Tag Archives: Kingdom

It’s still to be seen whether Glass Animals‘ signing to Paul Epworth’s Wolf Tone label will turn out, but in the meantime, it’s impossible to note the increased stature and attention the band has faced. The British act first caught my eye with the beatific “Cocoa Hooves” and have continued to hone their R&B-leaning pop compositions in the year and a half since. Most indicative of the new label is “Gooey”, a crisp, efficient arrangement that has garnered quite a bit of attention over the past few weeks. This week, the band is playing numerous dates at SXSW, including one at the vaunted Fader Fort. Despite all the hype surrounding the band and their upcoming American dates, this remix still comes as a surprise to this listener. It’s not like the song falls so far outside of Kingdom’s go-to sound palette, but culturally, it seems a far stretch from the Fade To Mind don’s regular remix subjects. Regardless, the cluttering hip hop refix adds the exact edge the original needed. The remix will appear on the Gooey EP, out April 8 on Harvest Records.

New Nguzunguzu – “Mecha”

By Gabe Meier

October 15, 2013

New Music

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“Forthcoming on Fade To Mind” has become one of my favorite phrases in recent years as Kingdom’s label has transitioned from Night Slugs’ little brother to an idiosyncratic conveyor of all good things in American dance music. When that phrase is paired with “new Nguzunguzu“, the proverbial gasket is blown. On November 5, the duo of Asma Maroof and Daniel Pineda (who just released the massive XTREME TREMBLE EP through Fade To Mind) will release the seven song Skycell EP (check out Kingdom’s cover art after the jump), the duo’s second on the label. “Mecha” is our first hint at the EP, a growling, mechanical grime track that is as delusional pretty as it is powerful. The sound will be familiar if you’ve seen Daniel and Asma play out recently (us Angelenos are spoiled) and the remaining six Skycell tracks cannot reach our ears fast enough.

New Kingdom – “Corpse”

By Gabe Meier

April 30, 2013

New Music

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Next month, Kingdom will release the seven track Vertical XL EP on Fade To Mind, an EP that should further entrench him as one of the most innovative American club music producers. At this point, there isn’t much I can elucidate about the Brooklyn-resident expect for the fact that his latest track, “Corpse” is another huge one. Similar in sound to his remix of Fatima Al Qadiri’s “Corpcore”, “Corpse” is industrial and forboding, but retains the fun dance sound of Kingdom’s earlier ballroom material. Stream below and pre-order Vertical XL here.

Kingdom Prepares Compilation Of Unreleased Songs For Fade To Mind

By Gabe Meier

December 6, 2012

New Music, Remixes

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Yesterday, Fade To Mind boss Kingdom announced plans to release a compilation of unreleased dubs and remixes called VIP EDITION. The tape will be released on 12/12/12, but you can stream two cuts from it below, including a Ciara remix and a redo of “Fukin Jaker”, a track he briefly posted back in July. While short, both “Goodies” and “Fukin Jaker” offer insight into Kingdom’s influences and raw creative process, the former drawing from the lo-fi end of R&B and the latter borrowing heavily from New York’s vogue house stylings. Both songs cut off rather abruptly so expect to hear full versions come the 12th. Stream below.

From Free Gucci To TNGHT: A Retrospective

By Gabe Meier

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