One of the most highly anticipated collaborative albums of the year is available for streaming a week ahead of its official release. Yes Lawd!, the new album from NxWorries, made up of Anderson Paak and Knxwledge, is available to hear now exclusively on Apple Music.
Ahead of the album, the pair have release two incredible singles, Lyk Dis and Get Bigger / Do U Luv. The record is a pretty unique tasting plate of samples, infectious grooves, beautiful prpduction, and Anderson Paak’s immediately recogniseable vocals.
Like many of Knxwledge’s productions, many of the songs on the album are fairly short, averaging around the two minute mark. The combination of these two artists, released under the masterful guise of Peanut Butter Wolf’s Stones Throw Records, is phenomenal. Well worth a listen for any fan of either artist.
The album officially comes out this Friday, October 21 – you can preorder it here.
Stream the full NxWorries album here via Apple Music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hEm94gx1y8
Yes Lawd! Tracklist:
1. Intro
2. Livvin
3. Wngs
4. Best One
5. What More Can I Say
6. Kutless
7. Lyk Dis
8. Can’t Stop
9. Get Bigger / Do U Luv
10. Khadija
11. H.A.N.
12. Scared Money
13. Suede
14. Starlite
15. Sidepiece
16. Jodi
17. Link Up
18. Another Time
19. Fkku
Read our interview with Anderson Paak
Image: Supplied
If you haven’t heard yet, NxWorries, the powerhouse duo of producer Knxwledge and RnB extraordinaire Anderson .Paak have finally announced that their heavily anticipated debut album, very appropriately titled Yes Lawd!, will released in just one month’s time. Of course, it wasn’t just a simple album announcement though, the pair went and released a brand new and positively mind-blowing single titled Lyk Dis.
Almost a year in the making, this is obviously a moment worth celebrating for fans of both artiss and therefore, to get you grooving in the lead-up to the LP, we’ve crafted a playlist full of Knx and Paak’s finest tunes, both new and old.
A mixture of vibes, these 20 tracks will take you on a trip through the discographies of both artist with a healthy dose of variety at all stops. From drunken beats, to serenades, and even a twist of adrenaline to get you through the day, seriously, what else would you want to be listening to? Happy NxWorries Day everyone!
Image: OkPlayer
Read more: our review of Anderson .Paak live at the House Of Blues in San Diego
It’s a little “I heard them before they were cool,” but for once I really do get to claim it – I first heard about NxWorries before Anderson Paak blew up in the hip-hop world, having first heard it as a side project of Stones Throw Records’ sample-obsessed instrumental producer Knxwledge. Flash forward about 18 months and the spotlight has certainly shifted to Paak, the honey-voiced golden boy of hip-hop, having collaborated with Dr Dre, ScHoolboy Q, Kendrick Lamar, Kaytranada, Mac Miller and many others, as well as releasing his own spectacular album Malibu. But regardless of who is receiving more general attention right now, when they come together as NxWorries, magic happens.
The pair put out the Link Up & Suede EP late last year, and they’ve now announced their full length debut, Lawd!. Lyk Dis is the first song to be released, and it’s pretty damn alluring; the understated, sultry atmosphere is led by lusty, flirtatious lyrics – markedly more sexual than a lot of Paak’s own recent work. Behind the verses lies seductive, velvety-smooth instrumentation, with a 70s twang and the kind of rhythm that’d make D’Angelo blush.
Knxwledge dropped the captivating Buttrskotch, and the invigorating Hud Dreems the year before, allowing him to work alongside Kendrick Lamar on To Pimp a Butterfly and Action Bronson on the upcoming Blue Chips 7000. He and Paak have continued to build upon their sound, and we can’t wait for the full album. With 18 vocal tracks and just one instrumental, Anderson .Paak told his Twitter followers in June that this would be his “best work…a masterpiece.”
Anderson Paak is visiting Australia really soon for Listen Out festival – who knows, maybe we’ll be given a sneak preview of what to expect. In the meantime, check out our playlist of the best music from Knxwledge and Anderson Paak.
Lawd! is set for release October 21 via Stones Throw.
Check out the track list below:
01 Intro
02 Livvin
03 Wngs
04 Best One
05 What More Can I Say
06 Kutless
07 Lyk Dis
08 Can’t Stop
09 Get Bigger / Do U Luv
10 Khadija
11 H.A.N.
12 Scared Money
13 Suede
14 Starlite
15 Sidepiece
16 Jodi
17 Link Up
18 Another Time
19 Fkku
Image: Eric Coleman via Pitchfork
Before his own album, before his heavy features on Dr Dre’s album last year, before signing to Dre’s label Aftermath, Anderson .Paak had begun a collaboration with beat-making extraordinaire Knxwledge, known as NxWorries. Playing their track Suede to the one and only Dr. Dre, he managed to blow the legendary producer away, and .Paak has since been busy since gone on to sign to Dre’s label Aftermath, released one of this year’s best albums Malibu, and featured on tonnes of records, collaborating with the likes of Kaytranada, Domo Genesis, and Snakehips.
His work as one-half of NxWorries (with Knxwledge), is arguably where things really started to kick off for him, with their debut single Suede going on to reach over one million plays on YouTube alone. Soon after, the duo released their second single Link Up, their self titled EP dropped in December last year, boasting even more good vibes and a remix of one of .Paak’s older tracks Drugs.
Putting an end to all our qualms, and making this one hell of a morning, .Paak has now taken to his Twitter to announce that the pair are indeed planning to follow this up, stating that the full length NxWorries album is actually done, and that it is in fact his best work.
https://twitter.com/AndersonPaak/status/744485027640147968?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://twitter.com/AndersonPaak/status/744486383570526208?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Being the huge NxWorries fans that we are, we can’t wait to hear what the dynamic duo of .Paak and Knxwledge have to offer us once again! With Anderson’s claims of the album being a masterpiece, the bar certainly has been set high, but we’re sure they’ll come through with some serious heat.
For further reading, check out our interview with Anderson .Paak here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsXaSRBO5kM
Image: Pigeons and Planes
It’s video roundup time! Once again, Howl And Echoes are coming in hot with the freshest, most eyeball stimulating music videos to be dropped by the artists you love and some of the artists you don’t know you love yet, of this week. We do all the dirty work and herd them all into one convenient web-based location for you to enjoy every Friday so that you don’t have to. Have yourself a good old gander at the latest offerings from:
Spring King – Rectifier
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yONyEewXraU
We’re starting out the gate with a bang this week, not being ones to be here to fuck spiders of course. It’s Rectifier, the new single from UK noisemakers Spring King. Punchy, heavy and, like all good garage rock, the amps turned up to 11 on everything., Rectifier is a track bristling with raw power and energy and will have you hooked as soon as you hear it.
The music video follows drummer and vocalist (boy do we have a whole lot of respect for those guys) Tarek Musa as he fleshes out the song in his basement before taking it to the jam room and eventually the stage playing to a huge sweaty crowd.
We’re hoping for a whole lot more outstanding stuff like this from Spring King in 2016.
Gideon Bensen – Talk Talk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqFbYI-M1dA
Also making some noise this week is Gideon Bensen, well-known for his duties on guitar and backing vocals for The Preatures but currently enjoying a stellar run as a solo artist. We loved his first track and its accompanying video last year and we had the chance for a great old chat with him earlier this year. This week he’s released his second single and music video for Talk Talk.
It’s a short and sharp smashing together of rock and roll with some deliciously new wave synth flavour, Bensen’s smoky baritone snaking its way around the track, showing a pretty remarkable vocal range as well. The video is lo-fi cool and features Bensen’s head replicated and warped in front of a travelling background, the bursts of red and blue complementing the bursts of different noise sparking off throughout the song.
The Kills – Doing It To Death
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=498zUzNGQxY
Hard rocking duo The Kills have put out a brand new single and music video this week in anticipation of their next album Ash And Ice that’s scheduled for release in June of this year. Doing It To Death is the title, the riffs gigantic, the rhythm deliberate and a definite touch of ice behind the vocals of frontwoman Alison Mosshart.
The music video wins the title of Best Funeral Procession ever. There’s rap squats atop hearse hoods, a parade of black clad pallbearers dabbing their way through a Los Angeles cemetery, Mosshart giving a eulogy with a durry in hand. It’s a song and video combination that kicks so much ass, do yourself a favour and watch it.
Ash And Ice is out June 3rd via Domino.
Bad Vision – Goons
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DEBvHq9lgc
This next one comes from Melbourne rockers Bad Vision, who have this week released the first single from their upcoming album Turn Out Your Sockets. Titled Goons, it’s fantastically dance-y and jangly rock and roll with shouted choruses about looking for good times and verses about Miley Cyrus eating at shopping malls. Glorious.
The video is a nifty one-taker, so picture that scene in Goodfellas where Henry Hill takes Karen on a whirlwind tour through the back door of his nightclub, only replace gangsters with the titular ‘goons’ and the nightclub with a suburban share house and you’ve just about got it.
Turn Out Your Sockets is out May 2016 via Adagio 830 Records.
Boys Noize – Overthrow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQD_WpsYtiU&feature=youtu.be
The latest single from German producer Boys Noize is Overthrow. Dark and twisting and starkly industrial, pulsating rhythms building up before a confronting and harsh drop full of squealing synths mid-song.
The music video, directed by Lil Internet and Boys Noize himself, takes the industrial tones of the track and visualises them. Shot mainly in black and white, it focuses on street life in Los Angeles after dark and the intersecting of a pair of rival gangs. Apparently no actors were used in the video, upping the authenticity of the video entirely.
There’ll be more to come from Boys Noize this year.
Le Pie – Up All Night
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3rRe2D23us
Sydney singer-songwriter Le Pie goes full badass on her latest single and video for Up All Night. Combining punk rock with pop hooks while losing none of the edge of the former, the track is as catchy as the flu, full of clever lyrics too.
The video does it justice and then some, shot in beautiful black and white and opening with Le Pie tagging a brick wall before her and her gang of greaser girls legs it from ‘the fuzz’. From there they wander the streets looking like a more menacing version of the T-Birds, boozing it up, swinging baseball bats and golf clubs and raising general hell.
You can catch Le Pie and the Sha La Las on the Up All Night tour this weekend, where they’ll be rolling in to rough up the Lass O’Gowrie in Newcastle on Saturday night. Look out!
NxWorries – Link Up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsXaSRBO5kM&feature=youtu.be
If NxWorries is a name that’s still unfamiliar to you then it won’t be for long. It’s a super-duo made up of producer Knxwledge and vocalist Anderson .Paak. Link Up is their newest single, the second from their debut EP Link Up And Suede that capped off a massive 2015 for both men.
The song is funky as all hell, smooth vocals from Anderson .Paak layered masterfully over some lights out production from Knxwledge. The music video is fantastic, featuring a very disgruntled Eric Andre confronting Knxwledge the convenience store attendant and wondering aloud how he’s supposed to get fucked up on only three pinots (before being knocked the FUCK out).
The rest of the clip features an impossibly cool dance party hosted by .Paak and Knxwledge in the chilled section by aisle three, the duo turning all kinds of up. None other than Earl Sweatshirt shows up at one point (apparently he does sometimes like going outside) to buy a 40.
We need an album out of these two real soon.
DMA’s – Step Up The Morphine (Live Acoustic)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oe9Tn9n50sg
The sky is presently the limit for DMA’s. They’re a week post the release of their debut album Hills End, which landed to rave reviews across the board. The band are going on tour both in Australia and internationally, with a guest spot on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert that promises to see their star rise even higher.
This week they’ve released a brand new video for one of the standout tracks on Hills End, the stunning Step Up The Morphine. They’ve reworked it into a stripped back acoustic version recorded live on a sunny afternoon in Kings Cross that will take your breath away. The steel guitar from Matt Mason adding some very welcome extra smoke to the song.
Catch DMA’s on their Hills End tour across Australia in May and June.
Knxworries is a collaboration between experimental/instrumental hip-hop producer Knxwledge, and Anderson .Paak. It’s been a huge year for Paak, who featured on six tracks on Dr. Dre‘s Compton, and tracks by The Game, MED, Blue & Madlib, GoldLink and Schoolboy Q. Knxwledge too, saw an exciting 2015 with the release of his unconventional, diverse album Hud Dreems, as well as earning production credits on on Kendrick Lamar and Joey Badass‘ records.
Their unique styles – one, a complex, sample-stuffed experimental approach, and the other, modern, jangling soul and R&B, have been brought together as Nxworries. The pair are releasing their joint EP this week, and Stones Throw Records have shared Link Up a few days early to put us in the mood.
Indeed, at times it feels like there’s two songs layered atop one another. You’ve got the sweeping, swishing, totally packed instrumental atmosphere, while .Paak’s melody – which feels as though it’s dancing to s lightly different beat – pull it together in its smooth, funk-inspired melody.
This is a radio rip from Beats 1 Radio, so the final two minutes of this Soundcloud track is actually a short interview between Zane Lowe and .Paak.
Nxworries will release Link Up & Suede this Friday on Stones Throw. Purchase it here.