The Weekly Jive

dan le sac Vs. Scroobius Pip—Angles (Strange Famous)

Nobody will ever accuse Scroobius Pip of being a constipated writer, as the very white British rapper let’s fly all that’s on his mind—and what’s on his mind is far more poetical, fluid and devil loosed rat-a-tat-tat than you’ll find currently in the rap canon. If he veers closer to Ezra Pound than Snoop and wears his beards longer than Walt Whitman it doesn’t mean there’s a crumbtrail to those poets. Somewhat astoundingly, Pip doesn’t read poetry, he just is—the muse courts him. It’s disturbingly true that relevancy comes from Great Britain (whether or not America is ready to embrace it is a study for Malcolm Gladwell), but on Angles Pip enunciates and exacerbates with an organized (and snarky) intellect, employing le sac’s video game tronics (the semi-hit “Thou Shalt Always Steal”) and phat beats. What makes things interesting is that the two are just about anitpodal. Here’s Pip, an out of the ordinary Essex accent spitting funny rhymes with an eleven-mile vocab that just ain’t Christian nor hoodlum (anyone can rhyme fuck, but osmosis?—“their lyrical prognosis is like spiritual osmosis”) about reality and societal ills like a disinfected huckster. If Angles slips at all it’s in the forays from the auctioneer rap delivery that carry Pip’s messages so well into seductive bits—like “Look For the Woman,” which is one “oh oh oh I love you” from Milli Vanilli’s “Girl You Know It’s True.” Diverse in lyric, not in form. (Chuck Mindenhall)

Okkervil River—The Stand Ins (Jagjaguwar)

If you can count worthwhile sequels on one hand, save a finger for The Stand Ins, 11 cuts recorded during the sessions for last year’s highly acclaimed The Stage Names (which was originally intended as a double album). Another discourse on the funhouse-mirror of celebrity, the unnatural existence of life on the road, and band-dom in general, Will Sheff’s astute and playful lyrics form their own torrent, rushing forth to match every note in dynamic, often twangy rockers and thought-provoking ballads. After a brief opening interlude (one of three instrumental “Stand Ins”), Sheff and recent Okkervil alumnus Jonathan Meiburg deliver the rousing duet “Lost Coastlines,” whose line “Is that marionette real enough yet to step off of that set to decide what her dance might be doing?” could serve as this project’s thesis statement. Normally when bands start bemoaning their celebrated lives it’s a sure sign they’ve bought into their own bullshit. But Sheff mixes first-person POV with intricate narrative devices so well—he even reprises the TSN role of porn star/suicide Shannon Wilsey here on “Shannon Smiles”—it’s nearly impossible to tell where he ends and the characters begin. Mostly, though, he knows we’re all playing roles, including him. (John Schacht)

Willoughby—I Know What You’re Up To (Sargent)

“Timelessness” is the hoary chestnut critics roll out when the idea they usually mean to get across is more along the lines of “timefullness”—acknowledging a sound or aesthetic that crops up in a specific era, or across several. This excellent debut from Gus Seyffert, a member of the fertile Silver Lake scene and brainchild behind Willoughby, is a prime example: sampling across the music spectrum, from Django jazz to Beatles harmonies, Curtis Mayfield soul to Elliot Smith vignettes, these 13 gentle songs (including the John Lennon cover “Losing You”) make Punk, New Wave, Metal and Grunge seem like mere footnotes. Melody and songcraft are kings here, in other words, aided by simple acoustic arrangements featuring stand-up bass, brushed skins, subtle keys and guitars, and Seyffert’s half-whispered, near-falsetto vocals delivering brief-but-weighty romantic dramas. Opener “Intentions” sounds like a missing track from Harry Nilsson; the rich harmony vocals of “Story” recall Ram-era McCartney; and the title track has a Gilberto Gil-bossa nova vibe woven in. These songs, most clocking in under three minutes, don’t sound nostalgic, but contemporary, because they’re alive—which is how this sparkling little gem will make some listeners feel. (John Schacht)