Shabazz Palaces - Quazarz: Born on a Gangster Star LP

NEW. SEALED.

Sub Pop Records

…speaking of air and darkness, Born on a Gangster Star cameinto the world in a big damn hurry, like nightfall on an island.You can see it happening, but then again it’s so gradual that thenext thing you know—it’s dark.
Imbued with the energy and ideas from all the creative embersfloating in the atmosphere like fireflies, Shabazz Palacesrecorded this entire album over the course of two weeks withBlood in Seattle. New gear and new equipment disintegratedcomfort zones into dust and a new path appeared in the rubble.

Herein the Palaceer continues the tale of Quazar, a sentientbeing from somewhere else, an observer sent here to Amurdercato chronicle and explore as a musical emissary. What he finds inour world is a cutthroat place, a landscape where someone likehim could never quite feel comfortable amidst all the brutalityand alternative facts and death masquerading as connectivity.

Inspired by days on end spent in the waves—water and light,both—of Southern California, the work came to the Palaceer in aflash, like being picked up by something and carried. Alwaysdribbling with his head up, he can see what’s going on aroundhim and react to it, rather than starting in a certain direction andhoping to achieve something upon arrival.

What’s good?—the kids ask. What does it even mean, and whatdoes it even matter? Who is behind these choices? We are all ofus sitting under a waterfall of all. this. shit. But it’s the excessthat is casting us into ruts.

The Palaceer stays away from the fleeting and the superficialnonessential. Stay away from your device—your phantomlimb—and stay away from your image—your phantom self; thatis his decree. Considering the motions behind the things you liketo consume artistically, rather than just the way something looksor sounds, and thinking in layers, and trying to be more considerateand not so self-oriented—this is his medicine for combat.

Born on a Gangster Star flirts with a pop sensibility, but throughthe prism of Shabazz Palaces’s fire and fury. For the Palaceer,that sense is all about how the groove is moving, and thesupernatural telepathy that occurs amongst his cohort. Appearinghere, in body or in spirit, are Julian Casablancas, Thundercat,Darrius Willrich, Gamble and Huff, Loud Eyes Lou, Thaddillac,Ahmir, Jon Kirby, Sunny Levine, and Blood. The storybelongs to Quazarz, but the air and darkness belong to us.

And so we shine a light on the fake.

1. Since C.A.Y.A
2. When Cats Claw
3. Shine a Light (feat. Thaddillac)
4. Dèesse Du Sang
5. Eel Dreams (feat. Loud Eyes Lou)
6. Parallax (feat. The Palaceer Lazaro)
7. Fine Ass Hairdresser
8. The Neurochem Mixalogue
9. That's How City Life Goes
10. Moon Whip Quäz (feat. Darrius)
11. Federalist Papers