Genres

In this volume of my Black Experimental Music Mixtape series, I didn’t include Jimi Hendrix or Prince, because I wanted to share contemporary and/or lesser known artists like Heroes Are Gang Leaders and Burnt Sugar The Arkestra Chamber. These artists belong to a lineage of soul, free jazz, funk, and experimental Black music that extends back to the ‘50s and 60s—and, in some instances, back to before music was even recorded.Black Experimental Music is a form of expression that can reinvent itself without losing its basis in the African American (and Black International) artistic ethos that permeates early predecessors like Lead Belly and Lightnin Hopkins. But before we go that far back, we begin this mix with D’Angelo, an artist’s whose music will never get old. From there, Sly & the Family Stone’s “Africa Talks to You (“The Asphalt Jungle”)” explores what it means to be from an ancient time, yet living in the mean streets of present-day urban chaos. FKA twigs’ “Water Me” is a haunting, hollowed ballad, while Cassandra Wilson’s interpretation of Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon” is a song my mother used to play on car rides when I was a little girl. Black Spirituals finishes off this collection with a track that resembles a futuristic, minimalist Sun Ra, bringing elements of sound art and electro-acoustic noise to the forefront of current underground Black music.

Atlanta’s Black Lips belong to a long and winding lineage of garage rockers and twang-infused punks from the South, and continue that tradition with the new release of their eighth album, the Sean Ono Lennon-produced, Satan’s Graffiti Or God’s Art? In addition to hugely influential labels like Goner, the region has coughed up a slew of the genre’s most notable pioneers. With “You’re Gonna Miss Me,” Lone Star State psychonauts The 13th Floor Elevators created what may very well be the single most important song in the mid-’60s merger of garage and psychedelia, while the lo-fi bash and screech of Memphis heavyweights Jay Reatard and Oblivions are central to the evolution of modern garage punk (with each spawning a slew of projects, spotlighted in our playlist).It should come as no surprise that a good chunk of Southern garage rock soaks up the region’s more renowned flavors: blues, soul, gospel, and rockabilly. The Moving Sidewalks, Billy Gibbons’ pre-ZZ Top outfit, blend orange sunshine-fueled fuzz with the kind of greasy R&B swing heard in East Texas juke joints; Alex Chilton’s “My Rival,” from his 1979 cult classic, Like Flies On Sherbert, is a brain-blasted concoction of ’50s boogie and eccentric New Wave that has more in common with Swell Maps than Big Star. Seratones are another telling example—the young band from Shreveport, Louisiana, have in AJ Haynes a powerful singer equally inspired by gospel and distortion-caked punk.But there are plenty of garage rockers in the South who aren’t the least bit rootsy. Nots, one of the hardest and hottest bands to emerge from Memphis’ always fertile scene, are cold, brittle, and jagged, just like old-school post-punks on Rough Trade (Kleenex, Delta 5, and Stiff Little Fingers). In contrast, Nashville’s JEFF The Brotherhood devote a lot of their creative energy to cutting garage with hook-littered power pop, glam, and shambolic indie rock. But enough chatter, people—it’s time to press play and lose yourself in a whole mess of Southern-fried snarl and reverb.Click here to follow this playlist on Spotify.

Some of my earliest memories in life included thrash metal, with the Big Four leading the charge in the mid-80s for the entire metal scene. This was a different time, where sub-genres barely existed (“thrash” being one of the few cited in publications at the time). Fast forward a decade later and an unsuspecting band from Norway by the name of Aura Noir (pictured above), coined a new term with their 1996 debut, Black Thrash Attack. It picked up where Venom started, and fused together thrash and black metal in a way that captivated a new audience from both backgrounds.

Although not nearly as renowned as other subgenres, Blackened Thrash continues to thrive today with many classic and modern acts that tour the world. Here are 12 tracks to get you started in the world of Blackend Thrash—the grotesque, bastard sub-genre of heavy metal.

This feature is part of our Thrash 101 online course that was produced in partnership with the good rocking folks at GimmeRadio, a free 24/7 metal radio station hosted by heavy-music experts like Metalinjection.nets Frank Godla, Megadeths Dave Mustaine and Lamb of Gods Randy Blythe. Check them out here and sign up for the Thrash 101 course here.

Welcome to the ninth chapter of our Thrash 101 program. This feature was produced in partnership with GimmeRadio, your free 24/7 metal radio station hosted by heavy-music experts like MetalInjection co-founder Frank Godla, who curated this playlist. Check out his show on Gimme right here.Some of my earliest memories in life included thrash metal, with the Big Four leading the charge in the mid-80s for the entire metal scene. This was a different time, where sub-genres barely existed (“thrash” being one of the few cited in publications at the time). Fast forward a decade later and an unsuspecting band from Norway by the name of Aura Noir (pictured above), coined a new term with their 1996 debut, Black Thrash Attack. It picked up where Venom started, and fused together thrash and black metal in a way that captivated a new audience from both backgrounds.

Although not nearly as renowned as other subgenres, Blackened Thrash continues to thrive today with many classic and modern acts that tour the world. Here are 12 tracks to get you started in the world of Blackend Thrash—the grotesque, bastard sub-genre of heavy metal.

“Fast Rap” is a useful term that didn’t exist until record collectors made it up. (The first time I heard it was through Edan’s 2001 mixtape Fast Rap.) When Big Daddy Kane rhymed boiling hot over ‘80s turntable gold like “Raw” and “Warm It Up Kane,” he simply employed a method to match the speed of his delivery with the furiously funky beats underneath him. He represented an era when producers like Marley Marl, the Bomb Squad, and Large Professor arranged soul and jazz samples into swinging, ever-quickening tempos, and East Coast rappers worked hard to keep up. From Main Source’s “Live at the BBQ” to A Tribe Called Quest’s “The Scenario,” these songs mark an era when demonstrating mic skills meant rapping with lung collapsing agility. - Mosi Reeves

On Nov. 3, Portland indie-rockers Blitzen Trapper return with their ninth album, Wild and Reckless, a record that finds frontman Eric Earley examining the turbulent state of the world… which, naturally, has him itching to get on the first space shuttle outta here. There are the tunes he’d play to achieve lift-off. “When things down here on planet earth get too shitty, the socials and all the feeds got you down, sometimes you need to zoom on out into the void and get some perspective before coming back down to earth and making change. Here are some songs by artists that contemplate space travel—always looking forward, never looking back.”—Eric Earley, Blitzen Trapper

Typing the words "mp3 blog" in 2018 feels a lot like typing the words "eight-track tape" or "Betamax" or "Friendster"——a snickering acknowledgement of a phenomenon that was once so ubiquitous, yet now feels so distant that its like it never existed. Oh sure, the basic premise of the mp3 blog——"download this cool new song by a band youve never heard before!"——endures across countless music sites these days, and someoftheOGs have miraculously avoided blogger burnout over the course of 15-odd years and/or fortified into robust, well-staffed sites. But gone are the days when mp3 blogs were touted as music-industry disruptors, armchair A&R reps, and your new favorite radio station all in one. (And so too are the days when Clap Your Hands Say Yeah represented the future of indie rock, after taking the online short cut from DIY obscurity to most talked-about band in America seemingly overnight.)"Blog rock" was essentially the "SoundCloud rap" of the 2000s——a nebulously defined subgenre more indicative of where the artists first gained exposure rather than the sound of the music they played. But for all the upheaval the internet had wrought on the music industry, and all the potential it unleashed for underground music scenes around the world, the bands that came to epitomize blog rock were essentially streamlined versions of the dominant indie groups of the day, be it the polished Arcade Fire histrionics of The Black Kids or the plastic Spoon-isms of Sound Team. A lot of the bands on this playlist couldnt bear the weight of the instant online buzz and didnt last longer than an album or two, becoming punchlines in the process in some cases. But in hindsight, blog rock represented another significant step in the ongoing refinement of indie rock——while there may be traces of Sung Tongs-era Animal Collective in The Dodos DNA, its also not a huge leap from the frenetic busker stomp of "Visitor" to the stadium-folk of Mumford & Sons.Presumably, you havent listened to a lot of these songs since you bricked your 80GB iPod Classic sometime in 2009. Heres your chance to revisit all your mid-2000s picks to right-click, without having to worry about your hard-drive capacity.

Angel Olsens approach to rock—a little bit of folk, a little bit of fuzz, a whole lot of white-knuckle honesty—has made her one of its most exciting artists. But while the North Carolina-based crooners been at the vanguard of the indie since she first struck out on her own, the records that helped create her sound are the sorts of dusty albums that populate crate-diggers dreams. Her headiest songs are influenced by what she calls "blood harmonies," those chords that can only come from groups of vocalists who are somehow related, like The Everly Brothers, while her matter-of-fact poetry derives its influences from soul titans like Donny Hathaway and American bards like Bob Dylan.

Masked electro-rock assassin Sir Bob Cornelius Rifo—a.k.a. The Bloody Beetroots—is back with another blast of riffed-up and roughed-up EDM, The Great Electronic Swindle (Last Gang/eOne), which features cameos from the likes of Perry Farrell and Gallows’ Wade MacNeil. But while the album is an ideal soundtrack for late-night mayhem, Sir Bob has kindly provided The Dowsers with this mix to help you get back on your feet in the morning. “This is the music I listen to during my workout of the day... including recovery times, Enjoy!"—Sir Bob Cornelius Rifo

When I need to bask in the genius of Bob Dylan I listen to a record; I don’t read his lyrics like a book of poetry. This is why his winning the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature doesn’t validate a damn thing. To reduce his lyrics to text is to miss the most important aspect: their delivery. Along with Jimi Hendrix’s guitar and Miles Davis’ trumpet, Dylan’s voice is one of the most immersive, soulful, and psychologically complex instruments in the history of American music. And much like Frank Sinatra, he’s shrewdly turned the wear and tear that comes with time into an advantage. When the culture-wrecking roar ‘n’ whine of the 1960s and ’70s became a physical impossibility, he reinvented himself as an ancient ghost with a deliciously sandpapered groan that can flip between ageless truth and sneering insolence at the drop of a hat. While you’ll certainly encounter a handful of classics, my playlist isn’t a greatest hits mix. Rather, I’ve pulled together a bunch of songs — some recorded live, many deep cuts, all personal faves — that I feel show off Dylan’s power, range, and utter eccentricity as a vocalist.