CUUSHE FADED CORNERS

---

Tokyo-based singer and producer Cuushe (aka Mayuko Hitotsuyanagi) is summoning the ancient past with this slice of new music. 'Faded Corners' features her tradebmark vocals, a textural combination of a far-off call and close-quarters whisper, as they spin words based on 'Asobi wo sen to ya~', a famous poem that was included in the Ryōjin Hishō, a 12th-century anthology of imayō — lyrical poetry that was intended to be sung with music (and dancing).

It's an masterclass in atmosphere-making — the soothing ambient wash of chords, the urgent hush of the vocals — but it's also an excercise in creating a sense of propulsion and a vehicle of dance without actually using a constant beat (aside from the odd deep, bassy thud of a kick). The overlapping rhythms combine to create a complex footwork-adjacent web of energy, extra rhythm provided by the muffled splash of syncopated synth chords.

The stirring strings and plumes of bass, the scratching, glittering, richly textured soudscape reflects the violence and beauty that comes with the preservation of ancient culture through the centuries. Pages tear, fires burn, people forget, and yet scholars record, artists revive — marvellously mirrored in the dense yet flighty crescendo of 'Faded Corners', like a sky ripped asunder.

The single arrives with bonus remixes. Flau label boss aus takes the track to the boundaries of a frosty realm in his 'reprise', waves of ambient synth washing through a minimal landscape with cascading clusters of bleeping synths and snippets of harsh noise, ending with intense destructed glimmers of sound.

Elsewhere there's a chilled, almost New Age vibe to the remix by Korean duo Salamanda, complete with slow, deeply blooping drums spinning a relaxed groove. Melati ESP, on the other hand, makes things propulsive with a bouncing beat and tropical approach to its bubbling collection of iridiscent synths.

---

• 🔔 'Faded Corners' by Cuushe is out now! It is available to download digitally from Flau's Bandcamp, or else you can purchase the CD, giving you access to a CD-only track called 'Tsuki to Sakana'.
• 🔔 You can also watch the official video for Cuushe's 'Faded Corners', directed by Tao Tajima.

---

📠
☟ Cuushe Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ instagram ⚘ wikipedia ⚘ spotify

---

POSTCARDS — HOME IS SO SAD

⌾ LISTEN TO HOME IS SO SAD BY POSTCARDS ⌾

---

---

The mesh of distortion and fuzz that lies over this track by Beirut-based band Postcards creates a fitting aesthetic for its title: 'Home is so Sad'. It's the refrain that runs through the track, voiced by lead singer Julia Sabra like a mantra with descending notes — sadness far removed by time, but present and watchful. A simple melody plays with timeworn wheeze; keeping time are an insistent barrage of decayed drums, regular and metronomic but sometimes (and fittingly) accented to create arrhythmic chaos.

The sound is rooted in real life. The song was one of three the band wrote following the devastating 2020 Beirut explosion, and features poignant lyrics that juxtapose the everyday experiences of the city, of the eponynous "home", with the very un-everyday catastrophic event itself:

"Glass in our coffee / Towels on trees [...]
Soil splattered on the walls like drops of blood."

Completing a considered, slow-motion and dreamlike balance of soft and harsh — sunk in sadness but with the swell and crash of trauama — a guitar wheels like a portent of doom into the scene. Notes screech and clash, buzzing and grinding to and fro with shoegaze grit, while somewhere in the background a light, electronic cloud of sound floats by, like a thought bubble — an ever-present vehicle for visceral memories.

---

• 🔔 This haunting track is taken from Postcards upcoming third album, Before the End, which is scheduled for release later in 2021 on Berlin label t3 records. You can also stream and/or purchase 'Home is so Sad' if you like.

---

📠
☟ Postcards Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ official site ⚘ twitter ⚘ instagram ⚘ spotify

---

🐣 RALLY CLUB — TWELVE TATTOOS

⊚ LISTEN TO RALLY CLUB, TWELVE TATTOOS ⊚

Conversational lyricism weaves through the sunny strumming jangle of Rally Club's 'Twelve Tattoos', the effect basically feels like climbing inside the head of its female protagonist. Her observations and thoughts sprinkle the lyrics, whilst she's also described her in third person from the point of view of the singer.

The chorus, with its hook-laden far-off broken radio vocals, mentions this explicitly: "I gotta feeling that I’m seeing what she’s looking through / cause she talks in her sleep, she talks about being with you."

The sparkle of its chords feel like starfish washed up on the beach, the breeze shunting clouds across a cool blue sky, the tinny bump of the drums skittering in coastal somersaults. There's this surf feel, with these effortless vocal harmonies that feel Beach Boys crossed with beat poet – or West Coast Weapon-era Brand New – as you can see from Rally Club's opening gambit:

"She looked pretty even keeled if you looked from afar. Her makeup barely covered up her blatant reactions to songs as she mumbled the words if she knew them at all.

She looked pretty damn full from all the meals in her car; the times she spent driving chasing constant attractions added up and the math in her head was getting harder to solve."

There is this delicious wordy detail in the strings of words that whirl around, rhythmically solid and pulsing with the bounce easy scansion. Even the ABCABC (bones, palate, remind her / known, mallet, behind her) rhyme scheme feels poetically sound.

Next to the detail, the words remain methodically cryptic; lines like "Twelve tattoos in the entire home, the perfect situation to display on the surface" and "A polished reputation, could it really be worthless? she thought as she filled in all the cracks in the living room wall" – as well as the sad "nobody found the letters she was leaving behind her" – mix everyday minutiae with mystery.

And then besides the airy detached jangle, there's this angular guitar riff that jumps in loaded with chorus; the sort of glitzy, towering thing you'd expect from some early metal band, but with a lovely lack of distortion. Besides the superficial everyday of the protagonist, the light strumming, there's the inner turmoil of what she's actually going through, displayed in the mild aggression of the thumping riff sections: clutching at reality and trying to make sense of it.

---

• 🔔 Feel free to stream or purchase this Rally Club track on their Bandcamp or the single release it appears on, Space / Twelve Tattoos'.
• 🔔 The fun hand-drawn video is by Nathan Henning.

---

---

📠
☟ Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ bandcamp ⚘ twitter ⚘ instagram

---

---

🐣 OKAY(K) — SEVEN, TI SEVEN [初演 • PREMIERE]

⌾ LISTEN TO OKAY(K) SEVEN TI SEVEN ⌾

Fresh from the faded sunset beach guitar sounds of ‘bacardi with a soda’ – his latest track – SoundCloud musicmaker, vocalist and all-round wordist okay(K) crash lands back to earth in his interdimensional pod; the control panel has gone haywire and is playing out some wonky chords from a far-off radio station, colourful blips and bleeps crackling in the hook (notification system failing), the fizzing circuitry of the beat skipping and lurching with a galaxy of glitch.

It’s friendly though. In fact, 'seven, ti seven' sort of reminds me of the 'Battle Against a Weird Opponent' theme from Earthbound. The sound is warm, though jaunty and angular in structure. Like Mr Burns from that Simpsons episode, he brings you love. And here okay(K) is in the middle of it all, with a message from the future. Or was it the past?

“The concept is "seven ti seven ti seven ti seventy" meaning "seven you seven you seven you seventy",” he tells us via email.

“everyone is as much alike in a way as they are different. we’re all human with our own unique characteristics that make us distinct.”

Halfway between a lounge croon and a beat poet recital, okay(K)’s vocal in ‘seven, ti seven’ rolls around picking up references from everywhere, like a virtual snowball through Wikipedia, from foreign languages to the next US election. And all in a style that drips in stream-of-consciousness fever dream freedom; even the way the lyrics can be set out looks like a poem:

never, never, never been where i is
is i isn't
isn't i isn't
isn't i finished
i said now isnt thy wishlist not made in 79 minutes
79 minutes till he be sending my giftish
its like my 79th christmas
he said Pitkästä aikaa
* i said now isn't i Finnish
i said now isn't i finished
...

The skipping but low-slung virtuosity of this first verse (above is a fragment) contrasts with the wobbly, positive spoken word-esque vocal of the second; there’s simple but inspiration thinking in there, with lines like “I think we can go far / If we hold on real tightly” delivered with rounded earnest. Politics comes into play, when okay(K) talks about waiting “patiently” for 2020: "If we are impeaching then it may be imperfection / Coulda happened sooner then there would be no objection now."

It’s an exercise in patient positivity, set to a scuttled hodge-podge glitch-flavoured beat that could seem chaotic, but feels as chill and accessible as those jazzed-out chords—a joyful juncture where rap, poetry and sheer artistic communication meet and mingle.

* This means 'long time no see' in Finnish.

---

• 🔔 Listen to more okay(K) on SoundCloud.

---

---

📠
☟ okay(K) Internet Presence ☟
soundcloud ⚘ twitter ⚘ spotify

---

---

🐣 PORTALS — WAKELAST

This song was pitched very briefly with the captivating subtitle ‘Elvis trying to use Windows 98.’ Clickbait, you may think. But upon listening, upon hear the guttural abrasive vocals of PORTALS curling round each pointed word like a cyberpunk savant fortune-teller and the gabbering liquid gooey instrumental, this description seems quite spot-on - at least superficially.

“Looking back,” Alejandro Cañellas, the human behind PORTALS, kindly explains, “it seems the track focuses on the law of correspondence. Every line is a reference to either looking at myself from within myself or from without.”

Accordingly the lyrics of ‘WAKELAST’ - taken from a recent double-single Voult//Wakelast (tagged ‘win98core’ on SoundCloud) - are cryptic and self-examining. The refraining nature of it gives a mantra quality to how it is delivered, making it feel like a frenzied, searching howl into the vaulting void: “eyes look into the next life / myself always outside / eyes look into the next life / I stand behind my eyes.” Not to mention how it is viscerally scrawled into the air by the vicious vocals, falling thunderboltish on the bed of garbled plasma noise - a sample taken from 'jacket funk' by pilotredsun track. ‘WAKELAST’ is like a brutal reflection, self-reflexive poetry in the form of a fist to one’s own face—aggressive existentialism.

“It's like a hall of mirrors,” Cañellas tells us. “I think people should spend more time in mirror halls cause no matter where they look they're forced to stare at themselves and at their own vampire elementals and smoke demons.”

---

• 🔔 Listen to the Voult//Wakelast double single over on PORTALS' SoundCloud.
• 🔔 There is also a suitably abrasive and glitched-out music video for the other track 'VOULT' to illustrate the garbled existentialist aggression of the track. This can be viewed on YouTube.

---

---

📠
☟ PORTALS Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ twitter ⚘ youtube instagram

---

---

🐣 GOURMET — YELLOW

How so few elements can create such a luscious soundscape, yet here we are, a cradle of minimalism becomes this lavish tapestry of sound. The drums tumble thud and shimmy shuffle with kicks and clacking handclaps seesawing beneath sprinkling shakers, the whole roly-poly of it organic and breathy on the background of silence, a stark and basic binary where each percussive gambol is a 1 to absence-of-sound's 0. These are the wonderful foundations of 'Yellow' by Cape Town's very own Gourmet—atop these buttresses sit turrets and towers painted with wonky wah-wah synth chords that ring out with hollow iridality in patterns of innocence and playfulness.

In the midst of these half-triumphal quasi-brass hits, the vocals of Gourmet seem to spill out in a profound procession of detail and cryptic mentions that make this quite an abstracted stream of consciousness, the dry matter-of-fact tone in the voice adding to the humour and oddball hat-tips as they accrue collage-esque (much like the track artwork) throughout the track, snippets such as "you're blonde, that's unlikely" and specificities like "small hands, gluten-free spaghetti lad" as well as the hook that speaks of "cyan, magenta, yellow's such a boring word"—high on wordplay.

By the end it's a sudden sultry list of alliterative allusions to sex, "fingertips unzip clitoris lips and flickering anxiousness…" as synth bass pulses like a heavy heartbeat, disappears, gives way to more soft percussion as the vocals continue breathless, descending peals of synth like the jubilation of wedding bells, the scattered mutterings of nervous youth leading up to this crescendo of cloistered coupling that all awkwardness dreams of.

---

• 🔔 'Yellow' by self-proclaimed "Spaghetti Boy" and musical entity Gourmet is out now courtesy of Cape Town record label, 1991.

---

---

📠
☟ Gourmet Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ instagram ⚘ spotify

---

---

UIO LOI PYOBACHI

FIRST OF ALL: Apologies. I'm sorry to everyone who's emailed me with music so far. A lot of it I just haven't got round to listening to yet. But I know what it's like to sit and wait for replies to emails you've nicely sent out so over the course of the next few days I will be having an Email Marathon. Anyway, this artist, the USA-based Zoom Lens associate Uio Loi (pronounced "oo-ee-oh loy" - real name Kyle Yerhot or K. Yerhot; I prefer the latter) has recently created and released a collection of songs, an album basically I dunno why I referred to it as that, called Pyobachi. It arrives care of brand-spaking-new art collective MI AJIRA and it's a really nice listen.

What is it? Essentially it's a collation of short songs linked in their similar aesthetic. Mr Yerhot himself says that it "focuses on using general MIDI sound samples mixed with modern electronic music & field recordings to create a juxtaposition of old & new." He also describes it as "Beautiful & ugly," and whilst it could seem an unflattering sub-text to bestow on his own creation, it's more of a romantic feeling than anything else. I mean Romantic. Not romantic. I believe, in this respect, the song titles help as a guide. These are vignettes, short poems of sound that conjure images and feelings related to loose subject matter falling under the titles. Which can indeed be wide and encompassing umbrellas of reference.

For instance, you have an actual recording of what sounds like a group of students making their exodus at the end of a lecture in 'Lecture', coupled with soft synth chords and industrious marimba that provides a breezy atmosphere of light learning. Next song, 'Reminisce' provides a portal to the past in the form of ascending wormhole bleeps and mystical pan-pipe melodies, ending when the goal of reminiscing is reached: warm, homely synths that glow with nostalgia. Broken robot sounds grace the glitch of does-not-compute feelings in 'Goodbye Never Ever Ever' and 'Flight' captures a bustling airport with foreign languages spoken against excitable toytronic sounds.

Opener 'Apartment' has this intro that would fit perfectly as a soundtrack to arriving home after a night out; all the lights are off, there's this unnerving almost ghostly feeling in the air. But as your own living person inhabits the space - turning lights on, switching on the TV, maybe cooking chips (fries whatever) in the oven - your own emotions fill the space: here it's a comforting sound, waves of synth driven forward by kicks and MIDI pan pipes for a playful decoration, yet all of it still with that same unnerving sound, a solitary undertone.

Likewise, there's that illustration of space in 'Living Room'. Recordings of something shuffling around in the background underpin a cold wash of ambient synths against rapid-fire arpeggios of synth boops; someone's playing piano at the end. Is that shuffling or sniffling? Could be sniffling cause it carries on over into next song 'Weep', featuring glistening silver sounds that perfectly partner with the delicate connotations of the word "weep" (as opposed to "sob" or "cry"). It summons a used-to, ingrained sadness, more of a celebration of cathartic release than wallowing in negativity. Closer 'Once More', with its thin yet head-nodding beat and mechanical glitch sounds, give a sense of continuance, how a night will end in the inevitability of tomorrow or how a morning will end in the day's definitive fading.

I could've done this with every song but then I'd be ruining your own chance to think about what you see or feel when you hear these short clippings of emotion and memory. Download Pyobachi for whatever price you like over at MI AJIRA's Bandcamp and enjoy the musical poetry. Also the album art was by Uio Loi himself.

---

---

Listen to Uio Loi on SoundCloud
Follow Uio Loi on Twitter
Check Uio Loi on Tumblr

---

---

CORY JREAMZ ALIVE

So we got a nice treat right now, from the up-and-coming rapper from Houston, Cory Jreamz - the amount I've written about him already is testament to the fact that he is doing different stuff: if I didn't like it I wouldn't be writing about it. He's even been captured by the Q&A of the YES/NO Lazy Interview. He started getting noticed a bit more after he dropped his song 'Howl' from upcoming release The Lonely Painter - it being played on the radio by the likes of Scroobius Pip and featured on a zillion zines - and as for this song, 'Alive', it was premiered on VICE's music arm Noisey. I'm happy to see that he's getting the attention he deserves.

Yep, with 'Howl' on one hand and 'Alive' on the other, it seems as though The Lonely Painter - Jreamz's upcoming album - is going to be an interesting and intense listen. Here's the video for 'Alive', directed by CJ himself and shot by Andrew Goodwin - a perfect match for the song.

With unnerving vocal samples chopped-up and looped, the music is thick and rumbling, dark and looming, snapping suddenly into full-bodied synth and sampling - a melding of elements - about halfway through. The skeleton of a snare rattles in the foreground. Although it is a rap (filled with cultural references including Marlon Brando and To Kill A Mockingbird) there is something jarring and unexpected about his delivery that it could be more of a poem than anything else. It's a phresh take on things and in the world of rap, a phresh take is the best take sometimes - it is all too easy to sound like someone else. Cory Jreamz, however, continues to sound like Cory Jreamz.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Like Cory Jreamz on Facebook
Follow Cory Jreamz on Twitter
Listen to Cory Jreamz on SoundCloud
Visit Cory Jreamz' official site

TREE FT BEAT CULTURE AND LENA KUHN DEMONS

Yo yo yo yo. How are you? Good, me too. So I was sent some info that included a link to this song, 'Demons', a while ago and I was pretty surprised at the originality at work in the sounds. It's by Tree, real name Oliver Tree Nickell and features beats and noises from experimental pop music-maker, Beat Culture, as well as vocals from Lena Kuhn. I still haven't heard much about these guys, though I did just google Lena Kuhn and found that a lot of other music blogs wrote about this song already. Boo-hoo poor me I'm so lazy.

It's from Tree's debut EP also called Demons, released on Apollo Records late August. I listened to all of it and really liked it, but it turns out that I like this song the most out of all of them. It's a really good song that leaks an atmosphere of angst and anxiety all over the shop. There's such a glistening array of noises present here that it's kinda impossible to listen all the way through and not like at least one thing about the song. But the star of the show is Tree's voice, I'd say, but it's the mix of everything that gives the end result. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I guess? Lol?

Anyway, it begins with some languishingly strummed guitar that's augmented by this haunting whistling-wind kinda sound. Starting quiet and then in rumbles some hefty bass and the skeleton of a beat whose snare crashes like distant ships running aground in a pitch black night, whose hi-hat glitches like a neurotic clock. Emotion seeps in with grey flights of ever-falling strings, thickening later on in the song with something more cello-like. It's a sophisticated atmospheric composition where bright loses to dark in an emotive murk of sounds.

The vocals from Mr Tree himself are pretty spectacular as well. It's kinda like rapping, kinda like spoken word, kinda like singing. His words teem with emotion, not just in the near-twisted aggressive way he spits the lines as if them being in his mouth is leaving too sour a taste, like he's gotta get them out, but also in the words themselves. The lyrics are morbid and paranoid and are littered to references to demons and "the self". Some that stick in my head: "Sometimes I look at who I am in the mirror and forget / Sometimes I return home to demons on my doorstep / Just let me be / I want you to leave / Sometimes I get so suffocated I could barely breathe" and "I knew that it was time to go face to face with demons from my last life" and the chorus refrain "Sometimes it's easier pretending that you're somebody you're not". All conjure the sense of different parts of a person wrestling with themselves, the frustration of defining yourself to yourself. And the backing vocals from Lena Kuhn give everything a spooky, near-schizophrenic vibe - a quite beautiful effect if I may say so.

A real surprise. Dark, experimental, brimming with emotion... What will come next. I don't know. Watch & see.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Like Tree on Facebook
Listen to Tree on Soundcloud
Visit Tree's official site
Follow Tree on Twitter
Check Tree on Tumblr
Watch Tree on YouTube

Listen to Beat Culture on SoundCloud

LAZY INTERVIEW #12: CORY JREAMZ

---

← #11: YOSI HORIKAWA #13: THE ORWELLS →

Already making waves, having been featured on websites much more prestigious, desirable and professional than mine, and also played by UK rapper/poet/MC/DJ Scroobius Pip on his XFM (that's a UK radio station btw guys) show - Beatdown, every Sunday 12am to 1am - and also by Lily Mercer on her Rinse FM show (Mondays, 1am to 3am) - or at least, Cory Jreamz thinks she did.

Yes, his name is Cory Jreamz and he is a rapper from Houston, Texas. I've been following his progress since he released his EP, Vague Current Vivid Fated, last year - it was a pretty leftfield venture out into the world of rap, draped with all the frustrations of being 18, which Jreamz was at the time. Next, this year, we heard 'Howl', a distorted mass of noise tied up with a spoken word diatribe. It comes from his upcoming album, The Lonely Painter, scheduled for release later this year.

Anyway, as you can probably tell Cory Jreamz is the latest of the YES/NO Lazy Interview Q&A. If it's ok with you, you can read it below and find out a little bit more about this up-and-coming rapman.

---

---

Who are you? Where are you from? What do you do?
　My name is Cory Jreamz, from Houston, Texas. I make music.

Why did you decide to start creating music?
　It came from me writing poetry. Needing a way to express myself. I'm a fairly quiet person so music gives me my voice. People always wonder why I'm quiet sometimes, it's because I'm writing the songs in my head haha. I have a lot to say.

How would you describe your sound? What makes you and your style stand out?
　I don't think I could describe my sound. Each song sounds really different. Charisma, aggression, teen Angst ha it's a lot of things. What makes me stand out is that you can't compare my sound to anyone's. It's just Cory Jreamz.

Is there a perfect time and place for listening to your music?
　At night while driving around it sounds amazing. Driving really fast on the freeway it sounds pretty cool. I wouldn't listen to it in the morning though. Morning is more fit for folk Joni Mitchell type of vibes. Rap would be hard on the mind in the morning.

What inspires you most when writing a song?
　Anything going on in my life. Anything someone said to me. People, places, many things. I'm inspired by everything I encounter in one way or another. Movies also. I got inspired to do the the first half of the intro to my album while watching the film The Tree Of Life. 'Swim' was also inspired by someone asking me did I know how to swim or ride a bike. I mean, you might even be inspiration for something. I pretty much get inspired by 100% of things I encounter.

What is your most memorable musical experience?
　Passing out my CD's at school my junior or senior year I think. I was passing it out to everyone in the class. I ended up handing one to a girl in my class, and she broke it in half right in front of my face. I'll never forget that moment, I still have the CD actually. I decided I will never quit making music at that point. Keeps me humble.

What are your favourite three songs at the moment?
　MGMT - Your Life Is A Lie
　M83 - Your Tears Are Becoming My Sea
　Waka Flocka Flame - 50K Remix

Who do you most admire in the music world?
　Pink Floyd. Greatest band ever in my opinion. From taking risks with their album covers to having flying pigs at their shows. Wow. I also admire David Bowie in certain ways. I really admired what he did with the Ziggy Stardust stages of his career. It was fresh. I think it's cool when artists come up with different personas, characters of their self. That's what made me fall in love with how Nicki Minaj or Eminem have the weird voices they do when they rap. I love it.

In your opinion, what is the future of music?
　I think everything will eventually be digital. CD's will stop being sold in stores etc. I feel like some new genre or sound will come and takeover also. Sort of like what Hip-Hop did. Just a prediction. Who really knows though?

What's the future of your music - what do you hope to do next?
　Release this album in October first of all haha. After that the focus will be on making my first show happen. Which will be in London of course. I'm aiming for December or January.

What, aside from music, is most important to you?
　Family, Friends, Film. I'm really into movies. I want to further enhance my screenwriting skills eventually. And then move to directing. So at least by 24 or 25 I could be directing and writing the scripts for all my videos.

---

---

There you go. 11 questions asked, 11 questions answered. It's clear that there's a lot of ambition here - a mix of the charisma and teen angst he mentions above - and that's definitely not a bad thing. In fact, half of making music is having the guts to actually DO it in the first place and for Cory's particular style of music - alternative rap, I guess, but not like anything really - it's a really brave step.

With that in mind, I'm looking forward to see how The Lonely Painter will turn out. 'Howl' was wildly different to anything on Vague Current Vivid Fated, so the whole album has the potential to be a polarising experience - not just between the songs themselves, but for the audience. However, I'm pretty sure that Cory isn't afraid to create something that isn't just going to turn heads but also spark a very different reaction depending on who's listening.

---

---

← #11: YOSI HORIKAWA #13: THE ORWELLS → - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Like Cory Jreamz on Facebook
Follow Cory Jreamz on Twitter
Listen to Cory Jreamz on SoundCloud
Visit Cory Jreamz' official site

RIP GIL SCOTT-HERON

April 1, 1949 – May 27, 2011

---

Releasing his final studio album in 2010, the first in 16 years, Gil Scott-Heron will be remembered as one of the greatest influencers of hip-hop, exerting an avid, angry energy for poetry that he used against the racial and political turmoil of the early 1970s, he has become immortalised through his own poignant words through his years of activity in music. Most recently, he allowed - along with his producer Richard Russell - his last album, 'I'm New Here' to be remixed in its entirety (bar 2 songs) by Jamie xx as 'We're New Here'.

The decision to get it remixed by Jamie xx is telling of Gil Scott-Heron's character as one who likes to push things forward into new territories; it's generally unusual to get a whole album remixed by just one person, let alone a not-that-well-known, English producer. The original album itself marks a change, being more electronically-driven trip-hop or dubstepped-ambience than the soul/funk of his previous outings. Producer Russell even claimed some influence from The xx - hence the reason for Jamie's remix. But I'm digressing.

An absolute legend has passed away, and I'd like to remind you of or introduce you to 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised' - a beautifully angry ancestor to modern hip-hop and the godfather of rap's most famous piece. The poem in full is below. Rest in Peace Gil Scott-Heron.

---

You will not be able to stay home, brother.
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out.
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag
and skip out for beer during commercials,
Because the revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox
in 4 parts without commercial interruptions.
The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon
blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John
Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat
hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary.

The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be brought to you by the
Schaefer Award Theatre and will not star Natalie
Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia.
The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal.
The revolution will not get rid of the nubs.
The revolution will not make you look five pounds
thinner, the revolution will not be televised, brother.

There will be no pictures of you and Willie May
pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run,
or trying to slide that color television into a stolen ambulance.
NBC will not be able predict the winner at 8:32
or report from 29 districts.

The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers on the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of Whitney Young being
run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process.
There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy
Wilkens strolling through Watts in a Red, Black and
Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving
For just the proper occasion.

Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville
Junction will no longer be so God-damned relevant, and
women will not care if Dick finally screwed Jane
on Search for Tomorrow because Black people
will be in the street looking for a brighter day.

The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock
news and no pictures of hairy-armed women
liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose.
The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb, or
Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom
Jones, Johnny Cash, or Englebert Humperdink.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be right back after a message
bbout a white tornado, white lightning, or white people.
You will not have to worry about a dove in your
bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl.
The revolution will not go better with Coke.
The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath.
The revolution will put you in the driver's seat.

The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised,
will not be televised, not be televised.
The revolution will be no re-run brothers;
The revolution will be live.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -