Masta Ace - "Good Ol Love". Been a little while since I've posted any hip-hop. Following up on Cocaine Blunts' post of "Beautiful", here is another elegant scorcher, a 9th Wonder slow jam with asphalt bottom. Masta Ace's upcoming record looks to be something amazing. The raps in these tracks blow most of Kanye's stuff out of the water - it's all just easier, simpler, wiser. "My limo driver's white / my attorney's black / show me some love, like Bernie Mac." To my ear there's the same conscious thug, but he doesn't sound like he's as worked up, so desperate to prove himself. And it's all spread over that indomitable, flush soul sample. Listen to the shout out, like a calm, welcoming nod: "New York, New Jersey, Philly, DV, Virginia, Chi-town, St Louis, Houston, Atlanta, Los Angeles, San Francisco, England, Scotland, Germany, Austria, Sweden, Switzerland, France, Italy, Croatia, Spain, Slovenia, Japan, Austria, Africa. / Show me some love." But why is Austria mentioned twice? (269,000 results!)

The Cay - "Bird Yard". The Cay is an Ottawa-Montreal-Toronto three-piece with two self-released albums under their belt. They play pondersome indie pop, strain and nostalgia blended in with crisscrossing guitars. The Wooden Stars and middle-period Velvets and a little, um, Billy Cobham. This is my favourite track from Pine Trees Are Electric Guitars, an instrumental whose distracted, sprouting melody stumbles into Spring at two-minutes forty: buds creaking open, sun glancing through leaves, a weight lifting from shoulders. It's joyous and restrained, a small smile with lowered lashes. Something coming awake and then settling back into sleep. In short - undemandingly lovely.

A fine, revelatory ILM thread: "Famous Folks who are Unlikely Fans of Your Favorite Artist". I don't know why I hadn't guessed that Nick Nolte was a Smog fan, but I guess I should have.