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• As the landscape of listenable music gets bigger and bigger, the simple question — what to listen to? — becomes harder every day. It's like we're standing in an enormous supermarket, hungry for dinner, as workers tirelessly add shelves of products to the ends of every aisle. Indeed, such a bottomless well of choices can be paralyzing to the listener, and stultifying to an attempt at an enjoying an experience of music. If aggressive freedom of choice is bumming you out, you might make for yourself a trap to help keep focused. How convenient, then, that the forward-thinking FLASK LOUNGE debuts the new monthly series Trap Night, a more beat-driven offshoot of the BIG EASY's long-running Wednesday series Rap Night. Managed by MCs PENSIVV and EL SHUPACABRA, the evening is a much-needed next step for area hip hop, collecting beatmakers and producers for official sets rather than the open mic'd free-for-all of the Big Easy. Cleverly, the Trap folks whittle your options down even more by staging their event Sunday nights, while most other cultural producers are asleep or plotting their next moves. Let them apprehend you February 10, look for other Sunday entrapments throughout the winter, and research the Maine hip hop scene at APPLETON RADIO (appletonradio.com).• Then again, freedom rules too. Four local celebrants, wriggled out from the shackles of their primary groups, have revived the experimental, original jazz group PASTEL SOUND EXPLOSION. The act has been on again/off again since 2008 while its members have built the legacies of such local rock institutions as Theodore Treehouse, the Milkman's Union, Butcher Boy, and the Waldos, but they've managed recently to slip away in the name of this invigorating project. At one time purported to be a 33-member collective, the PSE perform as a four-piece at Local Sprouts Cooperative, Saturday at 7 pm.
• It has been irrefutably proven that ladies love Cool James, but recently released footage suggests that as far back as 1985, Maine loved LL COOL J, too. A recently uploaded video made it all the way to Slate's Culture Blog this week, showing the rapper, just 17 years old and anticipating the release of his first record, showcasing the art of scratching and beatboxing to a Waterville audience at Colby College, who, all things considered, might have had their hands full understanding the art of rapping alone. It's a beautiful, 24-minute piece of Maine cultural history, and we suggest you look it up.
Related:
Review: Akon | Freedom, Tyme fer moore lernin’, Will Beacon Hill be bullied into enacting a politically correct law?, More 
- Review: Akon | Freedom
Back in April 2007, R&B singer and rapper Akon dry-humped a 15-year-old girl on stage, an incident that led to some overblown criticism in the conservative media.
- Tyme fer moore lernin’
Much sport has been made of the hilariously misspelled signs created and proudly displayed at rallies by barely literate Tea Partiers.
- Will Beacon Hill be bullied into enacting a politically correct law?
A case of high-school bullying in South Hadley ended in tragedy this past January when the alleged victim, a freshman girl, committed suicide. Now, ramped up by the outrage over the case, Massachusetts legislators are in danger of enacting a politically correct law that could have devastating effects on our free speech.
- Critics' choice?
This month, Jonathan Franzen became the first living American novelist in 10 years to make the cover of Time . His Freedom — out this Tuesday, and his first novel since 2001's National Book Award–winning best seller, The Corrections — has been anointed the latest Great American Novel.
- Beyond espionage: Four ways the United States can still prosecute WikiLeaks's Julian Assange
Not long after WikiLeaks entered the international lexicon, the question became not whether the United States government would prosecute founder Julian Assange, but how .
- Review: For Greater Glory
Bring coffee, because director Dean Wright's dramatization of the 3-year-long Cristero War (1926-9) seems to last longer than the Mexican conflict itself.
- Blood on the tracks
Although there's a lot of noise on the Americana circuit these days, one very clear signal is a new split LP by BIG BLOOD and MICAH BLUE SMALDONE , two of the state's most arresting practitioners of progressive contemporary folk.
- Review: Apollo 18
Officially, the final lunar manned launch was Apollo 17 in 1972. But what if there was another, secret one, and footage from it was "found" somewhere?
- Review: Circumstance
Circumstance begins like an early Kiarostami film, but with schoolgirls in hijabs instead of schoolboys in sweaters.
- Foamspun jams
We blurbed it ages ago, but HUAK's excellent Yorba Linda is finally getting the wax treatment it deserves.
- For Memphis Three, a bitter guilty plea
On Friday — after inspiring songs, award-winning documentaries, and celebrity-led protests — the West Memphis Three were suddenly freed from state custody, but only after all three pleaded guilty to the murders as part of the deal that secured their freedom.
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Topics:
New England Music News
, Freedom, Flask Lounge, Wax Tablet
