Filtering through the mailbox, inbox and sandbox to bring you the best FREE music, hand-selected by the discerning members of the ChinaShop editorial staff each and every month. Hit the jump to commence downloading. Hope you’ve got more space on that hard drive…
New Year. New Music. New Favorites. ChinaShop handpicks the Women to Watch in 2011. Don’t sleep…
Not to be terse or anything, but let’s skip the formalities and just get straight to the part where I say the new Stateless album, Matilda, is one of the best albums of the year. On “Assassins,” decomposing chimes inlayed with hand-played Arabic percussion give the feel of a possessed children’s music box before the whole song explodes into a half-time, hard rock headbanger. “Miles To Go” is a post-rock ballad that gives Massive Attack’s “Teardrop” a run for its money, and don’t even get me started on “I’m On Fire.” Just pay special attention at the eight-minute mark of the Matilda Mini-Mix (after the jump). You’ll smell what I’m cooking.
The fact is, Chris James, Stateless’ lead singer, is a visionary composer whose grasp of soul music, electronica, rock and classical themes is relatively unparalleled. He also knows how to surround himself with players that squeeze every last ounce of inspiration out of any given tune. On Matilda, he teamed up with producer Damian Taylor (Björk, U.N.K.L.E.), whose programming DNA as kidkanevil provides a titanium-like skeleton on which the flesh of the album is wrapped around. I hooked up with James to find out a bit more about the collaboration, his friendship with DJ Shadow, and the stories that reveal themselves throughout the album’s 50 minutes.
New Year. New Music. New Favorites. ChinaShop handpicks the Women to Watch in 2011. Don’t sleep…
New Year. New Music. New Favorites. ChinaShop handpicks the Women to Watch in 2011. Don’t sleep…
New Year. New Music. New Favorites. ChinaShop handpicks the Women to Watch in 2011. Don’t sleep…
You may think to be truly punk rock you have to hail from London or New York? But you might be surprised if I told you that Oslo Norway was were it’s actually happening!
Turbonegro has been living the punk rock drama for the past 20 years. When speaking with Happy Tom this weekend I likened them to the Andy Warhol’s of the punk rock scene. He wasn’t especially impressed with my comparison. He said,”That’s terrible, didn’t he get shot”. But my point, and I did have one, was that Warhol really paid attention to popular culture, took the opinion and vices of the day and served it right back to the Richies all the while mocking their moral high ground. In essence Turbonegro has been paying attention to the most ridiculous trends in rock culture and then serving it right back to the world, only suped up, fast, hard, and totally rock. As Happy Tom says, “We started off as a parody, and ended up a revolution”.