Caleb Landry Jones - Gadzooks Vol. 1 - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Don't let the prestigious acting career fool you, Caleb Landry Jones is a bonafide musical maverick. And on his forthcoming Gadzooks Vol. 2 he places himself in a lineage of outsider artists, many with only a thin thread tethering them to this reality, who are capable of reaching into the cosmic realms of imagination and bringing back a musical masterpiece. And while most artists don't save some of the best music of their career for an album with 'Vol. 2' in the title, Jones is an artist for whom chronology is a slippery substance. The album was recorded with Nic Jodoin in the famed Valentine Recording Studios simultaneous with the mixing of his debut album The Mother Stone. The team invited a slew of heavy hitting musicians to the studio to contribute to the magic. The resulting album sounds a bit like pink elephants in cowboy hats making asmr... at least for the first 20 seconds before it seamlessly changes entirely. One of Jones's greatest musical gifts is his ability to cover a vast energetic and sonic landscape, with a wide array of instrumentation and vocal stylings over a wholly unique song structure, in a way that feels cohesive and euphoric. And while all his records have an ecstatic quality Gadzooks Vol 2. is perhaps his most soothing and sublime collection to date. Each song has at least a dozen ear worming hooks, all so satisfying you feel a deep longing as they fade until you realize they are being woven into yet another groove-laden, toe-tapping peak. A continual mic drop on an orgasmic wonder wheel.

New York rapper Your Old Droog and Atlanta rapper/producer Tha God Fahim present their latest collaboration in Tha Wolf of Wall Street. While Fahim trades in brass-tacks metaphors, Droog leans more toward punchlines and pop culture-laden double-entendre. Like any effective duo, their contrasting styles dovetail seamlessly on their new EP Tha Wolf on Wall St. The entire project is an assured slice of underground rap, but the pair's compatibility shines brightest on the title track. Fahim and Droog move back and forth like co-stars on a long-running cable drama, and Fahim's production provides a more serene mirror reflection. Fahim laces each of the EP's eight tracks with sedate loops, splitting the difference between his and Droog's clashing styles.

I think most of it takes place in dreams, Caleb Landry Jones says of his debut solo album, The Mother Stone. InchI'm talking more about dreams than I am about what's happened iin the physical realm. Or I'm talking about both, and you're not sure what's what. InchThis is the kind of conversation you end up having about a record like this one, a sprawling psychedelic suite built from abrupt and disorienting detours and schizoid shifts of voice, it's manic energy forever pulling the tablecloth out from under classic pop orchestration. One minute you're squarely in the realm of biographical fact and a moment later you're having a discussion about lucid dreaming and how Jones once punched up a dream set on a soccer field by willing himself to experience it from the POV of the ball. But maybe that's just another story about grabbing the wheel of your own hallucination; maybe this pertains to the music after all. Some biographical facts Caleb Landry Jones was born in Garland, Texas in 1989 and comes from a long line of fiddle players. Three, maybe four generations back, on his mother's side. His grandfather wrote jingles for commercials, his mother was a singer-songwriter who taught piano lessons in the house, and his father was a contractor who did a lot of work for the Dallas music-equipment retailer Brook Mays and knew a guy if you needed a bass or a banjo. But Jones is not sure if you can hear any of this in his music and he does not play the fiddle. What you can hear on this record are the marks left by conversion experiences, two in particular. First there's Jones' formative encounter with the Beatles' InchWhite Album,Inch the Fabs record most obviously composed by four Beatles rowing in different directions, and the beginning of what Jones calls Inchthis British Invasion of my soul,Inch which is still ongoing. Second, there's Syd Barrett, cracked vessel of Pink Floyd