The first album from the Philly soul legend in 17 years reinvents his astral fascination from scratch.
When NASA’s Perseverance rover landed on Mars, I was half-hoping that somewhere in the photos I’d see the vague outline of an astronaut. For years Hollywood has doctored images of Martian landings, teasing the idea that life exists somewhere on that dusty, red-soiled planet.
I’m still waiting for the first human to land on Mars but in the meantime, Philadelphia soul and funk legend Dexter Wansel continues the time worn tradition of pondering what life might look like on the Red Planet on his latest album, The Story of the Flight Crew to Mars. …
Yuffie Kisaragi’s bubbly personality is an added bonus, but Midgar’s new tunes slap a fresh coat of paint on the city
I might have overpaid for Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade. Despite owning the 2020 version of the game and being eligible for the PS5 upgrade, I splurged for the physical copy. Next generation game prices are still something to get used to, but the allure of adding another PS5 game, and one of my favorite titles at that, to my collection was too much to bear.
Truthfully, Intergrade is a modest upgrade at best. FFVII Remake was already a visually stunning and tactilely enjoyable experience the first time around, so the updated version doesn’t need much more to carry the…
Single-player may be the last thing on Rockstar’s mind, but a new GTA soundtrack might bring players like me crawling back
How do you begin to talk about Grand Theft Auto V? Do you start with the game’s incredible 2013 launch, which amassed $1 billion in revenue in just three days? Maybe with the rollout of multiplayer, which features a never-ending stream of credit card payments and random deaths by assault jets that somehow keep players (not me) returning month after month. You might even start by mentioning the rumored single-player DLC. Remember that picture of Franklin Clinton’s actor Shawn Fonteno gussied up in his mocap suit suggesting more story content?
The 1977 cut from Bridges grapples with the revolution that wasn’t televised.
Thursday was one of those days at work. The kind of day when something as insignificant as an email can cause clenched teeth, elevated heart rate, and a nagging thought that if you keep taking deep breaths — in through the nose, out through the mouth — it’ll all fade away.
Thursday was one of those days when respiration exercises wouldn’t work. Music was the remedy. Normally I’d pop on something like Future’s Dirty Sprite 2 or one of Sumo Cyco’s high-octane thrillers like “Go Go Go.” …
A vaporware sample of “The Sweetest Pain” harkens back to Wansel’s interstellar wanderlust.
Do you remember when those cubic, glass walls were popular? The kind that were sort of frosted, sort of not, and littered waiting areas and bathrooms throughout the 1980s? I missed out on the trend, but know well enough that the walls, along with neon tubing, Miami Vice script, and dusky, smoky lounges coalesce to capture the era’s interior design philosophy.
Though we’ve left most of those things in the past, producer Unknown Caller resurrected those stylings on his January 2021 album Midnight Deluxe. …
Does the game’s stellar soundtrack make up for it’s ill-conceived gameplay?
(Check out the full, video review)
In a way, Sonic 3D Blast is the best version of 3D Sonic. There’s no voice acting, a very manageable story, and, for Sonic purists, he still has black eyes.
When it was released in November 1996, 3D Blast was met with some of the same criticism that jabs modern Sonic games. Complaints about janky controls, an off-kilter camera, and poor pacing were only partially assuaged by the title’s strengths. …
A sample scavenger hunt helped unearth a not-so-forgotten 1972 soul cut.
It’s getting to be a chore to listen to future funk. I make weekly trips to that corner of Bandcamp, allured by its anime-inspired cover art and creatively colored vinyls. But these are wary visits, guarded attempts to find the next album I can leave on repeat, or single to add to an ever-growing playlist of mid-20th century-inspired dance cuts.
My most recent voyage unearthed Songs for Distance, the latest release by artist Pop Up! on Business Casual. To be fair, the album is less future funk, and more hip-hop-adjacent sampling, but Bandcamp’s genre tagging system is a pluralistic affair…
How does the newest game stand up to its 22-year-old prequel?
If video reviews are your thing → Press B on YouTube.
Let me tell you about the two games I recently picked up. One, I play to relax, aiming my character at all types of monsters while I traverse varied landscapes and ecosystems. The other is a more puzzling shooter, one that involves finding the best route and replaying areas to reach my goal as efficiently as possible. The games, you ask? Returnal and New Pokémon Snap — in that order.
Despite the shades of psychological warfare at the core of the fast-paced shooter Returnal, Housemarque’s latest game is my…
Recently rereleased on vinyl, Smoke DZA, Harry Fraud, and Dom Kennedy help the song return to the pop music lexicon ahead of summer 2021.
After a long and dreary winter in the American northeast, shades of summer are finally here. Seventy degree weather is feeling more like the norm, and with the influx of coronavirus vaccine appointments, the summer is poised to look a bit more like 2019 than 2020.
Fittingly, Smoke DZA’s latest drop, “No Regrets” featuring Dom Kennedy, packs the lighthearted, boom bap punch of a summertime New York City record, complete with bars about donning the freshest threads for the upcoming Met Gala (which I’m sure DZA was invited to). …
Nova Chrysalia is a nuanced piece of music that helps give solace a video game world that is constantly in a race against time.
One of the biggest letdowns from the release of Cyberpunk 2077 — well, besides the sheer unimportance of the life paths, the terrible performance on base consoles, and the poor pacing of the narrative — was the day and night clock. Prior to release, CD Project Red developers infamously said that some 1,000 NPCs will have daily routines. These would happen seemingly organically, with the AI creating something of a living and breathing world that existed around the main characters purview. …
Brandon Johnson
Forever hunting for my new favorite music sample. Founder of tripleot.com & abrandbox.com. 🌴🦩
