Throughout the week, a whole lot of material gets posted here on XLR8R. And while we know—and love—that some hardcore readers will eagerly pour over every single news story, interview, podcast, video, and MP3 download that appears on the site, we also realize that for most people, it’s impossible to see everything, which means that some quality XLR8R content is likely to get missed in the hustle and bustle of everyone’s daily lives. In the interest of making it easier for everyone to catch up, every Friday we present The Lowdown, a weekly wrap-up of the top 10 tidbits from our site.

1. The latest installment of our In the Studio series took us to San Pedro, California to check out the production lab of dark and dubby techno veteran Silent Servant (pictured above).

2. On Wednesday, Korg announced the impending release of a new trio of miniature analog synths.

3. This week’s XLR8R podcast came from Belfast producer Ejeca, who eschewed his predilection for ’90s house and garage sounds in favor a of a mix showcasing his own varied production talents (and a slew of unreleased original tracks).

4. Following the release of his debut album Nostalchic, UK producer Lapalux elected to sweeten the pot for XLR8R readers by allowing us to exclusively give away a brand-new tune on our site. That wasn’t the only the Lapalux-related activity though; he also assembled a collection of intriguing YouTube clips for our High Five series.

5. This week saw the release of James Blake’s sophomore LP, Overgrown, which we reviewed. (Spoiler alert: we didn’t love it.)

6. Although we’re now solidly into April, on Monday we posted a list of the Top 20 Downloads of March, which initiated a run on last month’s most popular free tunes.

7. Montreal’s Jacques Greene unveiled a new collaborative track with R&B vocalist Tinashe, “Painted Faces,” which he posted online for fans to stream and download.

8. UK duo Mak & Pasteman offered up a free track this week, “Chunky,” which comes just a few weeks before the pair drops a bootleg 12″ featuring remixes of Kendrick Lamar and Whitney Houston.

9. Enigmatic London producer and Night Slugs affiliate surprised everyone by giving away more than 20 previously unreleased tracks via his Twitter account.

10. Pioneer contributed to a busy week on the gear front by introducing the DJM-750, the latest addition to its leading series of DJ mixers.

An expanded version of the The Lowdown is also available via a weekly email newsletter. Those interested in an even more in-depth round-up of XLR8R content, including a complete listing of all the free downloads we’ve offered in the past seven days, should sign up by entering their email address below.

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