[LJ2ME] When my fears arise i blow them out
saul williams' niggy tardust is 'really good™'. that's officially my rating. 4/5 stars, something like that. you should know that means i like it enough that i'm going to have it on incessant repeat on my stereo, my mp3 player, my mind, for the rest of the week and then some. it's right up there with NIN's with_teeth and year-zero, and a step/giant-leap below The Downward Spiral, or Led Zeppelin (the album), or The Wall.
at first i thought it was too obviously crammed with reznor's year-zero soundscaping. but i get it now. saul and trent are a very organic fusion at this moment. Trent can write very intense lyrics when he's picking at his own emotional scabs, and while *he* doesn't get close to that level of power when he's trying social commentary, that's what Saul's all about.
So I don't think Niggy's sound is a case of trent not being able to sound like anything but himself, even when trying to make a hip-hop album. "Niggy" isn't Trent trying to do hip-hop. It's more like an in-between sequels, alternate take of year-zero. It's an iteration of year-zero. it ought to have a halo number. Saul's lyrics, notwithstanding their frequent use of "NGH" (which is often ironic at two or more levels), could easilly have formed the semantic content to year-zero. you might have to listen to Niggy a bit slant to hear that, but that's only fitting: saul's diction is down with dickinson's idea of truth and divinity.
Download it at niggytardust.com
funny addendum: my CD changer just tracked off the end of 'Niggy', and onto NIN's "Broken". Till the lyrics of "WiSH" kicked-in, I didn't quite notice that we'd switched discs!
New York Magazine interviewed Trent and Saul (unfortunately mostly about the distribution model rather than the music). Trent confesses to putting his money where his mouth his [when asked how much he paid for Radiohead's in rainbows]: "I bought the physical one, so I spent a whopping $80. [Pauses.] But, then I re-bought it and paid $5,000, because I really felt that I need to support the arts, so people could follow in my footsteps."
at first i thought it was too obviously crammed with reznor's year-zero soundscaping. but i get it now. saul and trent are a very organic fusion at this moment. Trent can write very intense lyrics when he's picking at his own emotional scabs, and while *he* doesn't get close to that level of power when he's trying social commentary, that's what Saul's all about.
So I don't think Niggy's sound is a case of trent not being able to sound like anything but himself, even when trying to make a hip-hop album. "Niggy" isn't Trent trying to do hip-hop. It's more like an in-between sequels, alternate take of year-zero. It's an iteration of year-zero. it ought to have a halo number. Saul's lyrics, notwithstanding their frequent use of "NGH" (which is often ironic at two or more levels), could easilly have formed the semantic content to year-zero. you might have to listen to Niggy a bit slant to hear that, but that's only fitting: saul's diction is down with dickinson's idea of truth and divinity.
Download it at niggytardust.com
funny addendum: my CD changer just tracked off the end of 'Niggy', and onto NIN's "Broken". Till the lyrics of "WiSH" kicked-in, I didn't quite notice that we'd switched discs!
New York Magazine interviewed Trent and Saul (unfortunately mostly about the distribution model rather than the music). Trent confesses to putting his money where his mouth his [when asked how much he paid for Radiohead's in rainbows]: "I bought the physical one, so I spent a whopping $80. [Pauses.] But, then I re-bought it and paid $5,000, because I really felt that I need to support the arts, so people could follow in my footsteps."