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Magical Properties | Jogger is one of those bands that proves hard to describe through mere superlatives and praiseful adjectives. You’re sort of lost on an ocean of schizophrenic sound, where swells of jazz and blues and electronica intertwine with the indefinable, the somber and ethereal emotions of life. On This Great Pressure, the Los Angeles duo of Jonathan Larroquette and Amir Yagmai mix together just about every thinkable random and bizarre beat with traditional jazz and blues melodies to create some unsettling effects. A lot of you old school video game fans might even find your heads bopping along to tracks like Nephicide, which sounds like an 8-bit Nintendo game soundtrack complete with death metal vocal samples interspersed between guitar arpeggios and wailing, somber vocals.

Jogger – Gorilla Meat

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4.43 (7 votes)

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Giant Step | Mixing different styles of electronica, techno, trance, and more, many of  Scott Hardkiss‘ song titles are both self-explanatory and satirical: Beat Freak encompasses a wide variety of different beats, both percussive and synth-based, while others like The Revolution Has Begun are less genre-bending revelations than catchy, quirky observations on electronic music’s self-indulgent obsession with retro effects. Star Power, with its satirical view of trite celebrity fashion concerns, could be a newer mix between Right Said Fred and Rick James, while What We Got is somewhere between self-deprecating and genuinely just plain fun.
On Technicolor Dreamer, Hardkiss breaks a bit further away from his God Within moniker to focus more on this specifically solo musical venture; fans familiar with his jazz and funk influences will find a great deal more of both at play than on other outings. But Hardkiss seems intent on both covering familiar ground as well as surprising the listener: On tracks like It Comes From Above, many of those familiar Euro-pop elements mix with a simple five-word mantra, repeated ad infinitum in praise of electronic music’s more intangible and ethereal qualities.

Words by Jeff Nau

Scott Hardkiss – Intro

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Scott Hardkiss – Come On, Come On

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4.29 (7 votes)

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With a collection of clever remixes, rhythms and Swedish Guerilla farts, Stockholm’s Dada Life stands poised to take the electronica world by storm. Their latest magnum opus, Happy Hands and Happy Feet, carries an unusual blend of influences– everything from underground trance, to punk, to the same bizarre artistic revolution that makes up their name. The DL have once again proved that if there’s a vital contender for the coveted electronica-DJ throne, Olle and Stefan are determined to get there, or die trying (to burn it down).

Words by Jeff Nau

Dada Life – Happy Hands and Happy Feet

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4.33 (6 votes)

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You haven’t really lived – I mean, really reveled in this epic journey we call life, till you’ve been front row at a MSTRKRFT show. No lie, these cats from Toronto get really DEEP. Once again, to reemphasize, I’m not talking about regular “deep,” I’m referring to “six million leagues beneath sea level – with no sunlight” type of deep.

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5.00 (1 votes)

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It’s not like we love Neil Landstrumm — it’s like the man lives inside of our ear drums, pounding out his innovative, hybrid cocktail of dub and grime powered auditory awesomeness. His Sunday set at Movement ’09 was certainly no exception. Although the poor dude was set up to the side of the stage, he made up for his lack of strategic positioning that lives in the world kick snare, kick snare — but stands tall in an ocean of imitators who chase his sound but continually fall flat. When you’ve been it for as long as Landstrumm has, you’ll run it into that … but you’ll also learn how to run directly over it, reverse and repeat a few times until you stand adjacent to only your own legacy and a long line of DJ road kill. For what seemed like an eternity (but was probably closer to an hour if we settle down and face the facts), Landstrumm transformed his daytime set into a time bending performance that turned the audience into midnight marauders of the sexist sort, Landstrumm’s often space age slugtone beats unleashing some of the weirdest, most sensual dance moves we’ve seen in quite sometime.

Words by Ryan Patrick Hooper, photos by Joe Gall

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Everyone and their furry boots were ready for RJD2 on Sunday afternoon as the sun began to set on the second day of Movement ’09. With a stack of records cleanly categorized behind the turntable traditionalist, RJD2 quickly shuffled through his funk, soul and lightly rock ‘n’ rollified collection of tracks — pulling heavily from fan favorite albums Deadringer and Since We Last Spoke — smoothly worked up the crowd with his charismatic microphone moxy. “So, what do you guys want to do now?” jokingly inquired RJD2 halfway through his set. “Should we just go home?” And, like sweaty clockwork, the droves of funk frenzied fans declared, “No!” in what seemed like perfect unison. “Let’s get to work then,” quipped the man with the plan before mashing up The Cars’ classic Let The Good Times Roll with his own hip-hop influenced creation of distorted guitars and bouncing beats.

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5.00 (1 votes)

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