STS continues to tease his track-flipping GOLDRush collection (dropping Feb. 29th) with latest installment "Downhill", an introspective bent powered by the oft-sampled gloomy indie pop of The xx's "Shelter" . As producer Eric Hahn adds a subtle knock to the track's dreamy, nocturnal melancholy, "Downhill" sees STS stewing within the muted excitement of being thisclose to his superstar dreams coming true ("It's feelin' like we finally winning...") while prematurely worrying about having to sustain the heights ("Hope I don't lose control/ Or lose my pants, or lose my soul/ Once you reach [...]
Rocking a cool vintage reggae/ dub swirl that, from second one, dictates your body begin working some serious slow-motion wind n' grinds, "Keep You", the debut single from duo Wild Belle (siblings Natalie & Eliot Bergman) lands as a pretty inviting introductory piece for the Chicago act. Here, neatly tucked away in the hazy psychedelia of Eliot's horn-laced island-pop strut, Natalie sings a sorrowful tale of not being her man's number one. "Call me after Nancy but before Rachel/ Why can't i keep you for myself?" she coos, her tone's striking dead-eyed numbness illustrating her near-zombie [...]
Re-fashioning a classic diss from the ball culture/ vogue scene into a super-catchy, super-menacing hook threat as a spooky, minimalist thump spends a tense four minutes sounding like it's about to explode into something big at any second, "Ima Read", from underground act Zebra Katz (a project born from the mind of performance artist Ojay Morgan and brought forth from Mad Decent's tastemaking imprint Jeffree's ), emerges as the future-sensation club tune to beat in the forthcoming Spring Break Jam Sweepstakes. The track, reminiscent of both Azealia Banks current, superstar-making blog-smashes and [...]
Among the handful of goodies we've heard from Elle Varner so far, the promising R&B newcomer has proven to be quite adept at putting the giddy highs of romance into words, whether it's documenting feverish, early stage crushing on "Only Wanna Give It To You" and "Refill" or going far maturer with the nether-regions throbbing that dominated "Sound Proof Room". But what of themes dealing with the lesser pleasant aspect of relationships? On "Go", a standout cut from Varner's excellent new mixtape Conversational Lush , the singer-songwriter effortlessly shows that she can be just [...]
Arctic Monkeys ' previous trips to BBC's Live Lounge saw them covering Girls Aloud's "Love Machine" and Amy Winehouse's "You Know I'm No Good" with fantastic results, so simply the idea of them going back to the female pop well for their latest LL remake pick dubs it an instant must-hear, especially if that cover choice happens to be Katy B's "Katy On A Mission" , one of 20112s baddest club offerings. As exciting as it would be to hear Alex Turner & Co. get [...]
Rocking multi-instrumentalist chops, a distinctive look that quickly alerts the senses to her being something special, and a tender R&B/ jazz/ pop/ folk-hybrid singer-songwriter confessional sound that's as relaxing as a sip of chamomile tea, it's really no wonder how 22-year-old, London-born newcomer Lianne La Havas has managed to fully captivate nearly any and everyone who has caught one of her live performances or somehow became aware of either one, or both, of her fantastic two 2011 EP's (freebie Live in L.A. and Lost & Found ). [...]
Three years after proving he was more than just a "male Kate Nash" with his sonically ambitious, world-pop genre-hop fest sophomore set Everything Is New (which featured the still great '09 highlights "Tonight's Today" and "Pull My Heart Away" ), Jack Peñate creeps back from the edge of memory with new single/ video "No One Lied", a beautifully understated, reverb-drenched ballad that finds the London-born singer-songwriter still spending his days ruminating over the "big" things. "Heaven is a place/ No one lied/ It's rushing through your veins/ Flooding your [...]
"Summertime, all the time" goes the mantra of previously MM -hyped producer Viceroy , which, in this currently cruel winter season when being outside for only a few minutes makes you feel like your nose and fingertips will fall off and shatter across the pavement in crumbles of ice, registers as a state of mind we can totally get behind. It helps that the San Francisco-based beatsmith makes it oh-so-easy by cooking up remix after remix that when being pumped into your ear-holes makes you feel like you're tanning away on the beach under [...]
ScHoolboy Q 's Habits & Contradictions -housed, A$AP Rocky-collabo "Hands on the Wheel" rides on one of the fiercest sample-based productions we've heard so far this year. Taking the relatively unknown Lissie's slightly-better-than-the-origi nal live cover of Kid Cudi's "Pursuit of Happiness" and reducing it to a compellingly chopped loop that hones in on key lines "Crush a bit, little bit, roll it up, take a hit/ Feelin' lit, feelin' light, 2 am summer night", Lis' fiery "Hands on the wheel" howls, and her rendition's thunderous rock lumber, then underlining [...]
While the main selling point of ZZ Ward 's Eleven Roses mixtape lies in the somewhat genius attention-nabbing tactic of marrying the Pennsylvania-born/ Oregon-raised singer-songwriter newcomer's massive bluesy pipes with familiar hip hop beats (resulting in pleasant surprises like "Better Off Dead" , soulful eeriness ["I got these voices in my head/ Strap up that straight-jacket on me"] attached to the demented creak of Tyler, The Creator's "Yonkers" ), if there's any single track on the mini-set to hint of Ward potentially conquering airwaves in 2012, "most recommended" honors would have [...]
STS continued his increasingly impressive hi-jack tour through other artists' material (aka his GOLD Rush series) with yesterday's video premiere of the woefully brief, MPIII-produced Drake/ Beyonce flip "We Threw A Party", but excuse us while we rewind the clock back to highlight last week's clever entry "Cut Me Off", not only the best belated riff off of Gotye's "Somebody That I Used To Know" that we've heard so far, but one that should easily elevate STS to the shortlist of XXL's 2012 Freshman class. Recycling the high tenor [...]
First off, don't act like Phil Collins' "In The Air Tonight" isn't one of the baddest cuts ever. The ominous production. The chilly ire simmering behind Phil's lyrical ache ("Well if you told me you were drowning/ I would not lend a hand..."). The spine-tingling, and deathlessly-mutated "urban legend" that spiraled from it. THOSE DRUMS (and the eternity of tension-filled build-up time it takes to get to that classic explosion of WHAMP-WHAMP WHAMP-WHAMP WHAMP-WHAMP WHAMP-WHAMP WHAMP! WHAMP!). The track, from Collins' 1981 international blockbuster Face Value [...]
With its relaxed vocal work and soothing acoustic instrumental frame, "This Is The Beginning", by German/ Swiss indie folk act BOY (in actuality, female duo Valeska Steiner & Sonja Glass), comes across like the cool chill of the early days of autumn bottled up and unleashed in musical form, which is an overly colorful (though, in our opinion, completely spot-on) way to describe the pleasant aural escape it provides when heard amid the current cruel days of winter. There's more to "Beginning" beyond its well-appreciated calming vibe though, its plucks-and-harmonies-laced gentility supporting a beautiful lyric that [...]
Nearly a year after first teasing forthcoming sophomore album Master of My Make-Believe with "Go" , Santigold has finally re-emerged with some fresh solo newness with "Big Mouth", a well-appreciated reminder of the genre-meshing carnival of fun that is the singer-songwriter's creative aesthetic. Featuring the sonically eclectic songbird launching some schoolyard chant lyrical daggers in the direction of those that "talk that shit non-stop" (a group that may or may not include Lady Gaga), "Big Mouth", jointly produced by Switch and Buraka Som Sistema , bursts alive with [...]
A month after re-training ears to handle their deafening ear-candy with early Reign of Terror preview, the nothing-but-hooks "Born To Lose" , Sleigh Bells have returned armed with what's being called the official first single to their upcoming sophomore outing in "Comeback Kid", another bombastic slab of pummeling beats and heavy riffage surrounding the sweet-as-gumdrops coos of Alexis Krauss who, as usual, seems oblivious to the end-of-days rawk theatrics destroying everything around her. What's notable about this one though is the effort being made to better distinguish the group's patented use [...]
"So my Mama tried to keep me out of trouble but it didn't work/ Threw a suit up on my body and said 'Kris let's go to church'," 24-year-old Brooklyn hip hop up-and-comer Kris Kasanova spits in the opening lines of "Oh Lord", but going to Sunday service is the last thing on his mind, figuring out how to make some dough while running the streets and bagging the finest of beauties proving to just be far too attractive a way to spend his time instead. This is just a few examples of the string of [...]
The unstoppable Azealia Banks (recently confirmed to join the line-up of this year's Coachella ) makes some serious R&B-Girl moves on her latest insta-banger "NEEDSUMLUV", a contagious force of all-sung, forward-thinking urban-pop (based around the beat of producer Machinedrum 's Aaliyah-sampling "SXLND" ) in which she takes on the role of the "other woman" with the goal set on eventually becoming the "main woman". "You ain't in love with her/ But she still lives in your heart/ But you be in my apartment, tearin me apart...", naughtily sings Banks, lacing the [...]
So... this happened over the past weekend, an awkward-to-watch ball-of-nerves live performance that unfortunately sparked up a whole new round of the on-going "I Hate Lana" campaign, the last thing the much-debated-over Del Rey needed as the release date for her Born To Die debut gets closer. Thankfully for her, here's something that should keep this week from being Lana's Most Embarrassing Ever: a pretty cool real-time-constructed remix/ cover of her (still great) "Video Games" handled by MeLo-X . For the rapper-producer, the track is nothing more than him [...]
After first catching our ears with debut entry "Falling" a few months back, Swedish electro-R&B duo Newtimers have returned with a second preview from their upcoming Ego project in "January Love", a mid-tempo ballad that continues to see the act toiling in a 802s soul-inspired vibe with fantastic results. Whereas "Fallin'" leaned more youthful freak-you-up funk though, "January" is all grown-folk soul seduction, a DeBarge-meets-Maxwell slow jam pondering over the exciting unpredictability of a romantic union's future possibilities ("Love keeps asking where to go/ Honestly, honestly I don't know/ But let's carry [...]
With the Pied Piper being a bit stingy recently in keeping us entertained with his signature brand of R&B cray, we've been forced to have seek out ways to satisfy our R. Kelly fix elsewhere. Usually that falls on hearing whatever newness The-Dream is up to, but here, Chicago producer/ remixer Johnny Lawson has come up with something equally as satisfying. Taking on Kellz' 2007 Double Up -housed "Real Talk" , a hilarious slice of expletive-laced soap opera soul in which he dodges question of [...]
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Princesse - Tell Me | MP3
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[LISTEN] Gotye (Passion Pit Remix)
New Remix: Jonquil - Run (RxGibbs Remix)
