New song from Chicago's Supreme Cuts . More screwed and tweaked future R&B like "Amnesia" and "Months" before it. Not sure this post requires any additional commentary. I mean, just look at that artwork. Yup. Pretty much says it all. "Issues" sounds like a face-to-face encounter with a four-fingered, two-thumbed, anatomically androgynous R. Kelly doll in the middle of steamy dream pool that's also a dimensional portal. Creepy? Yes. Am I lovin' it anyway? Definitely. Rising designation from Pitchfork any day now... [...]
A new EP from Hypermagic ! San Fairy Ann . I had no idea either. So I looked it up. It's a World War I era English language epic fail on the pronunciation of the Italian phrase ça ne fait rien. Or so he says . It's also a band and a cycling club. But anyway. The blurry, echoing atmosphere on title track "San Fairy Ann" immediately recalls Washed Out, as generous helpings of heavily reverberating vocals hit hot oil [...]
You've already heard Daggereyess ' crystalline cut " Hooked ." Now you can hear the rest of his self-titled debut EP, streaming below and at his SoundCloud . Looks like it's set for digital release on May 9. "So Hyped" is a shimmering, throbbing banger; "Terrorrr" is an atmospheric adventure in dubstep. Daggereyess - Daggereyess EP by Daggereyess Follow Daggereyess on SoundCloud / Twitter / YouTube
New D. Paris jam. This one's a jaded pop gem that follows a drugged-out, despondent Natalie Merchant as she stumbles through a steel factory. Left Behind by D. Paris Follow D. Paris on SoundCloud and Twitter .
Montreal producer CFCF made a mix for the lovable Last Gas Station , and it's pretty much "killin' it" right now, to use the language of SXSW. (Can you tell I'm bitter I'm not there?) Anyway, like CFCF's own music and the plethora of other mixes he's made, these are some chilled-out dance, R&B and rap songs with some serious grooves to them. Featuring Asobi Seksu, Burial, Creep, Tangerine Dream, The Weekend and many more. Also has "Whispers," which appears to be a brand new CFCF song. All told, highly recommended listening. [...]
As if last year's collab between Burial & Four Tet wasn't grand enough, the two had Thom Yorke step into the mix for a new 12". Bummer, then, that the initial stock is already sold out , but Bleep says it "will have the final allocation on sale shortly" and advises you to sign up for their mailing list for more info. The songs premiered on Rinse FM last night, and luckily for us, some pioneering soul ripped the streaming audio and posted it in YouTube. And thus [...]
Daggereyess ' music is made by a dude named Darren . He has a preference for a low profile, which is perfectly respectable, but with songs as good as the ones he's posted to his SoundCloud, he might not be able to keep that up for much longer. "Hooked" is set to appear on a self-released digital EP. It cuts with the same crystalline, glacial ambiance as anything from Crystal Castles. Meanwhile, "Alocolol2" is a soaring flight through the heavens, with the breath of the gods blowing against our faces. Stay tuned for more [...]
Last time we heard from D. Paris , it was the throbbing disco cut "1954," which the tantalizingly great Transparent posted back in late February . Now we have "Trojan Drubbing" to tide us over until the London knob-twister strikes again. Where "1954" was made for a macho stroll down a hard street or for brooding in the basement of a dark club, "Trojan Drubbing" is a more intensely intimate song that invades your headspace. Featuring high-pitched vocal shrills that echo the more ethereal tones of Radiohead/Thom Yorke, this song seems to soundtrack [...]
ANTWERP 's remix of worriedaboutsatan landed in my inbox early yesterday morning, and it's been on steady repeat ever since. The Hackney-based electronic artist shortened the original version even as he made it all the more sonically saturated. What was once a skittering skeleton of a song is now a syrupy slow-burner with one hell of a plodding bass line. Seems like this qualifies as dreamstep, given the atmospherics and the jumbled vocals. Hear ANTWERP originals as well as remixes for Cymbals and D/R/U/G/S at his bandcamp . worriedaboutsatan [...]
Oh, the joys of following Gold Panda on Twitter . Self-depricating tweets and retweets. The ironic incongruity of the idea that the artist is followed by about 4,500 people yet "can't be bothered to follow anyone." Except one person. Namely Sofia Kourtesis , his girlfriend. Who has now released her own song, which Gold Panda tweeted about. "Abue" is simply breathtaking, yet breathtakingly simple. Like a painter who shares his or her palette and demonstrates his or her technique, Kourtesis lists the ingredients that were used to compose the [...]
Every once in a while, stars align in such a way as to allow the perfect union between artist and record label. One where the artist's sound is so inextricably attached to a label's aesthetic that any other record deal would seem lacking. It happened with Gold Panda and Ghostly International: the result was Lucky Shiner , my favorite album of 2010 . And it will happen again on March 28, when Fool House releases Taragana Pyjarama 's self-titled EP. Fool House is famous for having released Delorean's Best New Music'd [...]
The Animal Collective fan in me will likely always remember Lisbon as the place Panda Bear picked to record Person Pitch and to live with his wife and child. But now I can add Pedro Magina and his music to my list of Lisbon-based associations. Magina's Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five tape is out now on Not Not Fun Records , and though his music is nowhere near the sunburned, tropic-tinged sounds of Person Pitch , it manages to be just as meditative and [...]
Austin/San Marcos musician Mich D. White, who records "dubbeatkrunk" as Kinder and ambient instrumentals as MDW, emailed me yet another project that was born of White's recent desire to sing and to explore a darker sound. Hymnal 's songs do indeed exist on a different plane. While they're not necessarily "dark" per se, they might still be best heard in a room with little light. These are chilled-out tracks with a bluesy, jazzy vibe to them. Rightly or wrongly, I can't shake the thought of the subdued grooves of Deep Forest or a [...]
Dipped In Dollars just dropped this new Bibio joint and it's hitting really hard right now. "Saint Christopher" is pretty typical Bibio, where typical means it belongs to that group of Bibio songs with crystalline guitar notes that sound as though they are cracking and decaying right after they enter our ears. I already used the term " heartrendingly gorgeous " this week, but I'm going to have to apply it to "Saint Christopher" as well. From Mind Bokeh , out March 28 on Warp . Also [...]
Almost a week ago, I got an email from Daniel Smith, who records "face melting" music as Red Electric Rainbow and runs the cassette-only label Neon Blossom . Smith and Matt Kimmel of Acid Marshmallow curated last year's Neon Marshmallow Festival, and now they're collaborating on a new ambient/drone/noise/synth label called Hyperdelic Records . Hyperdelic's first six releases are available now and include cassettes from Red Electric Rainbow, Mark Bradley , Headboggle , Netherfriends , Seabat and Mike Shiflet . Other information was hard to come [...]
Been digging Supreme Cuts pretty hard ever since I heard them on Friendship Bracelet the other day. The Chicago act chops up R&B and serves it over some seriously sick and twisted beats. Seems like these songs could even be cut from the same cloth as Two Inch Punch , if that cloth was spattered with salmonella and left to fester for a few days. "Amnesia" almost qualifies as lovestep, but the more you listen, you realize it's really whining-baby-step. Meanwhile, "Months" alternates between air raid sirens, cavernous percussion and diva [...]
New remix from Gold Panda , supplier of Lucky Shiner , my favorite album of 2010 . Derwin Panda's remix of Yamaan's "Blossom" is a bit more aggressively techno than Lucky Shiner 's content, but it still retains the same bluish, icy electronic textures. Yamaan: Blossom [Chorus by Chiyori] (Gold Panda remix) by Gold Panda
Chicago's own lo-fi R&B crooner How To Dress Well just covered R. Kelly. It sounds...well...pretty much like How To Dress Well covering R. Kelly. Which is to say heartrendingly gorgeous. If there's sensuality here, as R&B almost requires, it's the intimacy with which artist Tom Krell quivers over each note and the cadence in which he sings. Frail and fractured to a frighteningly beautiful degree. How To Dress Well - Waking Up To Life Sometimes Seems Worse (R. Kelly Cover) (via Tri-Angle Records [...]
Brand new song from Four Tet , whose album There Is Love In You made my list of favorites of 2010 and whose two live performances in Chicago last year were some of the best I've ever seen. "Pinnacles" is classic Four Tet - radically simple bits of melodic sound repeating to meditative effect. In this case, it's a chugging bass line, Asian-sounding string plucks, cascades of house piano and staccato synth washes. From an upcoming split on Four Tet's own TEXT Records; the other side features Daphni's "Ye Ye." [...]
Casket Crash Vigil favorite RxRy just made his Alpha "microLP/megaEP" available for download at his blog. As the artist described in an interview with GIMME TINNITUS , Alpha is "comprised of samples taken from an AM radio and manipulated via midi sequencing." The resulting sounds are the most actively saturated we've heard from RxRy. They are also quite possibly his best work to date. Download Alpha here .
Casket Crash Vigil
Disclosure - 'When A Fire Starts To Burn' [Listen]
Earl Sweatshirt: “Guild” (feat. Mac Miller)
Series Preview: Cleveland Indians vs. Boston Red Sox – Terry Francona’s Return to Fenway
