Hip-Hop
Frank Ocean – Pyramids
January 22, 2013
Artist
Track
Pyramids
Album
Channel Orange
From
USA, 2012
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Let’s continue our 2012 recap with Frank Ocean.
When it comes down to music genres, I’m usually not the biggest fan of hip-hop, rap, r’n b, etc.
But this is different. This is much better than anything else.
Channel Orange is a stunning album and Pyramids is with no doubt its masterpiece. If you have to listen to only one song, it should be this one.
Pyramids is an epic 10 minutes long track combining various influences (electronic, slow jam, r’n b, etc.) and developed into two movements.
It has been one of my favorite song of 2012 and I’m sure I’ll still spend some few hours listening to it.
If you like it, don’t hesitate to have a listen to the rest of the album. My other favorite ones are Lost and Pink Matter.
Enjoy!
T.
C2C – Happy feat Derek Martin
September 14, 2012
Artist
C2C
Tracks
Happy feat Derek Martin
Album
Tetra
From
France, 2012
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G.
C2C – Down The Road [album]
May 18, 2012
Artist
C2C
From
France, 2012
Tracks
Down The Road
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F·U·Y·A
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Down The Road (Irfane Outlines Remix)
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C2C on Spotify
Some people do need some proper introduction, the following video is the clip the made for F·U·Y·A!
And this the live they played during the 2005 DMC competitions… and won! Crazy lads…
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DMC Set 2005
G.
Tha Trickaz – Robbery Song
April 12, 2012
Artist
The Trickaz
Track
Robbery Song
Album
The Cloud EP
From
France, 2009
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The last crazy songs I discovered were all on Popeye! Good lord, how the hell can I contribute to this blog if I can’t discover and share something worth sharing. What a downfall! But depressing times never last long and I’m back with a bomb! Short but really how could a song be more unbelievable… it’s only weakness is that it’s too damn short.
The artist? Well I checked him out through Chinese Man “Miss Chang” Remix on their latest album (Racing With the Sun) and I can’t believe I never heard Robbery Song with more than 200k views on youtube. I was blind!
G.
Breton – Other People’s Problems [album]
April 3, 2012
Artist
Album
Other People’s Problems
From
UK, 2012
Tracks
Edward The Confessor
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Jostle
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The Commission
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The album on Spotify on Deezer
A few months ago, I had a blast with the track “Edward the Confessor”. A fresh new sound, full of power, tension and creativity. If you only have time to listen to one song, this is the one.
Since then, I’ve been waiting for the release of their first full length album. “Other People’s Problems” has been released a few days ago.
But first, let’s talk a little bit about the band, because it’s not exactly the classic type of band we can find everyday. Those 5 guys all come from art school and formed a multimedia arts collective, starting as movie directors. Soon enough, they needed music for their videos and so, started to produce their own music. This is important to know, because this has quite a great influence on their sound.
The lads from Breton all live under the same roof, the BretonLab : an old abandoned bank that is now their house and their studio. They manage everything about the band; from the music to the image, these guys create everything themselves.
“Other People’s Problems” is a concentrate of various influences. If you want some names, the more obvious ones could be Foals, Battles, Burial, Bloc Party, Four Tet… Some songs could be categorized as urban, others as post-punk, dubstep, ambiant, electronic, rock… As you can see, it goes in a lot of directions, but oddly enough, it remains remarkably homogeneous! It’s sometimes slow and dark, sometimes fast and happier, but always keep the unique stye of Breton, a concentrate of dark atmosphere, tension and danceable riffs and beats.
The more I listen to this album, the more I love it. Each time, I discover a new song, listen to things differently. Each of the eleven tracks could be used as a soundtrack for a short movie and I play it in my head when listening to it.
I chose 3 songs for you to listen. I tried to pick different ones to let you hear the broad range of sound you can find on this album.
“Edward the Confessor” is the main track, the one that I can’t get rid of.
“Jostle” let you hear what they’re capable of when they go indie-rock.
“The Commission” is definitely one of my favorite, with is nightly dark atmosphere.
Breton is my best discovery in 2012 so far and I can’t wait to see them live. I’m sure (and I hope) this first album is only a glimpse of their entire talent, and that we’ll hear a lot about them for a few months/years.
Enjoy!
T.
The Roots – Make My
February 8, 2012
Artist
The Roots (feat. Big K.R.I.T. & Dice Raw)
Track
Make My
Album
undun
From
USA, 2011
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Website
Sometimes, there are a few albums I love and listen and lot to, but don’t ever speak about on Popeye.
The last album from The Roots -undun- is clearly one of them. It nearly made my top 5 from 2011, but missed it from very few.
I don’t think we need to present The Roots anymore: it’s already their 13th album, they’re the house band from Jimmy Fallon since 2009 and some of the band are quite famous (?uestlove, Black Thought)
undun is a pure The Roots album. I love the sound they’re producing, playing real instruments unlike a lot of actual hip-hop bands. This is what I call “classy hip-hop”!
This time, they chose to tell a story through the album. undun is “the story of this kid who becomes criminal, but he wasn’t born criminal” and uses a “reverse narrative arc” to tell the story.
Needless to say this album received very positive reviews from all critics.
Make My was the first single to be released. It’s a smooth but strong track about the life of Redford Stephens coming nearly to and end.
They released four small video (one per week) before the release of the album, narrating this story.
You can find the full video below.
Enjoy!
T.
General Elektriks [Artist]
December 8, 2011
Artist
General Elektriks
Latest Album
Parker Street
From
France-USA
Tracks
Please find the tracks after the review
Well, I had no idea which album of General Elektriks to choose, so I decided to speak about the artist in general and his three releases so far.
Like a lot of people, I only knew General Elektriks through the song ‘Raid the Radio’, but this was it. Recently, a friend of mine told me I should really write something about him on Popeye. Following this piece of advice, I started listening to his latest album and went backwards to the first one. I have to thanks my friend L. for this, since General Elektriks is something everyone should know about and listen.
Let’s start from the beggining : General Elektriks is the solo project of Hervé ‘RV’ Salters, a French keyboards player who worked for a lot of talented artists in Paris (M, DJ Mehdi, etc.) before moving to San Francisco in 1999. There, he kept playing for great bands and artists before releasing his first album ‘Cliquety Kliqk’ in 2004. This one was a mix of hip-hop beats and jazzy melodies. It’s important to know RV his playing all the instruments on his albums, before mixing them in studio. I picked just two songs for you: ‘Facing that void’ and ‘Tu m’intrigues’.
In 2009, his second album -‘Good City for Dreamers’- was released. This LP is a blending of genres and styles, mixing a broader range of instruments and sounds. Each track is unique and different from the others, but it all feels logical and smooth in the transitions. I had a hard time choosing some tracks for this one, so I selected three from it: the pop and whistling ‘Raid the Radio’, the rock ‘n roll ‘Helicopter’ and the vintage-soul ‘Bloodshot Eyes’.
Finally, in 2011, after 4 months of recording, was released his latest album -‘Parker Street’. Soul, deeper and sometimes darker than the previous releases, this album lets RV singing on more tracks than before.
It’s nevertheless still funky and punchy at times with tracks like ‘Holding Down the Fort’ and ‘Summer is Here’. I selected ‘Summer is Here’ and ‘Show Me Your Hands’ for you.
If I have to choose only one album to start with, I would take ‘Good City For Dreamers’. It’s the best one for me and still sounds very actual 2 years later. There’s nothing much to throw away from it, nearly everything works great and sometimes reaches instants of genius.
The first album is good but stays a lot more in the same style of sounds and rhythms all along.
Parker Street is supposed to go one step further than the previous one, but lacks the magic and the craziness of GCFD. It’s far from being a bad album -it’s even good- but I feel there’s something missing to make it a great album
I hope you’ll appreciate to (re)discover this artist as much as I did. Don’t hesitate to share your personal review with us!
Enjoy!
T.
Facing that void
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Tu m’intrigues
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Raid The Radio
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Helicopter
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Bloodshot Eyes
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Summer is Here
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Show Me Your Hands
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Tyler, The Creator – Yonkers
August 29, 2011
Artist
Tyler, The Creator
Track
Yonkers
Album
Goblin
From
USA, 2011
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Hey guys! First of all, sorry for being away for quite a few times now. Some of us had a lot of work, some others were on holidays… We’re back on track now and ready to share a lot of good tunes with you!
Stay tuned for great tracks even better than ever, and maybe for some new upgrades and new stuff for the website!
Tyler is the leader of hip hop collective OFWGKTA (Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All). He released his second album “Goblin” in 2011. He makes alternative hip hop, far from the bling bling and all the hype of others hip hop musicians.
Tyler got a lot of attention from music producers and from several influent websites (Pitchfork, Stereogum, etc.) after the release of his single “Yonkers”
I’m usually not a huge fan of hip hop music, but I have to say I directly liked his style and flow. His album has been on repeat in my headphones quite a lot recently.
In an interview, Tyler explains that this song is meant to be a “conversation” between himself and his evil alter ego Wolf Haley.
Last night’s prize at MTV Music Video Award ceremony -for best new artist- has been a reminder for me that this song has to be on Popeye.
Go watch his videoclip on our Facebook page.
Enjoy!
T.
Gold Panda – Marriage (Star Slinger Remix)
June 29, 2011
Artist
Gold Panda
Track
Marriage
(Star Slinger Remix)
Album
Marriage EP
From
UK, 2011
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Star Slinger is a Briton hip hop producer based in Manchester and qualified as the best new act of the year by miles by The Guardian. His remixes are awesome but my all time favorite has to be this remix of Gold Panda’s Marriage. The original song is more synthesizer based without many beats in it but it is still nice though.
Also from UK, Gold Panda is more a music composer than a producer. Their songs are more melodic but when they released the Marriage EP in March 2011, they filled it with remixes of the original from Baths, Forest Swords and Star Slinger off course. When you’ve heard the original you can’t argue on the fact that Star Slinger’s remix gives it a massive punch and rules the others out pretty easily.
As always, enjoy the music!
A.
RJD2 – Ghostwriter
April 27, 2011
Rjd2
Track
Ghostwriter
Album
Deadringer
From
USA, 2002
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Buy
I first discovered RJD2 when watching Mad Man TV series. Their song A Beautiful Mine is the theme music for the show’s intro. A couple of months ago I was watching the BlackBerry Messenger “BBM” ad on YouTube and heard Ghostwriter, surprisingly it was from the same author, RJD2.
This music producer, singer and musician mixes psychedelic, hip hop and rock in a pretty nice way. Proof is by the number of his tracks that appear in lots of ads, shows, video games, etc.
Ghostwriter, from the album Deadringer, is really a chill out kind of music, perfect to play in any kind of occasions.
A.
Burial - Stolen Dog (Ollie Macfarlane Remix)
Wax Poetic (feat. Norah Jones) - Angels