Blog: WORD

Late last year, Midwest producer Fancy Mike released the great Madison Square Gardner EP on King Deluxe , full of thick programming and effervescent synths. One of the most notable aspects to his music, though, was an affinity with orchestral sounds and composition. While the music had its heart in hip-hop, the underlying structure was in the symphony. It lends his music a weight sometimes not found in the bright, spastic beat constructions that circle the globe today. Not one to rest on his laurels, the new Sigma Chi Primavera [...]

May has been a busy month of reviews for me. I’ve had reviews published in three different places: Little White Earbuds , FACT Magazine , and Sonic Router , who I just started writing for. In case anything was missed I wanted to run them down here. SR Mix #83: Dropping Gems (Dropping Gems) — Very proud to organize and publish an interview and mix with the great [...]

All too often a promising young artist releases a brilliant album and then disappears forever, almost like the process of that first album was too much like capturing lightning in a bottle, to use a cliche. For the past couple years, I had worried that was going to happen with Sanso-Xtro (Melissa Agate), whose Sentimentalist for Type Records in 2005 is easily one of their best releases and definitely one of my personal favorites. Slightly influenced from the IDM and electro-acoustical communities that birthed Type, Sentimentalist set itself [...]

My first contact with Matthew Mercer came about almost ten years ago through mutual friends. We immediately bonded over criss-crossing musical tastes and a constant hunger for new stuff to listen to. He was also an extremely talented composer with formal training and a real ear for tension. Early music was under the Systm name and fit in with the IDM sound of Autechre, Phonem, Arovane, etc. His progression into dance music was soon piqued by the glitch techno work of Akufen and the way that IDM sounds were given a new lease through 4/4. Soon enough he [...]

Doesn’t seem like that long ago that I posted about a bunch of great downloadable releases for free. Some of the below are free, or name your price, with one or two that are benefit compilations. It’s all pretty great stuff in the beats and synths range of hip-hop and electronic arena. Big fan of all of these. Various Artists — Gem Drops (Dropping Gems) Lovely atmospheric collection of beats and textures from the Dropping Gems collective with a laudable genesis: “As a central [...]

One of the tracks on Moa Pillar’s new EP, The Moon and Thunder Dance , first appeared on the excellent free compilation from Error Broadcast called Fly Russia, which I previously reviewed . About that particular track I said: “I can’t really think of anything in immediate memory that bangs quite so hard as Moa Pillar’s “Water Lily” (with the exception of Slugabed, maybe), a track that goes along way to making chirping bleeps the most menacing sound in existence. Perhaps it’s the tumbling drums behind it? Or the blunt instrument bass rolling along underneath it all? This [...]

100% of the proceeds from this new digital compilation will go to the Japan Red Cross to help with the relief effort there. 49 tracks, many of them exclusive, available for about $15.00. As of this morning, they have raised about $9,000.00 and are hoping to get to $10,000.00 in the next 24 hours. Amazing artists that have been covered here such as Rudi Zygadlo, Slugabed, Kode9, Illum Sphere, kidkanevil, Doshy, Pete Sasqwax, Kper, Virtual Boy, etc. Please go here to read more: Nihon Kizuna and go here to purchase via Bandcamp : [...]

Decided to do a quick badly-mixed mix today. A bunch of stuff I’m really enjoying at the moment. Most of this music is from the first 3 or 4 months of 2011, including a couple yet-to-be-released tracks. Like I said above: it’s badly mixed, so don’t expect too much. Track list and download link below. Chicken, Waffles, and Robots Download 01. Demdike Stare — Quiet Sky (Modern Love) 02. Deaf Center — Divided (Type) 03. [...]

• Like a Scientist - Chicken, Waffles, and Robots

Trawling my Facebook feed today, I noticed that Doshy linked to a compilation he has a track on. When I got home, I downloaded Mad-Hop Vol. 1 and started listening to it…always pays to listen to a free compilation, of course. Holy shit, there is some ridiculous beats on this thing. Anyway, it reminded me I hadn’t posted anything in awhile and I thought I would look through my 2011 downloads and mixes folders to see what’s up. Check these gratis music releases.…now! Mad-Hop [...]

When I was putting together my lists for the end of the year, I noticed one particular name that kept coming up again and again: Starkey . It led me to thinking about all of his output for 2010 and eventually the idea of a most valuable player in bass music formed. I can’t think of anyone more deserving. Read why. Photograph by Dan Wilton The Most Valuable Player: Starkey “The hardest working [...]

I grapple with the age of free downloadable music because I really do believe in the idea that artists should be paid for entertaining me. However, there is a certain logic to promotional giveaways. Many times when I download music like the stuff below, I end up supporting the artists or labels in different ways. Buying their latest single or EP on iTunes, getting the word out on Twitter, etc. Still, though, sometimes I worry that that this much free stuff out there devalues music in general, makes people expect for all music to be free. That entitled expectation leads [...]

Mixes are the primary way I find new music these days. There is so much out there to be listened to, its wonderful to have great DJs out there distilling the best of it down to hour-long chunks. The 15 mixes here are the best ones I can remember from the hundreds that were put out this year. I definitely played some of these more than anything this year. However, as always, its a small selection and by no means the final word on mixes. Joker [...]

• Diplo - Chasing the Dragon
• Loops Haunt - Strange Fruit Vol 1

With the sheer amount of music that is released and consumed by voracious fans and writers like me, there’s no question that “best of” lists are a harsh and difficult distillation of the year’s output. The lists can never represent the totality of great music that was released. This goes especially for 2010, for this year was perhaps one of the best in recent memory for quality releases that broke preconceptions. The below list is my version of “honorable mentions,” those worthy releases that were a hair’s breadth from the “best of” lists and deserve consideration. [...]

This year brought a musical ton of singles, albums, EPs, downloads, compilations, mixes, and new artists. In this spirit, I’ve chosen to make my year-end examination a multi-part extravaganza charmingly called LAS, 2010 . Instead of saving the “best albums” list for the end, I’m kicking it off with that venerable music critic’s mainstay. This is my statement on the 15 best music releases this year, mostly albums, with an EP and a compilation thrown in for good measure. Without further ado: [...]

Even though this blog has slowed in output, I’m still out there writing about music and trying to raise awareness of some of the great stuff being produced currently. I’ve been regularly contributing to Little White Earbuds and you can find my reviews to date here . A review of Skream’s killer Outside The Box went up today. My interview with Jimmy Edgar went up at FACT Magazine and I hope to be doing some more stuff with them in the future. Also, I’m constantly tweeting [...]

My first encounter with listening to Mary Anne Hobb s was in 2000 when she had James Lavelle (of Mo’Wax and Unkle) and Pablo (of Psychonauts) on the show to mix it up. Specifically I had read that they had played an acetate of the then-unheard “Giving Up The Ghost” track that DJ Shadow had made for Michael Mann’s The Insider . Never used, it eventually appeared on the follow-up to Endtroducing , The Private Press . This was the time of post– Endtroducing Shadow obsession for me and many others. How was I to [...]

Long time readers of this blog will know that I've been a fan of the various doings of The Glitch Mob for awhile now. From first stumbling upon Ooah's mixes to mixes and albums by edIT, they've been on my watch list for awhile. A full-length album for them seemed to be rumored years ago but it wasn't until recently that they solidified The Glitch Mob has a performing and recording force to be reckoned with. However, as a group known primarily for doing crazy "glitch remixes" of popular songs, how were they going to translate this into [...]

Saw this linked on Martin Clark 's twitter a couple days ago, grabbed it, forgot I grabbed, heard a track on Mary Anne Hobbs from last night, went crazy. Really style LA Beat style stuff. Fans of Shlohmo, Teebs, Baths, Flying Lotus, etc. should be all over this! No earthly idea who Dunian is but well worth the download. 4 tracks of pure head nodding lush shoegazery beats. Download DUNIAN - Free EP (ZIP) PS. Shlohmo 's Camping EP [...]

I just happened to see the cover of hotly-tipped producer Baths' new album for Anticon Cerulean , and was struck by a clear trend to this year's electronic music cover design. Is the inspiration for this rush of ominous sphere covers related to the the futuristic sounding year and it's titular movie 2010 - The Year We Make Contact (posters for the movie feature planets prominently as well). Or is the singularity approaching filling everyone with the hope that Barbelith is finally coming to push us into the supercontext? Yeah. Anyway, check out [...]

I've been trying to write a review of Rudi Zygadlo's amazing debut album Great Western Laymen for the past couple weeks but have been struggling with how to describe this opus. It's an immaculately produced vision, endlessly inventive with composition and sound design and tinged with more than a little humor. Beyond these words I am not sure how to talk about something that sounds like everything and nothing you've ever heard before. The festivities start up with "Manuscripts Don't Burn," a slinky number that introduces many of the Zygadlo hallmarks: a [...]