It’s hard to really describe the feeling of nostalgia. The dictionary definition recounts it as “a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.” Everyone has different triggers which throw them back into that universal sense of melancholia. You may hear a song and be swept into a brisk fall sunset in 2006. You laid in the grass watching the sunset with your childhood neighbors (but more importantly, best friends), as time stopped existing. Or maybe it was the summer after high school graduation. You were depressed and sneaked out … Continued
Music Staff Picks: The Best Releases of April
billy woods – Aethiopes On Aethiopes, billy woods reestablishes his strengths as a storyteller, with help from producer Preservation’s experimentally jazzy beats. By now, woods has cemented himself as one of hip hop’s greatest writers, and his brooding yet clever introspection sounds especially powerful over Preservation’s musical backdropping. Samples of pianos will twinkle across some tracks, and pound discordantly on others, while electric guitars ring and horns blow. By the time the harmonica enters the equation, the beats here are unparalleled. It is an enveloping atmosphere completed by excellent percussion, which moves between hand drums, full kits, and shuffling jangles … Continued