Trash Talk - 119

Love them or leave them, Trash Talk is pretty damn unfuckwithable. They have spent the last six years raising hell anywhere people would have them, from shitty basements to the New Museum. The level of youthful skater/hipster jackassery has risen exponentially in recent years, in no way helped to the cranky old JS-NYC eyes by their affiliation with West Coast hip-hop collective Odd Future. Generation gaps aside, Trash Talk have become the first non-hip hop artist to sign to the Odd Future collective.

119 is their first record for Odd Future Records (in conjunction with their own Trash Talk Collective) and shows little change from the Flag-ged up guitar thrash we've come to know and love from the fearsome foursome. Things rarely stretch past the one-minute mark, save for a brooding collabo with OFWGKTA proprietors Hodgy Beats and Tyler The Creator that seems tailored more for the after-parties Trash Talk have been playing on the recent Odd Future tour than anything people are really clamoring for. The rest is business as usual, and tracks like Reasons do make me want to hit people in the face with a shovel, so rest assured that your Sacto boys are still bringing it. Get 119 here from the TTC web presence and look out for them at Gramercy on 10/17 with Mellowhype. I suspect there will be ten or twenty underground shows for TT that day as well, so keep your eyes peeled.

R

Tyler The Creator - Goblin

Of all the curious signs of my old age that have reared their ugly head in recent years, my uneasiness with the post-Eminem set of rappers might be the most disturbing. Seeing Em in recent years, he seems utterly sociopathic in his spewing of what definitely appears to be bona-fide hate. That is not to be confused with dress-up metal, overly sleeved young hardcore bands, or wanna-be thug rappers of all complexions. I mean real fucking vitriol, not horror-core. On the other side of that coin is the Odd Future crew, a West Coast collective that seems to be ushering in a new genre of Special Ed rap.

Continuing in the tradition of EPMD and Redman (as well as his first record), Goblin from OFWGKTA headguy Tyler The Creator has a theme of Tyler interfacing with his therapist Dr. TC over the frankly shocking and disturbing tracks that comprise Goblin. We've seen that concept in various post-Funkadelic records and it seems to dovetail nicely with our dear Mr. Asperger's Goblin personae. The beats are new school, as is the flow. Lots of blow job talk, too, if that floats your boat. I'm on the fence, but from a beats and rhymes perspective, it's better than a lot of hip hop out today.

R