It was all good just a week ago...

It was all very, very good. May fifth held a little something for everyone. These were my tope five.

My countdown to 5/5/09 started early last winter when word trickled down that this would be the day we'd finally be getting our ears on a new Big Quarters album. Thankfully I had my Big Quarters Direct subscription to hold me down until then. Five dollars for five new songs every month. In addition to that directors received the pre-order package (plus Mankwe's cd which I mentioned last week) for free. I'm pretty sure that anyone who's been to a show or visited the myspace or blog will attest Brandon Allday and Medium Zach are always looking out for their fans. The feeling is of course mutual. I'm really delighted by this newest effort and excited to see it bringing new fans around to share the journey with. Old favorites M.anifest, Crescent Moon and P.O.S. all appear on tracks as well as Mankwe Ndosi. (Are you getting the feeling you've only begun to start hearing this name yet?) I always have a hard time picking favorites but at the moment I'm going with Blessed, Wipe the Dust, One on the Lip and Barter System. As if the album itself weren't enough when you order a physical copy you'll also get a free month of BQ Direct. The official release party will be held at the Triple Rock in Minneapolis on the 23rd, hope to see some of you there.

Okay so a lot of us had our hands on this at least a good week early, Black Clover are definitely those dudes. In addition to finally releasing the 5th installment of the Love Potion Collection series and Special Reserve 5 Black Clover Records have also introduced a series of limited edition shirts. Series 1 & 2 are pictured above. A new spin on the classic logo t. Series 1 (the blue and white) was available as a pre-order bundle with LPC5 and sold out in less than 24 hours leaving several Lethalvillians without. Series 2, my favorite so far, is going fast and a few sizes are almost sold out. These are very limited runs and a new colorway will be introduced as each one sells out so check lethalville.net often or you may miss out.

But we're not here to talk about t-shirts (this time) this is about a love of mine called Love Potion #5. Favorites on this one include but are not limited to So Fly, Cherry Soda Pop Demo, Unfinished Love Song Thing and Heart Uvva Pig. Of course when you order this from Lethalville.net you also get Special Reserve 5 Town. Its eerie and pretty much amazing. There's no tracklisting on this one and when I inquired I was told "its kind of mysterious enough to not have a tracklisting." But for those who need to label it Town pt1, Town pt2 and the rest is just Town Noise. Thanks Willis!

The artwork alone is worth the $8 the extremely limited (only 50 copies made) for K.'s Responsive Chord cost me. All hand done by our very own Miss Jamee and all shipped out with an accompanying original coffee drip piece also by Jamee. This is definitely my favorite release by K. to date. Its still loud and chaotic but there's more of a balance between the "noise" and the vocals this time around. You can stream and/or download the whole thing and view the artwork for each individual track over at The Responsive Chord, those Gahed kids don't mess around. Its hard to pick favorites especially as short as this offering is but I'd have to say Band.Aid, Teething and Riderback.

Title changes, cover art switch ups, pushbacks, pushbacks, pushbacks but its finally here, new Abrude. This album makes me long for summer and wish I owned a hammock so I could laze around all day sipping lemonade and drifting away to it. The Haiku D'Etat track is by far my favorite and I cannot wait to see those dudes up in front of a festival sized crowd at SoundSet. As much as I enjoy their solo efforts I'll always love them more together.

Not pictured: Funcrusher Plus re-release. Get it. Its possible these guys influenced 80% of what's dope about your hip hop collection.