13&God- Own Your Ghost

If you thought you'd live forever, 13&God would like to remind you otherwise. On their second record together, and their first as 13&God in six years, the first thing you notice is how much Own Your Ghost dwells on the ticking clock. The whole album (which is still streaming for free here) covers a wide stance sonically, owing equally to The Notwist's multi-intrumentalism and Themselves' gritty sampling, but these sounds all revolve around recurrent tropes on death and old age that read like proverbs, from Marcus Acher's "These are troubled times, and so dip your scarves in armor.", to Adam 'Doseone" Drucker's "Fools like us will go nameless to death, bet.". But if Own Your Ghost is a reminder that we're all bound to a short timeline, it also shows us a group of people who recognize this, and answer it by living, exploring shamelessly while they are here.

Both bands can still sound familiar, but they benefit from each others' influence, and it's when their styles meet in the middle that makes this collaboration more than it's parts' sum. The Notwist can lean a little darker in front of Jel's MPC work and Doseone's nervous rapping, and Dose gets to stretch his singing voice out more in the context of a full band. "Armored Scarves" shows off the range afforded by this personnel bump, but Own Your Ghost constantly reaches into odd new places, shifting momentum and mood both between and within songs like fast standout tracks "Sure As Debt" and "Beat On Us".

Since 13&God's self-titled debut, Themselves released a fantastic mixtape, LP, and remix album. The Notwist has kept busy too, with their own LP The Devil, You + Me, a film soundtrack, and other side projects' releases. Despite this considerable output of energy from all it's component members, Own Your Ghost shows that there's plenty left. To call 13&God anyone's side project betrays how unique it is.

Own Your Ghost is out May 17th on Anticon records.

New Songs from 2/3 of The Nevermen, The Cool Kids

Lex Records is edging closer to the unveiling of The Nevermen, the mysterious vocal supergroup of TV on the Radio's Tunde Adebimpe, Themselves/Subtle/13&God frontman Doseone, and Faith No More/Ipecac Records' Mike Patton, but two of the three have releases in the meantime. TV on the Radio has a new album out April 12th called Nine Types of Light, and Will Do is the first track available off of it, listen to it here. It's still a few weeks until 13&God releases Own Your Ghost, but the string of leaks continues with Old Age, free for your ears via Pitchfork

It's been three years since The Cool Kids announced that their debut LP, When Fish Ride Bicycles, was definitely coming out in 2008, and a handful of EPs and mixtapes later, we're still waiting. So the word is that Spring 2011 will actually see the group release their first full length album, and an actual first single, Bundle Up, makes it a little more believable.

July 22 2010 Points of Some Interest

Every Time I Die guitarist Keith Buckley hates "glow-pop" and he wants you to know it.

Comic legend Alan Moore teams up with Anticon cofounder Adam "Doseone" Drucker, multi-instrumental Fog frontman Andrew Broder, and photographer Mitch Jenkins for the massive Unearthing, on Lex records.