Calm / Anti-Smiles
Album: Anti-Smiles   Collection:Hip-hop
Artist:Calm   Added:Feb 2010
Label:Dirty Laboratory  

A-File Activity
Add Date: 2010-03-28 Pull Date: 2010-05-30 Charts: Hip-Hop
Week Ending: Apr 4
Airplays: 2

Recent Airplay
1. Mar 30, 2010: 408's Finest
A Wet Nightmare
2. Mar 28, 2010: FLASHBANG RADIO
She Spoke Spanish

Album Review
Frank Rodriguez
Reviewed 2010-03-28
Calm are rapper Time and producer AwareNess. Time, apparently, is the future of underground hip hop. Time is great, smart. He seems to define himself either against what he hears in mainstream hip-hop or what fat Americans act like in general. His raps are jaded and piercing sometimes, delivery tight. His subject is the personal. AwareNess can come up with some good stuff, but it's all very repetitive esp. to start on this record. It's mostly bery simple pianos looped but a few of them manage to catch you. Time makes much about not selling out but maybe he should do it to get a cooler producer. Still, you must play this. Its TIGHT.

FCCs: 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 14, 17 PICKS: 5,6,7,9,10,11,12,14

1. FCC: "fuck everyone," "bitch" Ebbing organ. lyrics: just cause I'm independent doesn't mean I'm not good, don't call women bitches
2. Pianos like an academy award winning Ron Howard movie, looped. incongruous drums. producer talks the rhymes later on, interesting effect
3. really repetitive pianos, not catchy at all. Some sharp social commentary.
4. FCC: "fuckin bullshit" about how cynical he's become about everything. beat based on a repeating five tone tune and mid-tempo drums
**5. FCC: "fuck it all"/ dialog: "let's go to the mall find a girl put her in the group and get famous." For the fancy-sick. looped pianos again.
***6. gentle guitars. A series of stream-of-conscious metaphors around love, beginning with My love is like a lumberjack--and it's not corny at all. very sincere, good stuff. for the fancy-sick
***7. FCC: "shit" "fuck 3x" sweet ahing female voice. ebbing synth tone. pretty neat lyrics about Depression. cool use of stephen hawking voice at the end
8. FCC: "faggot" which rhymes with "habit". midtempo drum machine and toy piano. about why one should write songs about one's feelings. dialog silence and a muzak commercial thing at the end
**9. parlour jazz beat with stuttering piano, nice. anti-party anthem about how good it is to just go to the movies and get back by ten so you can do it again.
*10. FCC: "shit" "fuck" dialog about Time getting drugs from some dude, backed by futuristic synth beat
**11. pianos organs drums, some bass make a sort of stuttering storytelling beat. The songs about going from Denver to SF to try to have a sexual escapade with the devil
***12. FCC: "fucking" once at the end. wow, cleverly layered beat lead by piano, very simple but does a good job and gets not in the way. The lyrics are the best so far on the album--really smart with great insight and flow.
13. minute long: dark, ominous beat with not much lyrically
**14. FCC: "assholes" his friends that is. very tight raps here. This song is about people: "we run red lights just to get to the next/ all we want is money, drugs and sex"
15. like a quarter of a ratatat beat. and a weird delivery for Time: stunted and drawling but not to bad effect
16. disillusionment and pianos
17. FCC: "who gives a fuck?" each line starts with No more... but the thing never really goes anywhere.

Track Listing
1. Calm. Died   9. Get My Mind Right
2. Treat Me Like A Villain   10. Watch The Buildings Sway
3. Help Tha Medicine Go Down   11. She Spoke Spanish
4. We Are Anti-Music   12. A Wet Nightmare
5. This Is For   13. Untitled
6. Lumberjack Love   14. Friend Minus R
7. Depression 200 Mg   15. Sa Ta Ta
8. Anti-Smiles   16. Step Ladders
  17. 1+2=0