A Better Life Through Koushik

So I wondered if this here blogosphere was truly a wild west wonderland of unchecked plagiarism and copyright infringement. Apparently not, as though fewer than 20 people looked at my post on Portishead's Third, one of them represented the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, which was enough to get that post taken down under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. I remain undeterred, however, to cover my favorite music of last year. Beyond being amazed by the dilligence, the only thing that really bothers me is this: if Hype Machine can snatch mp3 links at will, why can't I? I know they make more money than I do, because I don't. So now as we take a look at the wonderful music of Koushik, I hope you'll be satisfied with a no-video youtube clip:



Koushik Out My Window
Stone's Throw

If there's a lullaby racket, Koushik could be running the game. Out My Window opens on a note of unmitigated, dreamy bliss, and that note is maintained throughout the album. The producer's vocal contibutions are so airy they float above the tracks like a rainbow fog. Even this kind of transcendence can get boring over the course of a whole album, so fortunately Koushik's pallate expands like the feathers of a psychedelic peacock as we travel further into this neo-hippy gem. The gentleman is as much a blunted, eccentric hip-hop master mixer as his bosses at Stone's Throw, Madlib and Peanut Butter Wolf, and he understands fully how to use a DJ's bag of tricks to compress an acid addled '60s band's sonic scope into the personal vibes of one individual. Among the second generation Shadows, Koushik seems to have gotten closest to bringing the seminal DJ's depth to a new, flower powered plane without losing any of the space. This is where beats, rhymes (well, wispy, heavenly half-singing), and life meet peace, love and music, perhaps the perfect synthesis of California dreaming and hip-hop scheming that Stone's Throw has been going for. New parents invested in the new age of love: play this for your child to put them to sleep and fill them with wistful warmth (and to subliminally indoctrinate them into the limitless emotional pallate of hip-hop).