Though the amiable UK producer known as Four Tet (a.k.a. Kieran Hebden) is often a bit more reserved, the track he gave away over the weekend may challenge that notion. Its alarmingly loquacious title, “The Track I’ve Been Playing That People Keep Asking About and That Joy Used in His RA Mix and Daphni Played on Boiler Room,” has people buzzing about the current consumption of music. To note, Hebden’s self-referential track makes no attempt at hiding the knowledge that people have already heard it played in last year’s notable mixes, that people have been asking about it through various media outlets, and that, quite possibly, the track is hardly a big deal anymore. To further prove this point, he took to his Twitter account over the weekend to release it for free, commenting with nonchalance, “Here’s the WAV of TEXT022 for anyone that wants it.” “The Track I’ve Been Playing…” features a repetitious African chant, glowing bass, and Four Tet’s signature organic percussion. Though the single-side 12″ was physically released today—via Hebden’s own Text imprint, under the moniker KH—you can also grab it as a gratis download, here. And if you happen to have not heard it before, feel free to preview the song in the player below.
What do you get when you cross dub-techno experimentalist Burnt Friedman and multi-instrumentalist Jono Podmore with two founding members—Jaki Liebezeit and Irmin Schmidt—of the legendary Krautrock outfit Can? You get Cyclopean, a newly formed endeavor whose self-titled debut EP is out today via Mute. To help spread the word, Cyclopean has offered up the record’s second track, “Fingers,” a piece which combines eerie electronics and live instrumentation into the kind of free-form arrangement one would hope to hear from members of the legendary experimental group. Furthermore, Cyclopean has put together a similarly entrancing video to accompany “Fingers,” which we invite you to dive into after the jump.
2013 started out on XLR8R much like every year and every month does: with a whole hell of a lot of free downloads. Among the 80 or so tracks we give away each month, a handful of them get a bit more attention than the others. Maybe it’s because an exciting up-and-comer reworked the lastest radio single or hottest indie outfit making the rounds; or maybe it’s because some fresh face appeared for their first time on XLR8R with a tune you just had to have in your daily rotation. Whatever the reason for artists like Nils Frahm, Archie Pelago, Kid Smpl, DJ Haus, and Druid Cloak appearing next to names like Oneman, Lindstrøm, A$AP Rocky, The xx, and Drake, we know that the common thread here is quality music. Check out the cream of January’s crop of free downloads after the jump.
Apart from those readers who have been in comas over the past month or so, we’re guessing that most of the XLR8R faithful are well aware that The Knife will soon be releasing a new album, Shaking the Habitual, via Mute. The long-awaited follow-up to 2006’s Silent Shout, the duo’s new full-length won’t actually be released until April 9, but it’s already been at the center of a veritable media firestorm; for the past six weeks, the Pitchforks of the world have been leading a TMZ-style coverage overkill, while fans and journalists (ourselves included) have anxiously devoured every piece of Knife-related information that’s come down the pipeline. At this point, we’ve only heard the first single, “Full of Fire,” yet it’s hard to shake the notion that we already know the album on an intimate level. Perhaps that’s why we felt comfortable putting together a list of the best and worst things about the LP; given the music world’s collective frenzy over the forthcoming record, actually hearing the music almost feels secondary.
BEST: The Knife has a new album coming out. Hooray. Shaking the Habitual will be The Knife’s first official new album since 2006. Folks are going apeshit. Yes, sister-brother duo Karin Dreijer Andersson and Olof Dreijer have since pursued successful solo projects (he as darkly catchy technoist Oni Ayhun, she as alien spellbinder Fever Ray) and one collaborative eye-roller (see below), but fans have been rabid for the return of the idiosyncratic, eerily poppy Knife for many internet moons.
WORST: Jose Gonzalez probably won’t cover any Shaking the Habitual tracks, but Nicki Minaj might. Gonzalez’s version of “Heartbeats” from Deep Cuts brought both the Swedish-Argentinian singer and The Knife to global attention. But now that dark, pulsing, avant-garde beats are the pop-rap norm, we’re afraid Nicki will cannily update trap with a goth spin and snatch one of the tracks for herself. One the plus side, the thought of The Knife banging from a tinted-window sideshow sounds just about right.
BEST: Shaking the Habitual is not an impenetrable, 92-minute opera about Charles Darwin (or something). This is electronic music, where we celebrate ambition and difficulty—downright pretension, even. Sure, The Knife deserves major plaudits for going gargantuan in tribute to Origin of the Species with 2010’s Tomorrow, In a Year collab with Planningtorock and Mt. Sims. (We’re not kidding, that really happened.) However… we’re incredibly glad the group did not elect to repeat itself and stab our ears out with more modulated bird noises and incessant noodling.
WORST: The word “epic” will be thrown around a lot. Shaking the Habitual may not be a 92-minute, impenetrable opera about Charles Darwin or something, but it is 98 minutes long, with 12 tracks ranging in length from 37 seconds to almost 20 minutes. And already the “e” word is popping up in lazy blog post headlines everywhere. There is no escaping it. Everything longer than an animated GIF is epic on the internet. This album is EPIC.
BEST: All that wonderful Knife weirdness appears to be intact. Freaks rejoice. There are references in the tracklist to Margaret Atwood’s dystopian 2003 novel Oryx and Crake, a decided scrambling of sexual and political identity in the lyrics of first leaked track “Full of Fire,” some comfortably creepy shenanigans in director Marit Östberg’s 10-minute video for the track, not to mention another gender-ambiguous album teaser video. In short, all signs point to a nice but boundary-pushing return to the siblings’ beloved eccentricity.
WORST: The Knife started everything! From witch house and seapunk to hashtag rap and Tumblr pop, it’s a virtual certainty that disparate musical subcultures will soon start claiming The Knife as mother and father to it all. It would not surprise us to find Frank Ocean claiming them as an influence, right before Deadmau5 disses them for the lulz.
BEST: A world tour will surely follow. It’s onstage that Karin and Olof truly distinguished themselves from the other progenitors of leftfield electronic sounds, with techno-horror projections, Gaga-foreseeing outfits, quirky-nightmare sets, and lots and lots of fog. A handful of European dates have already been announced.
WORST: That world tour is probably already sold out. Even before any of the dates are announced, or even planned, the slobbery-fan vultures of Ticketmaster are poised in some queue already, their sweaty palms gripping their mice, anxiously awaiting the first stirrings of any ticket release. You are going to have to pry those golden tickets from the cold, dead hands of some middle-aged electronica fan before you see one glimpse of Karin’s prosthetically melted face. Sorry. 🙁
BEST: Your edgier gay friends will be bumping this madly. The jittery electro and avant-goth vibes of Silent Shout and Fever Ray cannily appealed to a large swath of gay men in the later ’00s who wished to appear sophisticated while reconnecting with their Depeche Mode electro-pop roots and jerky dance moves. That guy with the expensive second-hand jeans upstairs, your local dive bartender—hell, even your own boyfriend—will ensure you’ll never have to buy this album to hear it on repeat.
WORST: Your edgier gay friends will be bumping this madly. You may end up begging them to put some Little Dragon back on for relief.
The San Francisco-based crafter of wistful and moody synth-pop known as Blackbird Blackbird (pictured above) was recently enlisted to take the anthemic indie rock of On An On‘s “The Hunter” and turn it into something more, well, XLR8R-appropriate. Armed with an array of side-chained drones and fuzzy pads, the Bay Area producer/vocalist has thankfully reformed the song into a much more introspective and spiralling affair, one underpinned by a bouncing house beat and rendered just slightly tropical thanks to the occasional appearance of steel drums bathed in reverb.
Night Slugs tracks make for arresting singles. Often larger than life, they tend to freeze the momentum of a set and draw attention to the space-age might of their flashy rhythms. In a sense, they’re like secret weapons, which is likely why DJs such as Ben UFO, Oneman, Pearson Sound, and Gold Panda have all enlisted bits of the label’s catalog on recent mixes for the Fabriclive and DJ-Kicks series. In the context of a broader sonic landscape, Night Slugs’ tunes have carved their own unique niche, one that’s just wild enough to stand out from their musical relatives in the fields of grime, garage, 2-step, dubstep, house, and techno. The London imprint has certainly offered up its share of anthems during its three-year run, yet 2012 also saw the crew expanding its sound and shifting its focus. On the heels of that, the release of Night Slugs Allstars Volume 2 provides a sort of window into the label’s current state of mind.
Although the Night Slugs Allstars Volume 2 compilation spans the outpost’s many influences to display the breadth of its catalog, it’s not a completely jarring listen. The tracks are sequenced to maximize fluidity and coherence by grouping like-minded efforts together. The CD starts with a few bright-eyed, retro-futuristic bangers in the form of L-Vis 1990‘s “Lost in Love (Night Slugs Allstars Street Mix)” and Girl Unit‘s “Ensemble (Club Mix).” The former balances the dated feeling of glittering, new wave-leaning synths against the forward-looking vigor of a stuttering drop into broken beats and a gurgling bassline. Likewise, Girl Unit uses squealing arpeggiated melodies and shrill, razor-sharp notes that make the song seem indebted to the past even as it charges into the future with a digital polish.
From there, the compilation plunges into a few fiercely weird instrumentals, tracks which inventively repurpose bits dubstep and grime for exciting new ends. Kingdom‘s “Stalker Ha” and Bok Bok‘s “Silo Pass” use alien vocal samples, gruff barks, curt screams, and unnervingly twinkling keys to imbue their deep bass and marching drums with the eerie quality of a slasher flick. But the tracks’ booming kick drums can hardly compete with the punchy power of the starkly percussive tunes that follow: Jam City‘s “How We Relate to the Body” and Helix‘s “Drum Track,” both of which use a crisp, stripped-down approach to craft huge, sputtering rhythms.
After “Drum Track,” the energy begins to cool down with a handful of late-night slow jams, although the woozy offerings from Egyptrixx and MORRI$ are sandwiched between one last destructive bomb, the souped-up Part II of Girl Unit’s “Double Take.” While Egyptrixx smooths metallic clanging and laser zaps into drifting waves of sound on “Adult,” MORRI$’ “White Hood” is a swooning and sparkling comedown that carves a lurching momentum around wheezing, accordion-like synths. It’s much calmer than most of the other offerings on Night Slugs Allstars Volume 2, yet “White Hood” retains the daring spirit that unites all of the label’s releases. As the collection comes to a close, it becomes apparent that Night Slugs’ strength doesn’t stem from the fact that its artists make bangers; it that’s they set themselves apart by dismantling their influences and diving fearlessly into big, bold sounds. While some of those sounds are undoubtedly designed to whip dancefloors into a frenzy, the ones that aren’t are no less essential to the imprint’s legacy.
With all the punch of a Dabrye cut and the left turns and 8-bit noise of Slugabed, SertOne is taking his influences and blazing his own trail on his new EP Shapes in the Sky. Opening tune “Further Down” acts as the record’s mission statement; the track rides a filtered soul sample for much of its running time, gradually introducing a widescreen-sized sub bass amid a fury of chiptune hooks that begin to freak out as the track continues. It’s a step forward for the Ireland-based producer, as his sound has deepened and adapted more hip-hop and dub influences while folding the voices of his peers into his aesthetic. You can check out the rest of Shapes in the Skyhere.
Along with commercial mixes from Norman Nodge and Ben Klock, last year saw Barker & Baumecker‘s album Transsektoral subvert the fantasy of Berghain techno as a humorless, tonally consistent clique. Zipping past those prejudices, the album showed the kind of genre-hopping range that, in contemporary techno at least, is less common an approach than stylistic partisanship. Indeed, at points, it had an improvisational looseness and spontaneity that called to mind Juju & Jordash’s loosier, goosier Techno Primitivism. The tracks chosen for this four-track remix EP range from the slinky UK garage of “No Body” to “Crows,” whose wheezing melodica gets overwhelmed by orgiastic dub techno.
Information is scarce on the ground about Kobosil, whose remix of “Silo” defaults to the sound Barker & Baumecker playfully skirted on their album. Converting the varied textures of the original into a sheet-metal rhythm track, this version drifts through a few unremarkable permutations before Blawan‘s take on “Crows” cuts in abruptly, quickly hitting the stride Kobosil didn’t manage to locate. Blawan’s approach is more brutalist than Kobosil’s, yet the distorted onslaught of the introduction lets him turn the song’s melody into a more urgent peal—a sweaty beacon from the same underworld Blawan pipes those clanking noises in from. Machinedrum takes a different approach with “No Body,” transforming the curvaceous original into a jacking, ’90s-reminiscent dancefloor cut. Though Machinedrum makes the vocals evaporate into lovely granular harmonies, it’s a surprisingly linear production—something Travis Stewart isn’t generally known for. In keeping with the rest of the EP, Third Side—a collaboration between Analogue Cops and Steffi—turns in a revision of the strutting tech-house of “Schlang Bang” with a similarly flattening effect, honing in on a carnivalesque loop and riding it past its expiration date.
Considering the strength of the album and the remixers’ pedigrees, one might have hoped for a transcendent release, but ultimately, it’s one that’s merely functional. While this EP will undoubtedly have some value for DJs looking to round out a set, these Transsektoral remixes fall short of outshining the exceptional original material.
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. Veteran German producer Ulrich Schnauss (pictured above) delved into his archives and assembled a mix of mid-’90s ambient drum & bass for this week’s XLR8R podcast.
2. Following our visit to this year’s NAMM convention, we put together a list of the best and worst things we saw.
3. The most popular tune in our Downloads section this week came from Amsterdam, as producer Full Crate offered up “Nobody Else (Club Edit),” a floor-ready version of his collaborative effort with vocalist Mar.
4. Ahead of the release of his forthcoming Mowgli LP, Mister Lies gave away one of its tracks, “Lupine,” as a free download.
5. In a piece of news that seemed to excite just about everyone, UK troubadour James Blake announced an upcoming North American tour, and also mentioned that a new album is in the works for 2013.
6. London producer Etch gave us “Aquamarine,” a track from his new Horizons EP, as a free download.
7. More free music from London came courtesy of darkwave-flavored house duo Gorgon City, who graced our Downloads section with “Athena.”
8. Following a couple weeks of anticipation, Oneman finally unleashed his new mixtape, Solitaire Vol.1.
9. LA beatmaker Salva will soon be releasing a new EP, Odd Furniture, and elected to ramp up the anticipation by posting a stream of one of its tracks, “Drop That B.”
10. Our weekly contest is offering readers the chance to score a pair of I-Mego’s in-ear ZTONE headphones. Enter now before it’s too late.
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.
DJ Spoko grew up in an area called Ghost Town in the community of Attridgeville in South Africa, a 99% black township outside the all-white city of Pretoria. He started producing at age 12 on a busted PC, eventually winding up with the nickname Ghost. Having recently been signed to True Panther, it’s appropriate that his first worldwide release is an EP named Ghost Town. In addition to his own impressive credentials—including the tapes The All C’Ing I, Grave Yard Session, and Tombs & Graves—Spoko’s sound is built on a solid resume, having studied at the studio of Nozinga, curator of the heavily infectious and punishing (read: 180bpm) Shangaan Electro style, as well as doing uncredited production work on DJ Mujava’s crossover hit “Township Funk.” With his forthcoming Ghost Town EP, Spoko gets a chance to synthesize all of these influences into a sticky, raw sound built on the roots of Bacardi House as well as his own stripped-down, space-synth sound. Before the record’s release on March 5, you can stream a taste of DJ Spoko’s work, the bouncing ear-worm of a track “Cucumba,” and check out more details on the 12″ here.
