Readers recommendations: Harlem Shake and Louise Doughty
Published on
What are you all listening to or reading? Here's what's happening in my corner - Belgium
Top sounds of the moment
By now I guess a lot of you have been exposed to the Harlem Shake meme - and if not, congratulations (and don't click on the video below).
That's the kind of music I've been listening to for the past year or so; some call it EDM (electronic dance music), others call it trap, others bass. Whatever it is, it's (mostly) good and (almost always) bouncy. This is party music at its finest: loud, heavy on the bass and hard to resist. North American artists like Baauer (whose 2012 instrumental eponymous track gave birth to the Harlem Shake idea), Ryan Hemsworth, TNGHT, Lunice, RL Grime, as well as Hucci (UK), Munchi (Netherlands) or Schlachthofbronx (Germany) have attracted my attention as dubstep faded away, and ever since I started getting bored with hip-hop a couple of years ago.
As a longtime hip-hop fan I've been appalled by the lack of quality music in the past few years, but new acts are restoring my faith in the genre: The Underachievers (signed on Flying Lotus' label), Action Bronson (a former chef turned MC), Ab-Soul, Danny Brown...the Pro-Era clique and the whole Beast Coast movement in New York is quite interesting too and might just succeed in finally shifting the momentum in hip-hop away from the Lil Waynes and the Drakes of this world. Mr Mfn eXquire, the whole Odd Future camp...there are a lot of young acts are out there, and I can't wait for them to take over.
Top three books
1. I’m reading A Novel in a Year: A Novelist's Guide To Being A Novelist by the English writer Louise Doughty because I hope to get there myself in the end! I have just started but it is quite interesting and well done
2.Found In Translation by Nataly Kelly from the US and German-American translator Jost Zetzsche should interest some too – translation is everywhere but few people recognise how important it is
3. Lastly, Mélancolies by French writer Patrick Mosconi, is not as good as its blurb suggests so far…
Image: main courtesy of © MrMFNeXquire official facebook page;