49. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - The Letting Go (2006)

The Letting Go was recorded, like Hex Enduction Hour before it in Iceland. Perhaps because of the remote location, the album has a consistent ensemble sound and feeling about it, unique in the Oldham catalogue. Travelling to Iceland with Dawn McCarthy from Fawn Fables, along with regular collaborators brother Ned Oldham, Jim White and Nico Muhly, Will embarked upon the most traditional promotional tour and press campaign of his career to date, including a bizarre appearance in a R Kelly's Trapped in the closet soul opera.


McCarthy's vibrato less folk backing vocals, and the addition of classical strings and flugelhorn, add a folk ballad, Grimm's fairy tales vibe to the album, which Oldham accentuates by including ballads about kids disappearing into the snow and the chaos of nature, in Then the letting go. Along with Oldhams familiar themes of the urge to misbehavior, and sexual desire against a belief in love and righteousness. Themes which perhaps explain his love of soul artists like R Kelly and Prince.



The title comes from a poem about the feeling of freezing to death in snow -
This is the hour of lead - Remembered, if outlived, As freezing persons, recollect the snow - First chill - then stupor - then the letting go.



Fear of commitment always features in Oldham's music, in Cursed Sleep Bonnie lies next to a woman who traps him in his dreams of wild love, yet the reality is much more mundane.

 

The Seedling is the strangest song on the set, embracing dissonance and sounding like the uptempo numbers from I see a darkness. The chorus again speaks of split personalities, 'Birdies say I got no children, birdies never know, in my hidden life I've made a seedling grow'.



Lay and Love is the closest Bonnie gets to a straight love song, but still the second verse admits that the mistrust he sees behind that radiant smile attracts him all the more.



Bonnie's ability to address the carnal desires of man, in an poetic and open hearted way, ensure he remains one of the most interesting artists out there, his new releases remain worth checking out, and always contain a few gems. As Bonnie sings 'I have tended to god's small song and to love's small song'.

50. J Dilla - Donuts (2006)

J Dilla, AKA Jay Dee or James Yancey was a Detroit native. He made his name as a producer, but also dabbled with rapping, somewhat less successfully.
Donuts is an instrumental hip hop record, full of 31 interesting and affecting sketches or miniatures, which cemented his importance, alongside Madlib as the hip hop alternative to the mainstream sound of Timbaland, Neptunes or Just Blaze. This is not to say J Dilla was incapable of hits and bangers, he had begun as a member of Detroit crew Slum Villiage as well as producing for A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Busta Rhymes, Common, The Pharcyde, and an unaccredited number of R&B hits.




tely J Dilla's huge influence upon the sound of modern hip hop only became widely acknowledged following his death from Lupus shortly after the completion of Donuts, his meisterwork. In fact J Dilla had actively eschewed the commercial hip hop world, so he could complete and self release this experimental project. Lupus, being a chronic autoimmune disease meant that Dilla spent a significant time in hospital, although despite all the hits, the cost of medical care in the US meant that charity was sought from hip hop sites and record releases, and to this day Dilla's family are broke in Detroit footing a large medical bill. God bless the NHS.




Donuts was completed in hospital using a sampler loaned from Stones Throw records, Madlib is a huge fan and sometime collaborator. The sound of Donuts emphasized all Dilla's previous tricks, Jazzy woozy rhythms, electro, neo-soul, booming bass and eclectic samples that would not sound out of place in a Boards of Canada track.  The legacy of Dilla can be found in Sa-Ra, Flying Lotus, Rustie and even Black Dice who all have taken the electronic melodies and lolloping blocks of sound in different directions. Even The XX and Animal Collective are admirers.


Anyhow, you should hear all of them. Most of the tracks (Donuts) were used on a posthumous LP called The Shining, fleshed out with rap cameos  from Dilla collaborators, and is worth a listen. Other tracks from Donuts were used by MC's for their own releases, Ghostface and MF Doom among them.

I am now halfway through this blog........phew!