Within any thirty second span of Tony Simon’s The Music Scene, genres can jet set from Brooklyn to the Middle East to the party hub of the Millennium Falcon - assuming Han Solo has the sound system to facilitate the dope impact of Blockhead’s most recent sound scape. The Music Scene has Blockhead building on foundations of previous ideas and techniques. For example, “Bring Back Pluto” off of Aesop Rock’s None Shall Pass, a former Blockhead production, exemplifies the attitudes of The Music Scene. This time around though, Blockhead has employed the use of the computer program Ableton, allowing him to take to his approach with a more microscopic sense of attention.

Blockhead is focused on stylistic genre hopping, making each track its own narrative. The titles of the songs set the clever pace - the opener name “It’s Raining Clouds” is a tiny poem within itself. Meshing blaxploitation, alternative hip hop swagger, afro pop and vocal samples as random as the future’s weather forecast, Blockhead succeeds in creating a narrative able to carry itself without the ominous presence of a lugubrious lyricist's capricious plight/triumph. Instead of providing the audible equivalent of green screen CGI for another's story, Blockhead is creating his own.

The Music Scene is dynamic and dramatic but not without a sense of humor. Blockhead dazzles with “Which One Of You Jerks Drank My Arnold Palmer?”. Samples of confident horns, hip hop break beat cymbal crashes, cool jazz keys and other cosmic blips adhere throughout the track, succeeding in painting the picture the song title promises. Later on, The Music Scene gets a little creepy. On “The Daily Routine” Blockhead opens with two drug heads vehemently arguing in order to create an eerie, uncomfortable atmosphere. Here, Blockhead breaks away from the simple foundations of hip hop beat making. The use of Ableton is very welcome as he meshes together several layers as opposed to just building off one. “Tricky Turtle” expands these notions, as does the soulful “Pity Party” and the closing number “Farewell Spaceman,” a track that takes listeners from a 1960’s Middle Eastern cocktail lounge to the center of the Andromeda galaxy on a cosmic rocket ship fueled by orotund trumpet samples, harps and lightly distorted female vocal croons.

Blockhead’s collection of stories succeeds in spilling the guts of Tony Simon. However, the most difficult part of the album is trying not to imagine how much better they would sound if Aesop Rock or El-P would lay their lyrical edification's upon the already tantalizing landscape Blockhead has tilled. However, The Music Scene is Blockhead’s panoramic canvas, his own creation, and it delivers.

Preview The Music Scene via Blockhead's label Ninja Tune

by: Bene Garcia

" />Listen to: Blockhead "The Music Scene" | The Rathaus

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Listen to: Blockhead “The Music Scene”

February 18, 2010 Art, The Rathaus

Within any thirty second span of Tony Simon’s The Music Scene, genres can jet set from Brooklyn to the Middle East to the party hub of the Millennium Falcon – assuming Han Solo has the sound system to facilitate the dope impact of Blockhead’s most recent sound scape. The Music Scene has Blockhead building on foundations of previous ideas and techniques. For example, “Bring Back Pluto” off of Aesop Rock’s None Shall Pass, a former Blockhead production, exemplifies the attitudes of The Music Scene. This time around though, Blockhead has employed the use of the computer program Ableton, allowing him to take to his approach with a more microscopic sense of attention.

Blockhead is focused on stylistic genre hopping, making each track its own narrative. The titles of the songs set the clever pace – the opener name “It’s Raining Clouds” is a tiny poem within itself. Meshing blaxploitation, alternative hip hop swagger, afro pop and vocal samples as random as the future’s weather forecast, Blockhead succeeds in creating a narrative able to carry itself without the ominous presence of a lugubrious lyricist’s capricious plight/triumph. Instead of providing the audible equivalent of green screen CGI for another’s story, Blockhead is creating his own.

The Music Scene is dynamic and dramatic but not without a sense of humor. Blockhead dazzles with “Which One Of You Jerks Drank My Arnold Palmer?”. Samples of confident horns, hip hop break beat cymbal crashes, cool jazz keys and other cosmic blips adhere throughout the track, succeeding in painting the picture the song title promises. Later on, The Music Scene gets a little creepy. On “The Daily Routine” Blockhead opens with two drug heads vehemently arguing in order to create an eerie, uncomfortable atmosphere. Here, Blockhead breaks away from the simple foundations of hip hop beat making. The use of Ableton is very welcome as he meshes together several layers as opposed to just building off one. “Tricky Turtle” expands these notions, as does the soulful “Pity Party” and the closing number “Farewell Spaceman,” a track that takes listeners from a 1960’s Middle Eastern cocktail lounge to the center of the Andromeda galaxy on a cosmic rocket ship fueled by orotund trumpet samples, harps and lightly distorted female vocal croons.

Blockhead’s collection of stories succeeds in spilling the guts of Tony Simon. However, the most difficult part of the album is trying not to imagine how much better they would sound if Aesop Rock or El-P would lay their lyrical edification’s upon the already tantalizing landscape Blockhead has tilled. However, The Music Scene is Blockhead’s panoramic canvas, his own creation, and it delivers.

Preview The Music Scene via Blockhead’s label Ninja Tune

by: Bene Garcia

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