I first heard The Range (producer James Hinton from Providence, RI) through Supreme Cuts twitter and immediately fell in love with his music. Despite using similar ingredients to some of my other favorite artists--a hybrid of juke, jungle and rap rhythms, pitch-shifted vocals--he has a singular and almost instantly recognizable sound. He spins the above elements into a delicate twirling mass, adding pointillist melodic figures until tracks take on an almost impossible density. His beautiful new disk EP on Donky Pitch came out on Monday and it is truly excellent. Listen to and grab the first single "Nothing Left", which features a sped-up sample of Nate Dogg singing beautifully over skittering beats, to see what I mean.
You can stream the entirety of disk below and buy it right now. It's really excellent all the way through. Its melodies will break your heart but its beats will make you want to move.
I also heartily recommend The Range's first album, The Big Dip, which is the first thing I heard by them. The whole thing is great. "A Solitudinous Diptych" in particular is mind-blowingly gorgeous and catchy. It starts off with what sounds like Rick Astley gone juke (I mean this as a HUGE compliment) and then transitions into a breathtaking section of a sample being chopped and spun and pulled into new shapes. Listen and buy below.
More amazing music came out in the past two days than usually does in most months. If you've looked at the internet recently you know what I'm talking about. The album that has gotten the most spins for me in the past 48 hours is the Svengali Volume 2 compilation, which features new ADVANCED favorite Mister Lies and (now) newer favorites Different Sleep, Svengali, Soleman, and Maurice. These artists share similar interests and seem to all be exploring different types of modern bass music, leaning towards downtempo, skittery beats and twisted soul vocals. Mister Lies, who has released an EP and single of near perfect trip-hop featuring gorgeous vocals (both available for free here), seems to be turning his eyes to the juke rhythms of Chicago, where he lives part time, on his tracks here. On "...And Then..." he takes the Beach Boys classic vocals from "Hang on to Your Ego" and slows them to a crawl over stuttering beats. The gorgeous "Dive into It" features a duet of samples from Bjork and Justin Timberlake Different Sleep (who recorded a beautiful single and an excellent EP with Mister Lies) remixes a Jojo song into a goosebump-giving beauty, and absolutely kills it with the serene "Want U 2 Know". Svengali (ft. Maurice) takes what sounds like Destiny's Child's "Say My Name" and turns it into an a hook-filled jam that made me grab everything I could by him as soon as I heard it. Maurice collaborates with Svengali on three tracks here that bring sampled vocal hooks to the forefront. "Jack," which is credited to Maurice, cuts detuned and manipulated vocals into an unlikely, but very catchy hook over super laid-back beats. Soleman flips the script on the current trend of trap beats, laying subdued snare rolls and the sound of guns cocking behind some of the warmest music you've ever heard--like an ambient trap bath. Those are just some of the highlights for me, every track here is really good; and the whole EP holds a mood, but with enough variety to keep things interesting . If you've been paying attention to the kinds of music I've been listening to recently, none of this will sound wholly unfamiliar to you. But the richness and detail and beauty of this music will draw you in and hold you. You can stream the whole EP below and buy it for $1 or more. If you are really cheap, they've included a free download, too, at their Bandcamp site (where you can also get Volume 1, which is also great). I for one want to support these guys so they can make more music for me to put on repeat.
Supreme Cuts new material is insanely good. Whispers in the Dark, their album due on July 12th, takes their previous excellent material to the next level and pretty much blows most of the rest of the bass music world out of the water. Their beats are intricate, dense and constantly shifting. They utilize elements of rap and the juke of their native Chicago, but create instrumental songs with complex structures that progress, build and break into melodic bliss. I heard someone mention post-rock in reference to their sound (another genre largely born and bred in Chicago); and the cinematic, epic nature of their sound does have similarities with early Tortoise. Really, just trust me--listen to and download the first two singles because you will want to have them for forever. First up is "Lessons of Darkness (Apology)" which lives up to the sweeping power and drama of it's namesake film by Werner Herzog.
Here's "(Youngster Gone Off That) Sherm" probably my favorite track from the new album, although it's a really close tie with every single other song on it. They are all so, so good.
You can stream the entire album right now at Spin.com and you can buy the whole thing tomorrow at iTunes. Vinyl should be available soon at their Bandcamp or at Boomkat.
These guys have been busy for the past few months while I've been slacking on posting. They have made beats for15 year-old rising rap star Haleek Maul (whose debut EP you can grab for free here) and you can check out some of their instrumentals from that EP and from upcoming mixtape, Chrome Lips, below. You can actually download the single Silkk here. Supreme Cuts are some of the very best producers out there right now, you'll want to get everything you can by them and thank them for all the amazing music by grabbing Whispers in the Dark tomorrow.
Physical Therapy has been killing the remix game for a while now, turning both Top 40 and lesser known artists' songs into blissed-out late-night dance anthems. His remixes of Alicia Keys, Holy Other, Pictureplane, Elite Gymnastics,CFCF and Miguel, to name a few, have been played to death on my stereo. For a while I've said that if he put all his remixes together on an album and sold it would be easily one othe best albums of the year. Well he's done even better than that. He's posted most of the remixes, edits and mixes he's done to his soundcloud and made them all available for download for free. AND now he's dropping a new EP Safety Net next week of all original material. His unique sound transfers incredibly well and the whole release sounds great. Listen to and download the first single "Record Sales" below. It is a slow buile of breakbeats and accumulating horns, drones and what sounds like fake bird noises that grow into a dense mesh of triumph. Be sure to buy the whole EP. This man has given us all multiple albums of excellent, excellent songs for free and I'd like to make sure that he can make more music. So support him. Plus, the track "Drone On" alone is worth the price of admission with it's gorgeous vocals and hyper drum and bass beats. UPDATE: Now you can listen to and download "Drone On" below!
It has been FAR too long since I've done a bloggings. Real life stuff has been happening that has distracting at best and difficult at worst. But I'm back now and have a bunch of new stuff to share with you. Like, months worth. The urge to start posting again reached a tipping point last night when I saw one of my absolute favorite artists of all time How to Dress Well and he dedicated the show to me and this blog! So amazingly rad. If giving me a connection and a forum to talk with my favorite artists about how much their music has meant to me is what comes of this blog then that is totally worth it. Anyhow, How to Dress Well's live set was exactly how one would hope: gorgeous, intimate, vulnerable, real and human. Personally, Tom Krell mirrored all those qualities and (in the words of Brian Wilson) "transmitted maximum love vibes" to the whole room. He did some great new songs and new versions of old ones. His production techniques and the clarity of his voice were great, which is a real triumph with this style of music. And when he dropped everything, the band (which included the great Babe Rainbow) and even the mike to perform an acapella version of "Decisions" it was stunning.
Check out a live video of a new version of "Ready for the World" (not from the show I was at, I recorded some songs but was right in front of the speaker and the sound is crazy distorted) where he drops in bits of "I Wish" by R. Kelly and "My Boo" by Ghost Town D.J.'s
And if you haven't already gotten the new single from Total Loss which drops in September than grab it below. It maintains the fragility and ambient nature of his previous work but steps up the production to new levels--epic, aquatic and sparkling. Really so good. Can't wait to hear more of this.
Finally, here's a mix he did for interview magazine. It's the third part of a trilogy of mixes HTDW has dropped over the past year. First there was Love Yourself, then Change Yourself, and now finally Live Yourself. The man has amazing taste. Just check out the tracklist after the jump:
1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NttJWWUvXPw 2. cfcf- exercise #2 3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HurjdE2ry0o 4. xiu xiu- i broke up (fag patrol acoustic version) 5. BELIEVE IN MY LOVE//LEAVE ME 6. melanie fiona - 4am (HTDW SPEED BREAKS REPETITION MIX) 7. asap rocky - leaf (HTDW SICK AND TIRED REPETITION MIX) 8. future - ain't no way around it (HTDW U CAN'T TELL THE HOMIE NOTHING HE DONE FELT TOO MUCH PAIN REPETITION MIX) 9. WHOEVER WANTS 2 LOVE US IS WELCOME WHOEVER IS AGAINST US GET OUT 10. janet jackson - special 11. the dream - shawty is da shit remix (feat. r. kelly) (HTDW REPETITION INTRO) 12. future - straight up 13. hype williams - jericho 14. dizzee rascal - imagine + xiu xiu - i broke up 15. HTDW - world i need you, won't be without you (proem) 16. coco rosie - beautiful boyz (feat. antony) (HTDW CHORUS EDIT) 17. akos rozmann - 12 stations 18. 빅뱅 - bad boy 19. janet jackson - someone to call my lover (Hex Hector/Mac Quayle Radio Edit) 20. physical therapy - call me maybe vs mad drumz 21. carly rae jepsen - call me maybe (HTDW LOL EMPHASIS MIX HAHAHA) 22. janet jackson - empty 23. TOTAL LOSS
So in my last post I mentioned that I had somehow gotten in the middle of the ultimate electronic dream-pop flirt-fest between BalamAcab and Grimes on Twitter. Both of them discussed their #twittercrushes on one another and luckily @Advanceddd was on the scene to help things along. With any luck he'll be able to dedicate his remix of "My Boo" to her soon.
I couldn't agree more with Balam Acab's crush on Grimes. I know that I'm more than obsessed with her music right now I first really listened to her when she released Darkbloom with d'Eeon and made a video for her song "Vanessa". It had a really interesting combination of R&B, pop, and goth. But she's blown her past work out of the water with the material from her new album Visions which comes out Feb. 21. She combines elements of dance music, 60's girl-groups, and the shimmering pop of early Madonna and transmutes them with great songwriting into something new and exciting. Check out two of the tracks from Visions and buy it. It is some of the best music I've heard a while. Every track is gorgeous and it is truly an album in the classic sense. No filler and it all flows together perfectly. Great song after great song.
If you aren't convinced you can hear most of the album right now through Spotify here.
And watch her rock and an album highlight, "Nightmusic", live:
BalamAcab, who has released some of my favorite music of the past few years has been recently going H.A.M. on his twitter account and ADVANCED has been the beneficiary...somehow getting involved in an awesome flirt-fest between Balam Acab and Grimes! And now the man himself has put me up on game about an unreleased track from his days recording as Etherea! That whole project was insanely good and sounds like Balam Acab's gorgeous spaciness filtered through J. Dilla-style hip-hop. You can grab Free Etherea here and it features sweet remixes of Animal Collective, St. Vincent, Josephine Foster and a Wavves/DOOM mashup remix. If that doesn't make you excited you are crazy.
Anyhow, the unreleased track is called "In Church" and is a heavenly choir of organ drones and church bells surrounded by the aqueous noises that have become his signature sound and a beat that reminds me of rocking gently in a boat. One can only hope these church bells are foreshadowing wedding bells ringing for he and Grimes in what would be perhaps the greatest musical partnership since Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth or Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley of Yo La Tengo. Gossipy, hopeful, half-jokes aside, thanks so much to Balam Acab for being so cool and down-to-earth as well as making such beautiful music.
ADVANCED is back in 2012 with some amazing music from Francisco Y Madero. Comprised of Jess Sylvester (Marinero) and Carlos Pesina (Pepepe, Los Amparito, check out his rad tumblr here) they make what my friend Dylan dubbed "chile wave" and it is truly lovely. They solved my issue with Christmas (hate Christmas music) with their "Christmas Sweater/Sueter Navideno" (ok so this is a little late for you guys but come on...we are all still rockin' those sweaters we got for Christmas and this is just about #sweaterlife and isn't really a Christmas time only track). Francisco Y Madero (a clever play on the name of a former revolutionary Mexican President Francisco I. Madero) make music that simultaneously evokes Smile-era Beach Boys, the best of Panda Bear, the dreaminess of Balam Acab and the fun of 60's mexican pop. Really these two versions of the track will blast some sunshine into your day. The second version has a breakdown that is truly sublime. You can download both of them below.
They also recently released an EP, Acapulco en la Azotea that takes things into a new level of funkiness--starting with lovely sampled latin rhythms on both tracks they add awesome basslines, squelchy keyboards and spacey vocals to make something that is REALLY fun and fresh sounding. Listen to both below. Stay tuned for more great stuff from them.
