Band / Artist: Kukishi.tumblr
Year: 2013
Genre: Punk-Rap, Alternative Hip-Hop, Dirty South, Rap, Bastard Pop, RnB, Lo-fi
My Review:
I got a rather cryptic email from a guy that was just a link to a Tumblr page. After a peek at what was there I asked the sender if it was music he was submitting, to which he replied "depends on if you like it".
Well I had a series of conversations with him after that and gave the tracks a listen in my Mardi Gras driving time, so here's what I can share with you. I edited them down to here, and made sure to omit enough to keep some of the mystery.
Just a heads up, there's some fairly blue parts in here toward the middle, but I didn't feel right editing it out.
________________________________________________
Jumbly
Music: howdy. whats going on?
???:
just listenin to Depreciation Guild. (ケ
≖⊿≖)ケ
..Are
we interviewing now?
Jumbly:
lol. yeah sure... SO where do you live? Whats the story on the music?
???:
is it important where i live?
Jumbly: not directly, but it's nice to have some information about the music
and the musicians.
???:
It
isn't totally me. and meh
Jumbly: so I'd assume that this is a shell persona in a sense
???:
mmm depends on the song, but really the whole project is that. I don't
put my name on the album, or ever say it in a song. I don't have any
word names for the album or songs. The album name is just however you
read the images of the covers.
Jumbly: do you have a persona that you'd prefer to go by? anything to make
the work searchable? Why separate yourself so directly from your
work?
Kukishi.tumblr:
just the website name Kukishi.tumblr is what i'm sticking on stuff. Kinda starting from scratch...
Jumbly: alright. It seems like a cool idea to have the Tumblr part as an actual piece of the name. What would you say is influencing you as far as this work?
Kukishi:
Umm I don't really know genres...rap and non-rap. It's very sample heavy full of everything i like, and some stuff i don't like.
Off
the top of my head there's major samples of; newtral hilk motel,
notorious big, ogre you asshole, bloc party, fight club, a clockwork
orange, anamanaguchi, Kaiji, Animal collective, grizzly bear, Conan
OBrien, BILLY STEWART, the zombies...
I'm
sure theres more i'm forgetting
Jumbly: are you trying to meld the references into anything
in specific? Would you say you're emulating any other artists with
your work?
Kukishi:
thats a weird question, the melding one
Jumbly: this is a weird interview.
Kukishi:
I've done weirder :T
i
guess a lot of the album with the samples i tried to use things oddly.
ummm making hyped up bangers out of indie sounds, and doing things
like non-4/4 time signatures and tempo changes, things that don't
really happen in raphops.
Jumbly: are you planning to tour/ collaborate with others?
Kukishi:
No plans to tour.
I've
collab'd with people in the past and will in the future but that
stuff isnt ummm...well those are one off type deals. Theres no
collabs on my EP beyond the Notorious BIG verse, which doesn't really
count. I don't like features on albums, they're shallow.
Jumbly: well, I haven't got much of your history or anything,
so I'm just wondering, do you prefer to release your works like a
hiphop mixtape, or you intend to release a full album in the future?
Kukishi:
i'm going with "EP", especially since it's about the right
length by the official terms of what an EP is...as decided by someone
a hundred years ago for a medium we don't even remember.
Jumbly: Well doing everything from a blog would be a more forward facing way to approach it. So far you've got the EP on a blog, do
you have a plan of how you'll expand that in time?
Kukishi:
There's a single now too. Gonna be some more. Finishing up B-sides and
trying to get a music video made
oh
there is something else...for one of the music videos i had the idea
of having a qt just stare into the camera for the length of the
song....magibon style with less longface. and i've been having trouble
getting someone to agree. if you got any qts in your readership that
would be helpful.
Jumbly: I'll leave a message for volunteers. If anyone wanted
to contact you about doing some kind of collaboration?
Jumbly: alright. Have you been following the blog, or did you
have any suggestions there?
Kukishi:
No idea! More porn maybe?!
Jumbly: do you have any extra artwork or photos you'd like to
share in your post?
Kukishi: umm nothing in particular, want something?
Jumbly: Sure. if you don't care, I'll go with what I have.
Kukishi:
i like calling the side-A tracks niggercore
Jumbly: well, your beats are good, and the genres chopped up and taken hold of was
fun. I chuckled at the clockwork orange samples
Kukishi: I really showed self restraint on that track. It was originally 20
minutes of "DEVIL TROMBONE"
Jumbly: I have no idea what that is. but 20 minutes of it would probably be
pushing it, unless you just want to fuck with people.
Kukishi:
"fuzzy warbles"
Jumbly: Ohhh yeah, the quote.
Kukishi: "DEVIL TROMBONE". That's my favorite quote from a clockwork
orange. Double entendre-ing his music setup. Bitches
be on their pitiful portable picnic players
Jumbly: I do love the sex scene, its hilarious, and a wonderful use of the
music. That scene and the attack scene with the rest of the gang on
the water are the best two in my opinion.
Kukishi:
Can't take the eye scene huh?
Jumbly: No, I can take it fine, I just think that as far as cinematography
goes, those two scenes are the better. specifically the attack scene,
but the fuck scene is just good film that I might be biased for on the basis of hilarity.
Kukishi:
I like it all so i got nothing to say. every scene in that movie is
memorable and iconic in its own way.
*peers into buttcheeks*
ARE YOU NOW OR HAVE YOU EVER BEEN A HO-MO-SEXUAL
Jumbly: yeah, that movie is really well put together, I like to wonder what
it'd have been like were it made now.
Kukishi: don't worry it'll get a horrible remake eventually. "WE'RE REALLY
NOT EMULATING KUBRIK ITS.....MORE BASED ON THE BOOK"
Jumbly: I'd hate to see the remake happen, I just wonder how
good it's be if it were made now.
I'll probably mention my distaste about the
*niggercore* thing, and the general usage. I like to be pretty honest about the music, but I try to stay objective. My tastes aren't other peoples, and I'm not
working for pitchfork.
Kukishi:
you should relax on "nigger" its not going away ever,
and it's post-racist now. also i'm pretty certain there's a phonetic reason its
so popular
Jumbly: fair enough I suppose. I avoid it for all the hatefulness I've experienced
around it
Kukishi:
welp, you mah nigga now. Its not like i go around saying nigger, i'm an
adult after all. Nigger is a good hype word for hype songs....better
than swag anyways.
i'm pretty sure there's something phonetically
addicitive about the G sound though. nigger,
faggot, swag. guh. GGGGG. real g shit. GGGGRRRRL. gangsta used to be
a big word. fell to the wayside because the meaning got in the way :T
Jumbly: well as I know it, "Gangsta" was really more of a musical genre name than anything else. G-funk was the chill brother to it, but Gangsta was the east
coast responding to the belligerence of the west coast style. I
suppose Dre is the founder of G-funk, which says something about why
it'd be more chill.
Kukishi: i never really got that side,
pac/snoop/dre/NWA/etc. They were all lacking lyrically. 2srs
Jumbly: well pac, nwa and the like were more the originals of
the west coast scene, it morphed over to G-funk in time.
Kukishi:
snoop had his moments. growing up it was badboy all
the way until it fell apart.
Jumbly: Cypress hill had a decent amount of funk to their
stuff as well, but they are more of an outlier to me... Alright
well lets finish up the interview bit.
Kukishi:
k
Jumbly: do you want to say something about anything posted before on the blog or suggest
any other bands that people should look into?
Kukishi:
you ask people to review things for your blog?
Jumbly: No I don't ask them to necessarily review things, I
usually ask if they like any of the other artists I've posted or if
they have any other artists they'd suggest to the readers, but I'm
trying that out, everyone has an opinion, and other musicians voicing
an opinion about others in the field, seems like something worth
trying.
Kukishi: I could gush about Ogre You Asshole all day but it
probably wouldn't be a fun read. I know some guys but none of them have finished
albums/mixtapes so I cant even push them.
I
couldn't review anything because i don't have the proper vocab for it. I
listen to all kinds of stuff across different genres....so much so
that i have a hard time getting genres unless there's something
specific to it. Like...this is rap, it has rapping....this is
screamo, it has screaming...this is bleepbloops, it has bleepboops,
but then I listen to to rapping screamo with bleepbloops and I don't
know what I'm supposed to call it, or why I may or may not like it.
Jumbly: Well that's understandable. If you wanted to say anything its cool,
but I don't mind if you don't.
Kukishi:
I'd say something about how the west needs to have
20 new animated series each season like japan with 2 songs book
ending each show #animation #newmusic
Here have some EXCLUSIVE. gonna be a b-side track, wubwubs made out of chiptunes
Jumbly: Thats sounding pretty badass. Last thing, what is the most valuable thing that the
internet has taught you?
Kukishi:
the most valuable thing the internet taught me is
that stealing isn't stealing if the thing isn't a thing, so steal all
the things that aren't things.
Jumbly: alright. Well thats pretty much it. Thanks for the
chat and all, I'd like to hit you up later and see if you want to do
some kind of art collaboration
Kukishi:
k, thanks
__________________________________________________________________
Now on to a review. If you read all the interview then you already partly know what I'm gonna say, and if you didn't, you're likely to be pretty "TL.DR." about a long review, so I'll make it brief.
The layout is something like a mixtape, with the album being 2 mp3s, each containing a handful of songs. Its like an mp3 version of a cassette. If you like death grips, you'll probably like this. If you enjoy bastard pop, there is plenty to appreciate in it.
Its one part mash-ups and bastard pop, one part dirty south rap, and a little garage r&b. The lo-fi part is a strength, and cutting up all the samples he's using makes it pretty fun, and it definitely does have the bones to make it some good weird rap/r&b. The lyrics have some really solid moments for this style of rap, but some of the aggressive dropping of hype words hold me back from staying in the groove in parts.
I would say that if he keeps up making music, then a year or two worth of growth is going to leave him making some fairly grade-A alt-rap-punk-bastard-pop, which is something I look forward to seeing. Especially with that extra he tossed me. Enjoy.
Kukishi.tumblr - EP
Also, if anyone wants to be a part of his music video he's making, shoot him a message.
