The Range: "We Brings...Melody"

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.

Svengali Volume 2: Mister Lies, Different Sleep, Svengali, Soleman, and Maurice come very Advanced

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: Advanced Beats

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.