The Lowdown: This Week’s XLR8R Top 10 with Robert Hood, Nicolas Jaar, DJ Rashad, and More
Throughout the week, a whole lot of material gets posted here on XLR8R. And while […]
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. This week’s XLR8R podcast—which happens to be the series’ final installment of 2014—comes from Detroit techno legend Robert Hood (pictured above), who recorded a mix under his house- and disco-oriented Floorplan alias. This kicked off a busy week for Hood fans, as his recent RBMA lecture and a new remix premiered online in the days that followed.
2. A video of late footwork pioneer DJ Rashad surfaced online, in which the much-missed Chicago producer attempts to construct a track in just 10 minutes. The footage was shot while making Im Tryna Tell Ya, a full-length footwork documentary that also debuted this week.
3. A stream of an unexpected collaborative track from Nicolas Jaar and Chicago ghetto house veteran DJ Slugo surfaced this week.
4. Ahead of the legendary club’s forthcoming 10th anniversary, Ben Klock elected to present his top 10 Berghain tracks of all time.
5. Australian producer Dro Carey turned in a particularly personal edition of our Real Talk essay series, addressing his own struggles with mental illness and discussing how he dealt with them in the context of being an up-and-coming artist.
6. We kicked off our annual Best of 2014 coverage by counting down the top 100 tracks from our Downloads section.
7. Interestingly enough, the week began with another countdown, the top 20 tracks that appeared in our Downloads section during the month of November.
8. Our Best of 2014 coverage will also include a readers poll, and the voting began on Wednesday. We encourage every member of the XLR8R audience to chime in and support their favorites from the year gone by.
9. Danish headphone designer AIAIAI teamed up with the Ghostly label on a special edition of its signature TMA-1 DJ headphones.
10. Cologne producer Lena Willikens announced the impending release of her debut EP, which will be released in early 2015 via the Comeme label.
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