Do you spend a lot of time on YouTube? Even if most of your work day is spent surfing through suggested viewings, you probably can’t match Canadian producer Ghibli (a.k.a. Thomas Michael), who crafted his latest album, Rare Pleasures, using only samples collected from videos on the site. “Winflowers” is a slice of bedroom pop from that LP, featuring cut-up vocal snippets over soft synth pads and a four-on-the-floor beat. You can stream all of Rare Pleasures after the jump, where you can also find the release’s artwork and tracklisting, or download the 10-song album here, where the Crash Symbols imprint is offering it for free in the digital form of your choice.
1. The Crows Fly Back After The Storm 2. Little Clique 3. Flossy 4. Róisín and Aoife 5. Winflowers 6. Ross 7. Sixteen Moons 8. Babyface 9. Richbaby 10. Nocturne in F Sharp (Bonus Track)
Part of the rapidly expanding UNO roster, Venezuelan producer Arca offered up a free EP last week, the six-track Stretch 1. It’s a dark effort, one heavily steeped in brooding electronics and clacking hip-hop rhythms, and now, Arca has himself a video that perfectly (and creepily) captures his music’s charismatically unsettling vibe. “Ass Swung Low” is a moody piece of pitch-shifted hip-hop, and this clip only makes things more ominous with its computer-animated images of babies and small children mean mugging for the camera. Those little faces are sure to pop up in somebody’s nightmare, and, if Arca is lucky, perhaps his track will too.
Although most releases from Tel Aviv-based label and DJ crew Botanika have been digital-only, the imprint is getting physical on its latest effort, a vinyl-only EP that will see just 300 copies pressed. The three-track 12″ from Polar Pair (made of up 6funk5 and Botanika stalwart NVD) contains the title tune, “Hip Shakin’ Mama,” a Zed Bias remix of “Be Gone,” and the song “Fantasy Love,” as remixed by Amsterdam-based duo Juju & Jordash. On the remix, Juju & Jordash let old-school vibes shine through, mixing a churning bassline with backwards vocals and Italo-style synths. Hip Shakin’ Mama (artwork above) is out now, and can be streamed in full, after the jump.
German DJ/producer Shed (a.k.a. Rene Pawlowitz) has been keeping busy lately, recently announcing a third LP, The Killer, set to come out in July through 50Weapons. Somehow, Pawlowitz has found time to squeeze in another release before then, a three-song 12″ he will drop this month under the name The Traveller. The EP is titled A 100, and will be released through Ostgut Ton, the label that put out his two previous full-length albums, including 2010’s The Traveller, from which his new moniker is derived. A 100 is set to appear on April 30, but the EP’s artwork and tracklisting are available now, below. (via FACT)
On June 11, French tunesmith and Marble co-owner Para One will release his latest LP, Passion, but precedes it with a fresh 12″ single for album cut “Lean on Me” (artwork above). Californian producer Salva is one of three remixers featured on that record (alongside Hrdvsion and Max Tundra), whose version of Para One’s tune is a gauzy and slow-grooving production chock full of neon soul. The whole single will be available as a Beatport exclusive next Monday, and you can check out the artwork and tracklist for Para One’s forthcoming album, below.
1. Ice Cold 2 Wake Me Up 3. Every Little Thing (feat. Irfane and Teki Latex) 4. Vibrations followed by Poisoned Apples (Interlude) 5. When The Night (feat. Jaw) 6. Sigmund 7. Love Ave 8. You 9. Albatros 10. Lean on Me (feat. Teki Latex) 11. The Talking Drums 12. Empire
After dropping a two-song 10″ through his own Convex Industries label earlier this year, London-based producer Jon Convex (a.k.a. David Kirkham, erstwhile member of Instra:Mental) will make his return to Martyn’s 3024 imprint with a three-tracker featuring the vocal talents of drum & bass innovator dBridge. The Lied to be Loved EP is named for the record’s first track, and contains a trio of dancefloor-oriented tech-house tunes rife with UK bass influences. Convex’s record is scheduled for a May 23 release, but for now, you can check out the artwork provided by 3024 co-jefe, Erosie, above, and the tracklist, below.
A1. Lied to be Loved (feat. dBridge) B1. Zero B2. Stay (feat. dBridge)
Propellerhead—the maker of Reason, ReCycle, and other such noteworthy pieces of music-production software—has tried its hand in the mobile app game, releasing a simple application that is intended to fill those brief minutes of boredom and in-between moments when you just need to punch out a quick beat. The resulting program is unbelievably fun and even a little addictive, but is by no means a professional (or even amateur) music-making platform.
Figure is an app that comes with its share of restrictions, but why shouldn’t it? This is a $.99 app we’re talking about here. First of all, you can’t save or export any songs you make in the program. In fact, once you’re done with your jam and you close the app, that sequence is gone forever. Some people may take this as a major downfall, but it could also be a major selling point too—Figure is meant only to be an exercise, a fun distraction that indulges those of us who want nothing more than to fit music, music, and more music into our free time. Now, you can do so by indulging your creative side whilst putting together a quick track and then completely forgetting about it, keeping your hard drives clean of the extraneous data created by storing these fly-by beats.
There’s also a finite amount of elements that one can add to a song: drums (kick, snare, hat, and one percussion element), bass, and a lead. That means no chords and no ambient layers—just the bare bones. Within these elements, there’s enough to keep you busy for a few minutes, tweaking sounds and messing with various effects, but overall, Figure is pretty much a “you see what you get” kind of operation. The graphic user interface is simply seamless, incredibly intuitive, and instantly usable, and the way the various rhythms are displayed within revolving circles is not only cool to watch, but could also serve as an eye opener to the various patterns common in today’s dance music. All this means you can open the program and build a track at a moment’s notice, and, if you’re lucky, it might even be a kind of cool track.
Truthfully, Figure is more of a game than it is a music-production tool. No one is going to make the next club smash or the answer to Burial on their iPhone, and this app isn’t about to change that. Instead, it’s just a great way for music nerds and curiously creative folk alike to kill a few minutes, and have more fun than they would by looking at their Facebook feed.
London-via-Moscow producer Lokiboi has just shared “No Future,” a downtempo house cut that’s debuting here on XLR8R. The sparse tune is adorned with a processed voice that riffs on the poor state of affairs for Britain’s youth, along with news clippings of student protests and riots. The whole thing reads as a kind of self-aware anthem for England’s dejected young people. It’s the latest in an impressive string of releases from Lokiboi, who brought us a handful of delectablefunkyhouse cuts in 2011.
After dropping his widely tipped debut, the Blush Response EP, last year, Glaswegian producer Beaumont pushes forward with his sophomore effort, the Never Love Me EP. Marking his first outing for Hotflush, Beamount lends Paul Rose’s label four tunes (five if you get the digital release), all of which are steeped in more club and bass music influences than his previous effort, but still carefully dart along the neon-lit path between modern beats and glowing ’80s synth-pop.
Beaumont’s new EP rides this treacherous line at the foot of contemporary UK club music more boldly than its predecessor, inserting a larger portion of kitsch between the stepping rhythms. However, on the opening title track, this new approach immediately falls flat on its face, as the tune punches out a heavily swung drum pattern (though the tones are considerably light) and pits it against an overwhelming array of thin synth sequences—their revolving loops never quite fitting together before they are topped off by unnecessary layers of vocoder.
Fortunately, after this brief falter, Beaumont seems to jump right into step, revealing three songs that strike a cautious balance between gorgeous melodies, retro-futuristic drum programming, and glistening synth tones that stay just outside of the “guilty pleasure” zone. Never Love Me‘s keyboard sounds land somewhere between those of Dam-Funk and Starkey, but the drums and percussion come with little to no traces of hip-hop or outright dubstep, having far more in common with the current wave of post-everything rhythms. The overall aesthetic vision seems to benefit from a truncated song length, as the EP’s two strongest cuts, “Uptown” and “Verona Beach,” are also its shortest, with a combined length just over five minutes. Although both tunes take decidedly different paths, it’s the common elements—the slew of arpeggios, the focused melodies, the floating chord progressions—that raise these songs above the remaining tracklist.
The producer has found a way to widen his scope on his new record, while still remaining dedicated to the style that first got him attention, which is no easy feat. Deftly skirting the pitfalls of other ’80s-indebted artists, Beaumont avoids overcompressed drums and keeps his sound sources fresh throughout Never Love Me. Still, one can’t help but wonder how long it will be until the producer runs out of inspiration if he continues to operate in a musical world that’s not only rather specifically defined, but has also been rehashed countless times.
Veteran house and techno duo Slam (a.k.a. Stuart McMillan and Orde Meikle, pictured above) has announced the upcoming release of a two-disc collection of tunes crafted between 2008 and 2012, which was, incidentally, an impressively productive period for the pair. The 26-song compilation—which is called Collecting Data and is made up of original productions as well as remixes of artists like Pan-Pot, Radio Slave, and Christian Smith—will be released through the duo’s own Glasgow-based imprint, Soma, on June 25. Take a look at the release’s tracklist and artwork, below, and keep your eyes peeled for more information on another upcoming Slam project, Alliances, which will feature collaborations with Gary Beck, Pan-Pot, and Italo Boyz.
CD1 01. Sasha – Coma (Slam Remix) 02. Radio Slave – Bell Clap Dance (Slam Paragraph Remix) 03. Spencer Parker – Untitled Head (Slam RTM House Mix) 04. Slam – We Doin’ This Again? 05. Prompt – Evolve (Slam Paragraph Mix) 06. Slam – Heart Of The Soul (Slam’s RTM House Mix) 07. Shlomi Aber & Kenny Larkin – Sketches (Slam Remix) 08. Josh Wink – Everybody To The Sun (Slam Paragraph Mix) 09. Slam – What’s On Your Mind 10. Paul Ritch – The Wolf (Slam Remix) 11. Dot Allison – Cry (Slam Vocal Remix) 12. The Black Dog – CCTV Nation (Slam Mix) 13. Christian Smith – Pitanga (Slam Remix)
CD2 01. Slam – Collecting Data 02. Pan-Pot – Face To Face / Confronted (Slam Paragraph Mix) 03. Slam – Variance 04. Slam – Metro Noir 05. Secret Cinema – Timeless Altitude (Slam Paragraph Remix) 06. Slam – Hot Knives 07. Slam – Dead Dog Bounce 08. Slam – Maffaking 09. Alex Under – El Alma del Tiempo (Slam Paragraph Remix) 10. Slam – Area 51 11. Slam – Chasing Shadows 12. Slam – Crowded Room 13. Slam – City Destroyer (Part 1)
