Leor Galil,Reader staff writer
East of the Rock I recently fell into a K-hole of early-90s Chicago rap and landed on East of the Rock, whose easygoing, jazz-sampling boom-bap sits well alongside music from, say, the Native Tongues collective. The group never put out a proper release during its lifespan; the closest it got was a 50-copy white-label run of an EP called Galaxy Rays in the mid-90s. Local label Black Pegasus reissued it a couple years ago, and Minneapolis rap-retail outlet Fifth Element has posted it on Soundcloud.
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TV Nicks, Eulogy (self-released) Tinychat-based Internet concert series SPF420 has grown since it helped incubate (and kill off) electro-pop microgenre vaporwave; in the past couple months SPF420 shows and afterparties have featured Mister Lies, Black Moth Super Rainbow mastermind Tobacco, footwork beat makers DJ Earl and Traxman, and Internet “it” producer Ryan Hemsworth. The most recent event was a release party for TV Nicks’s Eulogy, a pay-what-you-want Bandcamp download by a producer who claims to live in Dubai. I got hooked when I heard “Identity,” with its hodgepodge of dry trap beats, glittery synths, moody atmospherics, and luxuriously warped vocal samples.
Matt Clark, half of White/Light
Nashville This is one of two TV shows that I watch (also: Top Chef). Once upon a time, I was in a rock band that was signed to Capitol and Astralwerks; while Nashville is pretty absurd and Country Music™ is just the MacGuffin that moves the soap opera along, there are moments in every episode that remind me of the biz. Sadly, not the private-jets part, but here we are. Scene alert: also a favorite of LA pals Lucky Dragons, Nashville is edited by my former Reckless Records coworker Lizzy Calhoun.
Rebecca Dudley, Storywoods Storywoods is an ongoing story/photo series. In it, Dudley creates a world with its own feel, speed, scale, and internal logic. We’re allowed to peek in on this handmade setting, rich with detail and care, without disturbing . . . it’s familiar but also new and explorable. The stories contain joy and melancholy, all within very quiet and minimal micro plots. Time and action can be slowed to a stop and sway in the breeze a bit without breaking the spell Dudley creates.