atlanta stomping grounds he shares a lot of musical similarities with the hip hop juggernauts and they clearly act as spiritual influences here. Chopped-up future-funk makes up most of the beats found on Midwest… but there is a constant slew of bizarre sonic flourishes going off all over the place. The album’s playfulness masks how technically impressive it is. Regardless of subject matter Gibbs never sacrifices head-nodding catchiness or telegraphs his hooks. Gibbs even possesses a flow and verbal dexterity not far removed from Big Boi.
The album isn’t just straight up Outkast impersonation though. Lyrically Midwest… is unapologetically focused on the world of street crime and is largely devoid of Outkast’s occasional lighthearted forays hence the “Midwestgangsta” in place of “Southernplaya.” While this gangster framework can be a bit grating in places the album’s overall quality trumps its moments of typical posturing.
Get ’Em Mamis — TerAwesome
Over the last couple years Baltimore Maryland has proven that it’s more than just a medium-sized city with an enormous murder rate and deeply entrenched social problems as documented on HBO’s The Wire — it’s also the home to a disproportionate amount of great music. Animal Collective Dan Deacon Beach House and Ponytail all originally hail from the city and now Get ’Em Mamis seem poised to join them as quality B’more exports.
Cresting on a groundswell of buzz the hip hop duo has delivered its debut album TerAwesome free to the world. Awful portmanteau name aside (terrific mixed with awesome for those having trouble keeping up) the album makes good on all the positive press. The beats are club-friendly electro bangers and both Roxzi and Symphony display charisma as well as the ability to drop into acrobatic verbal gymnastics at will. Most of all TerAwesome is just a damn good time and should be downloaded by everyone who enjoys such things.
Chad VanGaalen — Soft Airplance B-sides EP
This EP from Calgary’s own indie star was already mentioned by Fast Forward writer Patrick Boyle on his blog “Srsly You Guys” (which you should all be reading at www.ffwdweekly.com) so I won’t spend too much time on it. As the name suggests the EP is culled from songs that didn’t make it onto VanGaalen’s excellent 2008 release Soft Airplane . All you really need to know is know is that it features nine new VanGaalen recordings it’s free and unlike on previous album tie-ins he doesn’t try to rap which is definitely a good thing. Go get it already.
