FutureSexLoveFunk    05.23.2008  

05.22.08Plantlife
With an impressive list of production credentials accrued since his debut release — Estelle, Missy, John Legend and Alicia Keys among them — Jack Splash’s sophomore album has been building buzz much like his first: quietly and powerfully.

Riding the future soul movement with his Plantlife group, Splash’s Time Traveller record, which dropped last week, picks tricks up from just about every genre-creating artist out there: there are healthy helpings of jazz, funk and soul; a twinkle of that cooler-than-thou Justice noise; Prince’s sex drip minimalism; Marvin Gaye’s lush love smile; and a dash of ’80s hair rock.

There are even a couple of tracks in here with slick, bumping beats and attitude that could have come seamlessly from Michael Jackson in his prime.

Listen a little harder than usual here — you’ll probably hear a lot more than usual, too, if you do.

Oh, Bondage…Up Yours!    05.23.2008  

05.21.08Richard_Kern_Fingered
Punk has been through some rough times. It’s been loved, feared, reviled, killed, rekindled, academicized, imported, mutated and borrowed from since Johnny Rotten first learned to scream and working white boys in Londontown first fell in love with dub system’s DIY culture.

Following in the curatorial footsteps of the Summer of Love exhibit, which also made a splash in New York this summer, Vienna’s Kunsthalle opened Punk. No One Is Innocent last week.

Like Summer of Love, Punk. No One Is Innocent tries to capture the signification-destroying spirit of the movement through its relics, art and artifacts — creating a fascinating and eclectic scrapbook experience.

But, also like Summer of Love, the best thing is that these art and ephemera are grouped by birth location — New York, London and Berlin — highlighting punk’s global appeal as a youth power/art movement and the movements’ local productions.

Bond a little here.