Welcome To The (Sort Of Creepy) World Cup

BLK JKS' "Zol" should be - probably will be - a sure-fire World Cup hit. It's obviously geared for that: they're from Jo-burg, the lyrics are futbol-y, there's a call-response thing going on, the album drops two days before the World Cup starts, they're playing at the opening ceremonies...and for the first 15 seconds or so, it's, yeah, instant theme song.

But all the BLK JKS I've listened too (full disclosure: not much, just a handful of songs) has sounded a little minor key, a little discordant, and I'm hearing that here, too, once the lyrics kick in. Is there not something a little off about this song? Is that guitar line not a little too insistent, almost as if it wants to be in a different song? Are the lyrics not intentionally a bit flat at times? Is it an ANTHEM, yes, in all caps, like the band?

It's so subtle, I start to doubt myself. Is it me? Is my hearing and judgment finally starting to go? So I go and listen to something else, something major key, something sunny and Katrina and the Waves-ish...and then I come back to this...and...It's not me. I don't think.

Is it just that this is how the band plays, anthem be damned? Or is it on purpose?

New York, Sometimes It's Killing Me

This song expresses my own mixed emotions towards my adopted home so well it's almost creepy.

You got that nice slow phrasing from Gil Scott-Heron, evocative of the southern transplant making their way (and I'm not from Jackson TN, but it is eerily close to the family homestead).

You got the New York patter from Nas, so fast you can't totally follow it, as fast as the city itself, loving the city, but hating it a little too - a more realistic representation than the Beastie Boys' paean.

Yeah, I too can see why some get up and move where it's slow. New York, have mercy on me.

Go download it here.

Oh The Irony: Sleigh Bells Produces Perfect Summer Album

Most summers, there's an album that makes me wish I had a car, so that I could drive around, windows down, stereo blasting, and share my musical tastes with all those around me. Because I suffer from that same delusion of so many other Brooklynites, namely that everyone wants to know what my musical taste is, particularly as I drive past them, and will be forced to agree that, yes, (insert name of band I hadn't known of previously here) is amazing.

Last summer, there wasn't a summer album like that. Of course, there wasn't really a summer, either, in New York, so perhaps it was fitting.

This spring, I think summer's come early. This spring, I may just rent a car and drive around blasting the new Sleigh Bells album, and in particular this song, for a week or so. Because I'm especially convinced that YOU will thank me for it. Yes, that's me, driving around the block over and over again in my $20 rent-a-wreck.



Welcome back, summer. You were missed.