CD Odyssey Disc 1675: Run the Jewels and Rifflandia Part 1

I was supposed to review a new Alestorm album on my next review but, in honour of the start of the NFL season I have instead called an audible!

That is because one of my house rules is if I see a band live in concert I can also review their new album at the same time. I had already reviewed this next band’s latest record and so I was forced to deep even deeper into my toolbox of NFL metaphors and…check it down to the running back.

In this case the running back is running the jewels. And the check-down was me reviewing an older (but previously unreviewed) album in my collection. So here is that review and below that my experience of the concert.

Disc 1675 is…Run the Jewels 2

Artist: Run the Jewels

Year of Release: 2014

What’s up with the Cover?  The traditional Run the Jewels hands. RTJ covers are all variations of this graphic, and here we have them as mummified hands on a field of red. When you have a graphic this iconic, you go with it.

How I Came To Know It: I This was my introduction to Run the Jewels, and I am embarrassed to say that almost 10 years later, I no longer remember how they came to my attention. It could have been a music review, but it also could have been a recommendation from a friend or even a server or someone I randomly met at a pub. I take music advice anywhere I get it and chances are when someone takes the time to recommend a band to me, I check them out.

However it happened, I’m glad it did, because Run the Jewels has become one of my all-time favourite hip hop artists.

How It Stacks Up: I have four Run the Jewels albums and I like them all but Run the Jewels 2 is the Crown jewel – best of them all.

Rating: 5 stars

Discovering Run the Jewels in 2014 had me a year late to the party but felt like a revelation all the same. I had never heard rap like this before, so visceral and so powerful, and yet so connected to the classic masters of the genre it felt like it had existed for decades.

Run the Jewels is comprised of New Yorker El-P and Atlanta native Killer Mike. They both have successful solo careers that are worth your time exploring, but when they come together as RTJ something magical happens.

“Run the Jewels 2” (or “RTJ2”) is a furious assault of bass and beat from the opening notes. The beats don’t feel particularly complicated but the way they put it all together creates an energy the rolls and rolls and rolls, growing intensity with every bar that passes. There is no respite for your ears, but the undercurrent is so funky you don’t want respite. You just want to turn it up.

Lyrically, the rhymes of both El-P and Killer Mike are at the highest level. I’m talking Eminem/Rakim level shit. There are so many examples it is hard to pick but here’s a couple sections from “Blockbuster Night, Part 1”:

“No hocus-pocus, you simple suckers been served a notice
Top of the morning, my fist to your face is f**king Folgers”

That line is so cool I once built an entire playlist around drinking coffee, just so I could feature this song. Later we get this gem:

“The gates of hell are pugnaciously pacin', waitin'
I give a f**k if I'm late, tell Satan "be patient"”

As fun as that stuff is to read, when vocalized by these two masters the mic leaps to life. The only thing that could have competed with the electric energy of the beats are the voices of El-P and Killer Mike, and they are more than up for the challenge.

In many ways this record is a throwback, full of vicious braggadocio-filled raps about how great the duo are on the mic, their sexual prowess, or often both. Yet underneath this obviousness there are clever rhymes, often with political messages inserted sideways, even slightly awkwardly, so you don’t miss hearing it. At other times they add humour and playfulness – just enough to give your heart a smile before they launch into a few more bars of relentless attack.

What I’m saying is, this record is dope. Go buy it.

Best tracks: all tracks

The Concert: Rifflandia’s Electric Avenue – Victoria, BC, September 9, 2023

As I write this, I’m in the middle of a weeklong festival in Victoria that is Rifflandia. This is my first time attending Rifflandia, which tends to feature more hip hop and dance music than I usually like. I was drawn like a flame to see Run the Jewels, however, so around 7 p.m. last Saturday (having skipped “Paris Hilton as DJ” night) Sheila and I headed into the unknown.

Before I get to Run the Jewels, let’s get a feel of what came before.

Blu deTiger

Our first experience was Blu deTiger, who is a DJ who also plays live bass guitar licks and solos that she then samples and loops back into her set. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about this, but it ended up being great. Very funky danceable and the combo effect of live and tape worked well. If anything, I’d have liked more bass soloing, even though I recognize bass solos must always be used sparingly, lest the universe itself crack like an egg.

Teriyaki Hut

This was not a band, it was what Sheila and I had for dinner. It was very tasty and also served as a handy place to return if we got separated. “Meet me at the teriyaki hut!”

Chromeo

Our stomachs happily filled with teriyaki, we gave Montreal DJs Chromeo a chance. I wish that I had not done so. Chromeo was a hot mess. It felt like they were piling too many different competing sounds into one tune, and then having the arrogance to double down and assume it would work itself out. Readers, it did not.

Chromeo’s failure to impress quickly led us to abandon them in favour of a walkabout of discovery to the other stages.

The Dome and Base 2

The Dome was a partially covered geodesic dome with a laser light show located in the darkest part of the festival grounds. Beside the dome there was a chill out zone with couches.

The vibe of the dome was cool, but the music did not appeal and we quickly found ourselves once again exploring, this time to a third stage called “Base 2”. Huh. Maybe it was the second stage…that would make sense.

Jungle Bobby

When we arrived at Base 2 I was starting to feel the swell of my natural extrovert, and was pleased to discover multiple friends there ready to scratch my itch.

Also there was a band called “Jungle Bobby”. Apart from their ill-considered call of “y’all like Pitbull?” (no, Jungle Bobby, I do not), they was a lot of fun. Simple songs with groovy beats and party lyrics. They even had fly girls dancing it up on stage.

XL the Band

After Jungle Bobby we lingered at Base 2 and were soon treated to a very strange band indeed. XL the Band felt like a bunch of music students experimenting after class. They had an MC, a woman vocalist/flautist, a trumpet and a trombone. Hard to describe what they did – a mix of R&B, jazz, funk and pop. It reminded me a lot of Bourbon Tabernacle Choir, a band I followed in the early nineties.

Anyway, it was oddly compelling, and the trombone player (feature artist Nick La Riviere) was their secret weapon. This dude can wail on the trombone, and his solos (yes, trombone solos) were amazing. Would I buy XL the Band’s record and listen at home? Probably not, but they were a hell of a good time live.

Run the Jewels

With Chromeo safely removed, we returned to the main stage and took in Run the Jewels. RTJ hit the stage like a thunderbolt, immediately held the audience in the palm of their stylized hand logo and never let go.

The sound was excellent. You could pick out every word, and many in the audience were clearly hard-core fans, able to sing along and hit catch phrases correctly and in time.

There were a few musical tourists in the audience for sure. One pair came in during RTJ’s most recently famous song, did a quick spin on their phone to prove they’d been there while it played, and promptly wandered away. Um…lame.

However, for the most part the crowd was amazing and felt like a third member of the band. Neon floated about, strange post-apocalyptic standards bounced around in the sea of people, and there were even a couple of light sabers. If there were people who didn’t like each other, I never noticed, and not a single person lost their arm.

Droids were welcome in the cantina, as evidenced by a drone show in the sky above the stadium. We’d been told this would be amazing, and while it was a technological marvel, it didn’t do it for me.

What did it for me was RTJ, who were on point the whole night. Dropping best song after best song. When it was over I felt like I’d heard absolutely all the hits, and every deep cut was one of my favourites as well.

In short, it was a killer show, and if you get a chance, you should see them.

Here's a parting shot of me in front of one of the art installations doing my best Dwight Yoakam.

CD Odyssey Disc 1501: Run the Jewels

I was home later than expected today, having been stuck in a traffic jam for about an hour. This was unpleasant, but it was made better having a good record to listen to.

Disc 1501 is…. Run the Jewels 4

Artist: Run the Jewels

Year of Release: 2020

What’s up with the Cover? The usual Run the Jewels symbol of the two finger point and the sideways fist. They’ve kept with the metallic theme from RTJ3, although these hands look less refined – like maybe in a post-apocalyptic future we rediscover the technology for making metal hands, but no longer have the precision machine tools to craft them as intricately as “the ancients”. Metal hands! Coming to a future near you. Or not.

How I Came To Know It: I’m an avowed fan of RTJ, and this was just me buying their latest album when it came out.

How It Stacks Up: I have four Run the Jewels albums, which is all of them. Of those four, RTJ 4 comes in at #2, bumping the also-awesome RTJ3 down one spot in the process.

Ratings: 4 stars but almost 5

It was a hard task to match the excellence of their previous three records, but damn it if Run the Jewels didn’t pull it off.

So much of modern rap is about stealing a hook and rinsing and repeating it. Run the Jewels are a throwback to the golden era of rap where all you needed was a sick beat, great rhymes, and a killer flow. As a duo, El-P and Killer Mike actually do that one better, providing two killer flows.

Like a lot of people, I was initially drawn to “Ooh La La.” The song’s hook is more of a hook converted into a beat itself. It has a sweet sample of Nice N’ Smooth from when they were guesting on the Gang Starr track “DWYCK”. “DWYCK” is one of my favourite rap songs of all time, but Run the Jewels are not content to sit on a single sample, they turn it into a new groove all its own and buoyed by some creative and compelling rhymes the song quickly unfolds into a fresh modern rap classic.

Here and throughout the record, each DJ has his own distinct but complementary style. El-P skating his rhymes over the top of the beat like a water spider, and Killer Mike thumping his flow down like an extra bass drum. While I have more of Killer Mike’s solo work in my collection, when it comes to Run the Jewels I cannot pick a favour. They are both at the top of their game, and the combination of their sound is better than anything either of them does in their solo career.

As for sick beats, RTJ4 has plenty to offer. Alongside these, the boys do a dizzying array of samples and soundscapes, all layered one on top of the other so intricately it would make Public Enemy proud (they even throw out a reference to early PE on “Out of Sight” with “my motherfuckin’ Uzi weighs a ton”. Unlike Public Enemy’s frantic energy, RTJ always feels like they are sinking further and further into the pocket, yet they never lose momentum in the process.

The songs vary between tracks on social justice and “we rap better than you”. Despite these being very traditional themes, the album feels fresh and powerful. RTJ breathe life and electricity into both, leaving you feeling both thoughtful and cool as fuck.

The whole record is under 40 minutes, with the vast majority of the tracks under three and a half minutes. Within each of those three and a half minutes El-P and Killer Mike cram a shit-ton of incredible rhymes, paying homage to past greats while simultaneously securing their place among them.

Best tracks: Yankee and the Brave (Ep. 4), Ooh La La, Out of Sight, Holy Calamafuck, JU$T, Never Look Back, the Ground Below

The Best Albums of 2020

 Welcome back! I’ve been on vacation and have had limited opportunities to fulfill music listening within the parameters of Rule #4 (n.b. – I usually do this on my way to and from the office, so with no commute, reviews tend to drop off).

Never fear, intrepid reader! I am here to provide a timely salve to the interweb’s insatiable need for content. Not just content, either, but the second most popular thing people do on the internet after cat videos – read lists!

I listened to all or part of over 150 albums released in 2020, and bought 70 of them. Of all of these albums, I narrowed the field to a top 20. Over the course of the last week or so, I’ve played each of these 20 albums one more time to get them back in my head. I did so with the participation and assistance of my lovely wife Sheila, who helped me with her opinion of each, and more generally called bullshit on my more offside choices - apparently I have a hidden weakness for very specific guitar strumming patterns…who knew?

Anyway, without further ado, here are my Top 10 albums and – because choices are hard – five more albums good enough to achieve an “honourable mention” that fell just short of the final list. Depending on your tastes, these could be interchangeable for you in your quest to hear something good.

10. Lucinda Williams – Good Souls, Better Angels

     - Lucinda is consistently good, but with Good Souls, Better Angels she delivers her finest work in over a decade.

9. Sarah Siskind – Modern Appalachia
     - Sweet and tasteful exploration of Appalachian music from every facet you can imagine.

8. Lydia Loveless – Daughter
     -  Loveless’ seventh record is her usual mix of regret and heartbreak wrapped within her best collection of songs yet.

7. HMLTD – West of Eden
     - A mix of psychobilly, post-punk and New Wave, this record is a ton of apocalyptic fun. Also the record that most impressed Sheila.

6. Phoebe Bridgers – Punisher
     - It was a hell of a thing to match the brilliance of 2017 “Stranger in the Alps”, but Bridgers manages it.

5. HAIM – Women in Music Pt. III
     - Twice before HAIM has almost snared me with their talent for writing top-tier folk-adjacent pop. On their third attempt I swallowed hook, line, and sinker alike, as the saying goes.

4. Jaime Wyatt – Neon Cross
     - Like Bridgers, Wyatt also ascends once more to the heights of a 2017 debut. This is country music with edge and honesty like you’ll rarely hear. Also the record that least impressed Sheila.

3. Run the Jewels – RTJ4
     - Is this Run the Jewels’ best record ever? It is good enough to beg the question.

2. Bonnie Light Horseman – Self-Titled (Reviewed at Disc 1351)
     - Sometimes music is so pure and perfect that everything else just melts away. This is one of the best folk records I’ve ever heard, and I’ve heard a lot of folk records.

1. Katie Pruitt – Expectations (Reviewed at Disc 1361)
     - One young woman’s courageous journey out of the shadows of self-doubt and small-town Georgia to find her place in the world. A fabulous collection of folk-rock gems that leaves me verklempt every time.

Honourable Mention: Taylor Swift – Folklore; Sarah Jarosz – World on the Ground; Clem Snide – Forever Just Beyond; THICK – 5 Years Behind; Dehd – Flower of Devotion

CD Odyssey Disc 1171: Run the Jewels

II had planned to give this album another day to soak in, but then I realized I was home alone for the evening with nothing to do. I also had the worst of first world problems; two shows were taping on cable so I couldn’t even watch TV. Faced with the dreadful prospect of having to do something important, I donned my headphones, laid down in the dark, and gave this next album another listen.

Technically I also gave the cat a cuddle, but I think that activity reasonably adheres to the spirit of Rule #4. Also, it is important.

Disc 1171 is… Run the Jewels 3

Artist: Run the Jewels

Year of Release: 2016

What’s up with the Cover? It’s the Run the Jewels logo, featured on every one of their three albums. This time, they have ‘flashed’ it in gold.

A limited number of these albums came with swag as well, and I managed to get that with mine. This included a medallion with the RTJ logo and a bunch of stickers:

In the new world of music downloads, a band going out of their way to provide some real live swag with their album was very cool. This medallion is as cool as it looks – not real gold but shiny and with plenty of heft. If you are wondering “Where would you wear this?” I wore it to a dress up event at an art gallery. Did people give me weird looks? You’re damned right they did, and I loved it.

Some of the stickers (band logo, band members brandishing firearms) now grace my metal lunch bucket. Yes, I have a metal lunch bucket, festooned with band stickers. It goes well with my suit.

How I Came To Know It: I first discovered Run the Jewels (RTJ) through their 2014 album, “Run the Jewels 2” and loved it so much I bought RTJ 3 the week it was released, before I heard a single song.

In case you haven’t noticed, Run the Jewels aren’t terribly creative with their album names. Hey – it worked for Led Zeppelin.

How It Stacks Up:  I have three Run the Jewels albums and RTJ3 comes in second. I absolutely love it, but it still falls just short of the masterpiece that is RTJ2.

Ratings: 4 stars

If you only listened to radio friendly hip hop you might despair for the state of modern rap, but a few songs from rap duo Run the Jewels would quickly cure what ails you.

Composed of two rappers – El-P and Killer Mike – who are already established underground rap legends in their own right, Run the Jewels is a revelation, a visceral blend of old school flow and ultra-modern beats, fused to make something timeless and powerful.

Run the Jewels came into their own on their second album, and on their third album they demonstrate it was no fluke. Their rhymes are intricate, thought-provoking and filled with swagger. Both El-P and Killer Mike have been at their craft for years, honing their skill. They’re good, and they know it.

This frequently leads them to that age old school topic – that they rap better than you. It’s only fun in rap when it is true, and on “RTJ 3” it is true and then some. This album has bold song titles like “Panther Like a Panther” and a lot of hefty bragging, every beat of which both rappers back up and then some. Most of the best stuff is laden with many swear words. Since I don’t want you to blush, dear reader, I won’t quote them. Suffice it to say that every swear is right where it needs to be to make the point more…er…pointed.

Musically, the album is a dense mix of old school drum, techno beats and sparingly used but well-timed samples. On “Call Ticketron” they marry frenetic synthesizer beats with their flow and a clever sample of some announcer saying “live at the Garden” has to be heard to be appreciated.

While most of these songs are rap battle masterpieces, Run the Jewels also throws in a good mix of social commentary. When they mention violence and drugs it isn’t in the vacuous way so many modern rap acts do – it is rare and purposeful, and designed to underscore a point, rather than be the point. “Thursday in the Danger Room” is a heartbreaking song about bad choices and the friends no longer with them as a result and it works better knowing Run The Jewels have had their own bumps in the road.

Another nice touch was the CD booklet came with a complete set of lyrics, which is pretty rare for a rap album. You don’t need this extra; El-P and Killer Mike are both so on point you don’t miss a word, but it is a nice addition.

I was tempted to give “RTJ 3” an extra star just for giving me a medallion and some stickers, but there was no need. This record stands on its own merits, swag or no swag.

Best tracks: Talk to Me, Legend Has It, Call Ticketron, Don’t Get Captured, Panther Like a Panther (Miracle Mix), Oh Mama, Thursday in the Danger Room