Adult.
Anxiety Always
****
Summer advice: makeup/breakup with a bi-polar mate
Speeding past Communist detours and guilty pleasure accidents with peaking recklessness, Adult. have crafted an album better equipped for involuntary convulsions than dancing. This is dirty electro flossed over sexually frustrated commands courtesy of vocalist Nicola Kuperus. Her hot-yet-militant mien is reminiscent of a classier Brigitte Nielsen in Rocky IV. On nine tracks, Kuperus shakes your head, kicks you in the shin, glues your eyelids together and forgets your name. You’ll keep coming back for more – because unpredictable flings with crazy chicks in the summer have a private satisfaction all their own. Anxiety Always jump ropes over bass and showers naked in electricity – best exemplified on “Turn Your Back” and the lone instrumental “Nervous (Wreck).” Adult. is a duo you’ll want to know this summer. The attraction is fatal.
– HS
Cat Power
You are Free
***1/2
Summer advice: flirt with an art
school student
I am not a Cat Power fan. I find her music annoying and her erratic, well-magazined stage manners incorrigible. While still subject to the gross comparisons to other girl power singer/songwriters, Chan Marshall has increasingly stripped away those influences in exchange for a simpler sound of bare purity. I was surprised when I not only made it through You are Free, but also actually liked some of it. Produced by Adam Kaspar (Foo Fighters), this disc is just more listenable. It’s still whiny girl rock, sure, but this is a “bitter little pill” you won’t mind swallowing.
– JH
Cex
Being Ridden
***
Summer advice: hot box the pool
cabana
When Baltimore IDM artist Rjyan Kidwell (a.k.a. Cex) first brought his music to the stage, folks familiar with his previous vocal-less releases were in for a treat. To their surprise, Cex was a silly, young white guy with fake gold teeth in various colored sweat suits rapping about bicycles, proclaiming to be the world’s #1 entertainer. Any topic the audience threw at him was fit for freestyle incorporation, joining personal favorites like quality ’80s TV programming and the (faux) superiority of B’more over D.C. Finally, Cex has released a record that does his stage performances justice! With a mix of carefully programmed beats, acoustic guitars, and arguably the cleverest lyrical prowess in indie hip-hop, Being Ridden is the disc this saucer-eyed psycho needed to put out. With lines like “Middle finger to the indie rock singer, middle finger to the whack MC” and former Shudder to Think frontman Craig Wedren doing backup vocals, the album is unlike any other rap album released in the ’03.
– MJH
Hey Kristian – great job…not.
Scarface
Balls and My Word
**1/2
Summer advice: barbecue with
friends and 40s
On Balls and My Word Scarface attempts to revamp back his classic Geto Boys style with a 2003 twist. Since this album is being released by Rap-A-Lot, and not Def Jam South, it has very a different sound from his brilliant last album, The Fix. Nevertheless, Scarface maintains the trademark Southern style and laments on his (seemingly infinite) days as a hustler. He delves deep into personal troubles, even imagining his suicide on the track “Make Your Peace.” In an uncharacteristic move, Scarface goes after 50 Cent with the help of Bun B (of UGK) on the diss track “Snitch Nigga.” Balls and My Word is a decent album that is rather inconsistent, which is surprising, coming from Scarface, whose legacy spans a decade.
– KJ
Correction: In an edition last week, Sven reviewed a Madlib bootleg. For those who don’t know, a bootleg is not the real CD. The real CD drops later this summer. It will be S!CK. Show Stones Throw Records love at www.stonesthrow.com.