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Author Archives: Gabe Meier

From Free Gucci To TNGHT: A Retrospective

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July 24, 2012
2012, New Music, Remixes, Uncategorizable
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So the TNGHT (Hudson Mohawke + Lunice for those living under a rock) EP saw its American release today. Instead of an album review (words don’t do it justice), we’ve decided to compile a little retrospective on British producers lending their talents to American hip hop. In an interview with FACT last month, Lunice had this to say:

We’ve been doing this shit for years, and it’s not like we’re new or anything, it’s not like we’re new money shit, it’s not like we came out of the blue and we blew up like crazy. We’ve built a whole foundation of our work. So it’s about that time. I feel like that sort of movement is backed with all of our homies together, like: “This is us! You can’t do this shit! You can’t just take our ideas and come up with it all after all these years. We’re coming for you!

Clearly, Lunice believes that American hip hop producers have been misappropriating hip hop-indebted UK bass for a minute now and are taking a stand. While I don’t think Toomp and Hit-Boy are listening to too much Mount Kimbie, I get it: Lunice has a persecution complex… just kidding. With the EP set to take the States by storm and the duo’s remix of Flocka’s “Rooster In My Rari” igniting the interwebz, it’s easy to see where Lunice’s frustration is coming from. As the UK sound constantly progresses into exciting new territories via labels like LuckyMe and Night Slugs, American producers are often too content to find a sound and stick with it. As a result, some of the best interpretations of American, especially Southern, hip hop have come from British producers. TNGHT might be the apex of the trend (yes we know Lunice is Candian), but many other (mostly) pasty perpetrators have attempted to freshen up Stateside hip hop tropes, both new and old. This is not meant to a comprehensive review, because that would be impossible. It’s just a list of a lot of really fucking good producers remixing a lot of really ignorant hip hop music.

Dubbed by some as the “British Diplo”, it made all too much sense for Sinden to host volume two of Mad Decent’s Free Gucci series. The Burrrtish Edition features 16 remixes of Mr. Radric Davis’s trap anthems, courtesy of a  coterie of revered Brits: HudMo, Rustie, Melé, Mosca and Toddla T just to name a few. Predictably weirder than the Diplo hosted Volume One (with the exception of the Flying Lotus contribution), the tape is an exhibition in low end sounds with varying levels of success. HudMo’s take on “Party Animal” essentially spawned TNGHT, is utterly playable to this day and should probably soundtrack your next night of drunken shenanigans. Melé also wins big with his wonky reinterpretation of “Missing” from The Appeal: Georgia’s Most Wanted (a largely overlooked Gucci project). Stripped down and menacing, “Missing” is a precursor to some of Melé’s more recent Soundcloud uploads. Burrrtish isn’t much of a cohesive project drawing from every realm of bass music, but who cares when HudMo, Melé, Rustie and Sinden bring the collective heat?

Download: Sinden Presents Free Gucci 2:The Burrrtish Edition

Hit the jump for the rest of the retrospective…

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Jamie xx Lends Hand To Holly Miranda’s “Slow Burn Treason”

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July 24, 2012
New Music, Remixes
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We first heard it on his seminal Essential Mix last August and it is now available to the masses in its full, unadulterated brilliance. Just another edit from the driving force behind the best pop act in the world. A song that brings to mind a tropical beach as much as it does an obfuscated dream world, Jamie’s edit of Holly Miranda’s (who also owns a spot on XL’s roster) “Slow Burn Treason” is an exhibition in half-step percussion mastery. Imagine some young whomp-enthusiasts (no hate) finding out that Jamie used essentially the same format for “Slow Burn Treason” as their beloved Skrallex’s? High comedy. Anyways, Jamie strings Miranda and Kyp Malone’s (of TV On The Radio) ethereal vocals into a deeply orchestral territory, all the while avoiding the bombast that is usually associated with orchestra strings. it also sounds vaguely tropical, which is utterly perplexing to me. Whereas “Far Nearer” utilized steel drums to develop an overtly tropical sound, “Slow Burn Treason” reaches the surf without any (to my knowledge) instruments, samples or effects that could evoke sandy beaches or palm trees. This man’s ceiling has no limit. Look out for The xx’s Coexist on September 10 and cross your fingers for some sort of full length from the ever precocious Jamie.

Flying Lotus and Earl Sweatshirt Join Forces On “Between Friends”

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July 23, 2012
2012, New Music
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Back in April, a menagerie of characters joined Flying Lotus on stage for the finale of his Weekend One Coachella set, punctuated by a live rendition of “Hard In Paint”. The on-stage crowd was made up largely of the Brainfeeder cohort, but one prepubescent face stuck out. None other than Earl Sweatshirt was standing front and center flapping his stick like arms and wylin’ like… well like he was on stage for a Thundercat assisted rendition of “Hard In The Paint”. Up until that point, a collaboration between the two Angelenos seemed like nothing more than a pipe dream and their public relationship boiled down to Twitter banter. From there though… whew anything was possible. “Between Friends” is that possibility. Part of Adult Swim’s Singles Series (faultless as of late), the collaboration is another example of the Odd Future stalwart taking his talents in a new direction. Last week, he was featured on The Alchemist’s dusty “Elimination Chamber” and “Between Friends” sees him attempting another distinctly non-Odd Future sound. Both fans and haters of the collective will be hard-pressed not to sink their teeth into “Between Friends”, also featuring the mysteriously named Captain Murphy that sounds a little like Tyler. The fractured beginning of the track is congruent with the off-kilter sound FlyLo has carefully cultivated, a sound as akin to Dilla as it is to Aphex Twin, that is to say somewhere in the realm between sample hip hop and jungle. Earl’s sometime frustrating monotone effortlessly slips into the grooves of the beat and that’s about all you need to know. Lucky for all of us, the good folks at Adult Swim are giving away “Between Friends” for free (get it below). The track will not appear on FlyLo’s upcoming Until The Quiet Comes, hitting us on October 1st.

Download: Flying Lotus – “Between Friends” Feat. Earl Sweatshirt and Captain Murphy)

Update: Flying Lotus was kind enough to upload the instrumental to his Soundcloud. Much love Mr. Ellison. Much love.

Boeboe Guest Mix For The Astral Plane

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July 19, 2012
2012, Mixes, New Music
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Since the inception of this blog, our foremost goal has been to display the music we love (and hope you love) in a tasteful, uninhibited fashion. To that point, I believe we’ve been fairly successful. Our secondary goal has been to bring you original content in the form of interviews, album reviews and most recently, our Mixes From The Astral Plane series. Today, we bring you a new form of original content: Guest Mixes. Whereas Mixes From The Astral Plane is meant to be a sort of overview of what we’re loving on at the moment, Guest Mixes will highlight the work of our favorite artists, one at a time.

For our first ever Guest Mix, we’ve enlisted the man we called the “Dutch trap luminary” last month, Boeboe. As the wheat separates from the chaff in the trap game, Boeboe has emerged with an impressive grasp of hip hop, as well as the strand of bass heavy British house music championed by the likes of Julio Bashmore, XXXY and Eats Everything. Last month’s Act Stupid EP on Sabacan Records exhibited Boeboe’s mastery of the low end and it doesn’t look like he’ll stop anytime soon. Without further ado, we present to you Boeboe’s Guest Mix.

Tracklist

1. Subp Yao – Law of The Jungle
2. A Chal – Paid in Full
3. Boeboe – Breakdown
4. SirOJ – Untitled (Exclusive) (forthcoming on 22Tracks)
5. LOL Boys – Flaunt It (Remix)
6. LZRKMMNDR – Big Ass Titties (Subp Yao Remix)
7. UZ x CRNKN – Booty 2 The Ground
8. Boeboe – Low Key
9. Boeboe – Green Component
10. +Verb – RTS
11. Boeboe – King (WIP)
12. Myrryrs – Fantom Doze
13. Baauer – My Nose

Viette Stays Hot With New Tracks, Mix

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July 18, 2012
Mixes, New Music
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What can we say about Viette that we haven’t already said? Our favorite White Zinfandel-loving Wisconsinite has been on a tear lately. He literally lit Soundcloud on fire. It happened. I was there. He’s also got a brand spanking new Facebook page so give him a holla. He works hard. Not only has he released two exquisite new bangers in the last days alone, but yesterday, he was featured in 110BPM’s guest mix series. Doin’ big thangs. Check the mix below and hit his Soundcloud for the full scoop.

Shlohmo Featured On Resident Advisor Podcast 320

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July 17, 2012
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Yesterday, I wrote that the new TNGHT/Four Tet mix is “the pitch perfect melding of promethazine and ecstasy culture”. If you haven’t noticed yet, I’m prone to making sweeping statements. As hard (in the paint) as HudMo and Lunice went on Radio One, Shlohmo might have just one upped them in the narcotic combination department. Coming in at just under an hour, Mr. Laufer’s contribution to Resident Advisor’s longstanding podcast series is an exhibition in convolution. In the vein of Boston Bun’s Leanhouse mixtapes, Laufer “takes his previously stated love for chopped n screwed music, tilts back the heads of hip-hop, house, juke and R&B, and throws gallons of purple drank down their collective throats.” Kind of like Brodinski before him, Shlohmo’s mix is a compilation of his own screwed edits of house, juke, R&B and hip hop cuts. The mix is at its most successful when it exists on both ends of the tempo spectrum, exhibiting both raucous juke and lethargic R&B edits simultaneously. Head over to RA to download the mix and check the tracklist after the jump.

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New LOL Boys – “Changes”

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July 16, 2012
New Music
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LOL Boys have wrangled the contemporary interweb/Soundcloud like none other over the past year or so. From the name to the artwork to the ever-changing sound, the duo have toed the line between gimmick and art with an impressive consistency. Despite this, the quality of Jerome and Sam’s releases have always seemed to lag behind their interminable internet presence. That all ends with “Changes”. Putting the tried and true methods of UK Bass music against timeless jazz stylings could go horribly wrong in the wrong hands, but Jerome and Markus, with the help of vocalist Heart Streets, blow the combination out of the water. “Changes” is simply a beautiful composition. The Changes EP drops tomorrow on Friends of Friends. Stream below.

TNGHT And Four Tet Meld Promethazine and Ecstasy Culture

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July 16, 2012
Mixes
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I’m off three double stacks and I’m looking for that action

As much as it pains my hating heart, Diplo has been doing his damn thing on Radio 1Extra. Hopefully I don’t have to explain how fucking incredible two hours of Hudson Mohawke, Lunice and Four Tet laying down the phreshest hip hop beats and rhymes is so just grab a double cup and pop a squat. Seriously, stop what you’re doing. Who knew that the pitch perfect melding of promethazine and ecstasy culture would come in the form of a pasty Glaswegian and a gregarious Montréalaise. Four Tet impresses, fitting grime, R&B and a righteous Theo Parrish edit into the hip hop spectrum. I don’t think I’ll never get sick of “I’m God”. Stream below.

Stream: TNGHT (Hudson Mohawke and Lunice) and Four Tet on Radio 1Xtra

Curren$y and Harry Fraud As Tubbs And Crockett

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July 15, 2012
New Music
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Cigarette Boats follows a simple script; Spitta plays Tubbs and Fraud gives best Crockett impersonation. The scene set is distinctly Miami and the duo makes no attempt at hiding it. The title and Fraud’s overtly 80’s indebted beats make that clear enough. Spitta inhabits a space he’s comfortable enough with on the EP. Personal wealth, classic cars, and rollin’ up are the  topics he’s discussed ad infinitum, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Listening to Curren$y usually gives me a sense of comfort. I know exactly what I’m getting, but still end up pleasantly engaged by a few dozen pop culture references and punchlines. Fraud must have spent hours engorging himself on those low down shots of Testarossa’s in Vice while in the studio. He might of done the 80’s Miami sound better than anyone since… well 1980’s Miami. Cigarette Boats is free. It’s also Spitta’s most engrossing release since Covert Coup. Stream and download below.