One of the major qualms critics of electronic music have is that it lacks the emotion that “real” music (usually guitar music) conveys. Luckily, I don’t need to address these silly, misguided critics, because their are people like Brandon Hoffman on this planet. Hoffman aka Blocktreat is a Vancouver, BC based beatsmith who recently released one of the most organically emotive albums you will ever hear. Traditionals is a series of tracks composed of chopped up samples of Hoffman’s friends jamming out “casual bluegrass.” It would be easy to fall into the cut and paste sample pastiche that so often accompanies projects like these, but Hoffman’s arrangements are impeccably exact at certain points and wonderfully scattered at others. Traditionals sounds like Shlohmo at times, but way weirder. I hate to throw out the experimental title, but the album really stretches the boundaries of computer music. So before you get into another argument over whether DJ’s are musicians, or Aphex Twin is more than grating bleeps and bloops, pop on Traditionals. At least give it a try. It’s free. In exchange for an email. Simple as that. Stream and download below.
Three months ago, the Sasquatch Music Festival lineup was released to much fanfare. Like all festivals, some hated the lineup while others loved it. For the more levelheaded, it appears to be a very balanced lineup with a deep undercard. From here on out we will be underscoring the lesser-known Sasquatch artists by highlighting a different artist each week. Beyond delving into each artist’s bio, sound, etc., we will attempt to give some insight into what will make their performance at Sasquatch so amazing.
The story is synonymous with the band. Hannah Hooper, Christian Zucconi, Sean Gadd, Ryan Rabin and Andrew Wessen met at a commune in Crete, an Mediterranean island off of Greece. The five immediately became friends. A year went by without any developments; then, the five reunited in Los Angeles and the rest is history. In 2010, Grouplove performed for the first time. It would be easy to dub the band a flash in the pan in the mold of The Ting Tings, what with their effusive pop ballads, but they have more staying power than one would immediately assume. Sure, they went the iPod commercial route, but hey, you gotta paid, right?
After such fabled beginnings, it would be easy to wash away into the muck of contemporary “indie” music. 2011’s Never Trust A Happy Song was far from the mushy filler surrounding a few solid singles we’ve come to expect from similar releases. Despite its pitfalls (falls into singer/songwriter cliche a little too often, song arrangements are often scatterbrained, too much ukulele for my liking), the album is through and through a cohesive product, and more importantly, a downright enjoyable listen. It’s difficult to deem whether a band enjoys each others presence, but I’m going to go ahead and make that assumption.
With an early Monday time slot (1:05) on the Sasquatch Stage, I can imagine the five-some having a similar effect to Chromeo’s early Monday set in 2011, bringing out the revelers in grand fashion and starting a lawn dance party like no other. Despite sound issues, they smashed their early day set at Coachella last month and I would expect nothing less at Sasquatch.
Whatsgood blogworld, I hope everyone is having a beautiful weekend and enjoying the spring weather. For me, and probably alot of others reading this, it’s crunch time for finals. This means that I need to find the perfect mix to jam too while getting ready for finals. This mix changes throughout the course of the year and today I revisited one of my favorite mix’s of all time, Brainfeeder’s take over of BBC Radio 1 last year. The live set includes performances from Matthew David, Teebs, Flying Lotus, Austin Peralta (pictured above), TOKiMONSTA, Samiyam, and even Thundercat. I hope just seeing that list gets you thoroughly stoked. To add even more incentive, Austin Peralta (keys), Gene Coye (drums), and Thundercat (bass) do an amazing improve jazz set. These guys then collaborate with Flying Lotus to top off the end of the mix with style. Needless to say, this mix needed to be in our archives and accessible for our readers. You can stream the mix in it’s entirety below.
Over the past year or so, Diamond Bar native Co. Fee has established quite a following across the West Coast. The LA beat scene can get crowded at times, but he has managed to dig out a particular niche for himself somewhere between time-tested soul-sampling hip hop and modern club beats. We caught up with Co. Fee after his set at Kohoutek Music and Arts Festival (find our coverage from Day One and Day Two) and dished on his crew My Hollow Drum, the process behind his last EP Easy Listening, opening for Erykah Badu at Low End Theory last April and his love of Bollywood samples. Look out for Co. Fee’s debut LP in late Summer/early Fall and an EP with Ohio MC Note. You can cop Easy Listening over at Alpha Pup. Find the rest of the interview after jump.
On a sun-drenched Saturday afternoon in quiet Claremont, CA, dinosaurs, bollywood beats and some of the best carne asada tacos in the Inland Empire took over a small liberal arts institution called Pitzer College. Day One of Kohoutek Music and Arts Festival – marked by impeccable performances from The Sweet Nothin’s, Raheem Cohen, The Knowmads and LYNX – was an affair in its own right, but Day Two brought a whole new level of debauchery. A bouncy house magically appeared on the festival grounds and the alcohol and California grown medication were readily flowing. Rumors of a celebrity appearance spread like wildfire and by the time the sun began to dip below its apex, the excitement in the crowd was palpable.
Late Saturday afternoon, spirits were high as Austin native Alejandro Rose-Garcia, better known by the name Shakey Graves, took the stage. Equipped with only a guitar and his voice, Shakey Graves elicited instant adoration from everyone present. How could he not, with his endearing Texas twang and fast-paced finger-picking? The golden late-afternoon sunlight cascaded down as the crowd got up and danced with wild abandon to Shakey Graves’ lighthearted yet perfectly humble set. There’s something so wholeheartedly pleasing about the simplicity of a man and his guitar, singing of long journeys, love, and the more mundane aspects of life. Even after breaking a string in the middle of his set, Shakey Graves was adorably bashful as he attempted to call up songs from his repertoire that didn’t require the broken string. Perhaps the most enjoyable aspect of his performance was his genuine gratitude for the enthusiasm present in the audience, which he expressed several times throughout his set. Shakey Graves’ music is the ideal soundtrack for cross-country road trips and desert bonfires, and also, it seems, for Saturday afternoons at Kohoutek. If you missed out on this one, or simply want to relive his performance, his album Roll The Bones is available for free download on his Bandcamp. LA beat stalwart was next and the few hip hop heads present at the festival soon crawled out of their holes.
Ever since last April’s My Hollow Drum takeover at Low End Theory (FlyLo and Erykah Badu were special guests), Co. Fee has been a staple of the LA beat scene. The Easy Listening EP was one 2011’s seminal releases and the young Diamond Bar resident has set the scene on fire with his mixture of club and boom bap. After a few sound issues, Co. Fee took the Kohoutek stage with only a laptop and his trusty M-Audio Trigger Finger. Over the next 45 minutes, he ran flawlessly through originals off Easy Listening, remixes, and a track off of an upcoming project with Ohio MC Note. The first half of the set was marked by mellow hip hop instrumentals, before he shouted out that he was “switching things up” and brought out the more club-oriented beats. Kohoutek was Co. Fee’s first college festival and he loved the good vibes and energy emanating from the crowd. “Gypsy Skirt,” “Spark Plug” and a remix of Clipse’s “Wamp Wamp” were the highlights of the set. I won’t get into it too much, but in between Co.fee and headliner The Juan Maclean, a member of the band Tornado Rider who calls himself The Sneth Goblin climbed a 30 foot tree wielding a cello.
After a short intermission, the man, the legend, The Juan Maclean took the stage. Unfortunately, John Maclean was only slated for a DJ set (the live ensemble is one of the most impressive acts I’ve ever witnessed), but his vinyl selections were nothing short of astounding. The disco stylings of DFA Records were readily apparent and Maclean effortlessly mixed between bouncy, kick-driven house tracks and euphoric vocal disco. No obnoxious piano crescendos or synth stabs, no inflatable sea animals, just good old dance music. As he noted on his Twitter on Saturday night, Maclean was probably twice as old as the majority of the crowd, but despite the generation gap, Kohoutek was engrossed and getting down to every single minute of his set. While Friday night’s headliner, Vetiver, soothed the crowd into relaxing lather, Maclean got the crowd up and moving for the entirety of his set.
After Maclean ended, the crowd headed to an assortment of after parties. New jersey dubstepper Space Jesus played nearby, but the happy house vibes of Maclean’s vinyl still reverberated throughout the grounds. A melancholy vibe took over the departing students as the realization hit that Kohoutek wouldn’t be coming around for another 364 days. There were too many highlights to count, though, and the melancholy quickly dissipated into the revelry of the remaining hours of the night. Kohoutek 2012 has come and gone, but performances from LYNX, Shakey Graves and The Juan Maclean will stick in the minds of attendees for years to come. Find photos from the night after the jump courtesy of Madeline Feig and Juliana Bernstein.
Over the past several months, the Los Angeles based Body High record label has grown into one of the foremost forces in American electronic music. The roster is highlighted by DJ Sliink, Todd Edwards and DJ Dodger Stadium (Jerome Potter of LOL Boys and Samo Soundboy), and trends towards Club music, but you would be remiss to label it a Club label. We’ve witnessed Sliink’s impressive ability to synch standard Jersey Club with multitudes of other dance sub-genres and his label mates have a similar dexterity in their productions. Elements of acid house are prevalent in numerous DJ Dodger Stadium tracks while Myrryrs often utilizes the beloved cracking percussion of Southern hip hop. Last week, label head Samo Soundboy featured in The FADER’s mix series and did an excellent job of introducing the Body High roster over the mix’s 40 minute run time. Samo rolls out plenty of exclusives including a Jim-E Stack track off of a future Body High release. The mix wraps up with a well-placed screwed and chopped take on Miguel’s “Adorn,” one of the frontrunners for R&B track of the year. Stream the mix below and download it right over here (left click).
Kohoutek Music & Arts Festival is a 39-year musical tradition at Pitzer College in Claremont, California. Named after an anti-climactic, significantly over-hyped comet, Kohoutek was predicted in 1973 to display spectacular “outgassing” as it entered the inner Solar system. However, it fell short of expectations, failing to display the levels of light that were predicted. Somewhat predictably, at Pitzer College, this sequence of events made Kohoutek a particularly endearing concept, spurring the first ever Kohoutek Music & Arts festival in 1975. Check out our previous Kohoutek post for some of the most popular headliners from years past.
Fast forward to 2012: the Kohoutek tradition continued this past weekend, celebrating its 39th year, and drawing from a particularly eclectic selection of artists to create a lineup sure to please the wide variety of musical tastes at the Claremont Colleges. With headliners like Vetiver and The Juan Maclean, and appearances from talented performers hailing from the realms of jazz, hip-hop, bluegrass, electronica, and everything in between, Kohoutek 2012 was destined to be a success before the festival even began. Everything seemed to fall into place effortlessly; the weather was perfect, attendance was impressive, the vendors were unique and enjoyable, and the music was undeniably excellent. After the jump, we’ll attempt to give you an overview of some of the most enjoyable performances throughout the weekend, as well as photographic coverage of several of the performers. Check out some additional photos from the weekend here.
Shabazz Palaces have added a little (or a lot) of their crazy magic to a track off Philadelphia rapper and producer Lushlife’s recent Plateau Vision release. The track, “Hale-Bopp Was The Bedouins,” features Das Racist’s Heems along with Fly Guy Dai and Thadillac. Shabazz Palaces’ own Palaceer throws down a verse in the remixed version as well. Check out the remix (and the original below) right here:
Eleven weeks ago, the Sasquatch Music Festival lineup was released to much fanfare. Like all festivals, some hated the lineup while others loved it. For the more levelheaded, it appears to be a very balanced lineup with a deep undercard. From here on out we will be underscoring the lesser-known Sasquatch artists by highlighting a different artist each week. Beyond delving into each artist’s bio, sound, etc., we will attempt to give some insight into what will make their performance at Sasquatch so amazing.
tUnE-yArDs is the creatively-capitalized alias of musician Merril Garbus. (Hey, at least she didn’t leave out the vowels, right?) Hailing from Connecticut and currently based in Oakland, Garbus is full of surprises, musically and otherwise. She’s unlike anything we’ve ever heard before, and it works. Garbus possesses an incredibly powerful and unique voice, and this gift provides the pedestal on which she constructs her musical skyscraper. The vocals in her music have been compared to a cross between Aretha Franklin and Yoko Ono. Her range is unbelievable, varying from a deep, almost masculine grumble to a high soprano wail; she can sound convincingly assertive, angry, carefree, peaceful, contemplative, and celebratory all in one album. Her influences are drawn from Afro-pop, funk, R&B and folk, but there’s something else there. Garbus throws in a stylistic dexterity that is irreproducible and astounding.
The components that comprise her music-making technique are simple, but they merge to create something elaborate, almost labyrinthine. In addition to providing her one-of-a-kind voice, Garbus also plays the ukulele and dabbles in a variety of percussion. She uses a loop pedal to overlap the different elements of a track as she builds the instrumentation. As she told NPR’s All Things Considered back in April 2011:
“[The loop pedal] is this really wonderfully simple device that is somewhat of a limitation. I love to see how I can stretch using that limitation to its farthest reaches of musicality.”
tUnE-yArDs also throws in snippets of recordings of ambient sound, conversation and spoken statements. It is the amazing variety that makes Garbus’ music so incredible. From track to track, her style progresses through stages of emotion and musical form, like a long walk through many distinctive neighborhoods, all housing entirely different groups of people, but together comprising a diverse and vibrant city.
In June 2009, Garbus self-released tUnE-yArDs’ first album, BiRd-BrAiNs, on recycled cassette tapes. BiRd-BrAiNs was recorded using a handheld voice recorder and mastered somewhat crudely by Garbus using Audacity mixing software. In July of the same year, tUnE-yArDs signed to 4AD, and re-released a remastered version of BiRd-BrAiNs in November 2009 containing two new bonus tracks.
In April of 2011, Garbus released tUnE-yArDs’ second album, w h o k i l l. The album was produced by Garbus, but engineered in a professional studio. For this album, Garbus added bassist Nate Brenner to her lineup, and this change played a central role in the progression of tUnE-yArDs’ sound in their second release. w h o k i l l is the perfect departure from the lo-fi quality of BiRd-BrAiNs, while continuing to surprise us with incredibly elaborate sound. This newfound clarity in Garbus’ work makes the album an entirely different type of experience, but her style certainly benefits from the added professionalism present in w h o k i l l.
Aside from her recordings, there has been quite a bit of focus in the blogosphere upon Garbus’ talents as a live performer. Again drawing from her chat with NPR back in 2011, Garbus describes her incredible stage presence, self-confidence, and passion for performance:
“I’m confident enough to grab people’s attention and say, ‘Hey, I’m up here. Don’t be chattin’ into your beer. I’m right here, and this is what you want to be looking at.'”
We eagerly await her Sasquatch set. As an artist who based so much of her origin and style upon the ability to function as an individual in a live setting, creating a multitude of layers all stemming from the simple functions of a few instruments, tUnE-yArDs will surely put on a fantastic show. Chances are, it will be unlike anything else you see at Sasquatch, and that is a draw in and of itself. tUnE-yArDs will be performing at the Bigfoot stage on Saturday at 7:30; don’t miss out.
It’s difficult to amalgamate sounds as disparate as those heard in London and Accra, Ghana into a cohesive result. It is far more difficult to make it sound organic and natural, as opposed to contrived and co-opting. London-based producer Gabriel Benn aka Tuesday Born has been able to do exactly that. As one half of The Busy Twist, Benn has been creating upbeat dance tunes the duo call “African Music Bass Tunes.” Tuesday Born, is a more subdued and more satisfying take than The Busy Twist. Rhythm is paramount on the Mockingbird EP, Benn’s debut, released yesterday. The tracks were created using Benn’s vocals, a keyboard and a laptop. The sound is difficult to distinguish, yet easy to consume. It would be limiting to call this a dance release, because it can function in so many other realms. The EP costs only one pound, more than a fair price for such a complete release.
The Astral Plane 