With its stylistic cross between 802s-dated art rock and yuppie-soul and an entertaining edge-of-camp vibe that leaves all kinds of question marks as to where they land on the irony scale, three-piece Brooklyn-based indie newcomers Japan Soul end up making a delightfully intriguing introductory mark with debut single "Plastic Utopia". Lyrically reflecting on the troubling times we currently live in, but sung through vocal stamps that veer between slightly spoof-leaning riffs on The Bee Gees' harmonic falsetto chirps and Teddy Pendergrass' gruff soul baritone, "Utopia" is an oddball little tune, yet it gels into something gorgeous, [...]
On the heels of lighting up music blogs worldwide with his guest turn on Club Cheval's irresistible flip on Rihanna's "Jump" , the ever-busy Theophilus London has hopped on to a new project, Paris 96, a collaboration with R&B singer-songwriter Jesse Boykins III (himself, fresh off his own side duo project, the MeLo-X-accompanied Zulu Guru ). Considering the respective catalog of both artists, quality and creativity is expected, but while we'll have to wait until April to hear their debut EP in full, first single "Afternoon" should no doubt hold fans [...]
File Brooklyn artist Kilo Kish among the many up-and-coming underground hip hop figures leading the next-gen rap scene down all kinds of fascinatingly experimental, genre-blurring routes. On her new mixtape K+ , Kish gets assistance from blog-baiting acts like Star Slinger, Childish Gambino, Earl Sweatshirt, The Internet, A$AP Ferg and more, but she's a compelling force all on her own, her unique, cotton candy-soft talk-sung vocal imprint boasting a sharp flow and stream-of-consciousness-ish delivery that folds in quite appealingly to the set's cloudy, sonic dreamscapes. You can stream the project in [...]
Chicago indie act Sunjacket may be newcomers to the scene and still in the demo stage, but on "Grandstanders", the first of four rough drafts to be released from the five-piece act born out of a single 15-hour studio session, one can easily detect that the band have that special something to get the buzz train started. With its rustic alt-rock melancholy, brain-stapling grasp of melodicism and invitingly taut interplay of instrumentation, "Grandstanders" produces a solid introductory look at the newbies, but if it's one aspect to their sound we would advise Sunjacket to lean the [...]
For those who like the EDM, but feel like they're a bit too chill or...let's just say mature to get down with the beat-tastic noise that constitutes a large chunk of the genre, perhaps producer Madeaux will be the answer to your issues. Throughout the four tracks that make up his newly released self-titled debut EP, Madeaux cooks up twenty minutes' worth of the kind of classy and relaxing downtempo vibes that could easily soundtrack either the coolest jazz lounge spot you're too much of a nobody to get into or a laidback, candle-lit [...]
Teedra Moses may best be known these days as the First Lady of Maybach Music, but long before she was teaming up with Rick Ross & Co. on tracks, the singer-songwriter was making some attention-grabbing strides within the industry, co-penning hit singles for Christina Milian ( "Dip It Low" ) and Trina ( "Here We Go" ) and earning rave reviews on her own for the 2004 debut Complex Simplicity , a solid slab of post-millennial urban contemporary with a classic feel that deserved far more commercial success than it was ultimately handled. [...]
Six years after snatching up a huge wave of online buzz as the 'new 'The' band to love' thanks to addicting tracks like the swaggering Strokes-meets-Rolling Stones funk-punk boogie "Rich Girls" , New York indie rockers The Virgins have returned, creeping back up from the edge of memory backed by a new label (Julian Casablancas' Cult Records ) and ready to drop their sophomore full length, Strike Gently , due March 12th. And while it may have been a long while since we've heard from them in real time, [...]
As exciting as it is to simply hear that James Blake is going to finally drop the full-length follow-up to his stunning 2011 self-titled debut in just a few short weeks, that internal giddiness is nothing compared to the jolt of YAS!!!! that enters the body when actually aurally digesting the new project's hours-old first sample "Retrograde". Almost immediately positioning itself in Song of The Year territory from its opening sixty seconds alone (where James does nothing but wordlessly warble over a sparse bed of handclaps and piano), "Retograde"'s slow-burning [...]
In an cultural era that has built the term "YOLO" up to be nothing more than an excuse to endlessly get your nightlife hi-jinks on, emcees SkyBlew , WhizKid and (nerdcore icon) Mega Ran arrive like a breath of fresh air on a collaboration offering a far more mature perspective on what it means to "only live once". Set atop producer Raisi K. 's sublimely looped sample of Super Mario World 's 'Game Over' theme and boasting verses that slyly weave in multiple video game references, the [...]
Despite Game sampling their "1st of Tha Month" track to marvelous effect on last year's should've-been-bigger "Celebration" , it's a bit strange how little Bone Thugs N Harmony are referenced these days considering how big of a presence and impact they had in not only hip hop but the pop world back in the 902s, much of their multi-platinum success attributed to the at-one-point inescapable homie dedication "Crossroads" , a crossover mega-smash that gifted the Cleveland group an eight-week stay at the top of the Hot 100 and scored them a Grammy. [...]
London-based duo Elephant (Amelia Rivas and Christian Pinchbeck) gorgeously melt the past into the present on new track "Skyscraper", a song infused with a haunting, parents' vinyl-fogged swirl and seasoned with old Hollywood musical choral blasts that makes it sound like something that was birthed many decades before and only recently uncovered from some long-locked vault. In a modern-day context, its hazy overcast and hint of mystery earns it the 'dream-pop' tag, but, to be honest, the vintage sensibility excellently mined here-in the arrangement's romantically lush Wall of Sound sway and the shimmering strains of doo-wop [...]
With a winning recipe melding indie rock jangle and synthy dance influences with a radio-ready pop-craft and polish, Aussie sibling (Keith, Michael and Steven Jeffrey) + 1 (Darren Sell) act Atlas Genius have pretty much sounded like the next "it" band since stumbling on the scene a couple years back, enjoying a Top 5 alternative rock radio smash ( "Trojans" ) and a well-received EP (last year's Through The Glass ) along with mucho blog hype in the time since. Judging by the sound of their newest offering "If [...]
With the 2 Chainz-meets-"The Chain" first taste of The Melker Project 's new Fleetwood Mac mash-up-athon project continuing to establish itself as a certified Web smash, the unleashing of the full Skeetwood Mac set couldn't have come at a better time. Below, you can check out the rest of the five-track collection pairing the Mac up with names like Yung Joc and Trick Daddy, but earning our blue ribbon prizes would be the rap-rock autumnal bliss that emerges from the Jay-Z "Feelin' It" x "Landslide" blend ("Feelin' The Landslide") and our next strip [...]
With seemingly every other '902s R&B smash getting reincarnated under a (insert whatever)-wave brush these days, it was really only a matter of time before someone finally got around to digging into the catalog of one of the era's kings of the baby-making jam, Keith Sweat. "Nobody" , the crooner's sexy chart-topping 1996 duet with Athena Cage (most memorable for that ridiculously awesome "ON-WAWN-WAWN AND ON-WAWN!!" bridge) is redressed with a haunting psychedelic-pop haziness in the collaborative hands of Philippines-based producer Eyedress and vocalist Skint Eastwood , their vocals bringing the key sensuality [...]
We were first introduced to Kev Paris via his 2012 mixtape For The Hip-Hop Junkies , a collection that saw the Bronx emcee earning plenty of "Like" points from us with a slew of excellent beat-flips sourced from the '902s. On his poignant new track "Akwaaba" though, Paris ventures even deeper back into time, tracing his roots back through Africa. "Way back when when we had gold/ We were slaves, so sad to see us sold/ If you differ close your eyes/ Let me paint a better picture/ Five [...]
It's always nice to be reminded that vocal manipulation tricks in pop don't have to start and end with Auto-Tune. Case in point, this vocoder-slathered latest from French electro producer Daze . A non-Frank Ocean cover (something we're somehow simultaneously relieved and disappointed by) rooted in the still quite fantastical (and Zapp & Roger and Daft Punk-mastered) idea of robots who can play music and emote human feelings too, Daze's "Thinking About You" gets a lot out of basically one line ("I'm thinking about you girl"), taking all the fond nostalgia, crushing giddiness and sad longing that [...]
With the kind of massive critical impact Kendrick Lamar's debut album had upon its release late last year, we've pretty much expected a large chunk of 2013 to be filled with an onslaught of remixes, freestyles and edits re-interpreting every inch of the set, with many of them being of a direct-to-trash bin quality. This stab at good kid 's "Poetic Justice" from Brighton songbird Elli Ingram is a definite keeper though. First off, homegirl's voice, all full-bodied soulful, is the type that could get a standing ovation from simply reciting [...]
Though "Started From The Bottom", the newest from Drake , was initially supposed to be premiered on Grammy night , that was apparently too long of a wait for the eternally pensive rapper/ singer who lit up the Internetz late last evening with an early self-leaking of the first sampling of his upcoming third studio effort, accompanied by a letter in which he gets on the defensive (in that kind-hearted, Drake type of way) about all the jokes being made of his (presumed) less-than-typical rap star come-up as a well-off teen soap actor. Of [...]
In one corner, an increasingly rising, and much-acclaimed, figure in the underground NYC hip hop and dance scene, blending ballroom culture snap and a mean, quotable-heavy lyrical arsenal over the most experimental of beats and vocal mastering. In the other, the "rap game Taylor Swift", a wildly polarizing teen-aged viral hip-pop curiosity-phenom from Florida taking elements of boy-obsessed social media gibberish, Lil' B, Ke$ha and Lil' Wayne at his weirdest and filtering them through fascinating cloud-rap nuggets pushed along by a "flow" that is essentially casual conversational rambling. To attempt to express the mind-melting incredulity [...]
Months after earning our hype for the alt-indie rock bliss that was their single "Wait" , Brooklyn's Lazyeyes have returned with their self-titled debut EP , a four-track collection that builds upon that initial promise with more enchanting doses of guitar-drenched melancholy fogged over with enough muddled haze to sound like some mid-902s cassette tape that just spent the past decade and a half lying at the bottom of the ocean. Though "Wait" continues to stand out as the band at their best, the mini-album does produce a second personal favorite in [...]
Mixtape Maestro
Listen to Daft Punk’s “Horizon”, the Japanese bonus track for Random Access Memories
Diplo Clarifies His Thoughts On Daft Punk’s ‘Random Access Memories’ Via Lengthy Facebook Letter
Daft Punk – “Horizon” (Japan-Only Bonus Track)
