Equiknoxx — Bird Sound Power

^{and some chatter about dancehall}

Saw this amazing video where Sean Paul talks about his favourite dancehall tracks, and gives a fascinating history lesson on dancehall music in his native Jamaica. I highly recommend it. And here’s a playlist of the tracks he lists in the video. I highly recommend that too. In fact I highly recommend this over the album I started out claiming I would recommend in the first place. It’s in many ways more melodic and more appealing than what follows. 

With that out of the way, let’s talk about an album not on that list. Equiknoxx’s Bird Sound Power.

Some might ascribe unkind adjectives to this album, like repetitive, obtuse, self-indulgent. But the fact is, I straight up enjoy this album as much as I enjoy Bam Bam, No, No, No, Murder She Wrote, and Toast from that playlist, even though it’s very different from that music, and it isn’t because I’m trying to be cooler than your average Raju.

Here’s why. Along with listening to music, I also enjoy making music, and therefore (and also just like that, to be honest) ‘studying’ music. Here’s a parallel: it’s like watching a magician perform and going, hey I worked out the secret to that trick. Sometimes it just so happens that you listen to some music that expands your pop music vocabulary, and leaves you with a whole bunch of new ideas on what interesting music could sound like. This album very much falls into that category. It introduces you to a whole new set of tricks.

So much music is focused on convergence, which is why most pop music is built on the back of common chord progressions (such as this one). Life on the other hand (yes, I’m going there) doesn’t always lend itself to such convergence. Its questions sometimes leave you with no answers, shitty answers, or just questions. At times like these, I sometimes like to listen to something that reflects the dissonance inherent in the day-to-day. So I listen to eccentric music like Bird Sound Power. Here’s where to find the album.

Finally, I’ve been listening to some Jamaican music for the last couple of days: a bit of ska, rocksteady, and of course dancehall. I leave you with a live performance by my new and present favourite of the whole dancehall genre, Koffee. Here is her Tiny Desk Concert.

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