Lifelong friends, singer and guitarist Chris Rehm and drummer Sean Hart, the New Orleans-based duo who make up Caddywhompus, have released their third studio album, “Odd Hours.” Over the course of their nine-year career, the duo keeps getting better. Because of their shared history, they have the same adolescent musical influencers, which you can unmistakably hear in their music to this day. Their lifelong friendship also allows the duo to take risks – risks that certainly pay off – like the quick, exaggerated tempo changes within songs that makes “Odd Hours” unforgettable. Highlights on the album include opener “Decent,” and “Waiting Room,” a dizzying, manic jam that throws the listener for a loop on multiple occasions.
This past Spring, Onkyo rolled out a new set of firmware updatesfor select A/V and hi-fi components and systems initializing Blackfire’s FireConnect wireless multi-room audio distribution. Now, Onkyo has released their NCP-302 Wireless Network Speaker featuring FireConnect by Blackfire Research for the US market, another major step in expanding the Blackfire wireless home entertainment ecosystem. The NCP-302 can link with Onkyo master components such as AVRs, work as a standalone speaker, or can be grouped to create a wireless, multi-room audio system via Blackfire’s FireConnect. FireConnect provides reliable, fast and flexible performance, enabling dynamic, real-time wireless streaming.
With your choice of black or white, this 2.6 kg speaker will look smart anywhere in your home. The NCP-302 features dual-band 5 GHz/2.4 GHz Wi-Fi, built-in Chromecast, and online streaming services such as Spotify, TIDAL, Deezer, Pandora, and TuneIn. With the Onkyo Controller app, you can control playback, explore services, and distribute audio throughout your home, all from your mobile device.
DAMN. Kendrick Lamar dropped one of the most influential rap albums of this decade on Good Friday. The celebrated rapper, whose 2015 “To Pimp a Butterfly” won him a Grammy for “Best Rap Album” takes an introspective turn this time around, focusing on our most basic, primal elements, with song titles like: “BLOOD,” “DNA,” “PRIDE,” “LUST,” “FEAR,” and “GOD.” On DAMN. Lamar proves he is not only the most talented rapper around, but a masterful storyteller to boot. Lamar isn’t propagating old narratives, but rather, he weaves the building blocks of his life through breathless raps and unrelenting rhymes. Directly addressing those who criticized his lyrics on police brutality on To Pimp a Butterfly’s, “Alright,” Lamar digs down deep (“DNA”), exposing the contents of his history, as well as those of his haters. His talent in storytelling culminates in “DUCKWORTH,” the album’s mind-boggling closing track, and a story that’s stranger than fiction. Kendrick captivatingly sews together two strangers’ lives, leading up to a confrontation that could have ended in his father’s death at the hands of the future rapper’s producer. The album ends where it begins with “BLOOD” – the life Lamar would have led if his father was killed and his mentor incarcerated – as another victim of senseless gun violence.
Tourist In This Town is the debut, full-length album by Alabama native Allison Crutchfield. Crutchfield is not new to the music industry, having formed notable bands since her teenage years (P.S. Eliot and Bad Banana) with twin sister, Katie of Waxahatchee. On Tourist, Crutchfield ditches compromising with bandmates and focuses on the self. Accompanying the 80’s inspired rippling synths that sail through the album are Crutchfield’s easy vocals and anxiety-driven lyrics of love, heartbreak, loneliness, and change. Standouts on the album include opener, “Broad Daylight,” “Charlie,” and “Expatriate,” with open, honest lyrics: “I love myself, or I’m figuring out how.”
In the wake of the sudden passing of Prince last year, there has been an overwhelming demand for the legendary music icon’s body of work to be made available on music streaming services. As of February 12, many fans got their wish. Warner Bros, who owns the rights to much of the late musician’s work, including renowned albums 1999, Purple Rain, and Dirty Mind, has reached an agreement with Prince’s estate to allow all his music (released prior to his 1996 split with Warner Bros) to be made available on music streaming platforms including Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, and Pandora. The February 12 release date coincided with the Grammy Awards, which honored Prince with a tribute performance by The Time and Bruno Mars.
Warner Bros has also announced that, on June 9th, they will release a remastered version of Purple Rain, as well as two previously unreleased Prince albums and two concert films from Prince’s personal vault at his Paisley Park recording complex.
Prince did once have his music available for streaming on some digital platforms, but, with the exception of Jay Z’s Tidal (which gives artists a larger share of profits) took his music down in 2015. An advocate for artist rights, Prince split with his long-time record label, Warner Bros, in 1996 because, as a prolific songwriter, Prince wanted to release new music as soon as it was ready, but Warner Bros refused his request. This dispute and eventual split was what prompted the singer’s infamous name change to the un-pronounceable emblem combining the astrologically inspired Mars-male and Venus-female symbols. In a press release at that time, Prince wrote: “Warner Bros took the name, trademarked it, and used it as the main marketing tool to promote all of the music I wrote…The company owns the name Prince and all related music marketed under Prince. I became merely a pawn used to produce more money for Warner Bros.”
Once the Warner Bros contract expired in the year 2000, Prince went back to using his name, creating his own record label and innovating new ways for fans to access his work, becoming one of the first artists to sell their albums online.
