Tonight Hop Along will be playing back to back shows inside the intimate chapel of the First Unitarian Church with Why? frontman Yoni Wolf. In fact, she is playing back to back to back shows, with a third show added on Sunday after the first two sold like hot cakes. Frontwoman Frances Quinlan’s manic and delicate voice will be especially entrancing in this resonant space. Unfortunately, Hop Along had to cancel their SXSW tour this year due to financial difficulties, but with a new album set to be released by the end of the year, we will hopefully be seeing Quinlan and Co. around more and more. Hop Along has been filled out in recent years with Frances’ brother Mark on Drums and Tyler Long on Bass along with Dominic Angellela lending a hand on guitar when he isn’t playing a show with one of the 50 other bands that he is in. With the hushed feel of the chapel we may see a toned down version of Hop Along, but regardless it is definitely worth getting there early for. All three shows are super sold out so your best bet might be to bribe the R5 door guys with some tasty treats. First Unitarian Church, 2125 Chestnut St., 8pm, SOLD OUT, All Ages (Photo by Sarah Green) - Adam G.
Lushlife, a.k.a. Raj Haldar, has been dropping mixtapes since 2005, when he released his debut entitled West Sounds, which was a mashup of The Beach Boy’s classic Pet Sounds and Kanye West’s College Dropout and Late Registration as well as his own verses. On his first label release Plateau Vision (Western Vinyl), Lush continues to develop his eclectic style, combining ‘60s psychedelic, experimental indie and golden era hip hop sounds to create the grandiose, maximalist soundscape beats that he rhymes over.
With his latest LP, Lush establishes himself as a unique artist who is able to take influences from various genres, sounds and eras of music to develop a completely original style that has one foot in classic hip hop and the other through the doorway of the future. This distinctive style is displayed immediately on the album’s opener “Magnolia.” The track combines a beautiful harp sample over a hard boom bap beat with lyrics that reference composer Burt Bacharach, the graffiti culture of Wild Style, Citizen Kane’s Xanadu and Afrika Bambaataa’s “Planet Rock” through his gritty Nas-esque vocal delivery. In “Hale-Bopp was the Bedouins,” which features Das Racists’ Heems, Haldar references his technique as “half-Delorean, half-rap historian.”
Plateau Vision boasts an impressive guest list of artists including Andrew Cedermark (Titus Andronicus), Styles P and Shad amongst others, but Lushlife always shines through as both an emcee and a producer. The first feature comes from Styles P (famous for his work with ‘90s hip hop crew LOX) on “Still Hear The Word Progress,” one of the LP’s standout tracks. Lushlife trades bars back and forth with the iconic emcee at a furious pace without losing a step over a dense synth and 8-bit beat. Towards the halfway point of the album, Lush shines brightly with fellow Philly emcee and former Atlanta native STS on “Glistening,” and he hands over the mic on “Gymnopedie 1.2” to critically acclaimed Canadian emcee Shad while crafting one of the most interesting beats on the Plateau Vision by sampling one of 20th century French composer/pianist Erik Satie’s “Gymnopedies,” which fades out under a clip from Busy Bee and Kool Moe Dee’s classic emcee battle, tying Haldar’s classical and jazz upbringing with his “fetish” for golden era hip hop culture.
Lushlife is definitely one of the most interesting artists in hip hop today. He continues to push the genre’s boundaries with his production while remaining true to its culture through his vocal delivery and preservation of its history throughout his lyrics. Plateau Vision is available for streaming HERE, and you can purchase the album via Western Vinyl. - Dan Brightcliffe
