Last year one of my favorite reviews in November was RedCloud, but I saw at the time that he was doing more with LightingCloud, his project with Crystle Lightning and DJ Jonney Miles.
LightningCloud is pretty fun too.
Their self-titled debut album from 2012 does some interesting things, with references running from The Animals' "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" to "Hernando's Hideaway" from The Pajama Game. There is an upbeat energy and it is easy to dance to, especially "Zoom".
That is fine, but 2015's Indigenous Angels took things to another level.
It's not that the dancing energy has left. "Ketchup Chips" is pretty clubby, and their team-up with Leonard Sumner, "Meet Me At the Pow Wow" is not only catchy, but kind of centers on boys meeting girls.
But Indigenous Angels also has "Walk Alone", dealing with homelessness and leading in with "I'm a Human Being" - something about the homeless that is not remembered enough. Overall it feels like there is a greater seriousness.
That makes a certain sense. Indigenous Angels was also the title of RedCloud's record breaking freestyle in 2014, naming missing and murdered indigenous women. There was a LightningCloud record being planned at that time, and it is not hard to see a connection and a direction between the event and the album.
If the newer project that I discovered last year debuted in 2012 and last released an album in 2015, that just shows how behind I am. However, it looks like RedCloud performed with Crystle Lightning just last month, and you never know what's coming next.
The great thing about music is that once it's out there, it's out there (except in some of the worst break-ups and copyright infringement pursuits). These two albums and various videos are available, though I only found two relevant links.
https://www.facebook.com/TeamLightningCloud/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiPNMRg0xKsa29kHdowdVyg
No comments:
Post a Comment