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- The Retrographer, Issue 75 (February, 2 0 2 1)
The Retrographer, Issue 75 (February, 2 0 2 1)
Rostam, The Weather Station, Minor Moon, Bachelor, The Shadowboxers, Ariana Grande, Noname, The Hold Steady, Wild Pink, Will Stratton, Ghostface Killah
The Retrographer, Issue 75
Bulletins
Did ya miss me??? This was easily the latest a Retrographer has ever been. Who knows if you even care about music that came out in February now; that feels like a hundred years ago. So in that case, revel in the nostalgia! Simpler times.
As a gesture of recompense, please accept this playlist. It’s backbone is my favorite shoegaze and branches out into other music that makes me zone out blissfully. It’s called (I think appropriately) “Dive” because of how many great shoegaze songs are called “Dive”.
“4Runner”, Rostam (Spotify / YouTube) – Shapeshifting, protean, hazy production elide this changeable song, dreamlike like the beginning of the chorus, “Sleeping behind the wheel…”
“Tried To Tell You”, The Weather Station (Spotify / YouTube) – One of Tamara Lindeman’s Bruciest moments, but rather than dancing in the dark, there’s instead a persistent dread of ecology’s collapse: “I'll feel as useless as a tree in a city park standing as a symbol of what we have blown apart.”
“Under An Ocean of Holes”, Minor Moon (Spotify / YouTube) – This song steps right onto a moving sidewalk off to the astral plane: “When it’s all premonition on the edge of oblivion.” For the last couple of minutes, words aren’t really needed as Sam Cantor coos alongside meowing slide guitar, eschatological strings, and finally David Gilmour streaks of guitars.
“Family Friends”, Wild Pink (Spotify / YouTube) – John Ross will never sing above a lullabye, his guitar will never evoke less than a wide-open prairie, and in worsening years lyrics like these pour out: “Every day is Groundhog’s Day now, writing in the afternoon, Temple of Doom on mute.”
“Anything At All”, Bachelor (Spotify / YouTube) – Jay Som and Palehound combine to form Bachelor, another collaboration in the mold of Jay Som/Melina Duterte’s Routine, last year’s collaboration with Annie Truscott. Where that one floated and flew, this one stomps and slaps, stacking higher and higher over a plodding bass riff before combusting two minutes in.
“Unpleasant Breakfast”, The Hold Steady (Spotify / YouTube) – Over a pulsing horn groove, Craig and the boys are in their “Sequestered in Memphis” mode, boogieing around the hoodlums and their maladies, finding grim dignity in the burnt-out junkies haunting diners and pool halls.
“Tokens”, Will Stratton (Spotify / YouTube) – Search far and wide and you won’t find fingerpicking so delicate, shimmering and shining through shaded; leafy trails leading to Stratton’s voice: “Turn back the wheel, let machinery run.”
“someone like u”, Ariana Grande (Spotify / YouTube) – A master of the sub-90-second song, simple, satisfying perfection, Grande’s nectarous voice passes over misting chords and among the snaps that fail to wake her from a romantic fantasy proving to be real.
“Rainforest”, Noname (Spotify / YouTube) – Anticapitalist, pro-black, environmentalist, a far cry from the Fatimah Warner who cleaved “Gypsy” off her moniker, making it an anonymous monym: “Only animal that ravage everything in its path. They turned a natural resource into a bundle of cash, made the world anti-black, then divided the class.”
“Forever”, The Shadowboxers (Spotify / YouTube) – Like confetti falling to end the party in slow motion, credits rolling. The Shadowboxers have made paeans to commitment and marital bliss before (see: “Honeymoon”), so why leave something when it’s working so well?
One Album for February, 2 0 2 1
One marvel of great storytelling is how it can place you vividly and unmistakably in a place you’ve never been. Look how Dennis Coles drops you into his fifth album Fishscale on its first song, “Shakey Dog”:
Making moves back and forth uptown
60 dollars plus toll is the cab fee
Wintertime bubble goose, goose, clouds of smoke
Music blastin' and the Arab V blunted
Whip smelling like fish from 125th
Throwin' ketchup on my fries, hitting baseball spliffs
Back seat with my leg all stiff
Push the fuckin' seat up, tartar sauce on my S Dot kicks
Rocks is lit while I'm poppin' the clips
In just a few lines, you’re seated in the cramped back seat of a car with Ghostface Killah, eating fish sandwiches, loading guns, smoking and drinking. Something is about to happen.
I'm ready for war, got to call the Cuban guys
Got the Montana pulled in front of the store
Made my usual gun check, safety off, come on Frank
The moment is here, take your fuckin' hood off and tell the driver to stay put
Fuck them niggas on the block they shook, most of them won't look
They frontin', they no crooks and fuck up they own juks
Look out for Jackson 5-0 cause they on foot
The getaway car is idling; the lookout is placed. Ghost is leading you into the heist.
Straight ahead is the doorway, see that lady that lady with the shopping cart
She keep a shottie cocked in the hallway
“Damn she look pretty old Ghost” “She work for Kevin, she 'bout seventy seven
She paid her dues when she smoked his brother in law at his bosses' wedding
Flew to Venezuela quickly when the big fed stepped in
3 o'clock, watch the kids, third floor, last door”
Familiar characters, each presenting their own risks. Is this ploy too risky? Ghost looks over to you and doesn’t like what he sees, so he repeats the plan to get your head on straight:
“You look paranoid that's why I can't juks with you
Why? Why you behind me leery?
Shakey Dog stutterin', when you got the bigger cooker on you
You is a crazy motherfucker, small hoodie dude
Hilarious move, you on some Curly, Moe, Larry shit
Straight parry shit, Krispy Kreme, cocaine, dead bodies, jail time you gon' carry it
Matter of fact, all the cash, I'm a carry it
Stash it in jelly and break it down at the Marriott
This is the spot, yo son your burner cocked?”
Ghost leads you to the door and starts to survey the scene:
These fuckin' maricons on the couch watchin' Sanford and Son
Passin' they rum, fried plantains and rice
Big round onions on a T-bone steak, my stomach growling – yo I want some
“Hold on, somebody's comin', get behind me, knocked at the door
Act like you stickin' me up, put the joint to my face
Push me in quickly when the bitch open up
Remember you don't know me, blast him if he reach for his gun”
Then it’s time to bust in:
“Yo who goes there?” “Tony – Tony one second, homie”
No matter rain, sleet or snow you know you suppose to phone me
Off came the latch, Frank pushed me into the door
The door flew open, dude had his mouth open
Frozen, stood still with his heat bulgin'
Told him “Freeze! Lay the fuck down and enjoy the moment”
Frank snatched his gat, slapped him, axed him
“Where's the cash, coke and the crack? Get the smoke and you fast”
The rest seems to happen in a blur:
His wife stood up speakin' in Spanish, big tittie bitch holdin' the cannon
Ran in the kitchen, threw a shot, then kicking the four fifth
Broke a bone in her wrist and she dropped the heat
“Give up the coke!” But the bitch wouldn't listen
I'm on the floor like holy shit! Watching my man Frank get busy
He zoned out, finished off my man's wiz
He let the pitbull out, big head Bruno with the little shark's teeth chargin'
Foamin' out the mouth, I'm scared
Frank screamin', blowin' shots in the air
Missin' his target, off the Frigidare, it grazed my ear
Killed that bullshit pit, ran to the bathroom butt first
Frank put two holes in the doorman's Sassoon
The coke's in the vacuum, got to the bathroom, faced his bad moves
The big one had the centipede stab wound
Frank shot the skinny dude, laid him out
The bigger dude popped Frankie boy, played him out
To be continued...
Yet it never does continue. With a single, extended stanza, which extends to a second act unavailable to the listener, Ghostface places you in a crime drama as thrilling and charismatic as American Gangster, Goodfellas, or Chinatown, a theater in your mind. His details, pace, humor, and not least of all his character are transporting. He’s a storyteller of the highest skill.
By 2006, Ghostface Killah already stamped his ticket to the pantheon of great rappers. His voice stood out among the homegrown supergroup Wu-Tang Clan even as a 23-year-old on the landmark Enter the Wu Tang (36 Chambers). His solo work came three years later with a run of stunning albums including Ironman and a career peak with Supreme Clientele. Most of rappers’ careers don’t make it to a great record; few make several; even fewer make it almost a decade and a half in and tee up their best work.
Ghost’s skills and stories seem to always follow his outsized personality; He had perspective, analogies, and metaphors that seemed to only come from him. He’d say something insane that both made you laugh and made his point. On “The Champ”, he invites competition thusly:
Who want to battle the Don?
I’m James Bond in the Octagon with two razors
Bet y’all didn’t know I had a fake arm
I lost it, wild and raw before rap, I was gettin’ it on
Lesser rappers (almost all are) would’ve made a more direct confrontation, but Ghostface leaves you pondering how he… lost his arm? Which he didn’t, but now you’re thinking about it. Around the time of the album, Ghost did a series of interstitials for MTV where he described how to live on five dollars a day. And while he’s ostensibly just reading off the prices at the bodega – how could anyone make that interesting? – he’s engrossing, jocular, reminiscent. The platter of details just show how good his cooking is.
And about cooking: Ghostface Killah’s best collaborator and closest competition, Raekwon the Chef, joins him on several Fishscale tracks, including the raucous “R.A.G.U.”, wherein Rae and Ghost trade increasingly vivid and absurd lines: Raekwon jumps out of a stretch Range Rover and breaks his wrist slapping someone; he’s furious because that’s his writing hand. Ghostface knows the kid, apparently he shot himself in the balls once. The song concludes nothing more than that the two each know this person, but now you do too.
Ghostface is accompanied on Fishscale by a coterie of producers providing more than just amazing beats; they were devotees themselves. J Dilla died a month before Fishscale was released, and put out his opus Donuts three days before his death. That album featured, among other Dilla tracks, “One For Ghost”, possibly his most romantic beat and a rare assigned dedication from the legendary producer. Ghost turned it into “Beauty Jackson”, a short vignette about picking up a woman at a bus stop. The Wu Tang posse cut “9 Milli Bros” is one of four MF DOOM beats on the album, a rapper and producer who later paired with Ghostface for an unconsummated DOOMSTARKS duo that nonetheless produced a great single and a lot of hype. The best production of all may have been Ghost’s own on “Big Girl”, which mostly plays through The Stylistics’ “You’re A Big Girl Now” without sample, as if Ghost is having a heart-to-heart over a radio almost too loud to converse over. A simple, potent mise-en-scène.
And as if the beats and lyrics didn’t leave enough of an impression, Fishscale features some of the funniest, strangest, most juvenile skits in the history of genre awash with bad examples. Ghost, like Cam’ron, never outgrew playground humor and seemed determined to puncture any even temporarily romantic or sincere moment, bookending the late J Dilla’s beats with a skit giving an out-of-towner lewd directions and an outrageous confrontation between Ghost and the elementary school-age child of a woman he’s dating. It’s ridiculous to ask why these skits are on the album, or what plot they advance. That misses the point. They’re skeleton keys for the playful clowning everywhere in Ghost’s writing. When he says, “You at the bar, whoadie, drinking my piss. The yellow shit, and the bottle ain't Crys', son. You turned your muthafuckin' head, we switched 'em” – does it matter if it’s true? Or on “Barbershop”, where half the track passes as a skit and then gracefully steps into another minute of rap, a harangue at a barber who botches his cut (again). It reads like libretto and plays like a musical; is it a song or a skit? What story does it advance? Such questions barely deserve acknowledgement. It is, as he says elsewhere, “Architect music, verbal street opera,” made for “smart dumb cats.”
Which is not to say Ghost is incapable of seriousness: He goes cold to meet the occasion of a posthumous Notorious B.I.G. feature on “Three Bricks”. And near the end of the album he opens his heart up to describe his mother’s plight and then vows to make things right by spreading his love to all women. But his seriousness can also be distinctive and strange, like his fantasy of the afterlife “Underwater”, where mermaids in Halle Berry haircuts and Gucci belts lead him past Spongebob in a Bentley to a marine mosque. Even in the absence of jocoseness, Ghost is singular.
Some of Fishscale’s tales rise to the highest heights of drug rap, past thrillers like Jay-Z’s “99 Problems” or Slick Rick’s “Children’s Story”; Others are slices of life that nonetheless invoke a time and place, a playful lightness, a surreal vision of everyday life. It’s a life he was wise to never leave. As he put it, “Some say a drug dealers destiny is reaching the key. I'd rather be the man behind the door, supplying the streets.”
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#75 February, 2021 | Ghostface Killah, “Fishscale”
#69 August, 2020 | Special Issue
#29 May, 2017 | Steely Dan, “Aja”
#27 March, 2017 | Wire, “154”
#16 April, 2016 | RIP PRINCE
#15 March, 2016 | Prince, “Prince”
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