SOUNDTRACK: SHABAZZ PALACES-Tiny Desk Concert #662 (October 23, 2017).
Shabazz Palaces is really nothing like anything else I’ve heard.
“On the ground we have leopard skin carpets Only the exalted come in and rock with us.”
With those words, spoken in the opening moments of Shabazz Palaces‘ Tiny Desk performance, Palaceer Lazaro (aka Ishmael Butler, also of Digable Planets fame) lays the ground rules for all present to enter the group’s metaphysical headspace.
And, man, talk about being transported to the other side. It’s impossible not to envision the Seattle studio, Black Space Labs, where Shabazz’s otherworldly soundscapes emerge to provide the ideal backdrop for shining a light on the fake.
It’s the perfect proxy for the growing sense of alienation we’re all suffering, to some degree or another, in today’s space and time.
Shabazz Palaces is perhaps the most unusual rap band I’ve heard. There are hardly any beats. The songs are trippy with washes of synths and other sound effects. There’s no heavy bass, it’s just up to Palaceer Lazaro to keep the flow.
There’s an 80 second intro in which Palaceer Lazaro introduces the band and talks about their sacred study, safe from the “Colluding Oligarchs.”
The first proper song “Colluding Oligarchs”says that “sacred spaces still exist / safe from colluding oligarchs.” Theirs almost glitchy (but pretty) synth melodies (which I think Palaceer Lazaro triggered before he started rapping). His partner Tendai Maraire plays a hand drum and congas (as well as some synth triggers). And all the while he is singing echoed backing vocals. Meanwhile, Otis Calvin plays an intertwining, slow, almost improved bass line.
For “They Come In Gold” there is no bass. He says “this one we wrote to our phones.” There’s a weird repeating melody that sounds like snippet of vocals. Once again there’s lot of percussion–shakers, cymbals etc. Half way through, he puts a filter on his voice to slow it down (a cool spacey effect) and then speeds it back up.
“Shine A Light” includes some squeaky synths and Palaceer Lazaro singing into a different mic. When the music starts formally, the melody is a looped sample from Dee Dee Sharp’s 1965 song “I Really Love You.” The bass is back playing some simple but groovy lines. That second mic is connected to a higher-pitched echoed setting when he sings shine a light on the fake.
[READ: March 15, 2017] Punch
I don’t know much about Pablo Boffelli aside from that he is an Argentinian artist–he creates music as well as visual arts.
This book is a collection of line drawings (which remind me a lot of things that I draw when I am doodling).
Since the book is published in Spanish, with no English information anywhere (it’s not even on Goodreads), I couldn’t get a lot of information about it. So from the publisher’s website I got (in translation):
In the PUNCH world, space is a character that unfolds and unfolds in millions of scenes. Cynicism and the absurd coexist with hints of synthetic humor.
Punch is the book drawn by Feli. His imprudent stroke runs through the pages building a city in which everything can happen. In the Punch world, space becomes a character that unfolds and unfolds in millions of possibilities. The urban landscape eats everything, the exteriors become interior and the fantasies materialize in the most unforeseen forms. The cynicism and the absurd coexist with hints of humor: the joke to discover for that spectator who contemplates in a disinterested way.
Punch is tender and corrosive, is infinite and minimal. It reverses the logic of physics and plays with the scale: stacked things, types or giant landscapes, a springboard that does not point to the pool, soccer balls in a refrigerator, humans without head, debauchery and micro-obsession. Put another way: this book is crazy. We recommend looking with a magnifying glass.
