Your Old Droog - Time - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

New York rapper Your Old Droog's career got a jump-start with a case of mistaken identity. When Droog released a self-titled ten-song EP online in April of 2014, his raspy voice, effortless flow, and the throwback sound of his loop-heavy beats had some hip-hop fanatics convinced that InchYour Old DroogInch was simply an under-the-radar alias for rap superstar Nas. This speculation was aided by several nebulous references to Nas-related topics in the lyrics and production akin to DJ Premier's strongest work in the early '90s, all of which gave the scrappy but incredibly strong EP a decidedly swaggering East Coast feel that aspired to the lofty heights of Nas' 1994 breakthrough, Illmatic. These rumors were soon disproved as Your Old Droog made his presence known more publicly, gaining enough steam from his online tracks to eventually expand the EP into a self-titled debut full-length. Listening to the the jazzy piano loops of tracks like InchNutty BarsInch or the breezy, muted samples of InchU 47,Inch it's easy to see why fans were willfully hopeful that Droog was a Nas alter ego. While he has his own lyrical approach, the throwback style of the production harks back to the hungry early-'90s days of New York hip-hop, with tracks like InchYou Know What Time It IsInch riding truncated, spooky RZA-esque beats that would sound at home on any of the early releases by the family of Wu-Tang artists. InchGood TimesInch is an especially bright spot, Droog laying out a storytelling rhyme scheme over nostalgic samples of far-off trumpet and acoustic guitar noodling. Your Old Droog's portraits of New York street life may sound cribbed from a different time, and the comparisons to Nas' rough rhymes and blissfully jagged beats are understandable, but a solid listen to this debut reveals there's more going on than an emulation of times gone by. Droog's affinity for beats with a '90s f

Inimitable rap musician Your Old Droog is back. After recently releasing the acclaimed projects InchIt Wasn't Even CloseInch and InchTransportationInch, the prolific artist is returning with the brand new album InchJewelryInch. The album is a celebration of YOD's Jewish heritage, which he is now officially revealing to the public for the first time. InchJewelryInch features guest appearances from the likes of Matisyahu, MF DOOM, and Mach-Hommy (who also wears the hat of executive producer on the project), with beats by Quelle Chris, Tha God Fahim, Edan, Preservation, and more. InchI'm a Jew in AmericaInch, says Droog. InchThis is my story. Shalom.Inch

Stars Are the Light, the luminous seventh album by the American psych explorers Moon Duo, marks a progression into significantly new territory. From a preoccupation with the transcendental and occult that informed Ripley Johnson and Sanae Yamada's guitar-driven psych rock, and reached it's apotheosis in the acclaimed Occult Architecture diptych, Stars Are the Light sees the band synthesize the abstract and metaphysical with the embodied and terrestrial. Says Yamada InchWe have changed, the nature of our collaboration has changed, the world has changed, and we wanted the new music to reflect that.Inch Branching out from Occult Architecture Vol. 2, the album has a sonic physicality that is at once propulsive and undulating; it puts dance at the heart of an expansive nexus that connects the body to the stars. These are songs about embodied human experience - love, change, misunderstanding, internal struggle, joy, misery, alienation, discord, harmony, celebration - rendered as a kind of dance of the self, both in relation to other selves and to the eternal dance of the cosmos. Taking disco as it's groove-oriented departure point, Stars Are the Light shimmers with elements of '70s funk and '90s rave. Johnson's signature guitar sound is at it's most languid and refined, while Yamada's synths and oneiric vocals are foregrounded to create a spacious percussiveness that invites the body to move with it's mesmeric rhythms. With Sonic Boom (Spacemen 3, Spectrum) at the mixing desk in Portugal's Serra de Sintra, (known to the Romans as InchThe Mountains of the MoonInch) the area's rich landscape and powerful lunar energies exerted a strong influence on the vibe and sonic texture of the album. On embracing disco as an inspiration, Yamada says, InchIt's something we hadn't referenced in our music before, but it's core concepts really align with what we were circling around as we m