In honor of my favorite thing to do on Monday nights (Watch the white rapper show), I present this little diddy.

Brooklyn Hip Hop duo Junk Science offer here what could easily serve as a guidebook for aspiring white Hip Hopper’s.

Most Importantly: Be Yourself (”If you wanna be black, there’s nothing whiter than that”).

Plus, like “The White Rapper Show”, Baje One of Junk Science has fun with it; slipping examinations of race and stereotypes into an easy to swallow, sugar coated, capsule.

Junk Science: House Wigger
from Feeding Einstein (Embedded 2006)

Peace Kiddies

Haunting, inviting, indifferent, and unafraid, Elizabeth Powell and the Land Of Talk invade your headphones with their debut EP Applause Cheer Boo Hiss and leave you with melodies you won’t be able to shake off for days. The album is hardly a debut effort - Lizzie is no stranger to music, having played a handful of instruments and roles, including violin and bass guitar for other projects, and now vocals and guitar for the Montreal trio.

From where Land of Talk draws inspiration for their loosely composed lyrics is uncertain; perhaps from Lizzie’s childhood spent in a one-room schoolhouse in a small Canadian town, or from being the daughter of North America’s premiere female alligator wrestler (as advertised!), whatever that really entails.

And perhaps, it is no coincidence the band mirrors the Canadian city from which it emerges, whose paradoxical nicknames include la belle ville (the beautiful city) and the more hedonistic Sin City. In this sense, the duality is reflected in Lizzie’s wonderfully approachable vocals and the band’s lack of inhibition to put the Rock back into “Indie Rock”.

Applause is almost a telephone conversation amidst the pleasant static of warm and familiar chords, but one you will have to play over and over again to fully understand. Not that you’ll mind.

-JP

http://www.landoftalk.com/
http://myspace.com/landoftalkmtl

Recent and Upcoming Albums
April 2006 - Applause Cheer Boo Hiss [EP]

Not as the name suggests, the Harlem Shakes hail from Brooklyn and probably don’t dance as expected. After opening up for bands like Arctic Monkeys (who are they?) and Deerhoof, they are gearing up to release their debut EP “Burning Birthdays”, an appropriately named five-song set powered by carefree, foot-tapping indie basement rock. The vintage texture of this eighteen-minute album goes down smooth with a young, hopeful and melodic voice orchestrated with a fine supporting cast of relaxed overdriven guitars. ‘Missing Our Loved Ones’ hints of Electric Light Orchestra, and comparisons have been made to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs - probably the closest geographical and musical well-known yardstick - but a full-length album will be more telling.

-JP

http://www.harlemshakes.com
http://myspace.com/harlemshakes

Recent and Upcoming:

February 6, 2007 - Burning Birthdays (EP)

The now-defunct punk post-hardcore band known as All My Heroes shined briefly on their first and last album Magnolia Street, nearly two years ago on the fledgling Florida-based label Secondhand Records. Originally recording a four-song demo under the name Citizen Kane, AMH transitioned from demo to album and successfully refined their voice without changing it.

While Hawthorne Heights taught us what it was to be accessible faux-screamo, AMH seems to be a genuine punk band with a little throat-scratching edge to it. They love their guitar riffs as much as their bass lines or their cymbal intros, and while any band could set up the double bassdrums and belt out empty anthems in gutteral tones (I love that word), it takes a little more to coordinate.

Undoubtedly the layering of screaming over singing is a tried and true method, but timing is also important. They save it for the end of verses, for the chorus, for words they want you to remember, and use it often but wisely. While guitar solos following the melodies of songs tend to come out tacky and predicitably unimpressive (see Weezer’s Green Album), AMH knows how to combine both for emphasis, and in a flash of a sixth grade art class epiphany when Ms McKenzie introduced negative space, riffs or vocals in this duo which are purposely left out make even more of a statement.

Overanalysis aside, this album is enjoyable, especially if you too are reminded of Knight Rider in all of its Hasselhoff and talking car glory by the intro to one of the songs. It is certainly a pity that the band broke up due to artistic differences - which probably means the drummer slept with the lead guitarist’s sister - but in all seriousness, this is another band that could have been.

What are the bands’ members doing now? Apparently selling clothes and a hip-hop band. Oh Miami.

-JP

http://www.allmyheroesrock.com/

Recent and Upcoming:

November 16, 2004 - Magnolia Street