No one I know keeps his ear to the ground like Todd.  Between his connecs in the music biz and his sharp eye for talent, he’s managed to work with some really gifted artists.   Most recently, he’s been globetrotting with his latest artist, Nosaj Thing, who’s quietly become the face of LA’s burgeoning underground electronic music scene.

Nosaj’s debut album, Drift, is a good soundtrack for some of those rainy days.  But it’s his live show that really seals it.  Watching him gyrate sweatily over his Akai MPD-32 is oddly hypnotic; as he splices in Portishead or Busta Rhymes acapellas, it’s easy to forget that he’s this soft-spoken Korean kid from Pasadena.  Live Electronic music has always suffered from the lack of a visible performance aspect, which has prompted acts like Glitch Mob to tilt their controllers towards the audience.  But somehow, even though it’s hard to tell whether  he’s actually manipulating anything, Nosaj manages to engage the audience.

In the video below, he breaks down his live set a bit, which simply involves his laptop, Ableton Live, and the MPD (which also triggers his light show).  You can peep more of Nosaj Thing’s music in the sidebar music player.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before in one of my other posts about the guy, but RJD2 inspired me to start producing.  His work on Deadringer convinced me that an MPC was the ultimate sequencing tool (and it’s still obvious to me).  But it’s been a long time since his debut album dropped on Def Jux (seven and a half years, to be exact), and his sound has progressed since then to the dismay of many fans and critics.  No longer meticulously chopping his samples on the MPC, he’s apparently taken to programming and building his own synths— fuckin gangster.  Those cheeky Brits over at Electric Independence managed to sit down with RJ in his crib and wade through his basement studio.

…which explains the name behind the label he just started, RJ’s Electrical Connections.  The first release from the label is a collection of his entire discography (at least, since Deadringer), along with the limited edition Tin Foil Hat EP which sees RJ getting back to his samplified roots.  It’s certainly not his greatest work, but there’re a couple nice ones for the RJD2 fans.  Enjoy.

I didn’t hear much about it among the circles that I travel in, but this is a truly unusual and awesome video for “Heaven Can Wait,” the collaboration between Charlotte Gainsbourg and Beck.  It’s a pretty unremarkable song, very Beck stylistically, but it’s one of those joints where the video makes the song.  It seems to be a play on our addiction to viral videos, a commentary on how vapid the human race can be.  But it also looks really cool.

(click on the image to watch the video)

In light of the recent barrage of anti-Kanye sentiments, the timing of this video’s release is impeccable.  What originally started as a music video for 808s and Heartbreak has morphed into a vehicle for Kanye to respond to criticis of his narcissistic behavior.  In “We Were Once a Fairytale,” Kanye confronts his ego, and the results are trippy and surreal as only director Spike Jonze could do it.  Anyone else hyped for “Where the Wild Things Are?”

[UPDATE: Kanye's been going around having the film taken down for some inexplicable and unexplained reason.  To me, it was the perfect way to kick back at the haters (better than Jay Leno), but so be it.  You can still catch it over at WorldStarHipHop.]

I figure expectations have just as much of an effect on the way an artist approaches an album creatively as the listener of said album.  It irritates me when I hear an artist talking about appeasing fans, and in most cases, I can assume this entails following the formula that drew listeners in the past.  But, as much as it blows, I guess the only objective barometers for success are sales and critical acclaim, without which all my favorite artists would eventually become school teachers.

As 2009 winds down and I start to reflect on my favorite joints from this year, it’s become apparent that the ones that I’ve enjoyed most are those that dropped into my lap from the periphery.  Albums I eagerly anticipated unequivocally failed to meet my lofty expectations.

Such is the case with Oddise’s Odd Autumn, the fall installment of his seasonal instrumental series, which will go largely unnoticed and without acclaim.  Albums like this don’t suffer from weight of expectations and allow the artist the freedom of experimentation (the fact that Mos Def continues to do his own thing in the face of such expectations is one of the reasons I enjoyed The Ecstatic).  And the result is quite good.  Check it out.

Oddisee Music Presents… Odd Autumn

I’ve had love for Pac Div for a minute now, but in the Internet 2.0/Mixtape Age, there’s just so much filler to sift through before you can determine whether an artist is actually dope or not.  These days, marketing & promotion consists of throwing up anything and everything, regardless of quality, so I’ve heard some really tight shit from Pac Div and some pretty wack shit.  Par for the course, I guess.

But then, you come across songs like the self-titled single above, and I can’t help but get really hyped.  If I’m guilty of anything on this blog (besides neglect), it’s overhyping any promising acts like Detroit Pistons prospects; but this song’s got me feeling like Pac Div’s some kind of modern day, West Coast Tribe, tek talk aside.  The look of the video, their outfits, battle rhymes, the Mohawks’ “CHAMP!” sample all feel really gritty and mad ’90s.  You tend to hear a lot of Hip Hop purists sounding like grumpy old men, harping about the “good old days” and what not, but if Pac Div’s forthcoming album sounds anything like this joint, it should satiate a lot of those naysayers.

The trailer for the upcoming doc “Street Struck: The Big L Story.”  Need I say more?

My man Lex Luthor put me on to this article about the “Nas Syndrome,” which generally refers to the not-so-unique trend of skillful MCs choosing wack beats, using Nasir’s latest, “Untitled,” as an example.  It’s pretty on point, despite Sean Blaze’s assertion that Stillmatic and God’s Son are routinely overlooked.  Sean’s right— to a degree.  Stillmatic is to Nas what The Black Album is to Jay: the overture to their reinvention that simultaneously proved that they both still had “it” and that they had both been slipping in years prior.  As for God’s Son, the beats were predominantly wack, my friend.

Then, I saw this advertisement on Grand Good just now, and it made me wonder What if Nas had taste in beats like ‘Mega? I know, I know.  Too good to be true…

Unlike all the American movie critics still picking Quentin Tarantino’s pubic hairs out of their teeth, I didn’t really enjoy Inglourious Bastards.  It kept switching modes so quickly that there was hardly any of the eccentric and offbeat character development that made his previous movies so great.  He took the time to thorougly introduce characters who subsequently died 10 minutes later.  Paced with some consistency, the movie could have been an hour and a half, rather than two and a half.

And so, that’s, perhaps, why I enjoy the latest commercials from Japanese cell phone service provider Softbank, which also star Brad Pitt.  The below advertisements, directed by Spike Jonze, have only served to amp me up for Where the Wild Things Are

Big ups to Metstradamus for Omar Minaya’s checklist (with no checks).  The Mets’ 2009 season has been a story of horrible, horrible luck (slipping in your bathroom is one thing, but who gets hurt walking back to the dugout?) and incompetent management (really, is the farm system so loaded that we don’t need to sign our draft picks?).

All I can say is Ramon Castro R.I.P.