Ancient Astronauts
We Are To Answer

I was excited to see that ESL has set Ancient Astronauts’ first release for June 9th.  You can check out the ESL website for song samples and some presale goodness.  The tracks are in the same vein as Wax Tailor and DJ Shadow styled hip-hop sample driven tunes that you can certainly groove to. 

“The Ancient Astronauts will be releasing an album on June 9th. The album, titled “We Are To Answer,” features a variety of new sonic collaborators including Bootie Brown and Imani of legendary hip hop group The Pharcyde, Azeem, Tippa Irie, Bajka, Phat Old Mamas, Ulf Stricker, Raashan Ahmad and Entropik. A block-rockin’ boom-bappin’ sonic tour-de-force, “We Are to Answer” is a musical vision of life on Earth and beyond!” - ESL Music

It was very cool to see an appearance from Bajka, who lended awesome vocals to Bonobo’s “Days to Come”. 

This is a delicious album from end to end featuring some quality beats, hip-hop grooves, and dubtastic feelings.  I couldn’t avoid bobbing my head in places.  This is certainly going to be stacked into my regular travel rotation for the summer and I can’t wait to find some of this on vinyl!

Welcome to another new series, ‘Wishing for a Comeback’. Sometimes I think about artists/bands/groups and wish that they would release new material, even long after they have dissolved into the ether.

For instance: I wish Sneaker Pimps would release a new album. Their incredible trail (yes, including the bastard child Bloodsport) of trip-hop goodness helped to shape aspects of the modern sound scape from the peripheral. Blast just about any of their songs from your car system and you will certainly turn heads of those questioning ‘wtf?’ and those in-the-know thinking ‘hell yea! Sneaker Pimps!’.

Without an over dosage of Sneaker Pimps in my musical experience through my late teenage years (including the year Becoming X was released in which I had a hard time grasping the music) I doubt I would have jumped to even more chilled music (downtempo, chillout, both vocal and instrumental).

Annoying to me was those who passed off the group as another electronic-dance act.  Danceable, sure.. but so is just about any other band you intend on going to see live.  I think the attraction to the group here is more about the details in the beats, the odd sounds, the weird hooks, paired with some down trodden lyrics and vocals that really cashed in on that post-apoc feel (especially present/interesting in the late 1990’s for a lot of youth).

If you were put off by the fact that the female vocalist wasn’t present on the later releases (Splinter, Bloodsport), perhaps the music was lost on you as is most situations where people put so much emphasis on the vocal work of bands rather than the entire package.  Regardless of who would be singing the vocals, since I actually enjoyed Bloodsport quite a bit, I would love to see Sneaker Pimps release new material.

It’s a great week for entertainment news so far, including today’s catch which happens to be the first official photo from the set of Iron Man 2! Director Jon Favreau made the announcement just yesterday on Twitter that he had approved the photo for release by USA Today, and today the photo made its debut. It depicts Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark with four different models of the Iron Man armor in the background: the Mark I, II, and III from the original film, and a fourth (Mark IV?), most likely an updated version of the armor that the character has since upgraded to.

Iron Man was one of last summer’s blockbusters, as well as one of two films, along with The Incredible Hulk, that marked the debut of Marvel Studios as an independent film studio. The company had previously worked with other film studios on Marvel Comics film adaptations, including 20th Century Fox, Columbia, and Lionsgate, but as of 2008 the entity established a name for itself and funded its own properties, a move that allowed them to retain full creative control and not have to submit to the changes and demands of outside producers. That’s not to say that the studio didn’t suffer any economic side effects, as documented by the nigh loss of big name actors Sam Jackson and Mickey Rourke for Iron Man 2 due to insufficient offers of compensation.