Blue Sky Black Death

Blue Sky Black Death (abbreviated BSBD) is a production duo based in the San Francisco Bay Area. It consists of Ryan Maguire, better known by his stage name Kingston, and Ian Taggart, better known by his stage name Young God. They are known principally for their hip hop and instrumental music, made with a mixture of live instrumentation and sampling. Their name is "a skydiving phrase alluding to beauty and death."

History

Kingston and Young God met and began collaborating on music in 2003. Young God, working under the name Rev. Left, began creating beats to rap over, but abandoned rapping and started producing exclusively around 2000. Kingston, working under the name Orphan, began his solo producing career collaborating with rapper Noah23 and the Plague Language collective (to which Young God also contributed production). Kingston entirely produced Noah23's debut album Cytoplasm Pixel in 1999, and the two collaborated closely until Jupiter Sajitarius in 2004, after which they parted ways. In the same year, Kingston worked on projects for Virtuoso's Omnipotent Records. He contributed a number of tracks to Jus Allah's scheduled Omnipotent debut All Fates Have Changed, but the album was shelved. The tracks "Vengeance" and "Drill Sergeant" were later released on BSBD's Dirtnap mixtape, and a number of other beats recorded for the album were bootlegged on The Devil'z Rejects album Necronomicon. One Kingston beat, "Supreme (Black God's Remix)" was included on the Babygrande Records release of All Fates Have Changed in 2005.

Young God (EP)

Young God is an extended play by American post-punk band Swans. It was released in 1984, through record label K.422. It is also referred to as "Raping a Slave" and "I Crawled", but is officially referred to as Young God by the band. As with Cop, the cover art includes a notice that the record is "designed to be played at maximum volume."

Background

Young God is considered by critics to be one of Swans' most brutal releases, similar in sound to the band's first two albums, Filth (1983) and Cop (1984), but slightly more experimental, and with subject matter exemplified by the title track, from the point of view of serial killer Ed Gein. One notable element of the release is the use of a chain and metal table in the percussion section.

Track listing

All lyrics written by Michael Gira, all music composed by Swans.

Release

The EP sold around 1000 copies in its first year, making it K.422's highest-selling record.

It has been re-released with the Cop LP.

Legacy

Kurt Cobain included it (under the name of "Raping a Slave") as his fiftieth favorite album on one of his last "50 Favorite Albums" lists in his Journals.