Sounds

Today’s Sounds: Travis Barker & Yelawolf

by Darcy MacDonald

Blink 182 drummer Travis Barker teams up with Yelawolf on Psycho White (an EP, not a substance, though maybe that too), plus a new Lushlife remix of a Styles P collab with AraabMuzik and a creepy Christmas video by Sufjan Stevens

Record:

Travis Barker & Yelawolf, Psycho White EP (Lasalle)

Wow. Two wrongs can make a right. If you had suggested to me 10 years back that I’d be interested in hearing the drummer from Blink-182 make hip hop beats, and that a mullet-hawked fallout victim from a trailer park meth cook gone askew would become one of my favourite rappers, why, I’d have boxed my ears into enormous headphones and slammed my Discman volume knob up to 11 to drown you out with Blackalicious.

But here we are, and I can’t help but feel thankful that time has made me less jaded. That’s not to say you won’t forget Psycho White (nothing the Internet made can last forever) but there is at least one wicked weekend of partying to these five cuts in store for those about to rock. Barker’s take on big beat, club anthem production is well documented at this point, and the pyrotechnical precision of Yela’s rhyme patterns are probably best displayed elsewhere. But in terms of straight-up good times, the pair couldn’t be more convincing, whether taking on speed-metal-paced rhythms or dub-y, Tim-Armstrong-laced reggae beats.

Fuck yeah, it’s corny. Closer “Director’s Cut” shoulda stayed shelved, but “Whistle Dixie” edges in late in the game as one of the most original beats of the year. I wouldn’t recommend modelling your lifestyle around the ethos of Psycho White, but you can stop being such a drag and just have fun with it.

Track:

Styles P, “Lush Styles” (Lushlife remix)

Yonkers rapper Styles P released a new record this week, The World’s Most Hardest MC Project, and Philly’s Lushlife has produced a fine remixed of one of its tracks the AraabMuzik collab “Araab Styles.” (Incidentally, AraabMuzik plays SAT tomorrow night!)

Video:

Sufjan Stevens, “Joy to the World”

There have been a series of strange videos c/o Christian-ish singer-songwriter and Asthmatic Kitty label head Sufjan Stevens, from his recently released EP box set Silver & Gold: Songs for Christmas. But this one is sure to scare the kids.

Posted in Sounds

by Darcy MacDonald

Contributor
Darcy MacDonald has been with Cult MTL since day one, a decade ago. Which means today, he’s a middle-aged white guy (albeit one more interested in other people’s ideas than in his own). He was previously a columnist and reporter for Montreal Mirror, and has also created content (FKA “written”) for RBMA, Noisey, Montreal Gazette, The National Post and probably some other great places he’s forgotten about. Music, culture, community and miscellaneous questions in search of answers all come across his desk, sooner or later.

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