Tag: Hall of Justice Studios

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Shabazz Palaces Returns with New Wave-like “Tongue In Chic”

Seattle-born and-based emcee, musician, producer and JOVM mainstay Ishmael Butler has spent the better part of the last three-plus decades, exploring the outer edges of music: In the early late 80s, he co-founded the pioneering, Grammy Award-winning hip-hop trio Digable Planets, who released two landmark albums, 1993’s Reachin’ (A New Refutation of Time and Space) and 1994’s Blowout Comb, toured with Sade — and are still touring today. Butler is also the founder and creative mastermind of the JOVM mainstay act Shabazz Palaces, which released the experimental and highly influential debut, 2011’s Black Up. And with Shabazz Palaces, the Seattle-based artist has continued to push sonic and stylistic boundaries over the course of seven albums, including 2014’s Lese Majesty. 

Butler’s exemplary tastes, verve and unique talents have led to collaborations with Flying Lotus, Thundercat, George Clinton, Clipping., Battles, Onoehtirx Point Never, Animal Collective and his own son, Lil Tracy. He has also collaborated with filmmakers Khalil Joseph and Hiro Murai, and design work with Toronto-based multidisciplinary artist and fellow Black Constellation member Nep Sidhu. And with Shabazz Palaces, Butler has toured with Radiohead, TV On The Radio, and Ms. Lauryn Hill. 

The Seattle-based artist’s eighth Shabazz Palaces album, the Butler and Erik Blood co-produced, 10-song It’s a Style Sport is slated for an October 23, 2026 release globally through Sub Pop. The album, which marks the first batch of new material from the JOVM mainstay since the release of sibling mini-albums, 2023’s Robed in Rareness and 2024’s Exotic Birds Of Prey is reportedly a bold, forthright and heavy-hitting album. Throughout the album’s runtime, the Shabazz Palaces creative mastermind compiles what he’s learned from his storied and dense career into a playful, shimmering portal, yet again proving himself an artist of chameleonic ambition, fueled by curiosity, courage and a boundless imagination. 

Recorded at Brooklyn’s Circular Ruin Studios, Lake View Studios and Seattle’s Hall of Justice Studios, the album will feature guest appearances from Marquette Miller, Thaddeus “Thadillac” Turner, Evan Flory-Barnes, Gerald “Tugboat” Turner, Kassa Overall and Carlos Overall. The album was mastered by Warren Defever at Detroit’s Third Man Mastering. 

Its a Style Sport will include the woozy “Ahh World (I Won The Alpha Bet)” and the album’s latest single “Tongue In Chic.” “Tongue In Chic” is an 80s-styled New Wave-meets R&B bop that sounds as though it could have been recorded sometime around Chaka Khan’s 1984 smash hit cover of Prince’s “I Feel For You,” or as part of the Prince/Minneapolis sound while Butler humorously reflects on his dating life: He starts off with a tale of a relationship that quickly got off on a good foot before going quickly awry and controlling. After seeking a new girlfriend with whom he’d do the prerequisite relationship things, he meets a woman who says she’s a chef but hilarious, she doesn’t own utensils and has a messy kitchen. She’s fine as hell; but it ends with some craziness — and the search for another new, girlfriend.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Initially began as the solo recording project of the Seattle, WA-based multi-instrumentalist, singer/songwriter Peter Michel, Hibou quickly exploded into the national scene with his self-produced, home recorded, 2015 self-titled debut, which received praise from Pitchfork, Stereogum, Consequence of Sound and others for crafting shimmering yet introspective bedroom pop. And adding to a growing profile, Michel opened for the like son Metric, Phantogram and Unknown Mortal Orchestra.

Michel’s sophomore Hibou effort Something Familiar is slated for a March 2, 2018 release through Barsuk Records finds Michel embracing a number of changes. The Seattle, WA-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer made a rather conscious choice to track the album’s material in a real studio — this time, Chris Walla‘s Hall of Justice Studios, with an outside producer, Dylan Wall, who has worked with Craft Spells, a band that Michel once played drums in. Adding to a string of changes to his creative and recording process, Something Familiar finds Michel recording with his touring band. “I toured for a long time with the band, and it was really interesting to see how the songs changed when there were four people playing them, as opposed to just me in my bedroom,” Michel explains in press notes.

Along with that, the material reflects a period marked by profound changes. “I was still a teenager when I was writing the first album,” Michel says. “All of the songs feel a little one-faced. They’re about relationships and love and summertime and things like that. On this upcoming album, I really challenged myself lyrically to get a little more personal, and talk about some of the darker parts of myself.” In fact, the material addresses Michel’s ongoing bouts with anxiety and depersonalization. (Depersonalization is a disorder generally distinguished by feeling disengaged from the mind and body. as if if the sufferer is an outsider looking in at their own self.) Naturally, while still retaining elements of the sound that first caught both national attention and the attention of the blogosphere — namely, lush keys, reverb soaked guitars and Michel’s dreamy crooning.   “It was strange to start consciously writing from a different stylistic standpoint, but I didn’t want to totally turn the page,” Michel notes. “There is still a fundamental Hibou sound in there. It just is drenched in a little more honesty.”

You might remember that “Junipero Love” was reportedly inspired by the Emmy Award-winning “San Junipero” episode of Black Mirror.  Interestingly, Michel found common ground with the episode’s protagonist Yorkie, who navigated two different realities and a burgeoning relationship.  “The contrast between the two worlds depicted in the episode hit very close to home for me,” Hibou’s creative mastermind says in press notes. “I often feel torn between a conscious state and losing a hold of my memories and who I am.”  And while the single will further cement Hibou’s reputation for crafting breezy and shimmering guitar pop, there’s a subtle expansion of his sound as you’ll hear a tight and funky groove throughout; but underneath the breeziness is a wistful and bittersweet tone that suggests that the song’s narrator isn’t quite sure if he’s dreaming or awake or if he’s experiencing is actually real.

Something Familiar‘s latest single “Malison” is a breezy bit of power pop that features enormous power chords, soaring synths and a rousingly anthemic hook paired with Michel’s dreamy yet deeply anxious vocals within a song that sounds indebted to 90s alt rock, complete with a radio friendly air; but underneath, the swaggering arena rock sound, the song is much darker with Michel admitting in press notes that the song is “the most honest song I’ve ever written. It confronts the attention that my anxiety demands and handicaps me into a spiral of routines that only end up making things worse. I can’t remember the last time I had a day where I felt comfortable in my own skin and felt like I wasn’t putting on an act of normality.”

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Initially began as the solo recording project of the Seattle, WA-based multi-instrumentalist, singer/songwriter Peter Michel, Hibou quickly exploded into the national scene with his self-produced, home recorded, 2015 self-titled debut, which received praise from Pitchfork, Stereogum, Consequence of Sound and others for crafting shimmering yet introspective bedroom pop. And adding to a growing profile, Michel opened for the like son Metric, Phantogram and Unknown Mortal Orchestra.

Michel’s sophomore Hibou effort Something Familiar is slated for a March 2, 2018 release through Barsuk Records finds Michel embracing a number of changes. The Seattle, WA-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer made a rather conscious choice to track the album’s material in a real studio — this time, Chris Walla‘s Hall of Justice Studios, with an outside producer, Dylan Wall, who has worked with Craft Spells, a band that Michel once played drums in. Adding to a string of changes to his creative and recording process, Something Familiar finds Michel recording with his touring band. “I toured for a long time with the band, and it was really interesting to see how the songs changed when there were four people playing them, as opposed to just me in my bedroom,” Michel explains in press notes.

Along with that, the material reflects a period marked by profound changes. “I was still a teenager when I was writing the first album,” Michel says. “All of the songs feel a little one-faced. They’re about relationships and love and summertime and things like that. On this upcoming album, I really challenged myself lyrically to get a little more personal, and talk about some of the darker parts of myself.” In fact, the material addresses Michel’s ongoing bouts with anxiety and depersonalization. (Depersonalization is a disorder generally distinguished by feeling disengaged from the mind and body. as if if the sufferer is an outsider looking in at their own self.) Naturally, while still retaining elements of the sound that first caught both national attention and the attention of the blogosphere — namely, lush keys, reverb soaked guitars and Michel’s dreamy crooning.   “It was strange to start consciously writing from a different stylistic standpoint, but I didn’t want to totally turn the page,” Michel notes. “There is still a fundamental Hibou sound in there. It just is drenched in a little more honesty.”

“Junipero Love,” the latest single off Hibou’s forthcoming, sophomore effort was reportedly inspired by the Emmy Award-winning “San Junipero” episode of Black Mirror.  Interestingly, Michel found common ground with the episode’s protagonist Yorkie, who navigated two different realities and a burgeoning relationship.  “The contrast between the two worlds depicted in the episode hit very close to home for me,” Hibou’s creative mastermind says in press notes. “I often feel torn between a conscious state and losing a hold of my memories and who I am.”  And while the single will further cement Hibou’s reputation for crafting breezy and shimmering guitar pop, there’s a subtle expansion of his sound as you’ll hear a tight and funky groove throughout; but underneath the breeziness is a wistful and bittersweet tone that suggests that the song’s narrator isn’t quite sure if he’s dreaming or awake or if he’s experiencing is actually real.