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Watch Now: ‘NASIR’ The Film.

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Nas may be focused on making a brand new LP with Swizz Beatz and RZA, but that’s not stopping him from keeping his self-titled 11th studio album alive. Today (Nov. 15), the “Adam & Eve” rapper dropped a short film via Mass Appeal to accompany his Nasir album, which was executively produced by Kanye West.

The 16-minute film amplifies the deep stories and social issues his latest album touches on, including things like racism and police brutality. Both are social constructions Nas would argue affect the world to this day.

(via. XXL.com)

Watch Below:

William Carlos Whitten (@theabjectionist) ‘Burn My Letters’ Album. @IHeartNoise

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Real talk: If you were to peruse my cassette collection circa 1996, you’d perhaps catch a glimpse of St. Johnny’s “Speed Is Dreaming” somewhere in the middle of the pile. I say “middle” because it didn’t reach the top all that often. See, I was a young rogue then, and the ladies mostly dug all those Pixies tapes I had (they really didn’t get Pavement or GBV either, for some reason), and none were particularly enamored at my “sorta Sonic Youth-y but not!” platitudes I lobbed at Bill Whitten and his band of NYC rascals. But it was their loss, and everyone else’s loss, because St. Johnny got the major shaft in the end, ceasing to exist and becoming Grand Mal, among other things (And by the “major shaft,” I mean the “major label shaft” – St. Johnny were DGC castoffs in the era of the great post-Nirvana cash grab. I paid almost twenty dollars for a CD at the Wall sometimes back then. What was I thinking.)

But something happened between 1996 and now. (Besides 9/11 of course.) Bill “William Carlos” Whitten, against all odds, with his back against the wall, a true underdog in every respect, kept the dream alive, and here we are with “Burn My Letters,” a throwback, a progression, a snapshot of what Whitten’s got up his sleeve. More intimate than theatrically guitar-y, and, well, duh, Whitten’s older than even ME, so there’s a well-worn, lived-in quality to these tunes that I can totally relate to as an ex-indie rocker who used to practice guitar by adjusting feedback on my amp for hours at a time. We’re supremely in Mercury Rev territory – why is that such an easy conclusion to jump to? Oh – because there’s a Mercury Rev alum (Justin Russo) on it. Also, Dave Fridmann mastered it. Plus, Grasshopper was once in St. Johnny – but that has nothing to do with “Burn My Letters.” Look, I can go on forever about how natural, how RIGHT this tape feels, how it brings back all sorts of formative music memories, but in the end you’ll just have to trust the guy who wrote about the red wheelbarrow beside the white chickens, the guy who wrings so much from so little.

Oh wait, that’s the OTHER William Carlos Whitten with the poetry. Gosh, I’m so embarrassed. This one’s still good.

(via. http://www.tabsout.com/?p=18963)

 

 

Mishka Shubaly: William Carlos Whitten is criminally under-sung, one of the best rock writers working today. As the driving force behind grimy NYC bands St. Johnny and Grand Mal, Whitten is fluent in both capital-L literature and nihilistic rock ‘n roll hedonism. Intelligence can kill or at least cool an otherwise hot rock ‘n roll number (see: The Decemberists) but Whitten is a master of the form, he knows that no amount of literature will transform our humanity’s primitive nature. We want to get laid, we want to be loved, we want to be held closely and told that we’re never going to die, we want to die, and we want it all to unfold to a mournful, swaggering backbeat. Burn My Letters could not be more aptly titled, as this album is an erotic rock and roll love letter to yearning, to mourning, to hope, and to despair.

The Idiot meets Emergency Kisses.

Mastered by Dave Friedmann (Flaming Lips/Mercury Rev/Weezer/Sparklehorse) at Tarbox Road Studios.

credits

released June 4, 2018

Brad Truax (Home, Interpol, Jah Division, Soldiers of Fortune)

Parker Kindred (Amen Dunes, Anthony and the Johnsons, Jeff Buckley, Joan As Police Woman)

Justin Russo (Hopewell, Mercury Rev, The Silent League)

John Rauchenberger (August Wells)

A Tribe Called Quest’s Final Music Video ‘The Space Program”

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Legendary Hip-Hop group A Tribe Called Quest release their final video ‘The Space Program’ an abstract Sci-Fi thriller that has more connections to present day than what is seen on the surface. “Imagine this song was really talkin’ bout space dude?” Q Tip raps somewhat half jokingly, as news of the Space Force and interplanetary existence become more and more real Tribe equates the explusion of immigrants and gentrification to the larger idea of “unblackening” (as Jarobi puts it in his first verse). The ‘Fear Of A Black Planet’ Public Enemy spoke of in 1990 may be more apparent now than ever.

Messaging aside the video doubles as a tribute to legendary memeber Phife Dawg who passed away before the release of their amazing final album “We got it from Here… Thank You 4 Your Service”. End credits and iconic photos send fans down memory lane and instill the trio/quartet in the music hall of fame. Watch below: