May 2012
3 posts
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Twista Talks New Album, Turning 40, and Those...
Originally appears on AllHipHop.com.
Longtime Kanye West affiliate Twista excited the Internet recently when rumors began circulating that the rapid-fire rapper would soon be joining Ye’s label, G.O.O.D. Music. No doubt, some of the 76 percent who voted the label as the Chicago native’s ideal home in a recent XXL poll can recall tracks like “Slow Jamz” and “Overnight Celebrity” – songs that...
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St. Lucia - Unashamedly Pop
Originally appears on The Deli’s website. Jean-Philip Grobler rejects the idea that he is a synth-pop artist, citing his equal use of electronic and non-electronic instrumentation to support the claim. There are prominent piano chords, wandering guitar riffs and the odd sax solo littered throughout his sound, but with programmed beats providing the heartbeat and earthly synths bringing the soul,...
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Friends - The Bugs and The Buzz
Originally appears on The Deli’s website. In an era when zealous music blogs compete to be the first to unearth potential new stars, the spotlight often seems to fall on young musicians who’ve done little more than strum a few simple guitar chords in their bedroom and upload the recordings to Bandcamp or Soundcloud. Take Brooklyn band Friends. Having not yet put out a release longer than a...
April 2012
3 posts
2 tags
Body Language - Body to Body
This originally appears via The Deli’s website, though a shortended version was the cover story in the latest Austin edition.
With their glitzy synths, soulful licks and pretty vocal harmonies, Body Language channel a lifetime’s worth of music fandom into their own hybrid sound. Citing everyone from Bill Withers and The Beach Boys to Animal Collective as influences, the group is a...
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March 2012
9 posts
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Interview: Obie Trice
Originally appears on AU Magazine’s website.
As one of Eminem’s central lieutenants when the bleach-blond bad boy was the biggest pop star in the world, Obie Trice has seen the summit of hip-hop success. But six years on from the release of his last album and the 34-year-old is adjusting to being a rap artist in 2012. Perhaps hoping to follow the lead of younger artists like serial twitter...
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Lee Fields & The Expressions: Faithful Man
Renaissance man Lee Fields has been cutting gut-busting soul ballads and James Brown-indebted funk gems since way back during both genres’ ‘60s heyday. But his name and hard-to nail-down discography probably would have fallen through the cracks of time had it not been for a recent Autumn career revival. Rescued from the abyss by Truth & Soul Records, Fields’ bang-on recreation of classic...
vehiclesaremyvehicle asked: RANDOM question, but you seem to be one of the only people that has ever touched on this but it's something I've always wondered. 'Computer Love' by Roger & Zapp... it was produced in 1985, way before any of that went down. Do you think he was predicting it? If so, he was a GENIUS. Damn.
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Gig Review: Tune-Yards at The Button Factory
This gig review originally appears in the new issue of AU which is free to pick up around Ireland right now or readable via Issuu right here.
Tune-Yards
Button Factory, Dublin
While the sold-out Button Factory might be uncomfortably busy, Merrill Garbus entry is so low key that she takes the tightly packed crowd totally by surprise. Strolling out on stage alone, shoulders slumped, half-smiling...
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The Time - 777-9311
‘777-9311’ by The Time from the album What Time Is It? (1982)
There have been thousands of songs dedicated to the hook up. In pop mythology clubs are more than the humble structures us mortals loiter around sip drinks and listen to really loud music in the company of others. Instead they exist in a hyper reality; a sin city of bumpin’, grindin’ and freakin’ weekends. A huge amount...
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NWA In Full Effect
Originally Appears in Issue 9 of One More Robot - The Nineties Hip-Hop Issue
While NWA disbanded in 1991, their influence over West Coast hip-hop over the next decade was vast. Dean Van Nguyen examines the full effect of LA’s most famous rap collective. Illustrations by Sara LeeAnn Banevedes.
As the nineties were ushered in, Los Angeles was a city bleeding. Years of systematic racism and...
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All day I’ve been getting a constant stream of new Tumblr followers and I can’t figure out why. Hey new followers or people with answers, was I mentioned somewhere?
February 2012
5 posts
1 tag
“Back in the eighties, we went to a Stone Roses gig and half of Manchester...”
– Frank Gallagher
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The Deli Issue 29
The new issue of The Deli is available free around New York City and as a PDF. As they often do, many of the interviews appear in the magazine in a shortend form, with the full lenght feature available via The Deli’s website. Here are my articles as they appear in print, with links to the lenghtier online versions when available.
Royal Baths
Old school rockers Jeremy Cox and Jigmae...
January 2012
4 posts
1 tag
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Pusha T: Fear of God II: Let Us Pray
Having spent ten years as one-half of Clipse, a hard-as-nails Virginian duo whose tales of drug pushing and dope dealing earned them the first contract on The Neptunes’ record label, Pusha T was a curious addition to Kanye West’s GOOD record label when the pop superstar did serious remodelling work to his all-star crew last year. With stablemates like Common, John Legend and Mr. Hudson,...
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A History of Melody, Myth and Music
Last year I was invited to write a piece for Tourism Ireland on Irish music that would be printed in travel magazines and brochures all over the world. Presumably I got asked because of my work as a music journalist, and presumably they wanted me to make Ireland sound like an appealing place to go on your holidays. This meant having adopt a somewhat ‘softer’ writing style than I...
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The 12 Best Films of 2011
Please Note: These all were released in the UK & Ireland in 2011, which can be sometimes months after their US release date.
01. The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick, USA)
02. The Skin I Live In (Pedro Almodóvar, Spain)
03. Never Let Me Go (Mark Romanek, UK)
04. Incendies (Denis Villeneuve, Canada)
05. Midnight in Paris (Woody Allen, USA/Spain)
06. 50/50 (Jonathan Levine, USA)
07....
December 2011
4 posts
2 tags
The 42 Best Lil B Songs of 2011
Lil B is a ridiculous man. His discography is so swollen it would take a room of fulltime historians just to index it, let alone listen to every track enough times to fully absorb his complete back catalogue. Surely the Bay Area rapper can’t recall every single track with his name attached, cutting new music almost as regularly as he hits up his fans on Twitter. This is a dude who has set up...
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PopMatters Best Hip-Hop of 2011
Honorable Mention: Tyler, the Creator Goblin
As the leader of controversial teenage rap collective Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, who’ve spent the past 18 months as darlings of the alt-hip-hop world, Tyler, the Creator’s first major label release Goblin was as much anticipated by his detractors as his fans. Not since Eminem exploded into the mainstream’s consciousness a decade ago has a...
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PopMatters 75 Best Albums of 2011
51: Smith Westerns Dye It Blonde
Super young Chicago threesome Smith Westerns channel the spirit of Marc Bolan into their sophomore effort Dye It Blonde, a bright and beautiful collage of syrupy-sweet guitar riffs, dazzling disco balls and irresistible hooks. Fluttering between dancefloor fillers, acoustic ballads and choir-backed gospels, the album is comparable to T-Rex’s own second...
November 2011
5 posts
2 tags
I've Been Writing Music Reviews..
I havn’t written music reviews prolifically since my Wireless Bollinger days, but recently I’ve been taking on heaps of reviews for both AU’s magazine and website. And I’ve really been enjoying it. Here’s some of my recent hits. In order of preference.
Drake - Take Care [Cash Money]
On his breakthrough 2009 mixtape So Far Gone, Canadianchild star-turned-rapper...
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The R&B Renaissance
The R&B Renaissance
by Dean Van Nguyen
I.
“Rhythm and blues music” has always been a rather slippery expression. Essentially replacing “race records” as the terminology used by the industry as a catchall idiom for music made by, and for, black America, some would say it has been more of an ideal than a fully functioning genre. At different times soul, funk, blues, and...
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Tandem Felix
Originally Appears in Issue 8 of One More Robot.
The Dublin-based quartet spoke to Dean Van Nguyen about their formation, evolution and plans for the future.
With their affinity for creating music with pretty melodies, soaring instrumentation and haunting vocals, it’s hard to believe that Tandem Felix actually started life as a comedy double act. But when talking to the four young Dubliners it...
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October 2011
6 posts
1 tag
Watchjonathanbogart:
Best of 2011 (So Far!) According to Tumblr: An 8Tracks Mix
P.S.
While I was writing this up, I got three more suggestions from Dean, which I’ll have to thumbnail from Youtube listens. But meanwhile, he’s compiling his own similar mix, so go forth and suggest!
32b. Drake ft. Nicki Minaj “Make Me Proud” (here)
Not sure whether my distaste for the condescending “I’m so proud of...
A Facebook/Twitter/Tumblr Mixtape
Putting together a mix of my Facebook/Twitter/Tumblr friends favourite songs of 2011. What’s your song of the year?
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True to the Game: Ice Cube's 'Death Certificate'
Nevermind Nostalgia: The Music of 1991… 20 Years Later
True to the Game: Ice Cube’s ‘Death Certificate’
by Dean Van Nguyen In the early hours of March 3, 1991, George Holliday, a citizen of Los Angeles, California, filmed the arrest of Rodney King. Unbeknown to the four LAPD officers involved, Holliday’s camera captured an apprehension that saw 56 baton blows, six...
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The Stepkids - Boogie Wonderland
The CMJ Festival kicks off this weekend and the latest issue of The Deli is dedicated to it. I talked to a whole bunch of the electronic acts performing on The Deli’s own stage, and wrote the cover story on The Stepkids. That article is below and the whole issue is on PDF here.
The Stepkids
Boogie Wonderland
The Stepkids capture all the glitter and gold of classic seventies funk, R&B...
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Album Review: Justice - Audio, Video, Disco
(Originally Appears in AU Issue 77, October/November 2011)
Justice Audio, Video, Disco [Ed Banger/Because]
Justice were already veterans of the production and remix circuit before they dropped their debut album † in 2007, but the record’s success still took many by surprise. Blending earth-shattering synths, mauling beats and polished grooves, their critically-revered sinister-disco sound...
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The Irish Underground
Originally Appears in Issue 8 of One More Robot.
We may have built our cities on rock’n’roll, but underground a small clutch of rappers, DJs and producers are path-finding for a new breed of musicians. Dean Van Nguyen met some of Ireland’s hip-hop artists.
Last month the Irish music blogging community were all unified in their praise for emerging Dublin-based rapper Lecs Luther. The teenager –...
September 2011
8 posts
2 tags
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Mitten
It’s been fun working on the electronic section of The Deli’s special CMJ Festival issue since it’s given me a chance to get acquainted with bands I most likely would have bypassed otherwise. Right now I’m all over Mitten and their first EP See You Bye, a masterful six track piece that does what all the best debut releases do: highlight everything that’s good about...
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One Week // One Band: Coming up: Curtis Mayfield →
oneweekoneband:
Next week will be all about soul legend and funk pioneer Curtis Mayfield and you’ll be left in the capable hands of Dublin-based writer Dean Van Nguyen.
Dean’s on Tumblr and Twitter and also runs a pop culture magazine called One More Robot.
Dean previously wrote a great piece on the making of Curtis Mayfield’s last LP ‘New World Order’ for PopMatters, so follow this link if...
August 2011
3 posts
1 tag
My appearance on Dublin City FM, Aug 24th 2011,...
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Rap Videos Set on Trains
Most of these were pulled from the memory banks of @rlydoe.
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Tom Vek - Leisure Seizure
Tom Vek Leisure Seizure (Island) 2/5 Originally Appears in Issue 7 of One More Robot
The relief was obvious the moment Tom Vek opened his mouth to introduce the video to ‘A Chore’. His first new track in what he describes as “five long years”, it was a punishing wait for artist and fans alike, as Vek spent the intervening period toiling well off the public radar. Logging on to his website year...