The Amadeus imprint has tapped Nottingham newcomer Cassio Kohl to launch the label’s 2013 release schedule with his Broken EP, which is out today. “Legendary” is one of the four original tunes found on the record, and generously showcases the brand of rolling house Kohl is keen to craft. The producer injects his song with luscious chords and a bassline that touches on a flurry of notes as it bounces around the tune’s four-on-the-floor drive. After giving the track a listen, you can get an even better idea of where Kohl’s house allegiances lie via an hour-long mix from the UK resident which can streamed and downloaded after the jump.
After the sucess of last year’s Total Loss LP, tender troubadour How to Dress Well has announced plans to embark on a truly international tour which will take him across Australia, Asia, North America, and Europe during the next five months. You can check out the complete list of dates below, and note that most of the US and Canada gigs are co-headlining affairs with internet-era pop sensation Sky Ferreria. Furthermore, to celebrate the news, How to Dress Well has shared Elite Gymnastics‘ sunny remix of “& It Was U,” which you can stream/download via the player below.
Australia: 02-20 Perth – International Arts Festival at The Bakery 02-21 Adelaide – Rocket Bar 02-22 Melbourne – The Corner Hotel 02-23 Sydney – Oxford Art Factory
Asia: 03-01 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – The Bee 03-02 Manila, Philippines – B-Side 03-03 Taiwan – Megaport Festival 03-06 Hong Kong – Hidden Agenda Live House 03-08 Shanghai – Jue Festival at 390 Live 03-09 Beijing – Jue Festival at 2 Kolegas 03-13 Tokyo – Shibuya O-Nest
North America: 03-19 Washington, DC – U Street Music Hall * 03-20 New York, NY – Bowery Ballroom * 03-21 Brooklyn, NY – Music Hall of Williamsburg * 03-23 Philadelphia, PA – Johnny Brenda’s * 03-24 Boston, MA – Brighton Music Hall * 03-25 Montreal, Quebec – La Salla Rossa * 03-27 Toronto, Ontario – Wrong Bar * 03-29 Columbus, OH – Basement * 03-30 Chicago, IL – Schubas * 03-31 Madison, WI – The Frequency * 04-01 Minneapolis, MN – Triple Rock Social Club * 04-03 Denver, CO – Larimer Lounge * 04-05 Vancouver, British Columbia – Biltmore Cabaret * 04-06 Seattle, WA – Barboza * 04-07 Portland, OR – Mississippi Studios * 04-10 Silverlake, CA – Los Globos * 06-01 Philadelphia, PA – The Roots Picnic * co-headline with Sky Ferreira
Europe: 05-02 Berlin, Germany – Berghain 05-03 Vienna, Austria – Donau Festival 05-04 Brussels, Belgium – Les Nuits Botanique Festival 05-06 Poznan, Poland – Minoga 05-07 Warsaw, Poland – 1500m2 05-08 Riga, Latvia – Palladium 05-10 Aarhus, Denmark – Pop Revo Festival 05-11 Umea, Sweden – Made Festival 05-14 Leeds, UK – Brudenell Social Club 05-15 Manchester, UK – Whitworth Art Gallery 05-16 Brighton, UK – Great Escape Festival 05-18 Glasgow, UK – Stag and Dagger Festival 05-20 Liverpool, UK – Leaf 05-24 Barcelona, Spain – Primavera Festival 05-25 London, UK – Field Day Festival
LA DJ/producer Salva is still a couple of weeks from the release of his Odd Furniture EP, but has decided today to whet the appetites of fans anxiously awaiting that record with one of its club-ready bangers, “Drop That B.” Following his recent LA Weekly profile, in which the SoCal rag names the artist as an early champion of the trap craze, Salva’s latest production assures listeners that he’s stayed the course of big rap beats and wild FX, as “Drop That B” is more or less an exercise in 808 programming and how to best use the sound of moving hyrdraulics rhythmically. You can hear the results of Salva’s latest studio work below, before the Odd Furniture EP drops on February 12 via Friends of Friends.
Black Butter, the label behind a forthcoming EP from London’s Gorgon City (a.k.a. Foamo and RackNRuin), usually specializes in synthesizing traditional club music with leftfield turns—like, for instance, Rudimental mixing house with the sounds of New Jack Swing on “Spoons.” Gorgon City, on the other hand, sticks much closer to tradition. The duo has been making moves as a darkwave/house outfit in its native UK underground for just shy of a year, including an impressive spot on Diplo’s Radio 1 show and various mixes for Rinse FM. Featured here, “Athena” is the work of a confident group fully embracing righteous house music, while bolstering it with a new-wave edge and an absolutely brutal sub backfiring underneath the hood. Look for rest of Gorgon City’s Real EP when it drops on February 17 via Black Butter.
After teasing his first self-released mix a couple weeks back by giving away a “119 House Edit” of “Chained” by The xx (followed not long after by a mashup of TLC and Dro Carey), London DJ Oneman has unveiled Solitaire Vol. 1 today, offering it to stream and download for free. The hour-plus, 40-track DJ set weaves through classic tunes, fresh material, and exclusives from the likes of Machinedrum, Boddika, L-Vis 1990, Dizzee Rascal, Bone Thugs & Harmony, Mala, TNGHT, Juicy J, FaltyDL, Guy Andrews, Gucci Mane, and many more. You can stream Oneman’s Solitaire Vol. 1, as well as check out its full tracklist, below, and download the mix for the price of an email here. And tomorrow night, look for Oneman when he makes an appearance on the Boiler Room to celebrate the release of his new mix.
Bones Thugs & Harmony – Thuggish Ruggish (Acapella) Fatima Al-Qadiri – Hydra Cliques – AUT Guy Andrews – Hands In Mine FaltyDL – Uncea Martyn – Bad Chicago Cherie Lee – Love Me Or Leave Me (Club Dub) Lando Kal – Can’t Help Myself (Antony Shakir Remix) T.E.E.D – Your Love (Pearson Sound Remix) Machinedrum – Van Vogue Katie Got Bandz – Hittaz Only Trusta – Bulletproof Boddika x Somepoe – UNTITLED (Oneman Edit) Fis-T – Atoms Pev & Kowton – Raw Code Diplo – Diplo Rhythm L-Vis 1990 – Ballad 4D Shawn Kemp x Supasortahuman – Go Away Rossi B & Luca & Ill Murk – Oneman Special Desto – Instafreeze Chief Keef – Kobe Dro Carey & Grown Folk – Southern Smoke TNGHT x B.O.B ft. T.I & Juicy J – Still Bugg’n This Bitch (Oneman Edit) Desto – 550 Darq-E-Freaker & Danny Brown – Blueberry Dizzee Rascal – I Luv U (Instrumental) Juicy J – Who Da Neighbours Mr. B – Unicorn Wit Da Trap House Mondie ft. Napper – Straight Macabre Unit – 1000 Years From Now Gucci Mane – I’m The Shit (SCNTST Remix) DJ Vague – Porsche Trax 3 Waka Flocka Flame x Ginuwine – Hard In The Pony (Oneman Edit) Twista & Kanye West – Overnight Celebrity (Instrumental) Grown Folk ft. Main Attraktionz – I.C.E. Mala – Cuba Electronica SpaceGhostPurrp – Raider Prayer Plasticman – Cha (Zomby Remix) S-Type – Whole Lotta Mokona – Untitled
Maybe you were one of the lucky so-and-sos who snuck an early listen of the new single from experimental Swedish synth-pop duo The Knife before it was taken down last week, but just in case you weren’t—and, really, even if you were—you can now watch the 10-minute short film for the bewlidering “Full of Fire.” The tune is lifted from Karin Dreijer-Andersson’s and her brother Olof Dreijer’s forthcoming Shaking the Habitual LP, and is presented here with a piece from Stockholm director Marit Östberg. Speaking on her short film for The Knife, the director says, “The film ‘Full of Fire’ started to grow as an embryo in the song’s lines ‘Who looks after my story’. Who takes care of our stories when the big history—written by straight, rich, white men—erases the complexity of humans’ lives, desires, and conditions? The film ‘Full of Fire’ consists of a network of fates, fears, cravings, longings, losses, and promises.” You can watch “Full of Fire” below, where you’ll also find the artwork and tracklist for the 98-minute, triple-LP Shaking the Habitual album before it’s released on April 8 via Mute.
01 A Tooth for an Eye 6:04 02 Full of Fire 9:17 03 A Cherry on Top 8:43 04 Without You My Life Would Be Boring 5:14 05 Wrap Your Arms Around Me 4:36 06 Crake 0:55 07 Old Dreams Waiting to Be Realized 19:22 08 Raging Lung 9:58 09 Networking 6:42 10 Oryx 0:37 11 Stay Out Here 10:42 12 Fracking Fluid Injection 9:54 13 Ready to Lose 4:36
Over the weekend, the National Association of Music Merchants (more commonly referred to simply as NAMM) hosted its annual conference in Anaheim, California—a gluttonous four days where the sounds of distant equipment demos, corporate presentations, and the combined drooling of gear nerds makes for an overwhelming, but still very much exciting atmosphere. After spending a full day (which was pretty much our limit) entrenched in the trade show booths and walking amongst the masses of fellow wide-eyed attendees, XLR8R has tallied up the five essential highlights and embarrassments of this year’s NAMM conference.
THE BEST
Korg’s MS-20 Mini Just a few days before NAMM got underway last Thursday, rumors were spreading across the web that Korg planned to unveil a new version of its legendary MS-20 analog synth. As it turns out, the rumors were true, and the proof was prominently on display in the form of the compact (86% of the original size) MS-20 Mini, which added MIDI functionality and USB connectivity to the company’s classic, monophonic analog synth. Best yet, the design of the “Mini” version is said to have been overseen by the same engineer who designed the original unit back in the late ’70s, and Korg has somehow managed to bring this little bundle of joy into the world with a street price around $599.
Numark’s Orbit Numark rolled out a load of new pieces during the conference, but the wireless, videogame controller-inspired Orbit MIDI controller certainly sparked our imagination. The handheld unit (it’s about the size of an iPad Mini) seemed to combine convenience and useful open-endedness into a clever package featuring 16 pads with 4 selectable banks and 16 virtual knobs per bank. At the booth, Numark promised a ridiculous amount of wireless range (between 200 and 300 feet) and said the unit would retail somewhere around $99. And for the gamer in all of us, there are even triggers on the left and right shoulders of the unit—similar to the “L1” and “R1” buttons on a PlayStation controller—a feature which, along with its ability to respond to tilt and motion via the “accelerometer,” makes the Orbit a really unique MIDI controller.
The Moog Sub Phatty and the Moog Booth In a lot of ways, Moog just gets it. The company’s newest analog synth, the Sub Phatty, was something almost every NAMM attendee was excited to try out, and it really delivered, sounding as thick and luscious as any Moog, but also unique amongst the company’s legendary synth lineage—even being toted as the “grittiest” Moog synth to date due to its new Multidrive circuit. Furthermore, Moog’s booth was clearly the place to be, putting both a aluminum- and a gold-plated Voyager on display for us to gawk at and inviting legends like Bernie Worrell and even Stevie Fucking Wonder to come noodle on the monophonic keyboards.
Dave Smith Instruments Prophet 12 Only a few months after celebrating the 30th anniversary of MIDI, Dave Smith—its creator—is certainly nowhere near letting up, and the company which bears his name, Dave Smith Instruments, surprised many by announcing a brand-new synth, the Prophet 12, on the first day of NAMM. The shiny new unit is a behemoth of a keyboard, complete with 12-voice polyphony (each voice utilizing up to four oscillators) and a jaw-dropping list of bells and whistles that includes a tuned feedback path, a four-tap stereo delay, and a new “Character” section, which allows for users to adjust such elusive tone qualities as “Drive,” “Hack,” “Decimation,” “Girth,” and “Air.” With a projected street price around $2999, the Prophet 12 is certainly not for everyone, but it’s impossible to deny just how powerful a piece it is after pressing those keys and tweaking its many knobs.
A welcome lack of EDM Too often, the corporate formula for success seems to follow this path: find a trend, incorporate said trend into one’s marketing scheme, sell product. In the days leading to the conference, we feared that no “trend” was more ripe to be overblown at this year’s NAMM than the rise of the dreadful term—and music—of EDM. Whether it is a sign of the haphazardly named genre’s waning influence or just the fact that companies thankfully realized the negative repercussions of aligning with such a craze, the presence of EDM-themed equipment or content was barely felt at NAMM—there were no dubstep drops championed, no trampoline-hopping DJ sets, and no products promising to make its user the next EDM star. We were pleasantly surprised.
THE WORST
Wanking/Shredding In many ways, the NAMM conference is just a Guitar Center blown up to massive proportions; around every corner lurks an overzealous salesman and—even worse—there seems to be a neverending supply of equally overzealous “musicians” ready to show off their skills loud enough for every passerby to hear just how hard they can tear shit up. In all honesty, NAMM is largely a trade show about musical instruments, so a certain amount of this is completely unavoidable, but of course, there are those who live life by “turning it up to 11,” and those guys suck. Of all the offenders, guitarists and bassists are by far the most infuriating. One can only imagine what’s going through their head as they take off ripping through an overdriven blues-rock solo or diving into the depths of their Jaco Pastorious-esque bass improvisation, but the fact of the matter is that no one cares and things are only turned up this loud as part of a sad attempt to garner some marginal amount of attention. Look dude, Stevie Wonder is jamming on some keyboards three booths down, so could you lay down the axe for a few minutes?
Guys playing with gear for way too long Part of the fun of NAMM is that there are just so many fancy new toys to play with. Sprawled out on tables and stands everywhere are those top-of-the-line Pioneer CDJs and mixer you can’t afford, or some sweet new keyboard or even a vintage modular synth that is ready and waiting for you to plop on some headphones and start plugging away. Really, it’s easy to get carried away, but it seems appropriate to keep in mind that there are likely a shit ton of people there who also want to try their hand at the gear. Basically, NAMM is not the place for guys to write their one-man synth opus or finally put together that sweet DJ set, especially not when the unit’s pre-loaded tracks are the only source material. This is a time for users to explore for a bit, get a sense of what the piece does, and then move the fuck on or at least ask some questions.
Behringer’s iNuke Boom In all honesty, this monstrosity was probably just a bad joke—but at the edge of Behringer‘s large booth sat the iNuke Boom, toted as the “World’s Largest iOS Dock.” (Notice in the photo the iPhone on top of the unit, which should help give an idea of the actual size). Essentially a massive speaker in the middle of the showroom, the iNuke Boom steadily blasted tasteless music into the unprotected ears of innocent NAMM attendees. Whether it was a silly gag or something that the company actually imagined would be perceived as “cool” or “creative” is unclear, but either way it still stands as one of NAMM 2013’s most obvious misfires.
Unnecessary DJ Sets As a DJ, being asked to spin at a NAMM booth is probably a conflicting proposition. On the one hand, it probably pays well and is without a doubt incredibly easy; but at the same time, it’s hard to imagine a more frivolous use of one’s talent. Aside from the occasional informative demo, it’s impossible to take a DJ set at NAMM seriously, especially when the jocks—who ostensibly are serving as nothing more than background music—throw down bangers and the type of fare they usually “rock the club” with. Sure, the vendors probably need some sort of sound to fill their booth, but watching anonymous DJs spin to a completely ambivalent audience within the context of a trade show is just depressing.
Bad Hair NAMM brings a lot of different musical worlds together—there are the DJs, the synth nerds, the computer/technology geeks, the studio guys, the jazz players, the classical musicians, and—of course—a dizzying grab bag of rocker personalities. Somehow, every decade of rock-and-roll fashion still has a decent amount of people who identify with it, and even more incredibly, representatives from all of those cultures and eras manage to get their hands on NAMM badges. This results in things like leather pants, “groovy” sunglasses, and other stereotypical accessories becoming commonplace sightings, but the most questionable stylistic choices of all are always at the top of attendees’ heads. From dreads died in patterns and egregiously feathered manes to dangerously tall spikes and essentially every conceivable style of mullet ever dreamt up by man, the hodgepodge of terrible hairstyles was a constant reminder of the questionable types which make NAMM, well, NAMM.
Last year’s Hidden Neighbors EP by Chicago-based producer Mister Lies (a.k.a. Nick Zanca) seemed to come out of nowhere, but nonetheless managed to light up every single ear and blog that it touched. Taken from his Mowgli LP (due out via Lefse on February 26), “Lupine” shows off two different sides of the producer, illustrating more or less exactly why we recently included him in our Bubblin’ Up series. The track doesn’t stand still: Beginning with a loungey groove, “Lupine” is soon sideswiped by a Blade Runner-esque wash of synths before taking a hard left into clattering garage. It goes on to interchange distant vocal samples with melodic hooks that wouldn’t be out of place in a Julio Bashmore track, bringing them all together at the finale. Mister Lies seems to be slowly carving out a distinguished niche for himself, and if anything, “Lupine” just makes the wait for its parent album all the more exciting. What’s more, Zanca will be taking his music on the road following Mowgli‘s release, so be sure to check out those upcoming tour dates after the jump.
03/12-03/17 Austin, TX – SXSW 03/22 Detroit, MI – Magic Stick Lounge (w: TBA) 03/23 Ottawa, ON – Cafe Dekcuf (w: Adam Saikaley, Organ Eyes) 03/24 Montreal, CA – Casa del Popolo (w: AGOR, Grown Folk) 03/26 Boston, MA – Phoenix Landing (w: Time Wharp, C.Z.) 03/27 New Haven, CT – BAR (w: Beat Culture & Color Plus) 03/28 Providence, RI – Fete Lounge (w: TBA) 03/29 Baltimore, MD – Golden West Cafe (w: TBA) 03/30 Brooklyn, NY – Glasslands (w: Rimar & Heathered Pearls) New York Record Release
Given that it’s been well over three years since LA producer Jason Chung (a.k.a. Nosaj Thing) released his excellent debut LP, Drift, it’s surprising how understated Home is. One might have suspected that such a lengthy break was the result of some sort of major stylistic upheaval, but in truth, Home retreads similar sonic ground as its predecessor, even stripping back much of that album’s ambition and eclecticism. The result is a record that—apart from a couple of notable exceptions—has much less capacity to surprise; furthermore, it’s an LP which prefers to settle into a mood, as opposed to deftly hopping between styles and textures in the way that Drift did.
Fortunately, what Chung does on this second album, he does exceptionally well. With less curveball moments to grab the headlines, it’s Nosaj Thing’s remarkable compositional skill that steals the show, particularly his ability to draw nostalgia out of minimal chord progressions and simple, brooding basslines, and his talent for creating genuinely emotive, humanized tones out of muted synths and glitchy beats. Tracks like “Safe,” with its lazily drifting pads and breathy vocal noises, or the richly melodic “Tell” are perfectly formed downtempo vignettes that each seem designed to encompass a moment of longing or loneliness. And as it was on his debut, Chung’s production is utterly flawless and pristine throughout Home—each individual sound seems to have been finely honed and placed within the mix with pinpoint precision.
Unlike last time, Chung recruits guest vocalists for two tracks on Home: “Try,” which features fellow California resident Toro Y Moi, and lead single “Eclipse/Blue,” which sees Chung collaborating with Blonde Redhead vocalist Kazu Makino. Both are executed well, and sit amongst the otherwise electronic timbres of the record with surprising subtlety, but of the two, it’s the latter that impresses most. While “Try” comes across pretty much as one would expect it to—an amalgamation of Toro Y Moi’s lo-fi synth pop and Chung’s minimal hip-hop glitches—Makino’s fragile contribution turns “Eclipse/Blue” into something with surprising depth that also amalgamates perfectly with the lonesome mood that Chung sets throughout the LP.
These moments aside, however, Home‘s biggest problem is that it can easily drift by almost unnoticed. While Chung compiles the elements of each track brilliantly, there’s little content that hasn’t been heard before, and too often, one can trace the composition of a song back to some obvious influences—the glitchy percussion of ambient Aphex Twin, the delicate instrumentation of early Four Tet, and the melodic pads of Boards of Canada all loom large. It’s only during closing track “Light #3″—which calls back to Chung’s debut both with its title and its slightly grittier production—that Home really feels like it kicks up a gear. It’s a welcome change of pace, but by that point, the song merely seems to emphasize that no matter how pleasant a journey the album has been, it could have used a few more surprises along the way.
With a pedigree that extends to creating rich, researched mixes for Dusk & Blackdown and N-Type on Rinse FM, London-based producer Etch (a.k.a. Zak Brashill) and his new Horizons EP owes just as much to a longstanding jungle tradition as it does the producer’s own innovations. “Aquamarine,” the closing tune taken from Etch’s three-track record, uses 2-step as a launching pad to create a hypnotic, singular groove while a ghostly, Burial-esque voice peels off into the fog. With its crystal-clear percussion work juggling hard snares and disembodied breaks playfully weaving in and out of the haze, “Aquamarine” makes for an engrossing cut from a fresh EP, the rest of which you can stream after the jump.
