Today’s bloggin best…
- A new Jay-Z / Dr. Dre song might be dropping this week. 2dopeboyz
- Johnny Marr could play in two bands at Reading Festival. NME
- Madlibs drops bombs with Guilty Simpson and Strong Arm Steady.
- Gorillaz got an online video game. Pitchfork
- If wrestlers were rappers. Complex
- Erykah Badu gets naked and assassinated in new video. SFGate
- Deadmau5 goes Hollywood, guests on Gossip Girl, hangs with Tommy Lee. MTV
Today’s bloggin best…
- LCD Soundsystem yanked a YouTube leak, then posted up a YouTube leak. YouTube
- That Jimi Hendrix porno is coming out in May. NME
- Slices follows Carl Craig and his orchestra. The Daily Swarm
- Phish in 3D will blow your mind. Prefix
- Kid 606 out-cusses Steve Albini. Limewire
- The Purple One is having all sorts of problems with green. AOL
- The Fray cover Kanye West. Hypetrak
- While Kanye appears on “The Cleveland Show.” SOHH
Today’s bloggin best…
- Kid Cudi released a new video. DatNewCudi
- The new Glitch Mob single is free (and mellow?) LA Times
- Is Prince stealing from fans to pay his tax bill? Village Voice
- Is Le Tigre reforming just to record with XTina? LA Weekly
- If Pavement added an LA gig, does that mean Coachella is sold out? LA Times
- Beck cover of INXS is finally online for real. Beck.com
- There is no way the Duff McKagan book will be as good as Slash’s book. Village Voice
- The Juan Maclean is giving away an empeefree. DJ-Kicks
Today’s bloggin best…
- Flying Lotus replaces Thom Yorke leak with a flash player. URB
- Massive Attack kick off major film project for Heligoland. Dazed Digital
- Punks jump up, throw out back! Dr. Martens turns 50. Format Mag
- More LCD Soundsystem behind-the-scenes video. Fader
- Asher Roth’s manager arrested for tween endangerment. SOHH
- Noel Gallagher talks about getting his ass kicked onstage. Billboard
- Gogol Bordello is giving away a free song. GogolBordello
- And Phoenix is giving away and entire live album. WeArePhoenix
Today’s Bloggin Best…
- Stream the new Autechre album, Oversteps. Clash
- Dilla x Serato x “Safety Dance” = Want. Stones Throw
- M.I.A. too-release Sleigh Bells debut album. Stereogum
- Stream Gonjasufi + Gaslamp Killer show live tonight. LA Weekly
- Detroit techno is old enough to rent a car. Rhythmism
- Buy Daft Punk, Cat Power, Vampire Weekend and Strokes custom crafts to benefit Haiti. Bidding For Good
Today’s bloggin’ best…
- Remember yesterday’s 12-hour radio mix by Autechre? Download it here. Percussionlab
- But will it decipher lyrics? YouTube announces automatic captioning for videos. Boing Boing
- PETA thinks Matthew Herbert is a pig. Stereogum
- LCD Soundsystem officially announces third album. XLR8R
- Jay-Z’s DJ dropped a mixtape. Hypebeast
- Avatar blue-babe Zoe Saldana hates the word “ethnic.” Complex
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.
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, all in praise of electronic music’s more intangible and ethereal qualities.
Words by Jeff Nau
Scott Hardkiss – Come On, Come On
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
