So, Bandcamp is a thing. A pretty big thing, too. It’s a website where budding artists and veterans alike can go to share their creations for a price the artist decides, like this seven second track that you can purchase for the low price of 1,000 USD. But it’s a completely user-driven site, which means there will be a massive amount of content on the site. That’s where I come in. I’ve got a couple artists queued up that I think are fairly noteworthy.
TRANSITION
First up is Kool A.D. Otherwise known as Victor Vazquez, Kool A.D. has been making music with multiple bands throughout his career, but most notably, he was a member of the comedy rap trio Das Racist. You can find the group’s two most celebrated projects for free here and here. Kool A.D.’s solo projects are much different, though, when stacked against his joke rap roots. There are the party anthems “Manny Pacquiao” and “Trippy Gurl,” which are far less laugh-inducing than Das Racist’s “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell.” There are also the more introspective tracks like “Pass the Milk” — featuring art rapper milo, who is riding a wave of popularity after the recent release of his album, “A Toothpaste Suburb” — and the track “Red Wine,” which provides a more light-hearted and exciting look into the psyche of the rapper.
To preface the next artist, I’ve never been a huge fan of metal and its subgenres, but this particular artist struck a chord with me. Ha. Struck a chord. The Arkansas band Pallbearer has been composing doom metal for roughly five years, with two full length LPs and an EP under their belt. Their most recent project, “Foundations of Burden,” is rife with the massive and all-encompassing bass-y riffs you would expect to find in a metal record. The band’s sunny disposition also shows through in their lyrics, with lines like “without light, the dark encloses all” and “descendants of dust with faces carved from stone.” I’m totally kidding, these lyrics are ridiculously depressing. If you’ve ever enjoyed classics like Black Sabbath or — and this might be a bit of a stretch — more modern artists like Wolfmother, Pallbearer might just tickle your fancy.
https://soundcloud.com/pallbearerdoom/pallbearer-the-ghost-i-used-to-be
The third and final artist to check out goes by the name LaCroix Winget. LaCroix, pronounced “luck-waw,” is a Michigan native and serves as a bit of a palette cleanser in this set of artists. Vocally, LaCroix is the doppelganger of Stevie Nicks. That is, if we traveled to the parallel universe where Stevie Nicks and Alvin the Chipmunk had some kind of weird voice baby, that is who LaCroix would resemble. Not only does she possess jaw-dropping vibrato, but LaCroix is also a gifted multi-instrumentalist. The majority of her record on Bandcamp, “Soup Cats Blues,” is filled with a ukulele-laden LaCroix, while other videos of her show her equally as skilled with an acoustic guitar. Before we move any further, I just want to pause and marvel at the title of LaCroix’s album. “Soup Cats Blues.” Weird wild stuff. A few tracks that stuck out on this record were the ode to LaCroix’s home, “Michigan,” the more reserved and conventional track, “Treehouse,” and the erratic and bouncing “Frozen Pizza.”
Bandcamp is an invaluable resource for finding amazing music. These three artists barely scratch the surface of the immense amount of content stored in the site, but hopefully they provide some insight into what you can look forward to when you attempt to use the site in the future.
Have a fantastic Tuesday.
