Song of the day: #6 Delusionists – "Digital Connects"

Here's the Song of the Day for today, and most probably for the rest of the week too! Delusionists dropped a new album this Monday, Prolusion Plus, which as you can maybe gather is a boosted version of their previous smart 7-tracker The Prolusion.

Now with additional tracks, the odd alternate version and a couple of remixes, the EP has swelled to twelve tracks of UK dopeness. A proper review may well follow, but in the meantime check the awesome "Digital Connects", one of the aforementioned new tracks. Over a banger of a beat by Jon Phonics, Ben Black wordplays for dear life on the topic of the hottest spots to hang out online (hence the title, ya dig?) When i first heard it, i immediately thought "Tommy ain't my motherfuckin' boy...", not because i was having a multiple-personality crisis of confidence, but because the concept reminded me of the way GZA flipped the names of record labels on, erm, "Labels".

Two other awesome things about this track: firstly, the outro features a scratched sample of a yet-unreleased 30KB track which Mr. Black drops his fire on; and for seconds, this very blog is one of the ones namechecked in the song, rather awesomely ("be careful, cuz Life Just Bounces away..."). Apart from being a dope honour for yr humble writer, it also means i am finally succeeding (albeit indirectly) in my ambition of getting rappers to reference The Mighty Fall!

You can buy Prolusion Plus from Bandcamp for a paltry four quid, or a super-decent six for a real-life hactual CD. (The latter also had a cool-looking sticker, which has now been given pride of place on my newly-refurbished laptop.)

Review of a review: Pitchfork's take on RJD2's "The Colossus"

If music wants to be free, as the more share-happy quarter of modern culture would have it, then reviewers of albums can perhaps serve as benevolent jailers, emancipating artworks from the dank gaols of obscurity with the skeleton key of communication. It is with this noble purpose in mind that we should consider Patrick Sisson's recent assessment of RJD2's The Colossus album for popular internet periodical Pitchfork Media, which represents a worthy example of the role.


With a substantial 660 words in five paragraphs, Sisson assuredly achieves his goal of reviewing the most recent record by the Columbus musician. He deftly emphasises the contradictions of art through his repeated placement of opposing concepts in introductory paragraphs – independence/retrospection; ambition/repression; confidence/reticence – embodied in the snappy final description of the album as “a forward thinking look back”.

The highlight is undoubtedly the spare apostrophe in the fourth-paragraph “it’s”: a daring and provocative move sadly destined to be overlooked or, worse, interpreted as a typing error by the untrained eye. Such subtlety is characteristic of a writer from whom we can expect huge things in 2010. (8.1)

mp3: RJD2 – "A Spaceship for Now"

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Originally written for Sanctuary.