(Editor’s Note: Today in the C.D. Singles Club, we’ve got our first b-side. We recognize that our electronic Singles Club is not real and, as such, doesn’t really have “records” or “b-sides” or any other sort of tangible, physical artifact. We don’t care; we’re living the dream. Leave us alone or humor us. Your call.)
The Forcefield Kids are a kind of hard to pin down “hip hop” duo from Newcastle, England. I put the “hip hop” inside of the quotes because the tunes on their upcoming Home EP aren’t all that easily definable; it’s rap music for sure, in that it’s beats and rhymes, but there’s a lot of stuff going on that doesn’t seem to fit into the box. The beats, provided by Sleepy (presumably not the dwarf), are subtle and complex; it’s not the kind of hit you over the head bass and hook approach that you’d often associate with a traditional rap act. (That’s not intended to sound pejorative, by the way. I love Jay-Z as much as the next guy, but it can be a bit of a blunt tool sometimes, no?) I don’t have the most developed hip hop lexicon, but I’d equate the sonic texture of the tracks to a sort of de-jazzed Tribe Called Quest, with a smattering of the more impressionistic sound pastiches of DJ Shadow. There’s a lot of mellow piano/synthesizer, shifting percussion and calm grooves across Home. There are also some cool organic touches, like the scratchy record sound in the back of “My Dead Body.” In general, the tracks provoke slow head nodding, not high energy freakouts. The rhymes over the beats, delivered by Stain(ed) Art strike the ear as unique, at least at first, principally because the dude’s from England. (Killer name for a rapper, by the way. As an aside, I wish I had a cooler nom de guerre than “brian.” I’m going to start posting under a cleverer moniker as soon as I come up with one.) As an American, I’m used to my rap music being delivered in the patois of my homeland; it’s cool to hear those ideas filtered through a Newcastle accent. Past the inherent coolness of the dialect, it’s clear that Stain(ed) Art can handle a couplet. Like the music they’re in front of, his lyrics are often complex and shifty; listen closely and there’s a lot to decipher and parse through; listen more casually and, again, you can just nod your head and smile. (The best ryhmes, for me, come in the killer break-up track “Since We Last Spoke.” It’s a display of tenderness that you don’t often get from a bravado-packed genre.) Home is out on the duo’s own DFNT Records in July. Until then, you can fill your need for English beats at their myspace and with the track below.
“Little Miss Star” – The Forcefield Kids
The b-side is a b-side because if you’ve been trolling the blogosphere at all lately, you’ve probably already got it on your hard drive. Fleet Foxes’ frontman Robin Pecknold has managed to make a track so solid that I love it even though it flies in the face of two of my own personal rules for music and musicians. First, I don’t think folks should cover tunes that are in the canon unless they themselves are canonical. Hendrix can cover Dylan. Dave Mathews can’t. Fleet Foxes aren’t in the legend category quite yet, so I was a little dubious about Pecknold’s credentials to cover a good Dylan track. (And not just any Dylan track. Dude picked a good one.) Despite my reservations, I was won over from the jump by the sweet-ass multiple part harmonies that kick in from the first second of the track. Breathtaking and awesome. It almost made me forget the original. The second rule is that if you’re a solo artist, you should use your own name, not some sort of inflated, self-important name (I love Bright Eyes and Iron & Wine, but come on. Going by Conor Oberst and Sam Beam would increase the quality of the acts by a smidge, right?) White Antelope is clearly contrived and goofy, but again, I don’t care. Dude could have called himself Monkey Balls Johnson and this song would give me goosebumps. On the odd chance that you don’t already have this, brace yourself. It is good. My favorite bit my well be that he clears his throat at the beginning, giving it that front porch, relaxed feel that I love so much. Here’s hoping that there’s more of this stuff on the way from Mr. Pecknold. I mean White Antelope.
