Our Independence Day holiday week was full of buzz swarming around Jay-Z's Magna Carta Holy Grail (seen side by side with the real Magna Carta), Hova's apprentice Justin Timberlake, & Timbaland's steamy “Tunnel Vision” hype, while 50 Cent's baby-mama-matters almost distracted us from the coup in Egypt. So in a toast to the red and white blue, get an in-depth listen and look at this Week in Pop's overachievers in no particular order.
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Kicking things off today, we hand the mic over to our boy C-SAN who dropped the True Achiever tape this week for free download. Going hard with the Flash Academy production, the title track breaks it down “bar for bar” dumpin' the parakeet fakers and asserting things with a Knight Rider type of vibe. “Hunger Pains” brings hunger artist struggles produced by Terrence Clayton, and string strung samples on “Rap Break (ft. Bless Escro & Kevin Mak)” that drops the clever Hennessy-Kim Jong-il comparative simile (fun fact: Hennessy was purportedly the favorite beverage of choice of the deceased former North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il and was on the books as Hennessy's biggest customer for over a decade). The Uncle Dave produced “Old Me” looks forward and never turns back, while the Academy kicks out another banger with “On That”, the classic death proof concerto of “Forgive Me” produced by R.I.P. Proof, Beats4clothes keeps the samples and cuts vintage but weird on “Beast”, while Terrence keeps the beats classic on “Right There”. The head-space meet the modern with the post-modern as “Rap Break 2 (ft. Bless Escro)” keeps the focus on cash flow and counting blessings, the Academy keeps flashing on “This That”, with the tentative closing cliffhanger “Still Waiting”. C-SAN took time out of his busy schedule this week to talk producers, the Overdoz connection and their elusive proliferation along with which thrones C is keeping a watch on.
First question I have is about the vision of True Achiever, and what sets that definitive article across from the fall choice polarities of under and over achieving?
I just felt like in rap it was becoming almost the standard that not having actual talent as a MC or rapper was the norm. Only a handful of artist/rappers are striving to be great whether it is as an artist/song maker or a rapper. Every Project I strive to get better in every aspect, as a man, in life, rapping, and as an artist so that's why I chose the title True Achiever.
You've collaborated with Joon recently on “What”, how did you get mixed up with that Overdoz crew?
I have worked with Overdoz on multiple occasions. I was actually on Live4diefor their last album and they have been on almost all of my projects. I have been with Overdoz from the start and was a helping hand in getting the group started and together. I also manage them as a part of a management team.
Doz has had a gradual rise, while remaining underground and influencing the above ground streams when they want to. What's their inside secret and track to keeping it subterranean but popping on the surface?
Can't give out all the info. But the music / lifestyle and aesthetic of the group has so much appeal and so many dynamics that the people always want more. No album in 2 plus years and the buzz has grown since then with no album I haven't seen anything like it.
Feels like the West Coast is back on that come up, what is your take on the creative pendulum that swings from coast to coast?
I feel like everyone has their time but I also feel like everyone provides something that is needed for the game. Its plenty of lanes and plenty of money for everyone to make so we should all just focus on music for the audiences that we target and keep it pushing. Rap has always been a competition but now I feel like now its too much of worrying about what everyone else is doing to where the music and creativity suffers. I DON'T WANT TO HEAR NO OTHER RAPPERS RAPPING LIKE OTHER RAPPERS, ha ha.
What emcees are you juiced on these days?
I am a fan of lots of people but right now at this moment probably just Ab-Soul and Jay-Z.
What producers along with Flash Academy, Terrence Clayton, Uncle Dave, are tearing it up right now?
THC is killing it. I got some stuff coming with them soon. Pharrell is also back killing it. Iman Omari as well.
What summer jam are you bumpin' for the '13?
I'm still on Cudi's album and Justin Timberlake. Anybody that knows me will tell you I PLAY SHIT OUT, ha ha. I just get lost in the music and will listen to the same song 100 times in a week. I also been on that curtis mayfield album. I love 70's music as well.
Reclaiming a reigning rite to the Summer season of club anthems, Chippy Nonstop's new EP #finallyverified flashes onto the floor with the rhinestone key encrusted “Pimpin Season”. Keeping it slapping is the “papi give it to me” carnal knowledge zapper, “Bang Bang”, followed by the Middle Eastern discotheque take on Pharrell's “Drop It Like It's Hot” beat-box-pops on “Bubblegum ft Kitty”. No downtime here as, “Geeked Up Off This Cake ft. Bukkweat Bill” gives some facetime-twerkin' curated for only the most ratchet strip joints around. Chippy's East Bay roots ring out true on the “Ether ft. Chapman” that glorifies the grit and glamor of getting dumb and numb. Closing cut “Number One ft. Lofty 305” has a ghosted analogue warped style, where the broke down piano and ambient sonics sprinkle up an ethereal electrical storm in slow motion over Chippy's stoned and sweet delivery that will keep you guessing what's next from her Nonstop hip-pop circus. At long last, we finally caught up with Chippy to discuss and dissect everything from styles to the states of swag.
How has the rap game evolved from your perspective from MONEYDANCE101 to #finallyverified?
Honestly I don't really go into shit with that perspective. I just make what I want a go through the process of it. I don't think of things as “RAP GAME” and all the extra shit. I just make shit and have a good time. If people like it and I make money off it, I'm happy.
Given the hashtag in your EP's title, how has the Internet culture cult of pop both helped and/or hampered your career as an MC?
Again, it's kind of all just instinctual. I think about things, but most things I do are just habitual. I've grown up on the internet, this is nothing to me. I didn't even second guess myself or think about no #hashtagging the title, it was just what it was.
Is swag alive, dead, post-swag, or has Oakland become a reborn new-swag city?
Swag is what you make it. I don't necessarily use the world say, or ever really did to be honest. I feel like The Bay never really wanted to use the word swag….so I never really caught on to it. Me and my homies (#YUNGKLOUTGANG) have our own slang, we just go with that. But I mean you can tell the way people carry themselves if someone has “SWAG”. I guess it's the same thing as the 'IT FACTOR'. In my world honestly swag was never really a thing, it was never alive, it was always a form of mockery. Like “swag boys” or “hype beasts.”
Given the proliferation of the East Bay with the likes of HBK Gang's Iamsu!, sayknowledge, Main Attrakionz, etc; who are some of your under and over-ground favorites?
Yeah I mean I love Su! and Main Attrakionz forever. Squadda and Mondre are amazing people. *tear* I miss The Bay.
I mean I've been getting into listening to Yung Lean here and there. Honestly I listen to a lot of pop like Miley Cyrus and Ke$ha. I also listen to a lot of mainstream “trap” I guess…Ocho Cinco, Upper Echelon, Buggatti. I listen to Chris Travis, because he's sexy…lol. Um..Antwon, Wiz, Le1f, Major Lazer….I'm corny for this but I love Tyga…lol. I listen to a lot dancehall and reggaeton tbh. Rihanna, Taylor Swift. Kitty Pryde….lol. Just to name a few
Cloud rap still a thing? Or are we in the post-cloud stratospheres?
I don't even know…The only cloud rap I care about is Main Attrakionz. I think SAD BOYZ AND GIRLS rap is a crucial post- cloud rap factor. Like people like Lil Pain and Yung Lean and all these very sad based rappers.
How have cohorts like Kreayshawn, Iggy Azalea, Angel Haze, Azalea Banks, and so forth changed the hip-hop game for gender equality?
I mean I don't really associate myself with Hip hop music. I think I make club dance pop music. I just have been around a lot of hip-hop people so it seems as if maybe I do. But I'm way more into making pop. It's just hard for me to stray away from my ratchet side because I've been around it for so long, it's obviously an innate part of my character, that I'm not trying to hide.
Favorite twitter beef so far of the summer or of 2013 so far?
Well I love when Complex put up the list of people who have said mean things to rappers and now they are sucking their dicks. It's amazing. Rihanna and Amanda Bynes was pretty good too. It's hilarious to me when people beef on twitter. It's amazing to see how their feelings change once someone actually cares to fight back with them and then they pussy out. hahaha. I die.
Play Chippy's #PimpinSeason game via Tumblr to peep the making of her upcoming video.
Kodacrome's “Strike The Gold” came out of nowhere. The duo of Elissa Pociask, Ryan Casey gave us the Perla 10″ in March of 2012, where the creative forces behind KaeoFLUX and Elissa P respectively combined powers to create a sound that elicits responses like Kodak color print future film memories. The keyboards start rolling innocently and deceivingly simple and give little hint at the musical presentation later to arrive. Following Elissa's sung lead-in poetics arrested all attention that responded to the stair step scaling synths as just part of the song's charged emotional landscape as even this blinded us to the pre-arranged course ahead. “Clench your bets against your breast and hold your breath as time suspends” had us listening neck to neck until the song's end as you become blinded by avalanche of electronic everything. With “Strike the Gold”, it's all bets off as the two turn everything on it's head and take it toward those places that can only be conveyed in terms that describe fresh encoded color schematics across an intricate self-designed chroma-toned matrix. With an upcoming show at Brooklyn's Knitting Factory, we reached out to Elissa and Ryan to know more and better understand their creative Bay Area by Brooklyn relationship.
How did your two projects of KaeoFLUX/Elissa P evolve into the illuminous, synth cascading form of Kodacrome?
Elissa: Over the past couple years, Ryan has really helped me to cultivate a love for thoughtful sound-sourcing. I've always been really committed to crafting melodies, but the greatest evolution for me pertaining to Kodacrome has been developing my palate for the actual tones, and working out a language for that with Ryan.
Ryan: I've always been into analog synth production, and Kodacrome gives me a perfect platform to build textures and geek out on synths essentially. Elissa writes beautiful, complex arrangements that twist and turn and really lend themselves to rich swells and arpeggiated synth lines.
“Strike The Gold” virtually shimmers like gold or rubies, what is the Kodacrome secret to mixing digital and analog qualities? What can you tell us about the follow up release to 2012's Perla?
E: We actually try to do as little digital as possible on the front end, but then of course, we are releasing this as an mp3, so it just takes a lot of tweaking and massaging in the end to make sure the dynamics don't get squashed, even if we're optimizing for…say…iPod earbuds.
As for our next full-length, I think we've tried to open up our song formats, and allow space to feature the instrumental passages. At the risk of being a little less accessible, we really want to polish each section, and not rush through the arrangements, or force them into unnatural structures.
R: It's tough because my heart is in analog but it's so much more convenient and effective for us to utilize digital systems – so we try to strike that balance. For me the key is to be very discerning about what sounds we use – not necessarily where they come from. What I love about analog is the warmth, the drift, and the natural glitches – so when we are forced to use digital sound sources I keep all that in mind and try to apply the same qualities. The new record is based primarily on analog drum machines – namely the DSI Tempest – and rich synth textures. We are creating a space where sound can contract and expand and breath slowly without being too minimalistic.
Being that you two are from Brooklyn/SF respectively, what differences and similarties from these influences and scenes work together in both your collaborative work together?
E: I think because of the internet, and because I'm predisposed to be kind of a loner, it doesn't matter much whether my studio is in Brooklyn or San Francisco. As long as I'm somewhere urban and anonymous and I have a dedicated workspace, I think I have the resources I need to do my best and feel inspired. I don't do well in small towns. Everyone wants to talk!
R: I'm a Brooklyn transplant but it's been home for quite a while now. NYC fuels me. The energy here helps me stay productive and motivated, and the culture inspires. I love SF – its beautiful. But NY has the tension. The grind. The dirt. It can be exhausting at times but it constantly inspires my production.
As for the differences between BK and SF and how that has affected Kodacrome musically, I think we would have ultimately produced this music no matter where we were. Actually, we engineered most of Perla on an island in the dead of winter, so I guess geographically speaking, there are no rules!
Enchanters and champions of home recorded music for social seances; Brooklyn's Magmana reach outside of themselves with a home sewn soul. The duo of Caleb Lindskoog and Joan Tick formerly of the Phenomenal HandClap Band burn a light with a vacuum tube glow that ponders the crossroad branches and complicated conjectures and semantic debates like, “but still my heart feels pure, despite the words in my mouth”. The search for truths and explorations into the spaces of relativity were all created and recorded in the spaces of home and a Brooklyn basement in the late hours where the excess stimuli hide in the absence of sun. We had a chance earlier this morning to catch up with Joan who discussed Magmana's behind the scenes approach to conjuring powers, sonic patterns, incantations, the meditative connection between crystals and fertility, and much more.
How did the songwriting sessions for “I'm Evil” come about, and how were they inspired and developed?
I wrote this song while visiting my mom in Las Vegas, which is where I grew up. She has an old digital upright piano that I love even though it barely still works. The volume is unreliable and jumpy and there are some missing notes, but there's something really cool about its tone. There was a lot of other family in town and nowhere to really work on the song, so I recorded the piano melody on a laptop and then took it into a spare room to write and record some vocals. I was just trying to get down some basic ideas by singing really quietly for the sake of privacy. It felt like a secret chant about myself over the neurotic tendencies of what i had recorded on that piano. It naturally kind of led me to the landscape of self-contradictions and the oscillation between power and vulnerability, desire and rejection, ego and alter-ego.
When Caleb and I took the song into the studio to record it for the album, we were working with our friend, Mike Johnson, on drums. It was winter and freezing cold in the studio, which we were using during graveyard hours. We shared one space heater back and forth between the control room and the recording room. Mike had the heater a lot of the time because his hands were getting too cold to play, and he was already bundled up head to toe. I laid on the floor huddled inside my jacket and gloves and hat while Caleb engineered the sessions (and then later recording his own guitar tracks and some additional keys). Mike experimented using random things we could find in the studio's storage like the metal spines and washy surfaces of used notebooks to add skulking percussion textures. We were all pretty tapped into the many different emotional sections of the song and by meandering through nights like this, we found the right sounds that brought the song to where it is now.
What brought you to bridge the ren-faire styled pageantry to the modem obsession with good and evil?
Certain language works to over simplify or demean emotions or feelings. The witch and the “evil woman” is definitely categorical to this and a little bit funny. So while there is some snubbing for such branding, I think I'm interested in the intersection of all our many selves-the secret self where we transform language and identity on our own terms. The place where we admit our worst qualities, feel remorse and in the same breath remain indignant and protective, and want to be loved anyway is a complicated score. I like to explore the spaces in between opposition, and in this case the witch has a good reason to have evil tendencies-possibly because she's misunderstood, possibly because it's imbedded in her nature, possibly because it makes her beautiful, or ugly, but ultimately, the witch is a good figure because she's attempting self awareness. That seems worth loving because it is a scary pursuit. Her evilness is relative.
Are there any witchcraft happenings within Magmana we should know about?
I think making music is a pretty witchy endeavor no matter what. So yes. There are serious conjuring powers at hand, a knack for the sonic pattern (or incantation) while hoping for an outcome, and when you are successful, you find a portal into another person's heart and mind. It's really quite shocking and incredible when I think of this. All of our work is really rooted in following intuition alongside craft-rawness paired with precision. Going into the abstract process of truly following your own artistic intuition is a very spooky endeavor. You can really fall into a trance at times. Some might even refer to it as an Uppercase “I” possession of the self when you are working, and of course this can be different for everyone, but always strange, mysterious, beautiful, surprising.
I also hail from a lot of witchy ladies. My great grandmother was a spirit channeler by trade and wrote a book describing the terms and laws of the afterlife as told to her by the ancient Greek feminist intellectual, Hypatia. After reading the book, I think she could have been the real deal.
Tips on spells for warding off or inviting evil and/or good spirits?
I think crystals are pretty powerful for calling on the spirits. But you have to be careful and know what you are doing and you have to be prepared sometimes for the signals to get crossed. I have a really powerful crystal and last year I was taking it to the park by my apartment every morning and meditating on finding a way to get our album out into the world because we had zero money at the time to press any vinyl or tour. I was really asking for the “birth” of things. The next thing I knew, I was pregnant with Caleb's baby! So as of a couple months ago, we now have an amazing brand new son, named Dune, who is our newest Magmana member.
Magmana's “I'm Evil” is off Joan and Caleb's forthcoming album, Fiend from Tacky Records.
Egadz gets interactive with his single “Ghost”, where you are in the control seat. You can choose to go behind the scenes, play a game, get the single, or just groove along to the electronic-illuminated programming symphony. Egadz' self-released Satellites will be available July 30.
Dispelling the “disinformation, across the nation” and all the various indoctrinations without education. Get the power and the volition on the new Ebony Bones cut “I See, I Say” off the forthcoming Behold, A Pale Horse available August 5. Seems like the last time we heard this sample, it was Earl Sweatshirt getting grizzly on “Drop“, pre-Corral Reef Academy lockup in Samoa.
The Ugly Heroes crew of producer Apollo Brown and verbalists Verbal Kent and Red Pill drop the Brandon Damon video for “Desperate”. Getting into the day in-day out struggle for meaning and survival amid the odds; you'll be swept with Brown's woodwind sample that coasts you through the blight looking for a better day while digging through the old dusty record crates to figure out where he got that sound. Ugly Heroes' self-titled is available now from Mello Music Group.
Cryptacize founder and collaborator of Haunted Graffiti's Kenny Gilmore; Nedelle Torrisi dropped by the double synth night heat visions of “Double Horizon”. While you find yourself haplesslly and helplessly lost in the harp tones, Nedelle goes for the classic dream-daze trick with the lipstick smears of “dreaming, dreaming, of you”. Torrisi's self-titled will be available September 3.
Club 8 “Hot Sun Feat. Misfit Mod” Originally off the Club 8 Labrador Records release Above the City, Stars and Letters' electro pop darling Misfit Mod, aka Sarah Kelleher, takes the warm sunny vibrations across the bodies of those familiar warm bodies of water found on her album Islands & Islands. Music to honor the burning sun's rays, or the cool-starlit moonbeams.
In further hype for the Tim Presley project that needs little to no introduction, the infamous, out-of-print Make a Mess originally issued, White Fence self-titled will be given a new reissued lease on life July 16 from Drag City offshoot, God? Records.
Also dropping July 16 from God? Records is Scraper's self-titled 7″ that gets scuzzy with that time honed Wizard Mountain-San Francisco sound recorded by Ty Segall and Eric Bauer. So get wild, get rambunctious, and hold on to your fried out toupees with “Electric Hairpiece”.
And in case you missed it, get bug-eyed with Scraper's out of sight and out of this world cut, “Alien Eyes”.
Woods dropped a digital listen to their new 7″ single that's coming this Tuesday, July 9 from who else, but Woodsist. So take it easy, and soak it all in as one of Brooklyn's greatest powerhouse of troubadours helps you to learn how to be all, “Be All Be Easy”. Get a full list of Woods' upcoming tour dates here.
Also check out the b-side as Woods takes on Ray Davies' Kinks klassic with “God's Children”, to keep those old-timey good vibes flowing and to remind you that we are all part of a great, global, spiritual family (in case you forgot).
Ulrich Schnauss saw his single “I Take Comfort In Your Ignorance” get remixed by San Francisco's Tycho that brings the creative Bay approach to the new-new-'Neue Deutsche Welle' sound. Catch Schnauss on the tour dates listed here from Domino that includes a stop September 20 at Brooklyn's Cameo Gallery.
Help Iamsu! light some candles with some bowed head prayer instructions in the HBKGADGET's video for “Father God” off Su! and the HBK Gang's recent released Kilt II mixtape. Bow your head, follow Su!'s instructions and get in on this Bay Area prayer to see another bright day while never minding the b.s. and stress. Bring mitzvahs to life's madness, we'll be darned if 'bow your head' doesn't become the latest call and response dance craze to exorcize demonic vibes amidst the current BART strike.
Ryan Power's Identy Picks is available as of this week from NNA Tapes, and to celebrate you can preview the album here, followed by a look at the video for “Sweetheart”. Power's album courses the quest for identity and understanding through the synth soul tones that brings out new awarenesses in the listener that occurs somewhere between the full-length's span of “Sample Lives” to the DNA encryption of “Rip the Blood”.
Peep Ryan Power's video for “Sweetheart” that gives you something more with the image of Power firing at you like an a/v lab videotaped valentine. The video comes directed by Joey Pizza Slice who stresses that there were no computers or digital fudgery involved in the creative process of visualization. Also check out Ryan's Week in Pop headline feature here.
It's just another day kicking it with Freddie Gibbs in Gary, Indiana in the Will Gates video for “Lay It Down” off Gibbs' new album joint, ESGN – Evil Seeds Grown Naturally. Gibbs kicks it with his hometown crew in asserting turf en masse in a video that is made in response to an opening news clip featuring a nervous waspy weather caster joking, “I drove through [Gary, Indiana] once and I think I needed to take an AK-47 with me”. Even as Freddie steps it up in a militant delivery march, note the grandiose orchestration selections made by Willie B that sample a thundering falling sky note sound compound.
Get a spacey gander at Grand Resort's Anna Spence VHS-looking-super-retrograde video for “Endless” to celebrate their just released Memory Loss EP via Bandcamp. Andrés Pichardo brings the jangliest of UK vintage indie to his Dominican Republic by a Boston bedroom rock project that takes forward into the endless infinity by way of the big book of indie pop's past.
Baby Alpaca brings floating sunrise/sunset sentiments and visuals with the performance of their single “Sea Of Dreams” (LIVE in Palm Springs). Swim through the pools of Summer serenity with Chris Kittrell and Zach McMillan on their debut self-titled EP available from Atlas Chair Records.
Torching up the place is the new 7″ from Torche that gets downright heavy with “Leather Feather”, available now through Volcom Entertainment. Shred your hungover head out to this jam now.
Get scuzzy and scary and down right poppy with the debut single from the Distortion Mirrors with “Death By Love' off the Zeros and Kings EP slated for release this Fall. Luke Worle and Josiah Brooks further live up to their moniker reflective fuzziness as they prepare their follow up to 2011's suRRism Phonoethics release, Circle of Wolves with precision guided dissonance applied to the infectious vernacular.
At long last, Jahzel released his mixtape In God's Image that gathers images and thoughts from the Chicago's emcee that dwell upon the reasons and rhyme of both the secular and higher spiritual purposes. Read our discussion with Jahzel about the tape in his Week in Pop headline feature here.
Get a listen to the Shams' Relaxed Mix of Adventure's anxiety inducing head altitudes of “Nervous”. Adventure's new album Weird Work is available now from Carpark Records and can be found performing Brooklyn's Glasslands tonight, July 5. Shams, the latest from the 100% Silk tribe takes on Benny Boeldt's adventurous computer game electronica with a juke sensibility that is ready for any after hour rager, anywhere.
Pillar Point gets snazzy with synth-pop stylings on “Dreamin'' ahead of the Diamond Mine 7″ release July 9 on digital and September 3 vinyl wise from Polyvinyl. This will probably be the track you become obsessed with this Summer right before the back-to-schoolers attempt to ruin it via countless repeat plays. Find that diamond mine right here, right now.
Philadelphia Lantern gives some glam stomp and plod electricity with “Evil Eye” and more off of Rock 'N' Roll Rorschach, ahead of it's release next week from Sophomore Lounge. When the great Seger once bequeathed that “Rock and Roll Never Forgets”, he may have had Lantern in mind or maybe just as a flicker of foresight twinkling in his eye circa the days of Tales of Lucy Blue.
The Denzels give the first listen since the East Tiger EP with the fire igniting single “222” brought to you from Admirable Traits Records. Look for The Denzels performing July 9 at Shea Stadium and July 19 at Bowery Ballroom with SKATERS and The Drowners.
Having given you the Four Tet Refix-remix of “Rotunda” a month or so back, get fatal with the fury from RocketNumberNine's “Deadly Buzz” that makes an electric scanning buzzworthy zap. RocketNumberNine's album MeYouWeYou will be available July 30 from Smalltown Supersound.
Peven Everett's album King of Hearts dropped this week from Makin-Moves, and you can get a sneak preview of a truncated stream here. Get a glance into the mellow vibe of “I Just Wanna Make You Happy”, the hand raising horn field soul on “One Way Ticket”, the low key restrained electro-vibraphonics of “Love Story”, the proposition inquiring of “I Can Be Your Boyfriend”, the classic mom and dad moment of “Another Tender Moment”, the life affirming jubilation of “Taking Me Back”, the Casio rave-up “When I want Someone It's You”, the after 8pm appeal of “Baby Won't You Try Me?”, a preference of pride and virtue with “Baby Momma With Sense”,and the rhetorical line of questioning with “Don't You Want to Funk?”
Get those wistful West Coast dreams with Pickwick's Tyler Kalberg video for “Santa Rosa” off their debut LP Can't Talk Medicine, available on vinyl August 6 from Small Press. Look for them on tour this summer with Neko Case and then Black Joe Lewis with dates listed via Facebook.
Shaking The Habitual, The Knife get ghoulish and raging-ish with “Raging Lung” where Sorklubben captures an element of the irheadline performance at Stockholm's Shaking The Habitual Show at Hangaren Subtopia from this past May. Look for “Raging Lung” dropping as the next single from these quasi-mysterious gloom and rune lords.
The Toxic Avenger's single “Romance & Cigarettes” is available now from Roy Music and we got the Stéphane Benini video where the electronic pulse romanticism takes a rebelious detour where the group gets wild in an empty department store.
Brodinski drops a remix of King L's “Val Venis” and the new Maelstrom cut “Bricktown District” off the forthcoming The Purple Ride mixtape dropping July 8. The remix of L's “Venis” show cases new percussion rhythmic production that is tricker than a new Louis handbag set.
And get more of those calculated but sparse drum bits from Brodinski with his work on the Maelstrom track “Bricktown District” that gives urban soundtracks and another flavor from the upcoming Bromance Records tape, The Purple Ride.
Get a look at the Michael Carter directed video with Q-Kidz dance team enthusiasm for “Big Love” off Jamie Lidell's self-titled for Warp Records. You can catch Jamie August 1 at NYC's Le Poisson Rouge and August 2 for Celebrate Brooklyn in Prospect Park and August 3 in Montauk at The Surf Lodge.
Recently playing us their single “Pusher“, Walking Shapes dropped the slow drifter cut “Zombies (feat. Ferrari Truck)” ahead of their debut release Walking Shapes Mixtape, Vol. 1 available July 30 on Brooklyn imprint No Shame. Nathaniel, Jesse, Dan and Christopher keep the emotions high but the tensions are released through upward harmonies until all that remains is the gentle breeze of rolling guitar sparse guitar winds and light tumbling drum fills. “Zombies” are here, but if AMC and the trend of the undead is correct; they were always here among us.
George and Adam of Bondax may have cancelled their North Amercian tour dates but dropped their lively “Giving It All” as a way to give a little something, something to the fans with news of the following still-remaining dates at NYC's Electric Zoo on August 30 and at Chicago at North Coast Music Festival on August 31.
T. Hardy Morris takes you to the soft-AM pop shoot-out show down with “OK Corral” off his solo debut Audition Tapes available July 30 from Dangerbird Records. So get slow, get moved “there's bullets flying all around, we'll shoot our way out some how, another OK Corral, 'cause some one's got to save this town…” Hear the Dead
Catch more of the Dead Confederate and Diamond Rugs member, of Mr. T. Hardy Morris as he showcases more of his solo sides in Thomson, GA in this b/w video with Matt “Pistol” Stossel on the pedal steel and melodica courtesy of Thayer Sarrano.
Cillian Murphy brings some ballet to MONEY's heart break cry of “Hold Me Forever” ahead of the 12″ release of “Bluebell Fields” and “Hold Me Forever” August 12 from Bella Union. There is also news swimming about that the full-length debut from MONEY will arrive sometime in early 2014.
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To all our So Cal peeps, the Twilight Concert Series is celebrating 29 years bringing bands to the Santa Monica Pier on Thursday evening from July 11 through September 12. This year's performers include Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue, Mr. Little Jeans, Terraplane Sun, The Record Company, Gardens & Villa,The Delirians, Surfer Blood, Jimmy Cliff, No Age, The English Beat and more. Get further deets from presenter and your old former social media BFF, Myspace.
Playing now on second Saturdays at Underground SF is Kevin Meenan's next-gen pop machine night called Push The Feeling where brings you DFA's WOOLFY, Bruse, epicsauce DJs, YR SKULL this Saturday, July 6. Listen to the heartbeat-heartthrobs of tomorrow via the Lower Haight every second Saturday night. Check Facebook for further details.
Burger Records are doing big things this month and for the rest of the year. Here is our attempt to catch up, keep you up on all the latest happenings from one of our favorite indie imprints. First up is Portland's The Memories get blazing with Love The Law dropping July 23, and they share a spirited listen to “En Español”. From the stripped down DIY minimalism, sing along as the gang goes, “she don't speak Spanish, she don't speak Spanish at all”. That's what remedial Español 101 is all about folks.
Then, there is The Garden from Orange, California who will release their debut album The Life and Times of a Paperclip on July 23, and reminds you of their wild masculine/feminine leaning wilds with the following Jack Sample video for “I'm a Woman”.
And coming July 23 from Burger Records is the flexi 7″ from Conspiracy of Owls with The Lesson, an exercise video from David Liebe Hart, with the following Burger cassette releases also being issued this month: Releases from July 2 saw Froth's Patterns, Various Artists on New York Night Train's Tuff Love from your boy Jonathan Toubin, the self-titled from Wet Spots, The Courtneys' self-titled, and July 9 will see the release of Fletcher C Johnson's It Rained Something Wicked, Part Time's PDA, Sonny Skyes' The Imaginary Friend Ship, Exploding Flowers' self-titled, our friends Hott MT's I Made This, then on July 16 we have the self-titled from Meercaz, Beach Day's Trip Trap Attach, Bell Gardens's Full Sundown Assembly, White Night's Prophets of Templum CDXX, The Shine Brothers' Hello Grief Birds, Rexx with My New Punk Rock Life, Vaadat Charigim's The World Is Well Lost, and on July 23 get ready for Street Punk with Hunx And His Punx, Ways To End A Day from Lenz, The Memories' Live At Burger, Pangea's Snakedog and Living Dummy, Cairo Gang's Tiny Rebels and lastly July 30 brings Red Rippers' Over There… And Over Here, the self-titled from Brotherhood of Lizards along with Martin Newell's classic Cleaners From Venus album The Late District, The Memories' American Summer. Also want to make mention of the Burger Boogalo July 6-7 in Mosswood Park Oakland, CA with Jonathan Richman, Oblivians, Redd Kross, The Seros, FUZZ, The Trashwomen, Audacity, Traditional Fools, Mean Jeans, Shannon & The Clams, Guantanamo Baywatch, Pangea, Gravy's Drop, Mikal Cronin, Gap Dream, Peach Kelli Pop, Wet Spots, Stompin' Riff Raffs, DJ Jonathan Toubin NY Night Train, DJ Russell Quan, MC Oscar, and more, and more, along with the upcoming Burgerama Caravan of Stars Tour 2013. We could embelish further, but you really just ought to check this wild shit out for yourself via Burger Records themselves.
