Enticing as it may be, we prefer to forgo posting all of the shoddy live videos that have been masquerading as “new songs from The xx” as of late, but thankfully, this stream of new tune “Chained” is as official as they come. Below, you can listen to the UK trio’s latest offering of quiet and sparse pop music, which will arrive with “Angels” and nine other songs when Coexist drops on September 11 via Young Turks.
After a rap-heavy lineup at the Boiler Room in New York last week, the newly established Los Angeles outpost for the online event series has announced a roster that’s a touch more in line with the usual DJ-centric live streams. LA imprint Halocyan has lined up a few of its regulars, like John Tejada and Chrissy Murderbot, to spin alongside acid fiend DJ Pierre, Jimmy Tamborello‘s Dntel project, Leaving Records affiliate Sumsun, and Exillon. The show is scheduled to go live on Boiler Room at 7:00 p.m. PST tonight.
This morning, Brooklyn-based duo Gatekeeper (a.k.a. Aaron David Ross and Matthew Arkell) revealed a “virtual gaming environment” for its recently released album, Exo. We were able to delve into the group’s high-tech working conditions in our recent In the Studio feature, but the cyberworld that Gatekeeper created with artist Tabor Robak reveals an entirely different terrain. Judging from a 35-minute playthrough video, this sort of virtual reality—which is said to be “the true way [Exo] should be experienced”—takes users through the galaxy, a hyper-futuristic spaceship, and several different scenes of a post-apocolyptic and strangely lush landscape. You can download and experience the strange trip for yourself, here.
Salva and his Frite Nite label have been on a roll recently, putting out releases like Dark Ages’ First Born EP (a collaborative effort from Star Eyes and 5kinandbone5) and the label head’s collaborative EP with Grenier, “Wake The Dead” b/w “Forest Floor.” The latest release, called The Starship Connection EP, is coming on September 18 from Bay Area producers B. Bravo and Teeko. Taken from that record, “More Than Just a Dream” opens with a funky intro that boasts a punishing kick just as big and pronounced as the synth that squeals over the top of it. The tune’s inherent funkiness becomes more and more apparent as two-part vocal harmonies are introduced over the same squealing melody and loud, slapping claps. Toward the end, starry synths, and moody piano chords take over for the vocals as they begin to fade, while the funky instrumental carries the groove across the track’s remaining minutes.
It may not be the most astute way to describe him, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Otto Von Schirach is a weird guy. Over the past decade, the Miami producer has been turning out a volatile mix of what he describes as, “Earth Wave Surf Electro Bass Tropical calypso Dubstep Broken Noise Grind, IDM Folk Glitch, Breakcore orchestral Gabber.” Putting it mildly, he’s a complex artist, and one who’s just released a new album, Supermeng, his first for the Monkeytown imprint. Granted, the Modeselektor-helmed label has always been guided by a thirst for diversity, but it’s not a stretch to say that the addition of Von Schirach to the roster has taken that idea to another level completely, as exhibited by this absolutely bonkers mix he’s put together for the XLR8R podcast series. Dubbed the Triangle ForceField Ear Mix, the podcast finds Von Schirach as comfortable spinning old-school Miami bass as he is playing heavy metal, leftfield post-punk, baile funk, new wave, disco, vintage Latin cuts, and various other bits of sonic weirdness. Some of it’s danceable, some of it is most definitely not. It’s quite possibly the wildest chapter of the XLR8R podcast series that we’ve ever offered up, and although it’s not a mix for the faint of heart, those readers who are bored with manicured house and techno just might appreciate the spirit of adventure. Like it or not, one thing is certain—no one can accuse Otto Von Schirach of not being exactly who he is.
01 Otto Von Schirach “Triangle ForceField Intro”
02 Death “Infernal Death” (Combat)
03 Afro-Rican “Give It All You Got (Doggy Style Mega Mix)” (Suntown)
04 Andressa Soares “Balancia da Melancia (Mulher Melancia)”
05 DJ Wiz & DJ Jock D “Fresh To Rock” (Cut It Up Def)
06 Otto Von Schirach “Supermeng” (Monkeytown)
07 DJ Scotch Egg “Scotch Hausen” (AD AAD AT)
08 Bruce Haack “OK Robot” (Dimension 5)
09 Crash Course in Science “Kitchen Motors” (GO GO)
10 Renaldo and the Loaf “A Medical Man” (Ralph)
11 Celina y Reutilio “A Santa Barbara (Otto Re-edit)” (Chango)
12 Fresh Girls Mandingos feat. Eugene Cooper “I Got the Bass” (Needle in the Groove)
13 Otto Von Schirach “Gravitron” (Monkeytown)
14 Original Concept “Pump that Bass” (Def Jam)
15 Phoenecia “Grrl Trrbl” (Schematic)
16 The Cassandra Complex “Moscow Idaho” (Normal)
17 Visitors “V-I-S-I-T-O-R-S” (Montage)
18 Informatics “Proximity Switch (Accidents in Paradise)” (Last Chance)
19 John Maus “It Takes Time” (Upset! The Rhythm)
20 Gershon Kingsley & Peter Waldron “Goblin Dance” (Ghostly Sounds)
21 Los Zafiros “La Caminadora” (Fire)
22 Mr Feathers “Triangle of God (feat Metro Zu)” (Triangle Earth)
23 Fantômas “Book 1- Page 19” (Ipecac)
24 Bass Dominators (Clay D & Amos Larkin III) “Go Head Go Head” (On)
25 Los Sucios “SUCIA” (Real Wild)
26 Space “Magic Fly” (Vogue)
27 Trans Volta “Disco Computer” (RKM)
28 The Immortals “The Ultimate Warlord” (RCA Victor)
29 Alec Empire “Addicted to You” (DHR)
30 Mr Bungle “Desert Search for Techno Allah” (Warner Bros.)
31 Baconhead “Wookie”(Acroplane)
32 Yma Sumac “Mambo” (Capitol)
33 Otto Von Schirach “Ultimate Universe” (Monkeytown)
34 Dino Felipe “Puppetry” (Triangle Earth)
35 Banana Sloth “Dinosaurs Will Eat Your Brain” (Sub-Conscious Communications)
36 Silverio “Yepa Yepa Yepa” (Nuevos Ricos)
37 Otto Von Schirach “Portal Prayer” (Monkeytown)
38 Joe Meek “I Hear a New World” (RPM)
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The founders of Helsinki bass music outpost Signal Life, Teeth and Desto (pictured above) have unveiled a bonus cut following the label’s second release. The split EP features two tracks apiece from Bristol’s Kowton and Finnish producer LAS (check those out after the jump), but the bonus cut comes from label boss Desto himself. Although the title, “Compton Roll,” might suggest that the song is some kind of West Coast-inspired answer to “Harlem Shake,” Desto’s beat is much more dark and sparse than Baauer’s squeaking banger. His bastardized hip-hop rhythm has more swerve than swagger, with booming 808s, pattering rhythms, and rapid-fire, gummy zaps all vying for your attention.
After dropping two free EPs through UNO, the largely anonymous producer known as Arca has let loose a twisted, genre-defying album for his first official release. Morphing hip-hop beats into mutant excursions in the blink of an eye, Stretch 2 forms an image of Arca as a craftsman, one who pieces together immensely detailed compositions while placing a higher value on the unexpected and otherworldly than the average beat producer.
In some ways, Stretch 2 is a relief. One doesn’t feel the need to listen to this record in search of the next big tune or whilst constantly pondering if and when its tracks could fit into a DJ set. Instead, it is an album that’s simply there to be listened to—not in the background, not as part of a shuffled playlist, but from beginning to end. Fortunately, Arca supplies enough worthwhile content to hold listeners’ interest in such rare moments of concentrated attention, opening up dense new worlds of woozy audio with each track. The results could be described as druggy; pitches waver and glide, shape-shifting drums clatter and boom, and vocals (seemingly culled from indistinguishable rap acapellas) are processed to alien ranges, stretched far beyond the capabilities of the humans they first emanated from. Still, these results are not “stoney” by any means, as the haze and hiss which fogs much of today’s more “abstract” beat music is absent here, allowing the stunningly elaborate constructions to be heard in a mostly uninterrupted fashion.
All this gives Arca license to get weird, and he definitely does. “Fortune” finds him going out the furthest, splicing and repitching together what sounds like samples of a Neptunes beat into a considerably off-kilter bit of funk, while the odd combinations of warped samples and tense rhythms found on “Strung” and “Brokeup” aren’t too far behind. But when Arca doesn’t dive so deep into his stranger inclinations, he lands on some truly powerful productions. In particular, “Maiden Voyage,” “Tapped In,” “Meditation,” and “Manners” stand out, as each tune finds a balance between the man’s impressive production abilities while offering glimpses of genuine songcraft. Each cut takes an entirely different path to its end: “Maiden Voyage” works a simple arpeggiated melody into altered forms amongst changing sonic landscapes; “Tapped In” lays warped vocals atop dense drones and hesitant drum clatters; “Meditation” builds around a bed of angelic chords to fashion a solid beat; and contemplative closer “Manners” patiently comes together only to seamlessly flip into an almost entirely new song in its last minute. Furthermore, rarely does a pattern emerge in terms of arrangement on Stretch 2. The expected divisions into verse, chorus, and breakdowns are virtually nonexistent, as Arca traces a unique course for his songs, making them appear more as actual compositions as opposed to more traditionally structured beats.
Stretch 2 speaks volumes to Arca’s potential. The amount of simultaneously moving parts his productions manage to make work together is truly impressive and the clarity with which each element is presented is nothing short of exceptional. But these highly detailed tracks, while an audio marvel, are clearly not for everyone, given their underlying eccentricity and tendency to abruptly change course. For now, Arca’s music is most likely to be appreciated by those who themselves attempt to craft tracks with an ear towards sound design and those electronic-music connoisseurs who enjoy scratching their head as much as they do nodding back and forth with it.
A fortnight ahead of the release of his “mini-album,” Knights, the São Paulo-based producer known as Babe, Terror has offered up a quiet, sprawling cut from his record. The five-track LP promises “34 minutes of primitive drum-machine beats,” which the tunesmith delivers in full on “War.” Babe, Terror’s production opens with a simple, lo-fi rhythm that is eventually overtaken by the timid synths. Throughout the seven-minute fog, “War” passes through periods of unfocused calm and teeth-gritting paranoia generated from the slowly building synths and vague, stretched-out vocal samples.
Much like Fort Romeau‘s excellent Kingdoms LP earlier this year, Just Black‘s debut outing on Amanda Brown’s 100% Silk imprint eschews much of the lo-fi experimentalism that we’ve come to expect from the Not Not Fun sub-label in favor of classic-sounding, emotive house locked around multiple layers of percussion. On Can’t Put My Finger on It, the Detroit producer serves up two sprawling, unlabelled mini-mixes of original material, spread across both sides of a cassette and clocking in at just under a half hour in total. It’s hypnotic, loop-driven dance music fixed around strong grooves and subtle melodic lines that prefer to slowly fade in and out of view rather than making any kind of grand entrance.
100% Silk’s current fixation with releasing dance music via the DJ-unfriendly cassette format is an interesting one. On the one hand, it’s evidently a bit of a novelty, a throwback to the punk aesthetic of Not Not Fun’s DIY roots, yet in a strange sort of way, it suits releases like this one. Stripped of the forced track divisions of CDs, the material weight of vinyl, and the endless metadata options of MP3s (the release is available digitally, but is still presented as two tracks labelled “Side A” and “Side B”), the music exists in that detached reality reserved for the best kind of mysterious late-night DJ sets, and it serves to accentuate the ‘deep’ elements of this sort of intricately composed dance music. Sure enough, it’s pretty much impossible to differentiate where one song ends and another begins; percussion loops, synth lines, and funk samples drift over the top of one another, each element slowly dissolving into something new until the entire blueprint has subtly shifted. Essentially, it’s taking what the underground masters of ’90s house and techno were so good at—electronic music reduced to its fluid, repetitive best—and applying it across two 15-minute chunks of original material. As such, there’s little in the way of instant hooks to grab the listener the first time around, but there are plenty of moments that reward repeated listening, like the shuffle-infused drums that open side “Side B” and the point at which “Side A” descends into syncopated, rhythmic vocal chops.
The downside is that for all the depth and fluidity, the release feels like it doesn’t really go anywhere. There’s no real crescendo, no resolve, no eventual payoff; side one fades in midway through a bubbling, acid-sounding bassline and side two fades to the sound of a sprawling sax jam. It’s as if the listener is tuning in part-way through some epically long and deep house mix—joining the party a few songs late and losing interest before the set reaches its natural conclusion. It’s not worth bemoaning the lack of a destination too long though, as there’s enough impressive scenery scattered along the way to make Can’t Put My Finger on It a worthwhile journey.
Fresh from the August 3 release of his Supermeng album via Modeselektor’s Monkeytown label, Otto von Schirach has unleashed a video for “Salpica.” The artist’s taste for questionable mustache styles is evident from the get-go, when the video zooms in on Schirach’s mouth and tin foil grills. The weirdness only takes off from there: With Schirach’s bubbling electro beat as the soundtrack, the camera spots him rapping with a rooster under his arm and eventually follows an ostentatious transvestite into a seductively lit nightclub.
