Frickin' Unicorns!

(Before we get to the frickin' unicorns, here is something about a rap group)

About four years ago, when I got my first iPod (it was made of cement, had buttons the size of your dad's hands and stored a massive eleven songs) one of the first albums I uploaded was Northern State's Dying In Stereo.

I listened to that record so many times, it would probably still feature in my all-time most-played list, if only my PC hadn't gone all melty in 2004.

Often likened to a female Beastie Boys, the band had a snarky, playful delivery over some home-produced lo-fi beats. One of favourite lyrics was on the title track:
Edmund Hillary couldn't climb this
Parsley sage rosemary and thyme this
Step off, your flow is weak
Save that talk for Dawson's Creek

But, since their debut I've heard precious little about the New York-based, all-female rap trio. I remember readng they'd signed a deal with a major label and then... nothing.

Well, it turns out they had a big old row with Colombia Records and stormed off in a big-booted girly huff to make a record on an independent label. According to their website: "We teamed up with producer Chuck Brody of Shitake Monkey (Wu Tang Clan, Yoko Ono etc.) and Adrock from the Beastie Boys and began making our new album.

"We wrote some rock songs and some hip hop songs and some other kinds of songs. We pushed the limits more than ever in terms of what a hip-hop song might sound like."

And, listening to the results, it turns out that this genre-defining hip-hop sounds a bit like a rap version of the theme to Sabrina The Teenage Witch.

Worse things could have happened, I suppose.

The album is called Can I Keep This Pen? and it came out in the US this week. The first single is Better Already and the video features a frickin' unicorn.

We love frickin' unicorns.

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