The Foreign Exchange - Authenticity [2010]

Title is :-/

Single is aight, but kind of disappointingly safe compared to how daring of a choice "Daykeeper" was. The production seems kind of sub-Dilla. Also includes one of those boring Phonte raps. I like the chorus though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gK_TIsiQkg

I'm still excited for this, and want to see if they switch things up for album #3 as much as they did for the second, but the single isn't wowing me at all.

are darien, muhsinah and yazarah still guest vocalists or have they switched it up?

ugh, no insult to you but i found that a really boring, unmemorable song

yeah, it's basically about the level of the weakest tracks on Leave It All Behind. like i said in the OP, not inspiring.

bw: darien, yazarah - yes; muhsinah - no

i'm excited for this on the basis of their past work, not this song. i thought that was clear

Ok, listening to this now and this is great:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4VktAaf4SE

That song is a beast!

The next two tracks have been just as good! So far the single has been easily the weakest thing I've heard.

Ok, any trepidation I had about this being not very good was totally unfounded.

oh shit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReP7P0YxVXc

It's really striking me how much the piano has been the lead instrument for this album.

The first 30 seconds of that track sounds like Coldplay or Keane. eh.

I just dl'ed it. Will queue it up for a full runthrough a little later.

the second track i posted really got me when the female (yahzarah, i think?) vocals came in at the end. also i am a sucker for tricky time signature shit.

Nice how the midsection switches it up by getting away from the indie-beat stuff to more hiphop-y fare. lol at the dream-style "AYYYYYYYY!!!!!!s" in "Don't Wait"

uhhh...this song sounds like the national or some shit u_u

ok, it's brief

All Roads is such a perfect song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPQz3m7cx-c

kinda think this album is a lo key masterpiece.

the new one is GREAT

listened for the first time today, they just keep evolving. really into the last three tracks

dope I need to check this out

listened to tftlomah yday, still love it. i was an big fe-sceptic too far as their previous material goes

super weird but i like it a lot. it is definitely not an "r&b album for grownups" but it is like fifteen things at once

― insufficiently familiar with xgau's work to comment intelligently (BradNelson), Monday, 14 September 2015 15:49 Bookmark

b i was curious what u meant by weird (if u still think this)... it def has a kind of offbeat laconic private-jokey vibe - like what wondaland/janelle/jidenna etc might have if they werent so tryhard annoying i guess - but maybe not the first thing i'd have pointed out

tbh i often have to remind myself this isnt a london album as such; ingeniously fuses that modern retro dandy element with 80s import boogie/uptown reggae cosmopolitanism (tongue in cheek elitism) and takes it thru the years with acid jazz, bugz in the attic west ldn bruk attitude, soulboy weekender scene etc etc etc. (in a delightful irony the album seems to have been p much neglected - can only therefore imagine snubbed - by these types irl who formerly loved to namecheck their earlier stuff with a tasteful discretion)

plus 'asking for a friend' which defies all logic in actually being quite amusing (not to mention sharply satirical - how could they possibly have known that sending chris eubank back out into the ruins of 2015's nu-thatcher society house nostalgic clubland would be so spot on?)

Willis Evans
August 30, 2015
Love FE! Love TFTLOMAH, but only 3 1/2 stars because theCD is only 39 minutes. See All Reviews

lol went to allmusic to check the credits for englishmen (none) found instead there this penny pinching missive from breadline britain

b i was curious what u meant by weird (if u still think this)... it def has a kind of offbeat laconic private-jokey vibe - like what wondaland/janelle/jidenna etc might have if they werent so tryhard annoying i guess - but maybe not the first thing i'd have pointed out

this is kinda what i meant! idk i had never listened to them before the new one so that's just what leapt out

plus 'asking for a friend' which defies all logic in actually being quite amusing (not to mention sharply satirical - how could they possibly have known that sending chris eubank back out into the ruins of 2015's nu-thatcher society house nostalgic clubland would be so spot on?)

― r|t|c, Friday, January 1, 2016 11:01 PM Bookmark

ugh I heard this as a parody of ballroom house, which hearing hetero phonte do kind of put me off the album entirely

Anybody seen em live?

i don't follow rev

hearing a straight guy poke fun at a queer subculture made me see red?

seems like he's poking fun at stuffy british guys using the stylistic innovations of a queer subculture to me but maybe im missing something

sorry that's unclear, i mean phonte is using house music to make fun of stuffy british guys

that is so patently duh obv that i assumed rev was saying it was like a str8 priv violation to invoke ballroom at all w/e the intent

tbc phonte is assuming the caricature of a snooty brit fop for an updated (and p whimsically defanged) 'penthouse & pavement' style thing punning on work

you wear your hearts all on your sleeve / i scoff at you cause u believe in work