Exciting things on the pop radar these days. Kitsuné has their Inaugural American Compilation slated for release May 22 featuring tracks from XXXChange, St Lucia, Selebrities and more. Then I heard Drag City is selling BPM machines used by Masaki Batoh to help understand and correct abnormalities in the central nervous system for Brain Pulse Music. Frank Ocean might be getting sued by the Eagles over a “Hotel California” sample, Kanye and Kim Kardashian are allegedly dating and something about Jack White and “Sixteen Saltines.” With more fun to come, check out the week in entertainment you might not have heard or seen in no particular order.
Bass Drum of Death brought the house down while shorting out computer speakers and iPhone ear buds everywhere with a thrash and shred wrecking ball called “I Wanna Be Forgotten.” Taken from an upcoming split with DZ Deathrays, the Mississippi twosome of John Barrett and Colin Sneed are also preparing a new 7″ featuring the single “White Fright” b/w “I Dunno” all on 3/4 as they look forward to a massive national tour this upcoming June. Heed the warning and check your local listings dear friends.
Blue Foundation saw their track “Lost” get the Sun Glitters remix treatment. Luxembourg soundwave-twister Victor Ferreira takes the Brooklyners dreamy track and trips it up into melted, heavy ice cream droplets fallen onto the metal speaker fence of a front porch boombox beneath the windchimes the elder superstitious lady in the building installed some years ago. This remix will be featured on the iTunes Deluxe Edition of Blue Foundation's In My Mind, I Am Free coming out May 22 from the Foundation's personal imprint Dead People’s Choice Records.
Killer Mike's new single “Don't Die” rocked our worlds with a killer positive message of self-preservation from Mike in a world of injustice and upheavel. “So we never forget Fred Hampton, Oscar Grant, Sean Bell and other good men killed unjustly by Police in this country. R.I.P. Trayvon.” Listen out for R.A.P. Music coming out May 15 on Adult Swim's own imprint Williams Street Records.
From the Catalan village Anserall in the Pyrenees of Cataluña are a trio of friends named Aleix, Ed and Sergion who are Cut Your Hair and come with a hot-ripped denim single titled “Utah in Pictures.” These dudes loves 90s guitar, but interesting still is their approach to reinterpretting the 80s undeground in Pastels-pop through the lens of the following decade. Sergio commented further on the vicarious living through pictures approach that informed the new single: “I was tired of the place I was living in, so I just went on the internet to check out some cities from wherever… like planning what would be in the future for me. And I bumped into this page with pictures of Salt Lake City. It looked sort of decadent in a way, it inspired me, I knew I had to write the song.” Cut Your Hair's Utah in Pictures single gets released April 30 on Mushroom Pillow; home of Delorean, Christmas Cards, Polock and Chinese Christmas Cards and We Are Standard fame.
Mr. Little Jeans, who is Ms. Monica Birkeness from LA just released her Zach Shields (of Dead Man's Bones) directed video for “Runaway” this week. Having received high applause for her cover of Arcade Fire's “The Suburbs,” Birkeness takes you to an enchanted city where the skyscraper lights shine like graphic spectrum equalizers and you are remind that “when you runaway you can go anywhere.” Following the video, listen as Nathan Williams gives the song the “I'm So Bored” vocal treatment with some hip-hop breaks and coming up with an all around restrained Wavves remix of “Runaway.” Look for Mr. Little Jeans' single “Runaway” April 10 with her debut LP is due in August on Sony.
Canada's Eight and a Half is the combined talents of Dave Hamelin and Liam O'Neil of The Stills and Justin Peroff of Broken Social Scene. Taking a break of making big arena anthems from their respective bands, the supergroup started with Justin, Liam and Dave making music for themselves and their own enjoyment. In a recent exchange of cables with Dave Hamelin he described for us the movement from Montreal to New York over the past 3 years and from being the the best kept secret to releasing their first album next week:
“We started making this album in August of 2009 with no preconceived notions of what it was going to be or when it was ever going to see the light of day. It started in Montreal, went to Toronto and then ended in New York. It started on big drums, guitars, amps, pianos and weight-y synthesizers and has now been shrunk down to tiny download links and 16bit data discs, poor thing. It started off as our little secret and now the tectonics have moved and it's going out to you. thanks. Much love.”
Eight and a Half release their self-titled album debut April 10 on Arts & Crafts. Listen here to the singles “Go Ego” and “Scissors” including remixes from Small Black and TOKiMONSTA.
K-Holes released the video for their ceranium bending new track “Window in the Wall.” Sebastian Mlynarsky's video captures not the healthiest of relationships with the tune's ventilator blues oscillating between two wailing guitars and a foreboding street story song of woe. Get ready for these New Yorker's dystopian mania with the much anticipated release of Dismania scheduled May 1 on Hardly Art.
Balam Acab remixed Lushlife's “Still I Hear the Word Progress (featuring Styles P)” with an intro of warm building strings to commence a crushed beat re-envisioning. Lushlife's album Plateau Vision is out April 17 on Western Vinyl and you can read his fascinating piece he wrote for us called “All Rap is Cloud Rap” from a few weeks back. Listen now as the Philadelphia producer slows down the rhymes keeping the production on a crock pot slow simmer. Listen and imagine what BA could do with Lushlife's “Big Sur.”
You can catch Balam Acab on tour this month on the following dates at the following venues with the following bands:
April
11 Montreal, Il Motore with Shabazz Palaces
13 Northampton, Iron Horse with Shabazz Palaces
17 Philadelphia, Johnny Brenda's with Dice Raw and STS
18 Brooklyn, Glasslands with Shine 2009 and My Dry Wet Mess
20 Burlington – BCA Center
Get the first glimpse of the new single from Stalley's Savage Journey to the American Dream called “Everything New” directed by Rik Cordero. Bonus points for spotting the special cameo from the track’s producer Chad Hugo.
L.E.P. Bogus Boys just dropped a remix of “Kush and Leather (ft. Rick Ross)” along with seeing their collaborative release with The Hood Internet debut this week. Count & Monie have a ball coupling the interior of cruisers and cannabis favorites with “I'm riding on chrome, ain't nothing better, you know what I'm on, that kush and that leather, you know what it is when I put them both together” with a cool cameo from Rick Ross reflecting on his paper with a touch of sentimentality from the Don. Catch The Hood Internet this May 8-25 on the Hood Slung Tour.
CFCF is Mike Silver who uses sliding keys of various notes, tones, organs, and cameos of some of that old fashioned piano on his latest single “Exercise #3 (Building).” Taken from his upcoming EP Exercises, he begins the piece with an organic swell of traditional piano keys creating the imagined notes of rain hitting the pavement while you sit back and fall into a dense sphere of historys in synthesized music. The only other approximation would be a Switched On Bach style community college course taught by Wendy Carlos giving a trajectory on the evolution of the piano, harpsichord to the electric organ and so forth. The CFCF EP Exercises comes out April 24 on Paper Bag Records.
Stop the presses, wake the roommates because we got a new DIVE track for you all called “How Long Have You Known” that is loud and dreamy. Make this track 1 on your next your mixtape and thank us all later.
Catch the first remix from Fatal Lucciauno's Respect from BeanOne spinning his take on “Amazing.” Get a listen as the production gets cranked, the sample get jubilant with horns that make every day feel like pay day.
Get a look at the all the super hero building action in Mux Mool's video for “Cash 4 Gold.” Another day at the office sends a man under the guidance of the horned action figure to build himself up to be an action figure of his own. Things take a turn for the Temple of Doom liking when revenge on a a douchy boss in this Bo Mirosseni directed video turns a corporate ladder climbing heart into a diamond stone. Mux Mool's Planet High School is out now on Ghostly International.
San Franciscans Seventeen Evergreen released their recent album Steady On, Scientist! on Lucky Number Music and have released a taster version of the LP equipped with kaleidescope visual accompaniment courtesy of Antoine Boilevin. Listen as the electro beats align themselves in a succinct fashion for your listening pleasure. Catch Seventeen Evergreen April 11 at the Independent in SF with Chairlift and Nite Jewel.
Del the Funky Homosapien released the West Coast Avengers [WCA LIMITED II FELA] mixtape featuring that draws primarily on the work of Fela Kuti chopped and sampled in new sequences. Even though further details on the upcoming Deltron Event II album are cloudy; fans of both Del and the afrobeat King will be able to get 2 of their favorites together at last with this boss mixtape that features Fela and band as you have never heard them with Del in fine style and fashion. Stay tuned for further details on the big Deltron followup.
Making appearances on The Internet's Purple Naked Ladies, a Vince Staples mixtape and some loosies is New York's young textile designer Kilo Kish Robinson who recently released her Homeschool EP on Matt and Syd's label Pizzawave Records. Like the infectious mind warping production on Naked Ladies; Kilo's EP exhibits her New York hopscotch spit like weaving threads through beats engineed by both S&M along with Odd Future's Hal Williams. Currently working in collaboration with Childish Gambino and Frank Ocean, Kish has a full length album called Sick Sad World due later this year with production courtesy of The Internet.
LA's Dreamers are an offshoot from We Are the World and have been gaining attention for their minimalist electric fury and rage with their new video “City of Hope.” Tired of being nomadic DJs and “sick of the dicklessness around them” as we have been told; Megan Gold and Robbie Williamson are channeling that energy into the catharsis called Dreamers' self-titled debut album, expected May 22 on Germ.
While dreaming of the west coast, we invite you to gaze at the mountaintops of Big Sur, the gentle breeze and rolling waters, moon chasing nights and walking the dog in Jimmy Moonboots' self made video for “Out to Sea.”
Lucius performed “Go Home” live at the Indaba Music Loft on the Bowery in New York for Suite 288. The band formed around a Victorian house in Brooklyn's Ditmas Park that was once a recording studio with treasures like a Steinway piano and all the glue to nurture a band that recorded their debut self-titled EP with Beck and Phantom Planet producer Tony Berg. Catch their classic and down home performance of “Go Home” here.
Marissa Nadler has utilized everything from Kickstarters to Etsy accounts to get her albums out there. Her latest album The Sister is being released May 29 on her own label Box of Cedar Records that includes that includes this gorgeous yet maudlin finger picked 12 stringer “The Wrecking Ball.”
Finally we leave you with the long awaited trailer for Paul Kelly's documentary Lawrence of Belgravia that peers into the intimate and fame obsessed life of Lawrence (no surname needed) of the world's most elusive superstar.
