Yesterday HowtoDressWell posted this awesome remix of Marina and the Diamonds who is a Euro-pop star. I am not particularly a fan of her songs but she is doing something right if she's down with Tri-Angle Records. HTDW keeps the Ibiza rave keyboards and hard beats of the original "Radioactive" but takes things into the realm of slow motion ethereal bliss. Looping and screwing down Marina's vocals into a Gregorian chant sets the tone. Then a strutting beat and HTDW's gorgeous vocals join in and and the trancey keyboards rise to take you into the ecstacy of that ONE moment on the dancefloor. Everything Tom Krell touches is just amazing and he displays a new aspect here--partying. I love it when he opens up with some electronics. There are, as always, tons of vocal flourishes and details to keep you overwhelmed and reward the multiple listens this song demands.
This isn't the first time that Marina has been reworked into magic by a Tri-Angle Records artist. oOoOO took the bouncy original "Obsessions" and turned it into the saddest and most beautiful slow-jam that he has produced. The way that he takes moments of her vocals and reconstructs her into a completely different singer is amazing. This song is the perfect complement for the ecstactic How to Dress Well track. This is for lying in bed with the one you love, drifting off to sleep after a night out--sustaining the quiet, lingering beauty of the evening.
On Friday I had the pleasure of attending the Tri-Angle Records Showcase in San Francisco. The lineup was packed with ADVANCED's favorites: Shlohmo, Clams Casino and oOoOO (featuring Butterclock),as well as Water Borders, Babe Rainbow and White Ring. This was my first chance to see any of these artists in person, so I was pretty excited and the show did not disappoint.
I had the pleasure of talking to oOoOO, Clams Casino and Shlohmo in person. They are all incredibly nice and humble despite their true success as artists. We discussed their music and and our lives and how they intersect. oOoOO even dropped that he may have some new singles coming out in the fall and a NEW RECORD next year. I'm really excited to see how his music develops. He is far from a one trick pony so I'm psyched to see what he does next with all that talent and innovation. Thanks to oOoOO, Clams Casino and Shlohmo for their music and for being so cool.
The show opened with Water Borders who are not really my cup of tea. They have some awesome bass and cool samples and drums but I'm not so into the post-punk vocals and accents they add to the mix. This is pretty much the first band that Tri-Angle has signed that I'm not crazy about so I'm interested to see how they develop and how my opinion of them does. Babe Rainbow had a pretty cool set with some nice tracks mixing hip-hop with abstract dark soundscapes. White Ring stepped things up with stroboscopic effects and true, dark witch-house. It takes a lot to be darker than Salem and they have achieved it. Not more fucked-up, just darker.
A drastic change occured when Shlohmo hit the stage: things got really FUN. Playing a mix of material from his awesome new LP Bad Vibes and very chopped, stuttered, screwed and spaced out tracks by Lil' Wayne and DJ Khaled he really got the party started. Everyone was dancing but perhaps no one was going harder than Shlohmo himself. I loved it. He understands that the music he makes is dope, and once it's made it's ultimately it's own entity, and he has a great time listening to it too. He also sang on top of a lot of songs including his remix of the Burial classic "Shell of Light" (mp3), giving a really soulful sheen to his performance. I had no idea that the vocals on his album were him. Really good stuff. He closed with an awesome extended version of "Just Us" from the new LP. Check out the my post on him here with tons of awesome downloads. I am really loving his stuff right now. Check out two of my absolute favorites below. Shlohmo - Places mp3 Wacka Flocka Flame - Hard in Tha Paint (Shlohmo remix) mp3
Next up was Clams Casino who has been a true favorite of mine ever since I first heard his production on Lil' B's Motivation (mp3). His set was awesome as expected. Not much variation from his sound on record but that's kind of a good thing. Almost every song by him is catchy, nuanced, beautiful and banging. Check out the past mp3 packed posts on him here and here. And grab his albums here. A highlight was his new track with ASAP Rocky which I have been listening to over and over recently. Grab it below. ASAP Rocky - Wassup (prod. by Clams Casino) mp3
By the time headliners oOoOO came on it was almost 3 a.m. and quite a few people had left which was their loss because oOoOO along with vocalist (and artist in her own right) Butterclock were awesome. Butterclock provided the sexy, haunting vocals and some work on effects while oOoOO kept the beats cracking. oOoOO's music is bass oriented and features screwed samples that complement the ethereal live singing from Butterclock but doesn't really follow the witch-house formula much beyond that. It incorporates elements of all kinds of music, evoking Aaliyah, Sade, My Bloody Valentine, The Cocteau Twins, Burial, Portishead, Gucci Mane and Wacka Flocka Flame, sometimes all in one moment. They came off the most organic and varied sounding of all the acts. Check out some tracks from oOoOO's insanely good debut EP. Hearts in particular is a slow jam for the ages. oOoOO - Hearts mp3 oOoOO - No Shore mp3
And check this sick new Butterclock track that they also played: Boy- intro by Butterclock
Someone was kind enough to take a video of one of the highlights of the show, oOoOO's awesome track "Burnout Eyes":
And a video of a new track they played. This one is from a different show.
Thanks again to oOoOO, Clams Casino, and Shlohmo for taking the time to speak with me. Super cool night. Thanks to Tri-Angle for hooking such a sick lineup and label.
The new Hudson Mohawke is really, really good. It tickles parts of my brain that I forgot were there. Hudson Mohawke has always made shimmering, catchy, overstuffed songs but on Satin Panthers he streamlines and compresses all of that energy into insane, driving bangers. He opens the whole thing up with "Octan" which reminds me of being about 11 years old riding up the beginning of a huge rollercoaster, looking out at the lights of the amusement park twinkling in all directions and feeling adrenaline mix with the large amounts sugar I ingested all day to blow my small mind. The rest of the EP is basically that rollercoaster. Listen to "Thunder Bay" below to see the kind off stadium pomp, insane production, hardcore rave beats, hip-hop bass, grime stutter, and menacing horns HudMo can pack into one track.
There are only 5 songs on Satin Panthers and in my opinion 4 of them are amazing and don't sound like anything else out there right now, except for the good bits of previous Hudson Mohawke albums. My absolute favorite track is "All Your Love" which takes some R&B and twists it into the overwhelming sugar rush of synths and chipmunk vocals. I can feel new synapses firing when I listen. It is SO worth a dollar or whatever to acquire.You can buy the album here.
Hudson Mohawke has been interacting with the mainstream Rap and R&B community in official and unofficial ways recently. First he remixed Keri Hilson (ft. Lil' Wayne) "Turning Me On", turning down the insanity a bit to not overwhelm the vocals. It's interesting how easily he can create convincing traditional hip-hop beats--with a few signature flourishes.
Next his song "Rising 5" from his previous album Butter was actually picked up by Chris Brown for a mixtape. Grab the original, the Breezy song, and check the video below. Again it's interesting how well his overstuffed productions actually work with a vocalist... leaves me interested to see where HudMo goes next with all this talent.
ADVANCED has been gone for a minute and I am sorry for that. We finna get things poppin again with some Shlohmo, who has been tearing up the speakers at my house for a while now. Shlohmo is part of the WeDidIt Collective, a group of DJ's based in CA between LA and SF, and makes music in the post-Dilla vein. His new album Bad Vibes came out on the 9th and is gorgeous, mellow, textured and beautiful but with nice low-end beats. The title is exactly the opposite of what this music creates--a great album all the way through to sit back and chill with. Check out his track "Places" to get an idea of what I'm talking about. Subtle, seductive, R&B flavor...but it can blow your speakers if you're not careful. Shlohmo - Places.mp3
To show that he is far from a one trick pony, but instead a quickly developing talent, Shlohmo remixed some pretty great songs by some pretty high-profile artists. First he stripped down Drake's"Marvin's Room" into a even more lonesome, alien affair, keeping the original fairly intact. Drake - Marvin's Room (Shlohmo's Thru tha Floor remix).mp3
Next he picked ONE OF MY FAVORITE SONGS OF ALL TIME: Burial - Shell of Light.mp3. He samples the heart-breakingly gorgeous last few moments (which is something I have looped and listened to over and over) and adds some subtle beats and vocals that mirror the original. A very respectful remix and a good one. Burial - Shell of Light (Shlohmo remix).mp3
Prior to releasing Bad Vibes Shlohmo posted three remixes to his blog and they are all excellent, interesting reworks of more pop hip-hop. He recontextualizes the the thugged-out bluster of Waka Flocka Flame with an amazing organ-track that wouldn't sound out of place on Sesame Street back in the early days. He screws the vocals down a bit and highlights the fun in them in a way that the original didn't. This is on heavy replay for me. SO GOOD. Waka Flocka Flame - Hard In Tha Paint (Shlohmo's sit down remix).mp3
Next he totally strips down and reworks Kelis' "Milkshake," a song that has been played to the point that it is cringe-inducing, into something that is gorgeous, echoey and haunting. In fact it totally falls into the witch-house vein of Holy Other and is highly recommended.
ADVANCED loves Tri-Angle Records. Well Tri-Angle just had it's first birthday which is kind of wild considering how many awesome bands and albums and genres have come from them in just one short year. To celebrate the anniversary Balam Acab (who's new full-length album Wander / Wonder is due Sept. 9th) dropped this song on his twitter. It's a great track and totally emblematic of what Tri-Angle artists are doing. He remixes "My Boo" by Ghost Town DJ's, a song originally released in 1996. At the time I was heavily into Pavement, Fugazi and Yo La Tengo and I remember thinking this song was ridiculous and horrible. My tastes have kinda changed and evolved and opened since then, and I now find this song ridiculous and fun. Certainly there is a level of irony, especially when watching the video (which I HIGHLY recommend doing below), but now I enjoy the Miami Bass-light touches and harmonies.
Anyhow our boy Balam Acab takes it to a whole new level. Like many of his label-mates he takes R&B and mainstream pop and twists the ridiculousness into beauty and bass. He highlights the sadness and longing behind even the superficial lyrics of the song with ghosted vocals that are either sped-up or screwed down. He turns the beat into bubbling synths and a heavy warped low-end. Somehow he also still keeps the fun of the original. Irony is transmuted into something I can feel and truly enjoy. Which is so strange and just one of the reasons that Balam Acab, How to Dress Well, Holy Other, oOoOO (who i'm getting too, trust me), Clams Casino, Ayshay (also got something coming on her), and Water Borders and all the Tri-Angle records crew are on some next level game. Check it out below.
I don't know if I changed or if he did but recently everything I've heard by Drake is insanely good. Dude can shift his flow all over the place--from singing to talking to rapping--and he fills his songs with hooks. It's like even the verses are choruses. Plus Noah "40" Shebib and Matthew "Boi-1da" Samuels keep the production so clean and catchy and light. I have been listening to this new single non-stop since it dropped yesterday.
