New Keyboard Kid – “My Based Journey”

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October 9, 2012
New Music
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While some deride the whole #Based movement, it’s impossible to deny the quality of music that has flown out of Lil B’s deranged mind. Seattle’s own Keyboard Kid is the prime purveyor of the based sound at the moment and has really come into his own as a solo artist in recent months. Later this month, he will release Don’t Leave Based World, an instrumental album that should act as a culmination of the work he’s put in over the past few years for a slew of MCs. “My Based Journey” is a bonus track from the album, but you can download the lush track over at Potholes In My Blog. As always, stay based friends.

Get To Know Industry Mainstay Nick Hook

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October 9, 2012
New Music
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You probably know Nick Hook even if you don’t think you do. As a member of Cubic Zirconia and Hudson  Mohawke collaborator (and probably a lot more behind the scenes work), you’ve probably listened to Hook’s music in one form or another. So while Without You is Hook’s debut, it’s not a debut in the purest sense of the word. Presented by Scion A/V (whose A&R’s or whomever have been on point as of late), Without You is a scattershot collection of tracks with influences from across the music spectrum, ranging from  plodding psych rock (“It’s A Sin”) to bombastic, apocalyptic hip hop (“Sirens”). Like Hook’s previous work, the collection is built on collaborations and The Gaslamp Killer, Computer Jay, El-P and Machinedrum all make appearances. Not taking anything away from Hook, but Without You is at its best when he’s assisted by another producer. Head over to the Scion A/V website to grab Without You and be sure to check out his hilarious Q&A column over at XLR8R.

Kill Or Be Killed With Deniro Farrar & Shady Blaze

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October 9, 2012
New Music
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Deniro Farrar’s sound has always been more akin to West Coast artists like Main Attrakionz and Schoolboy Q than his East Coast and/or Southern counterparts and the Kill Or Be Killed tape sees the Charlotte native matching bars with Green Ova member and East Oakland representative Shady Blaze. The tape is essentially an expanded version of last month’s DESTINY. altered and features an drool-worthy list of producers ranging from Green Ova mainstays Ryan Hemsworth and Friendzone to Sines and Lunice’s 808s driven take on Bass music. Like the title suggests, Farrar and Blaze are mainly concerned with street realism and their contrasting lyrical styles mash surprisingly well. Astral Plane favorite Haleek Maul features on the desolate Hemsworth produced “Cold Blood” and contributes one of the tapes best verses. Stream Kill Or Be Killed below and head here to download it (name your price).

New Pusha T – “Pain” Feat. Future (Prod. Kanye West)

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October 9, 2012
New Music
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Powder face like a Geisha

First off, let’s throw on a veil of selective amnesia. Big Sean never outshone Pusha T on “Mercy”. That whole Pusha/Weezy “beef” never happened. Actually, let’s just forget everything post-2010 VMAs. Let’s take it back to the days when the Virginia Coke brothers were at their most ruthless and The Neptunes were basically infallible. You’re there? Take a second, take it in. Alright, so Pusha T just released a new song with autotune automaton Future on the hook and Yeezy behind the boards. Anyone hoping for a Lord Willin’ redux will be disappointed here, as Pusha is a different animal without twin brother Malice, but “Pain” has as much machinegun wordplay as any Pusha verse of yore. If you’re a The Wire nerd like I am, “Pain” is pure ear candy (could have been Travon/but instead I chose Avon). Stream the track below and use your own facilities to grab a download. Yeeuchhhhh.

Introduction – Sam Andrus

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October 8, 2012
New Music
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Hey omniverse, I’m Sam Andrus. I’m an app designer by day, guitarist and beat-maker by night. As a musician since age 8 and artist since age 5. I used to just draw a lot. I’d invent characters, and imaginary worlds on a page, but then being an illustration major in art school taught me (correctly) that I had to commit to a world and a story to reel people into my art. I got frustrated because I had no patience for a story, I just wanted to make cool looking drawings. I appreciated the little adjustments and choices necessary to get just the right image across to the viewer, but I was much more interested in the dense surreal landscapes of another form of expression altogether. Free jazz and experimental Hip-Hop, which didn’t have to make any sense at all, exist in more than 2 dimensions, and share a simultaneous embrace and rejection of rules and predictability, roped me in. Surely this is true freedom. I thought. Any frequency, any sound; rhodes, foley, vinyl, reason synth, tape, voice, live drums, jazz, folk, funk, pop, hip-hop, anything. Craving inspiration for my own work, I’m always on the lookout for artists who are “staying out of their own heads” and unleashing their inner worlds to wander the outside world.

My latest inspiration is Rafiq Bhatia. He’s an up-and-coming Jazz composer and guitarist from NYC. Yes, that’s a cover of Flying Lotus’s “Pickled” at 10:10. The style is uniquely his, but the mix is heavily rooted in jazz tradition and his songs move forward with that smart stumble and unpredictable atmosphere that you expect from beat-making legends. Don’t expect the expected. Do check him out in the NY Times.

Jaw Jam Remixes Jade’s “Don’t Walk Away”

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October 8, 2012
New Music, Remixes
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You probably shouldn’t listen to Jaw Jam’s newest remix quite yet. Well, unless it’s dark out wherever you are (which is half of the world I guess). Anyways, Jaw Jam’s remix of Jade’s house classic “Don’t Walk Away” isn’t nighttime music in a Burial/Night Bus sense, instead drawing from the pool of 90’s house from whence the original came. Driven by a bass line that keeps filtering in and out of the picture, this dub exists within that late night dub when the casual dancers have left the building and the real heads are the only people left. Stream and download (hit the buy track link) below.

D33J Releases Remix Package To Celebrate Anticon Signing

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October 8, 2012
New Music, Remixes
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To celebrate his recent signing to Anticon, the decade plus old Los Angeles bastion of not giving a fuck, Wedidit Collective member D33J has let loose a short remix package. And yeah there’s another Drake remix. Get over it. The pitched up vocals on D33J’s rework of “Good Ones Go” are actually pretty damn obnoxious, but the molasses drenched percussion and warped background vocals are too infectious to pass up. Maybe an instrumental version will surface at some point. Stream and download “Good Ones Go” below and grab the full package here.

Stream Unreleased Flying Lotus Song, Mix For BBC 1Xtra

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October 8, 2012
Mixes, New Music
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If you’ve seen Flying Lotus perform over the past few months, then you’re in for some serious (hopefully drug addled) flashbacks. Last night, Mr. Ellison graced Diplo’s BBC 1Xtra show with his presence, letting loose a stream of party ready tracks, ranging crunchy Dubstep to true school Chicago  juke. You might remember his chipmunk-ed out version of Schoolboy Q’s “Hands On The Wheel” and Mono/Poly’s “Los Angeles”, both staples in his live set. The mix also features a mini section from the one and only Gaslamp Killer, featuring tunes off of Breakthrough. If my words haven’t piqued your interest yet, check out “Flotus” below, a brilliant unreleased FlyLo jam that makes you wonder what else the madman has stuck away in his hard-drive. Head over to the BBC website to stream the full mix.

Dan Snaith Fights “Corporate Ravesters” As Daphni

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October 8, 2012
Album Reviews, New Music
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You’ll usually find Dan Snaith behind the wheel of Caribou, a surprising crossover hit that has caught the fancies of both the Pitchforkians and the DJ folks. Whether touring with his live band (they supported Radiohead last month) or performing B2B sets with Jamie xx and Four Tet, Snaith certainly keeps busy, allowing his constantly percolating sound to develop in the public eye. Snaith’s latest side-project is a direct response to the “EDM barfsplosion” that has occurred in North America over the past few years. It’s not too difficult to guess who the Canadian (who previously recorded as Manitoba) is aiming his sites at. Snaith’s weapon of choice: analogue house music. While Daphni is aimed at “corporate ravesters”, that’s where the rhetoric stops and Snaith manages to avoid nostalgia-based analogue revivalism and similar retrograde pitfalls.

As Daphni, Snaith has released several edits packages and a split EP with Four Tet, but Jiaolong is the real magnum opus, filled with a sound deeply indebted to Simian Mobile Disco’s Attack Decay Sustain Release as much as it is to the omnipresent Four Tet’s Rounds. Jiaolong’s use of analogue drum machines and synthesizers allow for brief moments of fallibility, an inherently human trait rarely found in the computer music realm. “Ye Ye”, released in 2011, is the clearest dancefloor smasher of the album, what with its ravey (but not corporate ravey of course) synth washes and hypnotic stab patterns.

Album opener “Yes I Know” is centered around an ubiquitous Buddy Miles sample, while a warped bassline subverts the euphoric vocals and pushes the track into ever-weirder territory. “Pairs” is driven by an accelerating conga drum pattern and repetitive, beefy synths. The synths appear to be the focal point of the track, but the congas come to the forefront around the 3:30 mark for a brief period of percussion-based bliss.

From the onset, Jiaolong is distinctly analogue, but manages to retain a protean attitude, allowing for a  malleable sound that should bring a smile to even the most jaded dance fans and maybe even draw in some of those corporate ravesters. Snaith is no revenant from an era of dance music purity, he just wants to find/provide a few “transcendent moments” and Jiaolong certainly succeeds at that. Stream Jiaolong below and head here to buy the album.

New Azizi Gibson – “Emperors New Groove” (Prod. Flying Lotus)

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October 7, 2012
New Music
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Flying Lotus has spoken recently about receiving inspiration from the hip hop sphere and an appetite to work with MC’s. It’s probably not a coincidence that FlyLo’s Brainfeeder label has bulked up on MCs over the past year, signing Jeremiah Jae, Azizi Gibson and The Underachievers. Over the past few years FlyLo has produced for Blu, Killer Mike, Hodgy Beats and most recently the enigmatic Captain Murphy character. You might remember that an incantation of the “Emperors New Groove” beat actually appeared on Hodgy’s latest EP under the title “Lately”. For some, his production work is difficult to ingest, which was most apparent on Blu’s NoYork!. Over the past few months though, FlyLo has cut away much of the excess, allowing the MC to shine over his production like never before. Think about how Earl and Murphy flow seamlessly in the veins of “Between Friends”. “Emperors New Groove” sees Gibson taking on Dom Kennedy-esque flow, waxing poetic about fame and the simple things in life, namely weed and women. Stream the track below and grab a download here.