The nation is catching on to the wealth of amazing music coming out of Seattle's experimental hip-hop scene. This year listeners have become entranced by Seattle's THEESatisfaction, and before that Shabazz Palaces -- expect the same kind of attention soon for OCnotes (Otis Calvin, III) and his genre-bending, cerebral beat-making and songwriting. In 2012 alone, he has released four LPs -- Emerald City Sequence, What's Your Sign, Moldavite and the mind-changing Pre Future Post Modern Love Songs aka AlienBootyBass -- and just last week he dropped a Christmas album, Food-$$-Booze-Xmas. Over the last seven years, OCnotes has released almost thirty LPs and EPs, but he's also working in other projects around the city, most notably Metal Chocolates. Prolific would be putting it lightly -- OCnotes is highly creative and explosive force in the Seattle music world. He sings, raps, samples and plays every sound to create a richly transcendent and consuming experience on each of his releases. He recently stopped in to perform some tracks on KEXP's Street Sounds with Larry Mizell Jr. -- "Morgan Free & ODB", "Red Alert Song", and "Kitty Kat" from Pre Future Post Modern Love Song aka AlienBootyBass and the previously unreleased "Number 7" -- check out the videos below.
Full Performance:
For the rest of the year, we'll be spotlighting our KEXP DJs Top Albums of 2012. You can see what our listeners voted for as their Top Albums of 2012 here.
Bobbing for hits. Though Death Cab For Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard was making light of the his band's songwriting process during his interview with KEXP's Stevie Zoom, the fact is, with all the songs he's written over nearly the past decade, he'd accumulated enough songs he's grown fond of but never…
As Lord Huron, singer-songwriter Ben Schneider has always been influenced by the out-of-doors. Whether his inspiration comes from the rugged woods and Great Lakes of his origin state of Michigan or the dusty Mojave Desert closer to his adopted LA home, themes of exploration and adventure pervade hi…
Are bands really "side projects" when they sound this good? All members of RNDM are best known for other work, but with their debut, Acts, and a kicking live show, that may very well change. NYC based singer-songwriter Joseph Arthur has been insanely prolific as a solo artist since his 1997 debut, …
You won't be surprised to that members of Song Sparrow Research have roots in jazz and choir. As friends and classmates, Hamilton Boyce and David Balatero were both in school bands at Seattle's Garfield High, and now make lush folk-tinged chamber pop as together in this five member band. Equally a…
