McKAY, Stephanie - Tell It Like It Is (Muthas Of Invention) Comentários: STEPHANIE MCKAY’s new album ‘Tell It Like It Is’ sees the Bronx-born singer/songwriter work with local musicians to produce an album that wraps up classic soul, seventies funk-rock and old-school hip hop influences into one vibrant outpouring. Sometimes romantic and at others acutely topical, ‘Tell It Like It Is’ is an album full of strong performances and great song-writing.The album is packed with classic gems from the feel-good joy of the KATAYST produced lead single “Jackson Avenue”, to the outrageously funky, hornfired groove of “Kinky”. The hip hop influenced “Oh Yeah” is a wind-in-the hair celebration with a cool groove, while a newly-incarnated version of the KATALYST co-written “Say What You Feel” appears in all its glory. R&B sensation ANTHONY HAMILTON appears on the smooth but perfectly pitched duet “Where Did Our Love Go?” resulting in an absolute gem of a ballad, while the album finishes with a refreshingly original take on WILLY MASON’s youth anthem for the 21st century, “Oxygen”.Stephanie is widely recognised as one of the genre’s most gifted, diverse and exciting emerging talents. in inertia [Para Ouvir/Samples]
ONRA - Chinoiseries (Label Rouge) Comentários: Brilliantly odd instrumental hip hop album here from Onra, compiled and constructed around vintage Vietnamese pop records picked up in flea markets on a trip to the far east. 32 short tracks make up "Chinoiseries", each of them clocking in at the 1 or 2 minute mark and delivering a tight selection of beats that somehow bring to mind J Dilla, Rza, Madlib, Moondog, MF Doom and the Sublime Frequencies label rolled into one beautifully incoherent package. Having a ravenous appetite for the "Radio Transmission" style beloved of the aforementioned Sublime Frequencies crew, we might be perfectly primed for this sort of thing, but while the dusty exotica, folk and plastic pop of the source material here could so easily have ended up sounding like the sterile plunderphonic coffee table beats that typified so much instrumental hip hop in the late 90's, Onra manages to harness the mystifying magic of the original material and
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