For Fans of Blue Scholars--Common Market

Found this artist today. After some research I discovered that one of the duo got his start as a DJ/Producer for Blue Scholars. Pretty legit. I really like this album, super chill/socially conscious hip-hop hailing from the Northwest (Seattle). If you like the kinds of hip-hop I've been posting, I'll really doubt it if you don't dig this.

Here is their Self-Titled

Check it out and let me know what you think.

Cage The Elephant

Cage the Elephant has a rad sound. They manage to fuse certain elements of rock n' roll, alternative, some blues, some funk, and even "Rage Against the Machine-esque" rapping (just not as heavy). Yeah, I get it, thats a lot of different sounds. Just listen to it and hopefully you'll see what I mean. I think this band is on the rise, I know that they played at Outside Lands this summer, and have been touring around pretty consistently. If you like any, or even all, of the styles of music I listed above and have found yourself relatively fed up with the popular music scene, maybe this band offers a refreshing beacon of hope for you. Plus most of you will likely just like this in general.

Hopefully this link works, check it out Let me know if it doesn't and I'll get you a different link

Newton Faulkner-Some New Folky Acoustic Music

I found this guy when making a mix around winter break last year on one of those Bay Area KFOG "Live from the Archives" cds. Downloaded some of his stuff, liked it (particularly this witty song called "Gone in the Morning), but moved on and lost him in my vast itunes library. I just downloaded his newest cd "Rebuilt By Humans" though, and figured it was worth posting.

Faulkner can be poppy and cheesy at times (there are a few tracks that I just flat out skip), but there is something unique about his sound, and there is no question that he is an extremely talented songwriter and guitarist. He has a very cool playing style where he strums/fingerpicks and uses the guitar's body to provide percussion as well. Kind of like that Andy McKee guy on youtube, albeit not as crazy with the addition of vocals. Unfortunately, this is kind of lost under the other instruments with the production, but the songs are still pretty. I think I would prefer to see him live and acoustic, but this album is cool too and really easy to listen to. Plus he has cool long ass red dreadlocks.

Maybe you'll like this and maybe you won't (Addi you won't), but if you like the acoustic/folky/jammy stuff I've posted before, give it a listen.

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