Toronto psych collective Badge Epoch gets weird
Also new music from Polaris nominee DijahSB and Tierra Whack
Keeping up with new music releases can be a difficult task. Your Weekend Playlist offers a brief introduction to a broad range of the most interesting new tracks and emerging artists.
This week’s playlist features new music from Badge Epoch, Boldy James and the Alchemist, Tierra Whack, DijahSB and Sufjan Stevens. Plus, hardcore punk band Turnstile team up with Blood Orange.
Badge Epoch
(feat. the Cosmic Range): Egyptian Licorice
Feeling stressed? News cycle got you down? Why not unplug and get a little weird with some neopsychedelic jams?
Badge Epoch is the latest project from Max Turnbull, the eccentric Toronto artist who records as a solo artist under the moniker Slim Twig and was the bandleader for the experimental pop group Badge Époque Ensemble.
Turnbull describes “Scroll,” the group’s new 90-minute double-LP, as “a cosmic hodgepodge of funk, jazz, ambient techno, aggressive guitarmonized rawk, musique concrète and hip hop” — which makes perfect sense the moment you hit play. The album features contributions from a broad range of local artists, including Blood Ceremony’s Alia O’Brien, singer Michael Rault and members of U.S. Girls.
On the dreamy single “Egyptian Licorice,” O’Brien’s flute trills gently among a blissedout rhythm section of laid-back bass and bongos. But each time the track threatens to float away on a sunny wave of ’60s psychedelia, Turnbull summons the spirit of prog-rock demigod Robert Fripp, slicing through the track with a razorsharp guitar riff.
DijahSB (feat. RAY HMND): Moving With the Tides
This week’s feel-good summer tune comes courtesy of Toronto MC DijahSB, whose 2021 album “Head Above the Waters” is in the mix for the prestigious Polaris Music Prize this September.
On the standout track “Moving With the Tides,” DijahSB and Brampton rapper RAY HMND team up for a new underdog anthem, trading verses over a bright mix of electric guitars and live drums. DijahSB’s charisma is immediately apparent as they rap about resiliency and their long journey to success:
“I spent ten years watering my seeds / Now it’s time to see the flowers spring,” they declare, triumphant.
Boldy James, The Alchemist: Turpentine/Steel Wool
Can we go ahead and call The Alchemist the best — if not the most consistent — producer working in hip hop right now?
More than two decades into his career, Al’s uncanny ability to pull the very finest out of the artists he collaborates with — from Freddie Gibbs to underground rappers like Conway the Machine to Roc Marciano — has only increased. He continues his hot streak with “Bo Jackson,” the second collaborative album in as many years with Griselda Records rapper Boldy James.
The two artists are a natural fit: Alchemist’s spacious and subtly crafted beats provide plenty of room for Boldy’s expansive and humorous musings, delivered in a deep and insouciant drawl.
Meanwhile, the playful chemistry between the 39-year-old rapper and the 43-year-old producer on tracks like “Turpentine” represents a damning rebuke to the tired argument that hip hop is a young person’s game.
Tierra Whack: Walk the Beat
There’s never a dull moment with Tierra Whack.
The Philly artist made that crystal clear on her idiosyncratic debut “Whack World,” an album made up of 15 one-minute songs, each with its own musical and visual style — from the tough swagger of “Bugs Life” to the goofy crooning of “Pet Cemetery.”
On her latest single, “Walk the Beat,” Whack takes another left turn, stretching her unique vocal style over a bass-heavy, fouron-the-floor dance beat. And though the track’s production feels worlds away from the DIY sound of her early work, the lyrical sensibility feels familiar. “Alexander Wang with that Helmut Lang / Ghetto fab so I’m still eatin’ chicken wings,” she spits with an ironic wink and a nod to her earlier work. “Versatile so I can keep switchin’ lanes.”
Sufjan Stevens, Angelo De Augustine: Fictional California
Now that I have survived / The spectacle of my youth I’m gonna bring it on again / Bring it on with my truth Leave it to Sufjan Stevens to bring a tear to this millennial’s eye in a song inspired by the 2004 cheerleading comedy “Bring It On Again.” Over the years, the prolific indie folk veteran has written enchantingly baroque pop songs about serial killers, the city of Sault Ste. Marie, Tonya Harding … the list goes on.
“Fictional California” will appear on the upcoming “A Beginner’s Mind,” a collaboration between Stevens and singersongwriter Angelo De. The album, which drops on Sept. 24, was recorded in a cabin in upstate New York, where the two artists watched movies every night for inspiration. That may sound twee, but the results so far are promising. On “Back to Oz,” Stevens and De Augustine take listeners on a surreal lyrical and visual journey inspired by the unofficial 1985 sequel to “The Wizard of Oz” (a movie that I didn’t know existed until just now).