The Best Stuff I Have Heard This Year #4

1. Check The Lock – clipping. (2020, Sub Pop Records, Taken from Visions of Bodies Being Burned’)

Employing one of Shabazz Palaces as head of A&R has mean Sub Pop have signed some incredible hip hop acts in recent years. One of them has been clipping. a trio that make records about murder, horror and monstrous things. Its a genre called ‘horrorcore’ apparently.

“Check the Lock” is the highpoint on their most recent album (their third) and tells a story of a drug dealer plagued by threats some of which might be real, some might not be. The lyrics rebound of paranoid sounding percussion and a scary sounding bass competes for space with an eerily echo-y synth.

Next up from horrorcore to proper old school hip hop.

2. Copy That – Bronx Slang (2020, Fabyl Records)

Bronx Slang produce hip hop that harks back to the time when Public Enemy were hitting the mics so hard that it was impossible to ignore them. ‘Copy That’ is a devastating anti establishment blast that uses radio crackles and big old beats and a crunching electric guitar to make its point and its brilliantly done.

3. Mustang – Bartees Strange (2020, Memory Music Records)

The debut album by Bartees Strange is a wonderful mixture of several genres at the same time. ‘Mustang was one of the first tracks to surface in promotion of it – and its a heady mix of synths, punk rock and hip hop

And todays Christmas Cracker is exactly that

Christmas Steps – Mogwai