Mario –“Let Me Love You” (Lapalux Bootleg Remix)
This track could easily be up for a Touché Tuesday but it couldn’t wait the weekend. Mario’s version was so 2D compared to this. I was stunned when I heard how Brainfeeder signee and UK native Lapalux...
View ArticleWOLS – Outgunned EP
I don’t know when you would listen to this. Because I’m not done discovering it yet. I want to see where it goes. I’m now intently listening to Russian beat artist WOLS. Down the page, I note the track...
View ArticleT-Polar –“Hot Butter VIP”
On days like today, there’s no room for delay. Dive right into the sleeked up VIP version of T-Polar‘s “Hot Butter” cut. Don’t wait for it to make eye contact with you, just smile and walk over. The...
View ArticleOnra –“L.O.V.E.”
Peep three minutes of summer. Onra has worldly tastes. Living most of his life between Paris and the Ivory Coast, the man of French and Vietnamese blood has eclectic vision built in to his genes. So...
View ArticleGacha –“Bowl” Might Hypnotize You a Little Bit
Wanna see a bunch of Eastern bloc models dancing in unison? Hold your horses, let’s meet Gacha first. Gacha is from Tbilisi, the capitol city of The Republic of Georgia in Eastern Europe. I’ve heard of...
View ArticleLone –“Lenticular Cloud”
What can I even say about these synths? Sometimes a track just knocks you down. Earlier this year, Lone impressed everyone with his steady brand of “accidental rave music.” Galaxy Garden was a journey....
View ArticleOm Unit – Aeolian EP &“Old English”
Om Unit flexes wise weight on Aeolian EP. Jim Coles is known by a few names. He was already a staple in the London scratch DJ community when he went by the pseudonym 2tall. In the interview below,...
View ArticleStray –“Follow You Around”
Stray‘s foray into downtempo bass music is a potent dose of romantic melancholy. Normally the Leeds UK man does faster tempo drum ‘n bass; refer to the track’s b-side “Contact” for progressive, murky...
View ArticleTOKiMONSTA –“Sore”
Mark my words, if TOKiMONSTA pulls this shit again, we're getting an interview.
View ArticleSango –“Owe Me”, “Down4U”&“Lights” weren’t made for the club
We can tell a bedroom track from two planets away. The first indicator is the tempo. If it’s slow, you might have a bedroom track. But the real tell is the progression of the bars. If you’ve reached...
View ArticleMONO/POLY –“RA RISE (A Tuned to 432Hz)”
MONO/POLY‘s space jam “RA RISE” went away for a few days. The LA producer dropped this one a little while ago, and I was gonna write about it until it suddenly disappeared from his SoundCloud. Where it...
View ArticleRyan Hemsworth –“Fill Me In (Bootleg)”&“Colour & Movement” VIDEO are Wide...
Released in the same 30 days, these tracks show Ryan’s good side. When his “Fill Me In” bootleg came out, I swiftly nabbed it and disappeared, forgetting to tell anyone about it because I had to drop...
View ArticleAlunaGeorge –“Diver” and Frank Ocean Cover Give You a Shake
Mark me, I’ve heard these tracks before… …like last week. But even after my graceful courting and familiarization with “Diver,” I’m still faced with the challenge of AlunaGeorge‘s newest spill, a...
View ArticleBenZel –“Fallin’ Love” VIDEO Shows You the Inside of a Neon Slushie
I always drink my slushie in the blacklight, don’t you? It brings out the colors. If you could shrink down to the size of a neon ice crystal, this is what you’d see. Hey, that’s pretty cool already, so...
View ArticleFLOTE –“The Cascades” (+ VIDEO) is Careful Alchemy
A smooth paste made from blip-hop and deep downtempo. “The Cascades” is my introduction to Philly producer FLOTE aka Dome Wrecka. He may only have 8 sounds on his SoundCloud page, but he’s got a whole...
View ArticlePhil Beaudreau –“Take it High” Makes Your Lady Feel Weightless
Be careful. This breathy vocalist is going for your throat. My first impression was, “Wow, this song is begging to be remixed by rappers,” which means genre hopping and more exposure for Beaudreau. As...
View ArticleBonobo –“Cirrus” VIDEO Stuns with Fractals of White Picket Fences
I haven’t heard from Simon Green (Bonobo) in a minute, but he played an important role in my early electronic path. Before I ever found the motivating steamrollers of house, the nasty sneer of electro...
View ArticleMORRI$ –“Ladyboy” has a surprise or two
MORRI$ just made every blog say ladyboy and that’s already a victory. The producer is a rare American on UK label Night Slugs. A clue to his sound: he tags many of his tracks as “Goombawave.” A goomba...
View ArticleJessie Ware –“Devotion” (Distinction Refix) Wrestles You to the Ground
Bass tracks are tricky. Until a song kicks into its highest gear, it’s hard to tell if you’ll like it. In electronic music, you have to wait until about the 33rd bar. First you hear the intro, some...
View ArticleDrifter –“None Else” Emerges from an Empty Subway Car
The mysterious Drifter may think he’s alone, but I’m not convinced. The thick atmosphere of “None Else” is like a foggy entourage to the solitary Drifter, who has recently emerged from Helsinki,...
View ArticleJames Blake –“Retrograde” brought me back to my beginnings
I want to tell you a story. When I was fourteen, I discovered an ocean of foreign feelings all at once. I found a new crisis on a daily basis. They were unrelenting, and they were all real. Among the...
View ArticleSomepling –“Mellowbay Keys (Part 2)” is automatic relaxation
The French know hip hop. At this point, they might know it better than us. WHOA WHOA WHOA. Yes. As far as the classic jazz sound, the French are, today, the finest on Earth. My collection consists...
View ArticleStray –“When It Rains” Traps You Under the Umbrella
I could say I was ready for it… But I never really am. This London via Leeds producer got me stuck in the mud when I stopped to listen to “When It Rains.” Maybe Stray’s aim was to catch us looking at...
View ArticleFlume –“Left Alone” f. Chet Faker (Chrome Sparks Remix) is New Noise for the...
Chrome Sparks said “flip over.” The Brooklyn via Pittsburgh producer (pictured above) reworks the original by Aussies Flume and Chet Faker (vocals.) Flume always reminds me how detached I am from...
View ArticleJhené Aiko –“Burning Man (3:16pm)” VIDEO is the bright side of the moon
LA’s lightly chilled songstress initially rose to prominence as a collab artist. But the simple lyrics and catchy hook of “Burning Man (3:16pm)” find her sailing new seas. With an opposite mood to last...
View ArticleV.I.V.E.K –“Over My Head f. Mel Dymond” did the backflip I was looking for
Wait, stop moving. I need to observe this track before I speak. I’m always writing about music I know nothing about. But usually I can put a track in context quick enough to see the angles the producer...
View ArticleEgyptrixx –“Disorbital” is a unique plink in Night Slugs’ pond
It’s not uncommon to see a Night Slugs release whizz blissfully over my head. The experimental UK label is not hard to stomach, but often difficult to taste. Each time I hear a mix from label...
View ArticleObey City –“That Molly” made the right noise at the right time
But it’s not as simple as that. As head of Brooklyn label Astro Nautico, Obey City takes every release seriously. A less consistent producer might end a good run by capitalizing on a trend and making a...
View ArticleCybergiga – Been Had Felt Like a Cyborg EP is lit bright like Tokyo
We’ve been rewarded for peeking into new scenes. Some of my sources have been flipped around and I think I’m getting a fuller picture of the landscape. One creative outlier told me his story by...
View ArticleQueensway –“Healing”&“Run” rearranged my playlist
Certain tracks are reliable for the moods they bring, and that’s why I keep them. For years, G Double‘s “The Highest” has been a go-to to unwind. I didn’t do as much music digging when I found that...
View ArticleAbJo –“OutOfReach” is a bass knocking daze
Recently, I’ve really lacked poetry in my life. You know what I mean? I mean words. Lyrics! So I use sweet tasting substitute genres like downtempo to try to reap some of the same benefits. With...
View ArticleSZA: S EP is a rare potion worth saving
Singer songwriters were supposed to be on vacation, right? Context: At least, that’s what tends to happen when dance music makes a comeback. Every twenty years, guitars give way to synthesizers....
View ArticleThe Knife –“A Tooth For An Eye (Cooly G Remix)” wets us like a sunshower
That snare is unmistakable. Cooly G makes a stong nod to dub with organic, reverb heavy samples, including a very revolutionary horn that hovers the length of the “Tooth for an Eye” remix like an...
View ArticleUrulu –“Lonely Weekend” pulls a thread from past to present
Are we allowed to be proud that Urulu was ours? He was based in LA before he made the logical move to house music headquarters in London. Luckily for fans, changes in residence come with little...
View ArticleGacha –“Runner” is trying to lead you somewhere
Do you hear the pitter patter? Spend the first part of this track running. Spend the second part celebrating. Georgian producer Gacha picks up the rhythm at 2:35, replacing footsteps and echoing,...
View ArticleDfalt –“The Beggars” bubbles gracefully to the surface
We have pages of bookmarked songs that need sifting… Yet LA producer Dfalt pushes his way to the top with “The Beggars.” It’s raining in Boston. On the Southern California coast, the weather is...
View ArticleW A T E R –“Float” f. Stone Fox slips elusively through your fingers
We can’t tell if this track emphasizes the vocalist or the producer. That’s just one aspect of the ambiguity. Adding to the mystery, anonymous producer(s) W A T E R has not revealed their face, name or...
View ArticleMount Kimbie f. King Krule –“You Took Your Time”&“Meter, Pale Tone” are prime...
To be fair, Kimbie have been doing a strange waltz. The “post-dubstep” godfathers are exploring traditional instruments. Certainly, expanding boundaries to include both software and analog wins fans on...
View ArticleTricky –“Hey Love” VIDEO connects with a hungry audience
You made this! Maybe. “Bristol sound” pioneer and trip-hop legend Tricky doesn’t need any help engaging his decades-devoted fanbase, but he engaged them anyway. The “fan assisted” video for “Hey Love”...
View ArticleAdam Snow –“Thug” beats the odds
There’s a strange value in simplicity. I often witness its power but I’m still not sure I understand it. From the black and white artwork to the beats I heard in Fox, DC producer Adam Snow took his...
View ArticleGacha –“Race In” is a meditative stroll
I can always count on Gacha to calm me down. When you’re dealing with landlords, a new job and an overactive mind, stress becomes like a helicopter, hovering over your week. And if you’re avoiding...
View ArticleMilo Mills –“Jupiter”&“Yesterday” prove the value of a creative outlier
“Fuck a genre,” Mills says. To an extent, I agree. Tags are helpful if you want to efficiently organize music for discovery (e.g. SoundCloud, Twitter, Google), but they should not define the music....
View ArticleB-KPRS009: “did u jus wake up?” all new music. club/hangover mix
tracklist: MORRI$ – “A Missed Call” Milo Mills – “Jupiter” Lil Silva – “One Twenty” Miguel – “Do You (Cashmere Cat Remix (Sliink JerseyClub Edit))” Pedestrian & Jasperdrum – “Kalakuta vs. Zombie...
View ArticleAbJo –“Theta,”“4:44 AM” and “Stepping Into Yestermorrow” are just a few hues...
San Diego based Abjonian Sanders is shining new light in all directions. (jpg) Since we last said hello to AbJo, we’ve kept a close ear. The prolific producer has been releasing beats at an alarming...
View ArticleGacha –“Saysea (f. Natalie Beridze TBA)” creates a vast space
When did we stop pressing pause? Maybe we’d rather have constant stimulation. Whether it’s shoved in our faces or we have to go hunting, stimulation fills our inboxes and bombards our smartphones...
View ArticleElli Ingram –“C’ Dawha (p. Felix Joseph & Aston Rudi)”
This track has multiple personalities. Ingram’s the one with the voice. She has her own language, too. It’s called, “C’ Dawha” and it shares the name of this song. “I now write, speak & sing in...
View ArticleEli Dawson –“Plea” is currently looping
I’m trying to figure out what makes this song sound so buoyant. Because “Plea” is not complex. It’s simpler, like a water molecule. The synth lines are clean and sinewave-y, treated with just enough...
View Article“Ilu Baje (Geode Remix)”– Biggabush
At the foundation of dance music is a simple kick, snare, two step rhythm, right? Maybe it’s more like a clap. And the first kick drum was probably a stomp (or a thud.) I’m not trying to get all Stomp...
View ArticleJNTHN STEIN –“Pretty” f. Keren Tayar (Twistyknobs Flip)
To be honest I stopped breathing. If you’ve ever had sudden visions while listening to Twistyknobs‘ music, you already know. I was sitting here and his drastic rework of JNTHN STN‘s “Pretty” came on at...
View ArticleAdam Snow –“Amelia’s Theme”&“Cameras (Part II)”
It’s hard to get noticed online and maybe that’s a good thing. No matter what kind of content is uploaded, it enters a competition for increasingly sophisticated attention spans. As the music industry...
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