Sound Advice

If there's a thread that links this particular group of artists to explore, it's that they're all storytellers that have carved out their own space and narrative, flipping conventions expected of their culture, class or position into delightful surprises.



Mark Growden Sextet

I encountered the musical stylings of San Francisco's Mark Growden for the first time at a recent "Unholiday Party" for Laughing Squid, a hub intersecting the astonishingly creative tech and art communities of the Bay Area. On this evening, Growden was with his Trio, a truncated version of his Sextet, playing the handlebars - yes, handlebars, as in the ones that grace a bicycle, but this multi-instrumentalist also rocks the accordion, banjo, lap steel guitar and saxophone. Look for his albums on iTunes and watch this live performance of Mark Growden Sextet playing "Coyote," which highlights Growden's melancholic flair for storytelling that seems to come from another era:





Thunderheist

A Canadian duo that met through MySpace of all places, Thunderheist (MC Isis and producer Grahm Zilla) storm dancefloors with a world-wise blend of booty-shaking sounds that borrow from big London rave basslines, risqué Dirty South rhymes and hyperkinetic Baltimore beats. Isis is a fierce woman who isn't afraid to give the boys a taste of their own medicine, flipping what might sound misogynistic in their mouths into something sassy in hers. She's taking back the night, as it were. Check out how the self-proclaimed "Black Kate Moss" and her masked crusading keyboardist get down in "Little Booty Girl":





Free Blood

Brooklyn's Free Blood (Madeleine Davy and John Pugh) prefer their electronic pop on the playful side. Davy and Pugh are microphone marauders, first and foremost, pushing their instrument beyond usual expectations with forays into texturizing and beatboxing. Watch "The Royal Family" and see if you aren't as mesmerized by these noble experiments in the bottom-end, with big beats and arresting vocals:





B.o.B.

Bobby Ray (aka B.o.B.) got a record deal right out of high school, which was barely two years ago, and has been honing his songwriting and performing skills on the road ever since. He is poised to release his debut album The Adventures of B.o.B. in the first half of 2009 via Grand Hustle/Atlantic, the label helmed by multi-platinum rapper T.I. (who features B.o.B. alongside himself and Ludacris on his most recent hit album Paper Trail).

A multi-instrumentalist who can sing, rap and relate to a wide cross-section of people with his subject matter, B.o.B. has drawn comparisons to fellow Atlanta native Andre 3000 of OutKast and has recently been in the studio with 3000's partner Big Boi.

B.o.B.'s latest single "I'll Be in The Sky" rides an infectious piano refrain over his musings about the fragile importance of life:

Everybody here gonna die one day,
So while I'm here, I'ma find my way.
That's my forté, that's why I'm here:
To open up your ears and speak this real.

The song has been given a vibrant, cinematic video by director Gabriel Hart and, of course, B.o.B. himself:



B.o.B.'s got real potential to go far because he isn't limiting himself to the boundaries of the rap world, even though it has been his early adopter. (He even sampled Amy Winehouse for his song "Grip Yo Body.") While his leftfield sensibility might be evident from the official video for "I'll Be in The Sky," another dimension is illuminated through this acoustic version of "Lovelier Than You," which he performed live on guitar last month at Atlanta's "Almost Famous" showcase:





Tamara Palmer is SuicideGirls' New Music Editor. During a decade and a half of DJing and writing about music professionally, she has found particular pleasure in championing new artists and sounds. Her work has appeared in outlets such as the Associated Press, Wired, and SF Weekly. She is a former editor of URB and the author of the book, Country Fried Soul: Adventures in Dirty South Hip-Hop.


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