PREMIERE: Sub Swara - You Don't Know
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Now this is the kind of mutant dance microgenre we love best: superbass soul riddims featuring Amy Winehouse samples and brain-melting phase. Sub Swara’s genre-bending “You Don’t Know” is our first look at the duo’s upcoming The Rudiment Mixtape (May 1) which will run the gamut from horn-laden Indian beats (with assistance by members of The National and Iron & Wine) to new remixes of MNDR, Escort and Sharon Jones. Until then, give it a run below.
PREMIERE: Mophono - Cut Form Crunch (feat. Flying Lotus)
(Photo: Ricky Powell)
Bay Area fixture DJ Centipede has been spinning dusty hip-hop and futuristic bass music for some time, and now, as Mophono, he puts all his DJ skills into music making in the form of a full-length album. Entitled Cut Form Crunch, RCRD LBL gives you the premiere of the title track, featuring the inimitable imprint of guest Flying Lotus. The skipping zaps, warped oscillations, and quaking drum breaks are signature FlyLo, but there's an ominous, menacing vibe that feels distinctly like someone else, presumably the center of attraction. Cutting down on some of the compressed computer music that's FlyLo's bread and butter, Mophono seems to be moving further to the center of the spectrum that runs from straight sampling to microchip-created hip-hop, bridging the gap by bringing the best of both worlds.
Mophono - Cut Form Crunch (feat. Flying Lotus)
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DOWNLOAD: BEEP - Robopup + Robopup (Elephant & Castle Remix)
(Photo: Bryce Davesne)
One thing I've always loved about music is its genetic makeup, how styles that are seemingly unrelated actually share the same DNA. With San Franciso trio BEEP, for instance, the group plays imbalanced instrumental music as indebted to free jazz icon Sun Ra as asymmetrical indie band Deerhoof. The music shows how two different musical pipelines can actually deliver water to the same house. And then there's the Elephant & Castle remix of BEEP track "Robopup," which forgoes instruments entirely, filtering the song through purely electronic screens. But even that track shows how contemporary bass music has as much in common with free jazz, electric jazz, and indie rock as the original version of "Robopup." These kinds of connections are fun, and all the more so because you can hear them in both the original version and Elephant & Castle remix of "Robopup." BEEP have an album, City Of The Future, which is out now on Third Culture Records.
BEEP - Robopup (Elephant & Castle Remix)
DOWNLOAD: Sub Swara - Speak My Language (feat. Dead Prez)
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Sub Swara's Triggers keeps offering up jams, each one different in sound and texture, with "Speak My Language" being the most recent track on repeat. Featuring politically outspoken Brooklyn duo Dead Prez, MCs M-1 and stic.man deliver steady, polysyllabic verses over Sub Swara's rigid and daunting beat. With few instrumental elements aside from a staccato, atonal keyboard and an enormous snare drop, Sub Swara aim to hit you furiously, challenging how pumped up you can get and what getting pumped up can mean. "Speak My Language" is just one route Sub Swara take on Triggers, and you can check out the others, as the album is out now on Low Motion.
Sub Swara - Speak My Language (feat. Dead Prez)
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DOWNLOAD: Gang Colours - No Clear Reason
Though they don't all share the same size and tone, artists like Burial, Mount Kimbie, and James Blake all share similarities in texture and mood—their drums tend to pop and snap, their vocal samples tend to wail and fade, and their keyboards often glow and bathe. Add Gang Colours, a recent signing to British DJ Gilles Peterson's Brownswood Recordings, to that list of trademarks. "No Clear Reason" has elegiac, warbly Rhodes; the daunting, melting R&B vocal sample; and a drum beat that burns while everything above it simmers. If there's anything separating Gang Colours from his predecessors, it's that there's less discord and smoother texture. For more smoothness, check out Brownswood's recent Brownswood Bubblers #6, now available on iTunes. And check back to see more of what Gang Colours does when his EP and full-length LP are released, which should be relatively soon...
Gang Colours - No Clear Reason
DOWNLOAD: Salva - Wake Ups
Warped, blaring, and neon, the keyboards on Salva's "Wake Ups" are instantly recognizable, recalling similar dimensions in the keys of people like DaM-Funk, Zapp, or even DJ Quik. But that's just the intro--it's where the track proceeds that widens your eyes. Stuttering clicks and taps wrap around sheet metal snares, the keyboard zigzags all over the place like it's looking for a way out, and that's when you realize that this isn't just some George Clinton homage. There's the percussive patterns of Chicago juke house, the cut-up vocals of glitchy experimental hip-hop, and the 8-bit bass bombs of jungle. That Salva is originally from Chicago but now lives in Cali makes sense: He expertly synthesizes the scenes of all his stomping grounds on his synthesizer. The result is an unusual and totally distinct form of electronic music, absorbing so many different styles in the space of a single track that it's nearly impossible to classify. But that doesn't make it impossible to move your feet or bang your head. Salva's debut, Complex Housing, is out February 8th on Friends of Friends Music.
DOWNLOAD: Nate Mars - Above & Beyond Dem (feat. Jahdan Blakkamoore)
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(Photo: Steph Goralnick)
Summer jamz alert! Yesterday, Brooklyn producer Nate Mars unleashed his grassroots reggae and grime-ridden debut, featuring a trio of tracks from Dutty Artz master (and RCRD LBL staple) Jahdan Blakkamoore. Below, “Above & Beyond Dem” keeps it dubby with Mars’ fuzzy bass beating against Blakkamoore’s dirty harmonies. This is slow ride music, and in a better world, we’d be blasting it down Flatbush instead of sitting at our desks, dreaming like chumps. Concentric Circles is out now through Blipswitch/Complex Dubz.
Nate Mars - Above & Beyond Dem (feat. Jahdan Blakkamoore)
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PREMIERE: Herve - Zombies (Franzy Scanner Zombie Dandruff Remix)
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Club music's love affair with the undead is an enduring one, and here Franzy Scanner helps Herve join the wild-eyed, zombie love-in happening 'pon de floor with a (haunted?) house edit built from fat bass thrusts, B-movie samples and glassy synths akin to those heard in "Tubular Bells". The original version of "Zombies" features on Herve's forthcoming Ghetto Bass 2 mix CD, and is out on April 26 as a single through his own Cheap Thrills label.
Herve - Zombies (Franzy Scanner Zombie Dandruff Remix)
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