State Of The Arts - Sun Ra Used To Say (2438 Entertainment)

A few weeks ago I got contacted by some cats from this group State Of The Arts, who came to meet me and give me a copy of their album. I listened to it, and was really pleasantly surprised, so I went to check out their show at Sonar that week and reviewed it on Noise, and I thought they were the best act on the bill. SOTA is comprised of members of the groups Raw Earth and Circle Of Native Vibes, and a solo singer named Stephanie Lightfoot. I've never heard the members' previous work but I like this, it's on kind of an abstract old school tip like noone else in Baltimore besides Labtekwon is really doing. And I dig the fact that they put Sun Ra in their album title, I used to listen to him a lot when I was younger, if you don't know he was this jazz bandleader who claimed to be from the planet Saturn, really far out guy. SOTA are performing at Sonar again this Thursday, I posted the flyer the other day.

State Of The Arts - "Sideways" (mp3)
This is one of the last tracks on the album and easily one of my favorites, that loop is killer, kinda gives me a 90's golden era vibe.

Labels: Baltimore City Paper, mixtape/album review, mp3, Noise