New Reviews of Walking Backwards

Spotted a couple new reviews of Clutchy's upcoming CD. "Walking Backwards" gets four Afros from Okayplayer. They're really lovin' this record over there...check out some of these quotes:

"Clutchy's music speaks for itself without having a personality or image attached to it."
...
"Walking Backwards succeeds in its ability to act as a musical vacation. It takes you on an international near-50-minute journey without the cost of air fare."
...
"Whether you are looking for some moody background music or you want to spend an hour staring at the ceiling with your speakers blasting, Walking Backwards delivers."

Damn right! Glad to see the music's getting so much love. Even better, Dusty Groove America's review of the album contains this line:

"[Walking Backwards] reminds us of the energy that we first felt in DJ Shadow's groundbreaking work of a decade before - a similar love of gritty, organic source material, and an ear for putting it together with lots of dark twists and turns".

Can't get much more complementary than that!! I'm so friggin' excited to get up tomorrow, vote for my homeboy Barack Obama, and buy myself a copy of Clutchy's new album. Might have to take the whole day off work...send myself on a "musical vacation" a la Okayplayer...

Adios amigos,
Jerry K

New Track from KCRW Show On Clutchy's MySpace

Just discovered a nice surprise this Thursday morning! Check it out...go to Clutchy's MySpace page and look at the music player. There's a track that was ripped from Jeremy Sole's late-night show on KCRW 89.9 (a kickass radio station, for you non-Los-Angelinos). It's downloadable, so grab it now before it disappears!

It sounds like Sole was giving props to the new record on the air, so Clutchy wrote & recorded a brand-new song just for him and emailed it in. Definitely sounds like vintage Clutchy...cool organ riffs, shakers, evil-sounding basslines. Whether "Clutchy" really recorded a "custom" track for KCRW, or whether the masterminds behind the Clutchy mystery pulled a track out of their stash, I'm not quite sure. Regardless, it's good to hear a legit radio DJ at a major station showing some love for our favorite cave-dwelling genius.

Five days til "Walking Backwards"...I can barely wait! I'll post a review later next week.

Peace,
Jerry K

Clips of Every Song on "Walking Backwards"

It's one week til Walking Backwards drops. In the comments, Mike brings up the issue of snagging advance copies of the new album. Personally, I have nothing wrong with passing around a CD to rip some tracks, but I prefer to enjoy the anticipation when it's a record I'm really psyched about. So I refuse to listen to or distribute bootleg copies of this record.

There's nothin wrong with some preview clips though, which is why I'm glad I found this page of Ubiquity press releases that includes 30-second samples of every song on "Walking Backwards". Enjoy!

In other news, the first Gnarls Barkley single leaked the other day. Funky ass shit.

A thought...


Could Clutchy really be DANGER MOUSE??

Mad Props & Darondo Track in Okayplayer

Oh damn! Yesterday, OkayPlayer posted a huge article about Clutchy and the new album (scroll down to Blogarhythms Jan. 21). The article talks about the backstory, runs through a quick list of the usual suspects (Cut Chemist, DJ Shadow, MF Doom, etc), and describes "Walking Backwards" as sounding like "secret samples from never-before-released beats by the RZA, Madlib and Mobb Deep". Sounds good to me!!

Even better, the article lets you stream the track "The Love Of a Woman" featuring Darondo, and as I suspected, it is smoooooooth. Clutchy's hi-hat sounds like it's floating through a mysterious fog, and the little melodies going on in the background serve up electric piano, xylophone, harp, and lord knows what else. When the jazzy break hits at 1:52, I get shivers up my spine. DAMN I can't wait til this record comes out!

The author of the article, a dude named El Keter, says he's spoken with an official representative from the Clutchy camp. I've emailed him to see if he's got any clues or info to add...keep ya posted.

New Official CH Site

One more thing for today - it looks like Clutchy has a new website! The link is www.whoisclutchyhopkins.com, and it seems like it's replaced www.misledchildren.com as the official place to buy Clutchy's music. Still a sparse, bare-bones site, but less cryptic and with more updated info. It says "Walking Backwards" features three guests: Darondo (as I mentioned earlier), Todd Simon, and Shawn Lee.

Also, Billboard.com and All Music Guide finally put up an entry on Clutchy. It summarizes the story pretty accurately. I'm gonna email the author and see if he has any more info...

Peace,
Jerry K

Clutchy On Radio + Video

Thought I'd post a couple of recently discovered tid-bits...

On January 18th, I found a website for a radio show in Los Angeles that posted a major article about Clutchy. The station is KPFK 90.7 Pacifica public radio, and the show is called (ironically) "TruthSeekers". Their mission is "to provide the soundtrack to mind expansion and enlightenment through music", which sounds like a perfect fit for Clutchy's tunes. The article talks about a mystical experience where the spirit of Clutchy guides the writer's computer to his MySpace, then takes him on a halluninated trip to the sound of his music. Kind of a goofy piece, but it's cool that Clutchy is getting some radio play. The show runs from 1 to 3 am on Saturday morning, so if you're up late-nite and craving some spiritual beats, check it out.

Also, a couple of videos surfaced on YouTube. They were filmed in Houston Texas by some unknown dude, and they seem to be pieces of the "where is clutchy?" puzzle. One shows a bunch of dudes on the street discussing his whereabouts:



The other is of a band called Peekaboo Theory playing at a street festival. They ask if Clutchy can come up and jam...clearly they don't know TOO much about him! But these dudes in the video seem to know a little more...

New Year, New Music

Howdy readers,

It's been a while since my last entry. Sorry bout that! Holiday season had me tied up with family stuff, and I started to lose track of this blog. But I'm back, and just in time, it seems. Ubiquity is releasing Clutchy's next album on February 5th.

It's called "Walking Backwards", and from the few reviews and clips I've seen on the Web, it sounds like it's gonna be good. According to this German hip-hop site, it's got 12 tracks (which have NAMES this time, not just "3:42") and at least one guest star - Ubiquity artist Darondo, presumably singing some soulful hooks. There's a new track on Clutchy's MySpace titled "Percy On the One". Funky keyboards and fingerpicked guitar over a junkyard soul vibe...in other words, classic Clutchy. This tune is TIGHT. The title might be a reference to Percy Crimmons, the shady dude from the videos. Still waiting for Part 3 of the documentary to drop...

Since my last post, Clutchy's gotten some props for his last album in a lot of year-end reviews. Gilles Peterson (big influential DJ for BBC Radio) picked one of the Clutchy Hopkins/MF Doom remixes for his "35 Best Tracks of 2007" list. Review site Hip Hop Crossroads gave it a 4 out of 5. Music blogger Shawn Avery put "Life of Clutchy" in his Top 10 Albums of the Year, going as far as to call it a "no-brainer" purchase. A few other random blogs make mention of the record, and while one speculates he's actually Shawn Lee's alter ego (doubtful), no one offers any real new information.

Big thanks to Mike and all you other anonymous cats that have left comments. Keep 'em coming. I'm gonna try to post a few more updates in the coming days. The new album drops in about two weeks...if I can snag an mp3 before then, I'll link to it here. In the meantime, here's the "Walking Backwards" tracklist from that German site:

01. Sound Of The Ghost (3:04)
02. Song For Wolfie (4:36)
03. Love Of A Woman Ft. Darondo (4:43)
04. 3rd Element (5:56)
05. Para Los Ninos (3:10)
06. Horny Tickle (3:44)
07. Percy On The One (4:50)
08. Rocktober (4:12)
09. Alla Oscar (3:49)
10. Good Omen (3:04)
11. Swap Meet Me At The Corner (4:18)
12. Last Time For Your Mind (4:17)