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In this exclusive Music Mondays article we dive into Blank Thought's favorite film and album of 2024 so far. These are both projects that will take years to fully unpack, and we decided to start breaking them down in this piece for your reading pleasure.
8/9/24
Honorable Mention: will we ever dance again by sleepingdogs & Blue Lips by ScHoolboy Q
Behemoth could be the album title as well as it could be a self description. The prolific duo Sacco & Vanzetti, made up of the extremely skilled lyricist Sko & the man behind the boards, the Shah set out to conquer a new challenge with their most recent outing. Speaking with Sko briefly before the creation of the album, it was incredibly interesting to talk to him about some of the more practical challenges of making a double album and then see the final product. Behemoth delivers on its promise, and not in the way of short songs and half baked ideas. This album consistently breaks 3 minutes with its tracks if not longer, and each track packs a punch due in part to both’s incredible performance in creating a consistently engaging and morphing sound that feels part of a larger tapestry that weaves together perfectly. Specifically the way this project was engineered, also handled by the Shah, always shakes the speakers when his signature heavy kicks & intoxicating chops kick in. This and Sko constantly raising the bar for his songwriting and punchlines throughout the entire tracklist really help this double album warrant its length. Even with just these two I think this project is incredible, but the carefully placed features enhance the project even more. With a feature list including Andrew, Jesse the Tree, NahReally, Sankofa and a whole roster of incredibly talented people among the underground’s best, it’s easy to get excited to come back to this project. Even with all of these moments of hard hitting grit and grime, the album still finds moments of sonic change in tracks like Gold or Kill Shit For with NahReally. Sko has always been a very outspoken writer, but this album finds him at a place of frustration of the state of the world. Specifically, Killing Ceaser has always felt very poignant to me. In this track, Sko confronts the modern ideas of masculinity, specifically within the culture of a very online world that feels the need to police other people and their disillusionment from the cognitive dissonance they hold in their beliefs. He’s not just throwing stones though, in many of these tracks questioning his own beliefs and standing, just like his musings on if he’s similar to his father on the opener Contagion. His writing is always a high point, but this project really felt like a collection of some of his most potent observations and quotables. This album is an essential listen to anyone who hasn’t heard it, and will go down in my book as one of the most impressive albums to come out of this side of the underground. They set out to make a double album in every sense of the word, and they nailed it. There is so much to uncover with this album, and I look forward to sitting with this behemoth of a project.
Dune Part 1 & 2 Directed by Denis Villeuneve
Honorable Mention: Challengers directed by Luca Guadinino & Furiousa directed by George Miller
As an avid film lover and a massive fan of Denis Villenueve’s work, I figured I’d like Dune when I first tuned in. I was unfamiliar with the story, but was intrigued by visuals and the intriguing cast. I gotta say, I didn’t love it. Or more accurately, I didn’t love it at first. I watched the movie about twice before the part two hype started, and while I enjoyed all those things about the movie something never really connected. And then I saw Part Two. Dune Part Two floored me like few movies ever have in the theaters, as the sound design, scale & skill shown by Villenueve on the directorial side created one of my favorite first experiences in theaters. Something kept me coming back to the movie though, and the more I invested time into learning about the books and rewatching the first movie, it all clicked for me. This massive tapestry of what is essentially one large film never making sense without the full picture. The moments in the first film are given so much more weight when the full picture is presented, with moments like Paul’s conversation with his father or initial introduction to Duncan Idaho that carry so much more consequence with the context of the end of this specific story. As I watched the second movie more and more, the performances, little nuances and visual storytelling started to unveil itself in a massive way. This is the kind of movie that rewards an eagle eye. Small details like facial reactions, Fremen writing on walls or just overall story consistency make this movie ripe for rewatches. On top of that, the obvious nature of these films create some of the best visual and audio moments I’ve seen in a long time. I understand for those who read the books that they may be upset with some of the changes made to the story and Denis’s penchant for a brutalist aesthetic may be detractors of these adaptations, but as someone who was brought in from the outside these have fully hooked me & become some of my favorite films ever. On the soundtrack side I could write a whole separate piece, but for brevity’s sake I’ll temper for now. Hans Zimmer creates a masterclass in building atmosphere in this film with the score being one of the main driving factors behind the experience this was in theaters. Specifically, the guitars on the Lisan al Gaib theme hit every single time & the composition on that track is awe inspiring. There’s a lot of conversation about this movie to be had, but one thing I would like to touch on is the themes of this movie in the general landscape of today’s society. Political figures have become idols of worship and especially going through an especially volatile election cycle this has never been more obvious. It’s both incredible and horrifying that this book written almost 60 years ago feels more relevant every day. Even in real time watching people connect to Paul as the protagonist, but slowly watch and grapple with the fact that he is both figuratively and literally just another more effective oppressor of an indigenous people feels so relevant. With Palestinians dying every day, more people need to confront the idea of systematic propaganda and how that influences everyday people into accepting and even encouraging the idea of people in power keeping that power no matter the ramifications for everyone else. In an era of soulless vapid films, movies with dense themes, purposeful direction and love in every detail should be celebrated and supported to help revive a type of film that used to bring everyone to the theaters and give the audience something to think about.
Witten By Blank Thought: linktr.ee/b1ankthought
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