This ( hopefully ) recurring segment will be about music that:
a) somehow escaped our attention when it came out [hence the not-new part]
b) is not super-well-known
and
c) something we liked [negative reviews are no fun to write, and nobody likes a hater].
Anyway, first up is Saul Williams’ 2004 self-titled album:
If you’re like me, you first heard about this guy via his most recent album, The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust!, a well publicized pay-what-you-want collaboration with Trent Reznor. Also if you’re like me, your interest was piqued, and you immediately had a look at his discogs page in search of more.
Like on Tardust, Williams combines spoken-word poet, hip-hop emcee and rockstar personas alongside distorted-guitar-meets-drum-machine instrumentals – after hearing this, it’s easier to see his recent NIN-ification as a logical progress of his regular gig, as opposed to the weirdo experiment that some might have seen it as. That’s not in any way meant to say the two albums are homogeneous, however; the whole thing just makes more sense to me now.
In other news, Slam just found its way onto my Netflix queue.
Noteworthy tracks:
Surrender (A Second to Think)
Telegram
Act III Scene 2 (Shakespeare) (featuring Zack de la Rocha!? How have I not heard this before?)
and (despite the weirdness of it being licensed for a recent Nike ad)
List of Demands (Reparations)
also check out his 2003 EP, Not In My Name.
