In which Friends of Friends affiliate and DC/LA resident Pcoat reduces BenZel’s much remixed “Fallin’ Love” into a primordial soup of choppy synth work, heavily pitched vocals and clicking percussion. The remix repeatedly sounds like it’s going to fall off the tracks into an off-beat “experimental” mish mash, but Pcoat stays the course and steadies the project. I would expect to hear much more from this dude in the future. Stream and download below.
So Friendzone’s long-awaited Kuchibiru Network 3 mixtape has finally hit the webs today and it is even greater than we ever could have imagined. Exclusives from Jerome LOL, Main Attrakionz, Ryan Hemsworth, Keyboard Kid and more were the first lines to catch our mind’s eye, but Silkky Johnson, Finally Boys and Shady Blaze also feature prominently and more than hold their weight on an impressive lineup of contemporary MCs and producers. You can stream and download individual tracks below, but you should really just grab the entire tape in one fell swoop right hurr.
Chicago production duo The-Drum first piqued our attention through their production work Barbados MC Haleek Maul and their profile has soared since then. Yesterday, we caught the duo’s remix of Shy Girls’ “Under Attack” and were immediately drawn in by its overwhelming sensuality. Honestly though, Yours Truly said it better than we ever could:
It’s the last dance of the night and you’re hoping she hasn’t noticed the thudding in your chest through the fabrics of your two shirts. You’re holding her close and barely moving, waiting urgently for the song to end but hoping it never does.
This girl is like the one from last weekend and all the weekends before, but there’s something about her. Her laugh has a different texture, her hair smells like peppermint, her lips look heavier and heavenly. She makes you feel tipsy, but also more sober than you have in a long time.
Stream below and keep your eye on this and/or that space for download/release information.
Since the release of his 2011 debut, Aaron Jerome aka SBTRKT has been striving for harder edges with every new one off and remix. SBTRKT will probably go down as one of the touchstones of the “bass” music era, an amorphous melange of garage, house, dubstep and techno elements. In 2012, Jerome dabbled in more straight-laced productions, throwing out some harder techno and house tracks. His latest remix, of Portico Quartet’s “Line”, is straight out of UK garage’s early years, all meticulously arranged bass weight and skittering vocals. This is not the garage many associate with Disclosure, Bicep, etc., it’s the garage that eventually helped spawn Coki, Mala and Loefah. There are light-hearted moments, but they are usually subsumed in a deluge of heaping sub bass. There’s no release date attached to the below video so you’ll just have to stream and enjoy.
Like the remix itself, the accompanying video for D33J’s take on Drake’s “Started From The Bottom” is beautifully obfuscated behind some tropical plants (sounds), a technicolor filter and plenty of melting reverb. It’s like watching the remix forumulate within the recent Anticon-signee’s own mind through some sort of drug-induced creative process. The storyboard of the mind is really something. Stream/watch below and download here.
Putting his slow house hat on, Mr. Ryan Hemsworth recently remixed Rhye’s sublimely heartbreaking “Open”, adding a groove almost entirely emotionally separate from the LA-based singer’s original. The remix creeps into electro territory a few times, but manages to keep its tactful feet, matching the plinking keys Hemsworth has seemingly strewn over a couple dozen remixes in the past year+. No word on a release date for this one yet, but you can preorder Rhye’s Woman album here.
Like Clams Casino, DJ Burn One and others before them, Blue Sky Black Death have released a tape of previously rapped over instrumentals for public scrutiny. Like Clams Casino (and DJ Burn One to a lesser extent), the Seattle duo’s Euphoric Tape is an unabated success as a solo entity, proving that their talents far surpass the role of backing agents. The tape is made of “instrumentals” (most are full-fledged songs in their own right) previously used by Nacho Picasso, Key Nyata, Deniro Farrar and a host of other MCs. “Love My Life”, previously featuring Pepperboy, stands up especially well on its own and really personifies the title of Euphoric Tape. Young God and Kingston have put up the tape for $10, but this release is well worth the money for anyone who claims to enjoy hip hop. Stream and cop below.
For the uninitiated, Nathan Johnson aka Hrdvsion is a Berlin by-way-of Victoria who specializes in meticulously constructed “bass” tunes (for lack of better terminology) that are equally hardbody and infectiously melodic. Most would agree that Hrdvsion’s tunes generally fit within the general house/techno sphere, but they certainly leap out of that canon fairly often. Johnson’s latest tune, a remix of Nihiti’s “Ghosts and Lovers” is a entrancing techno journey that simultaneously lulls the listener to sleep with wanderingly euphoric synth pads and defiantly heavy kicks. Stream below and grab the full Nihiti tape here.
It’s been awhile since we’ve heard non-TNGHT material from Hudson Mohawke and while the anthemic, bigger is better qualities of his work with Lunice is great and all, a return to the classics for the Glaswegian has us beaming. HudMo, Disclosure and AlunaGeorge are arguably three of the UK’s most buzz-worthy acts so all three on the same track might just push the internet into overdrive, but that’s not such a bad thing. Taking Aluna’s “let’s play rough” refrain to heart, HudMo’s remix of “White Noise” is a sensory overload of a hip hop stomper that abandons the original’s garage tendencies entirely. The remix is forthcoming on PMR, but until then stream below.
One criticism of Suffolk-resident Gerry Read’s house and techno creations is that they’re often obfuscated in a layer of clattering live percussion that makes their original intent difficult to decipher. This quality is actually part of what makes Read’s music so intrinsically interested to me, but it has definitely turned off more than a few listeners. The opening vocal sample simply stating “new style” on Read’s remix of Clouds’ “I’ll Be Broke” should make some happy though as he takes the Blawan/Kowton path into techno oblivion. Clouds’ Gold Panda-esque original is deemed unintelligible under Read’s huge stomp boxes and heavy distortion and the result is a truly original off-the-rails techno track. Truly no fucks given music. Stream below and grab the Clouds remix EP here.
The Astral Plane 