Articles

Chris Staples - Park Bench: Before I start diving into this month's songs I need to give a shout out to my on-line DJing friend Cello for sparking my love for 3 or 4 songs on this list. Park Bench has that awesome guitar picking and tapping that's so Americana it makes me want to drive down a country road, windows open, with a cold can of Schlitz pinched between my legs.   Klangstof - We Are Your Receiver: This band is a perfect blend of Eur-a-peein' dreaminess and has only 4 songs out right now. I had a hard time choosing which of the 4 songs to feature this month because they're all so perfect. All their shit is on Spotify and Soundcloud; go get obsessed right now.  Har Mar Superstar - Youth Without Love: Wait. What? A new Har Mar album dropped in April and was produced by Julian...

Like several other rappers turned educators, OneWerd, is keeping the it hella live for the elbow patch set. I do challenge you to find another rapper in the teach rap genre that packs more rhymes per syllable. OneWerd also consistently runs a monthy hip hop gathering in the SOMA District in San Francisco called, Builders, throws one-off shows with underground heroes, releases projects that garner local acclaim from the weeklies, and drops singles with microphone magicians like Myka 9. And… and… AND this mother fucker holds down a real career.  He’s truly one of the good guys. And his whole existence makes me chortle heartily at the host of 30+ asshole rappers bitterly complaining about how the XXL Freshman got put on while asking who got the job hookup between homophobic Facebook beef and...

The anxiety is real! I’ve been so fucking stressed out! Life has been jumping up and down on my balls for the last six months like my supple testicle skin was stretched out across a trampoline frame.  For those of you that don’t know, Minneapolis artist P.O.S. dealt with some life or death health issues. Requiring a liver transplant is no fucking joke. And to hear him come back from mad-dogging Mr. Muerte, to make music so confident and yet chill, makes me look at life happily trampolining on my testes like so fucking what.  Most of my struggles are of my own design. I eat like shit (though I’ve been trying to do better). My exercise regiment is the opposite of a regiment and more like irrelevant (though I’ve been trying to do better). My struggles with alcohol and drugs and smoking are...

Remember when this dude used to drop hip hop? You don't care? Samesies. Whatever this asshole releases, it's some how completely fucking magical.  Zavala has always been that dude that could produce massive amounts of heat, while still sounding whimsical and still making me want to rip clothes off of unassuming pedestrians, but the direction towards house music that makes me want to solve the world's ailments has been both entirely welcome and unexpected. "Vivir" is yet another step in the direction of finding that balance between dancing and thinking, or 'thancing' as the kids are calling it these days. I'm convinced that the world's problems will gradually find answers through the ideas of a cadre of 13 and 14 year olds with headphones on, dancing by themselves on the sidewalk...

This band makes me consistently feel like I'm floating and my head is all laid the fuck back on the tube. All four of my limbs are in complete opposite corners, as if ready to square off in a battle for who is the most fucking comfortable. The pace of the river around me is swift enough to stop any bugs from landing, but not so fast as to cause the peace to end any sooner than I'd prefer. Astronauts make everything just slow the fuck down so I can appreciate as much as possible.  How the shit do they do that on every song? "Skeleton" has that creamy fucking guitar plodding along in the background. I mean sixteen holy jesus shits on a rustic looking canoe paddle with greek letters burnt into it hanging on the wall of a rich white man's home office, this song is a goddamn massage...

It's no secret I adore this man. Falside's beats are the gin to my yang, the vodka to my gimlet, the high sparrow to my Cersei. Yes, I'm into sodomy. The latest drop from wee Falside is "Snacks" and it takes the listener on a progressive thump thump, from playground to underground sex club. While at one point I felt like I was on the set for the music video IESHA from ANOTHER BAD CREATION, it soon morphed into me getting sweaty in between two androgynous shirtless and glittered people wearing masks and furry boots.  I want to both hoop with the bros and get stripped and whipped. IT'S THE AMERICAN CREAM DREAM ON TWO LEGS! I fucking love how I never know what this dude is up to. Alls I knows is I'm ups. I'M UPS BRUH!

David Godowsky - Making It Up As I Go: Even writing this trash for SYFFAL, I sometimes get writing block. (not writer's block, because I aint no fucking writer because I over-use words like 'aint' and 'fucking' and because I use the word 'because' 4 times in one sentence). Anyhoo, to combat this block I just start typing and something comes out....eventually. This song sounds like the music version of that process; David Godowsky just starts singing. The only difference is his outcome is wayyyyy better.  BADBADNOTGOOD - Time Moves Slow (Ft. Sam Herring): Sam Herring's voice is so damn versatile. He's the Deon fucking Sanders of Music. AND holy balls marinating on a skewer does that voice sound amazing with this groove.  The Strokes - OBLIVIOUS: I will always listen to new Strokes in the...

So I know this concert was last week, but I think I needed a week to process. That, and because I'm a procrastinator.  This last month I've been all over Gregory Alan Isakov's balls. He recently put out an album with a collection of his songs that were re-recorded with The Colorado Symphony Orchestra. And these re-re's are out-fucking-standing. This album is probably my favorite album released this year and I've listened to it so much already that the songs have become the soundtracks to my dreams. I've been waking up in cold sweats yelling "CHURCHES AND TRAINS...THEY ALL LOOK THE SAME TO ME NOOOOOWWWWWW". As soon as I found out GAI was going to be coming to Thalia Hall (pronounced with a lisp) in Chicago I pinched my nipples, squealed, jumped into the russian spliz and blocked out my...

Dosh is one of my favorite rhythm jizzers. Dude can play two pencils on a half empty tepid teapot and I'd be all "WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! BRO, DO THAT ONE THING AGAIN THAT MADE ME DO WHAT I'M DOING NOW WITH MY ARMS! WOOOOOOOO!". Of course, in my world, that teapot is half full bro. But Dosh & Ghostband juuuuuuuust dropped "Kool Aid", the first single (aka just the tip) off their new album, Def Kith II: The Price is Ill, which comes out July 8th, 2016. (( YOU SHOULD PRE-ORDER IT HERE. )) Not only does this shit feel like 3am in a dank unnamed loft space in the middle of some misty metropolis, it feels like I have 6 lighters in my pockets and I'm completely out of cigarettes. I'm hungry for a breakfast I can't afford, but I'm with people who have made tonight the best...