mwah mwah mwah, it's the Cooly G thread

cuz her forthcoming album playin' me is really excellent, even (especially?) the coldplay cover

this one is another highlight

http://soundcloud.com/mixmag-1/cooly-g-come-into-my-room

On Playin’ Me she displays the full spectrum of her sound, plummeting from her sometimes melancholy, sometimes romantic songs through to her more menacing, trackier sound. Recorded without any frills in her home studio, the album simultaneously recalls a legacy of black British music, filtering the female pressure and reggae lilt of Lovers Rock’s kitchen sink dramas, the sweet seduction of '80s Quiet Storm, through to sour, bitter-sweet synths, polyrhythmic dub decay of early jungle and tough tribal drums.

i did not know Cooly G was a woman

her vocals all over her productions to date and indeed her producer stamp didn't give it away?

i'm actually not sure i've ever heard anything of hers, just seen the name around

i think my personal favourite thing about cooly g's music is how...kind of casual and lazy it is, but not in a slapdash way, in a summery life-is-short-so-make-the-most way. you can't imagine her staying up alone til 3am to feel lonely and melancholy on the internet, she's got a kid to look after. she's a boss.

"dis boy pt 4" was my favourite thing she'd done prior to the album, it appears not to be online oh well.

also key

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4_d4Gz_8Lg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cX501Ywsb4Q

(both on the album)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7NIZvnWkJc

looking forward to this. for some reason her hooks aren't very hook-y to me, but i like her sound a lot.

Oh yay, we definitely needed this thread.

I will go and listen to that Soundcloud if I can pry Spin Me Around off my MP3 player.

Casual, yes, but lazy? No way. It's the kind of thing that she's clearly put a lot of work into making it that breezy, it's the kind of appearance of effortlessness that requires so much thought and balance to make it look easy.

This is the one that has those phased out arpeggio stabs that just make me roll over on my back and waggle fingers and toes in the air like an overexcited infant. Her sound palette is just so lush.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgR5Eqk-IEA

yeah lazy perhaps wasn't the best word - it makes me feel lazy, rather

At her very best (that King Midas Sound rework I posted on the other thread) she just makes me feel so ~woozy~

Loved the last single, am looking forward to the full album.

i think my personal favourite thing about cooly g's music is how...kind of casual and lazy it is
Yeah I agree with the general idea here, even if lazy isn't the exact right word - the tunes on the Dub Organiser EPs especially have the feel of lovely laid-back sketches a lot of the time. I think in general she has quite a ~low-key~ sound (even though yeah clearly there's a lot of detail and attention that's gone into it). I def enjoy her tunes most when listening to them back-to-back rather than taking them in isolation, so am looking forward to hearing the album.

I definitely hope her last single (with It's Serious) is indicative of the album.

Album is amazing, some crazy crazy rhythms on this.

when is it out?

They're not going to tell us, they're just gonna boast about how they've heard it and we haven't. And then tell us they're over it by the time we hear it. As usual. ;_;

Shockingly, the first google result for "Cooly G Playin Me release date" confirms that it's July 17.

Jeebs, that's a long way off still.

I definitely hope her last single (with It's Serious) is indicative of the album.

― matt damon & the jb's (the anephric project), Tuesday, June 12, 2012 3:12 AM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah the album definitely runs with this sound a bit, though "It's Serious" (unsurprisingly) remains maybe the densest thing there rhythmically (give or take "Up In My Head"). But as you'd expect there's a real sense of groove-restlessness throughout.

I think Cooly G got picked up by a lot of people early on in part because her rhythms tend to code as textural/atmospheric as much as physical, so there's a kind of percusso-melodic spaciousness to the music that appeals to people with a preference for dance music qua sound design.

What's remarkable about the best bits of Playin Me is the way she pushes her grooves in both direction: the eerie surround-sound feel is more enveloping and yet in many places the beats are also physically more impacting. Especially the way the title track is all rippling atmospherics and snare chatter before dropping into the most enormous mid-range synth riffing climax ever - it's simultaneously music for films and music for raves.

It's not so much that the music is better than before - though the best tracks here are her best ever, I think - but the album format works really for her I think.

textural/atmospheric as much as physical

I'm not adverse to a bit of dancing, but this deffo rings true for Cooly G. Her stuff works much better as bewitching headspace music. Kode9 was saying somewhere about the Laurel Halo and Cooly G albums being in the lineage of the Burial albums – come down music rather than bangers to throw down to (like the Funkystepz, Terror Danjah singles he's releasing).

I find Cooly G's more atmospheric stuff works fine as dance music, it's just slow dance music. And it's some of the only slow dance music that actually makes me want to slow dance with someone.

it's not really comedown music, it's sober but dreamy music

also if i fucking heard laurel halo's album during a comedown, bloody hell that would not end well

Especially the way the title track is all rippling atmospherics and snare chatter before dropping into the most enormous mid-range synth riffing climax ever

TOTALLY - when it suddenly drops, so does my jaw

This is great, really love the dazed textures on this. I wouldn't say it's "sober" so much as it's "slightly tipsy and sleepy in a good way" - totally dreamy, and even in its toughest moments when there's traces of dubstep and grime it still feels incredibly sensual and seductive.

Also, fans of funky producer tags will be disappointed, I haven't noticed any MWAH MWAH MWAH on this.

;_;

The "mwah mwah mwahs" are some of my favourite bits.

This album is really good! Kind of reminds me of the Nina Kraviz album but with a different set of touchstones. Got that same warm, intimate, late-nite vibe.

Really digging this album. The atmospheric backdrop reminds me so much of the atmospheric drum 'n bass days of 15 years ago, seriously #lololdpeople

Still want to kill the Coldplay cover with fire though, horrible choice, horrible execution

This album is just so seriously freaking amazing fantastic. It's just so... DREAMY. The whole thing is just this spinning woozy textural late night everything is melting and so beautiful. The atmospheres are just so hypnotic and lush and... dreamy. I just want to sink into it like a big pillow. I just want to put this on headphones and wander around in a daze.

I have just learned Cooly G is not a male MC who was active in the 90s (as I had mistakenly guessed when I saw the name on lists), and I like Playin' Me so far. (And I guess these end of the year whirlwind (if something that goes on for at least a couple months can be called that) roundups are worth it, because I'm finding other things I like from this year--it just tends to be music scattered in lots of different places.)

love this

I was gonna come and post this reminds me of the Nina Kraviz album (and not just because of the gender), and then I noticed Rev had already said the same... There's definitely a similar introspective, moody, nocturnal not-quite-danceable-dance music feel to both albums. I really do wish Playin Me was (mostly) instrumental, though... Her singing is so bland and mediocre compared to the intricate programming and rhythms.

I've kind of cooled (npi) on this album.

I still think it's pretty good, but I think sometimes it's as uneventful as it seems, rather than, oh, it's just doing something really subtle.

yeah, uneventful is the right word

Cooly G is ace.

I do like her sonics. Do people still say "sonics"?

i think her voice is the best thing about it.

i mean, i really like her voice, is all. i like the "production" as well.

I'm on the fence. Need to listen more. I still think this might be one of my favorite albums from the past year, but then again I still am underwhelmed with what I've heard from 2012, and even my favorites have pretty significant weaknesses. (Even precious Sa Dingding, who I still love best.)

Actually her accent lends interest to her vocals, for me, but I don't know what it would sound like to someone more used to that accent.

idk it's just a voice with an appealing character to me.

and i like the uneventfulness, i can just sort of vibe to a track when it comes on. deep thoughts here.

I have played this album so much this year, especially "What This World Needs Now"

Cooly G ‏@ItsCoolyG 1h
RT if you want a mp3 of my mums acid tune

Cooly G ‏@ItsCoolyG 39m
hey everyone here it is my mums acid house stylie tune called "hurt me" follow her @lattieb -- http://www.mediafire.com/download/pfby46yx0u1iui4/hurt_me.mp3 … RT WOOP QUICK TINGS

love her new album, but cant get into her as a singer. and that eroto-nocturnal-dreamy vibe shes going for is a little too transparent, i find it tough to really buy into it. i want to hear someone else sing her parts. musically though, its amazing.

i really like it with a touch of the same reservations but at some point in the album it stops mattering, i feel like few others could sing as casually as she does

I didn't know she had a new one out! I feel so out of touch...

it's out next month - idk if it's leaked or not (or even if there's been an advance single)

it's way different to the first

the final track is the one that brings it all into devastating focus for me

cool, I liked the first album but a switch-up was definitely in order

The first album was fantastic for setting up a very specific mood and working through it in every conceivable direction. So I'm glad that the next album sounds like it does the same thing for a different palette?

i think the palette isn't what's different so much as which bits of it are foregrounded. the voice, obv...the twigs-like sexuality (though she's never aloof like twigs, this is a very earthy-sounding album, and it's all everyday rather than ~mystical)

"i feel like few others could sing as casually as she does"

thats exactly the issue for me, though at the same time, and maybe this contradicts what im saying, but theres also this air of distance, of haughtiness, of never really letting her guard down.

shes also just plain flat IMO but ive not let that get in the way of my enjoyment of other singers so i should probably leave that one alone.

i think where cooly g really works for me is that whatever initial reservations i have, i can't actually imagine these songs being performed differently let alone better

I dunno, I haven't heard the new one, but that whole "dancing around the notes" thing she did on the first one struck me as deliberate usage of blue notes and complex harmonic structures, rather than "just plain flat" but I can see how that could be an acquired taste.

lead single (and album opener):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmq47ciNuSk

love it.

i'm not always into what she does but i love this. pretty interested in hearing the album now.

OK, if the whole album is like that, I'm pretty excited to hear it!

She is the best! <3

http://www.thefader.com/2014/10/28/beat-construction-cooly-g-interview?&_suid=141450947429406409275101032108

i'm liking the album

I still don't have the album* but I'm liking all the tracks I've heard off it.

*when I get a job, I will buy one album as reward, and this is the album I will buy.

interesting to hear background behind "phat si" in that interview, still one of my favorite tracks of hers

love her <3

on first listen, even more low-key and sparse than the last one. could do with a bit more variety.

There's a strange kind of... anti-lyricism to her lyrics, a kind of casual matter-of-factness that sits awkwardly with the sensuality of the sonics. Obviously this is how real people crack onto each other all the time but the record itself is a good illustration of why a bit of pretension is often necessary.

that disjoint is prob one of my favourite things about cooly g, generally

i kind of feel her sonix are as casual as her lyrics, there's a tossed-off and spontaneous feel to them even when they sound sensuous or complex

(sometimes this is frustrating bc if she really focused or cared about songcraft maybe she could make a truly great album rather than just an extremely beguiling one? but she does her so it's still good)

Yeah I'm kind of at a loss to work out what's missing here, I'm not sure it's necessarily effort but maybe just that ear for melodic and rhythmic hooks that really great producers/songwriters in this vein usually have?

I feel like this record is sort of endlessly riffing on Aaliyah's Beats 4 Da Streets (Intro) as a template.

That said, I've listened to it all the way through like 5 times and enjoyed it, but couldn't name a single track if you asked me!

i do like this album a lot, it does have a really good atmosphere to it, and the last song might be the best thing shes done, but there is something just a bit off about it, i cant ever stop being aware of there being a certain lack in her voice, its not even that its not 'good', its that there is a real lack of feeling in it. i put that down to her range, but its just a lack of expressiveness. she sounds like shes posing the whole time. and it might be that there arent enough hooks/songs - i think there are enough personally - but its all delivered too much a 'too cool to be arsed' kind of vibe.

Great interview in the Quietus: http://thequietus.com/articles/16466-cooly-g-interview

Sorta confirms the album was, if not tossed-off, then at least rushed a bit to get done under Kode9's (arbitrary?) deadline. It doesn't really click for me, much prefer her track on Hyperdub's otherwise crap r&b comp this year. Called 'Obsessed' and an update of 'Dis Boy': http://www.beatport.com/track/obsessed-original-mix/5538317#

great track:
https://soundcloud.com/hyperdub/trippin-b/s-tStvH