Nathaniel Merriweather Presents Lovage: Music to Make Love to Your Old Lady By
So I downloaded this album over the weekend and I just listened to it straight through a few minutes ago.
All I have to say on first listen is damn. This album's the shit. Imagine the style of the smoother, darker tracks from Handsome Boy Modeling School (e.g. Once Again, Sunshine, The Truth) but with the obvious theme change the title implies, and comprising a full album. It's fantastic. If you liked Handsome Boy, you need to get yourself a copy of this album. Some of the spoken parts are funny (though, IMO, not as funny as the samples from Get A Life that were used on Handsome Boy), but at its core, this album's all about the mood that the beats set.
Maybe you're wondering why I insist on comparing this album to the little known Handsome Boy album. Well, this album isn't actually by someone named Nathaniel Merriweather. Nathaniel Merriweather is the alter-ego that Dan the Automator Nakamura used with Prince Paul (whose alter-ego was Chest Rockwell) on the Handsome Boy Modeling School album. Incidentally Chest (Paul that is) lends his vocals to a pretty funny opening track, explaining the benefits of using the Lovage album ("...you may have even tried ecstasy. But you haven't had real ecstasy until you've had Music to Make Love to Your Old Lady By."). So yeah, if that sounds slightly odd, or vague, you just have to listen to the albums. They're both full of really out there, high quality hip-hop.