Podcast 240: Tevo Howard

While there’s no shortage of praise for the mid- and late-’80s salad days of classic Chicago house, when it comes to talk of house music’s present, the Windy City sometimes feels grossly underrepresented. That’s certainly not the fault of Tevo Howard, a veteran DJ who has been dropping a steady stream of quality house records in the past few years. His most recent is the excellent Monument EP, which once again finds him mining the vintage drum sounds and stylistic tropes of Chicago house to create his own fresh takes on the genre. As such, we figured now would be a good time for Howard to put together an exclusive mix for the XLR8R podcast series, and although we expected a master course in house music, Howard had other ideas.

In his own words, “This mix is a collection of ’80s tracks that influenced me to acknowledge and explore an electric ‘sort’ of sound circa 2004. I found this electric ‘sort’ of sound, at that time in 2004, to be futuristic, as its sound was the idea of the direction that I thought popular music would go. Today, I am able to say that the inspiration of this ‘sort’ of sound has influenced me as a producer as well as a composer. It is my notion that this ‘sort’ of sound is called electro in today’s terms. I am proud to do this mix for XLR8R.”

Basically, one of Chicago’s top house producers has put together a mix of ’80s electro cuts—some of them totally obscure, others by familiar faces—that began to influence him a full 15-20 years after their initial release. We’re sold.

01 Vicious Pink “Take Me Now (Extended Version)” (Parlaphone)
02 Depeche Mode “No Disco” (Mute)
03 Kinky Go “Give Me the Love” (Razormaid)
04 Taffy “I Love My Radio (Midnight Radio) (USA Mix)” (Emergency)
05 Zinnon “What’s Your Name” (Rush)
06 Michael Oliver “Breakin’ Up Breakin’ Down (Club Mix)” (DJ International)
07 Model 500 “No UFO’s (Instrumental)” (Metroplex)
08 Luke Acid C. “Work It to the Bone” (ZYX)
09 Robotiko Rejekto “Rejekto (Presention Mix)” (ZYX)
10 George Kranz “Din Daa Daa (U.S. Mix)” (Pool)
11 Lil’ Louis “The Original Video Clash” (Dance Mania)
12 Scrappy “Freeze (Mad Dog Dub)” (Zap)
13 Trilogy “Not Love (Vocal)” (Il Disc)
14 Vicious Pink “Fetish (Extended Version)” (Parlaphone)
15 Fantasy Club “Mystery Girl (Set Me Free) (Original Mix)” (International House)
16 808 State “Cubik” (Tommy Boy)

Download MP3
Download M4A (iTunes enhanced)
Subscribe to Podcast (RSS)

XLR8R_Podcast_Tevo_Howard_2012_03_27

Black Orange Juice “Back of My Car (Ossie Remix)”

Black Orange Juice is prepping its first EP, Back of My Car, to drop on April 14 via Somethinksounds. The London group, which was started by Hyperdub affliate Ossie, makes R&B-influenced house music, and Ossie’s own remix takes his group’s sound into acidic, garagey territory. This six-minute cut shuffles through an acid bassline and a melange of stuttering percussion, all of which is anchored by creepy, sex-crazed, Drake-ian lyrics like “She said don’t be sleazy, it won’t be easy, you have to please me, so don’t go too easy.” You can check out a preview of the rest of the Back of My Car EP, as well as its tracklist, after the jump.

A1. Back of My Car
A2. Nobody Knows
B1. Back of My Car EP [Ossie Remix]
B2. Messing Around

Back Of My Car (Ossie Remix)

Video Premiere: Petar Dundov “Brownian Interplay”

Clocking in at nearly 13 minutes in length, it’s almost a shame to refer to the intricately animated clip for “Brownian Interplay” as merely a music video. The song, a refined piece that tastefully combines ambient soundscapes with classic techno, is taken from Ideas from the Pond, the just-released new album from Croatian producer Petar Dundov, which is streaming in full after the jump. Released on the storied Music Man label, the album is Dundov’s first full-length release since 2008. As for the “Brownian Interplay” video, despite the song’s relatively relaxed vibe, the Dinko Klobucar-directed piece features a flurry of animation which is quite vibrant. Watch the video above, and take a listen to the rest of Ideas from the Pond in the player below.

Sean Bones “Here Now (Expensive Looks 180 Remix)”

LA-based songwriter Sean Bones traffics in breezy pop songs, but he’s called on NYC beatmaker Expensive Looks (pictured above) to remix his latest single, “Here Now,” into something entirely different. The remix traps the sunny, SoCal glow of the original and crams it into a slower, gloomier, and more introspective piece of downtempo beatwork. It seems like a specifically claustrophobic, New York take on the light-hearted work of a Southern Californian.

Here Now (Expensive Looks 180 Remix)

Air France Announces Breakup

Joel Karlsson and Henrik Markstedt have sadly announced the demise of Air France, the duo’s collaborative production moniker, on their Tumblr today. The Gothenburg group’s ultimate discography is quite short—totaling no more than an hour and change across two EPs and a handful of singles—and yet its widespread influence can be heard quite clearly in many of the breezier electronic productions that continue to surface online, this website included. Air France’s announcement is particularly heartwrenching given last August’s brilliant “It Feels Good to be Around You” and a rare interview they gave us around the same time that suggested a new album was imminent. However, the duo cited an inability to complete its work (up to seven albums remain unfinished) as the impetus of the breakup: “…We’ve never been able to finish anything, nothing was ever good enough. We have tried so hard, and we truly gave it all we had. And now we have decided to stop trying, even though it breaks our hearts.”

It all seems to have come to an end much too soon. “We’ll make this brief, because it hurts too much,” wrote the band at the opening of today’s message. That sentiment can’t help but be applied to the rest of Air France’s catalog, which was emotionally dense yet temporally abridged, often visiting themes of heartbreak and ecstasy in the same short breath. The group’s debut EP, 2006’s On Trade Winds, as well as a host of singles and remixes, brought Air France to the forefront of Gothenburg’s electronic music scene at the middle of the last decade, a time when their Swedish contemporaries and countrymen in The Tough Alliance (which has since been disbanded), Studio (also now kaput), and The Embassy (new album soon?) were at their most prolific. Karlsson’s and Markstedt’s 2008 EP for Sincerely Yours, No Way Down, brought Air France its most widespread acclaim, with critics citing the band’s knack for combining the quirky, sampling sensibilities of The Avalanches with the balearic style of Saint Etienne (whom the band would later remix). The group’s official statement can be read here.

Video: DJ Haus “Needin’ U”

London producer DJ Haus just dropped a video to for “Needin’ U,” his recent single and the latest release on his Unknown to the Unknown imprint. Directed by Crackstevens, the clip reads like Justice’s infamous “D.A.N.C.E.” video (looks like others agree), but it’s infused with Unknown to the Unknown’s cut-and-paste, VHS-tape aesthetic. A trove of decades-old rave footage illuminates our protagonist’s shirt as we walk through city streets, supermarkets, graveyards, and, finally, a church. It’s a fitting accompaniment to the lighthearted, throwback rave vibes heard on “Needin’ U.”

Roska to Release Second Album for Rinse

UK funky don Roska has announced the imminent arrival of his second solo album, another offering of contemporary house productions to be released by Rinse. With its dryly factual title, Rinse Presents: Roska 2, the 10-track LP will drop on May 28. Speaking on his stylistic approach to the new record, the DJ/producer says, “Over the last two years, I’ve been playing alongside dubstep, grime, and other genres, and it’s given my sound a different edge. I’ve found my sound, and I’m just going with it and following the flow, rather than sticking to a specific genre now. It doesn’t make sense to do that anymore.” You can check out the artwork and tracklist for Roska’s purportedly eclectic album below.

01. You Dun Kno
02. Memories (feat. Ruby Goe)
03. OnRinseSinceZeroEight
04. Do You Like This (feat. Jamie George)
05. The Oracle
06. Metric
07. Badman (feat. Sweetie Irie)
08. Eleven
09. Go (feat. Mz Bratt)
10. Spanner in the Works (feat. Swindle & Funtcase)

Damu “Sjunga”

Manchester producer Damu has just shared “Sjunga” with the world, a new track hot on the heels of his debut LP, November’s Unity. The short cut is steeped in the quirks of UK garage, with heavy doses of both two-step percussion and processed, pop-vocal sampling. True to the song’s namesake (sjunga means sing in Swedish), vocal samples converge at the piece’s climax, making for a quick, whimsical burst of melody. You can check out Damu’s XLR8R podcast that he dropped last fall, here.

Sjunga

Stream Anenon’s ‘Acquiescence’ EP

As was first unveiled back in February, Non Projects boss and Southern Californian musician/producer Brian Allen Simon (a.k.a. Anenon) will release his Acquiescence EP on March 27, but a day before it lands, we’ve got the exclusive stream of that record for your listening pleasure. The five-song EP is a lush and vibrantly musical offering with touches of jazz, washes of ambient soundscapes, austere piano melodies, electronic beats, and so much more. We expect you’ll enjoy Anenon’s new release, as it simultaneously satiates our taste for Simon’s well-crafted productions and excites us more for his forthcoming debut LP, Inner Hue, which is scheduled to arrive on May 1.

The XLR8R Music Player requires Adobe Flash Player version 9 or later. Click here to install.

The Pearl “Flesh Eaters (Distal Remix)”

“Fun” isn’t exactly the first word that comes to mind when discussing the grab-all term that is “bass music,” but it does sound like Distal had a good bit of fun reworking “Flesh Eaters.” Sure, there’s nothing jovial about the music here—in fact, it’s pretty sinister—but Distal does seem to have an effortless command over his sonic landscapes; we’d like to imagine he enjoys exercising this control as much as we enjoy listening to the results. Bouncing us through a few infectiously heavy rhythms, the Atlanta producer takes this rework to every imaginable corner, even cutting the drums entirely at one point and landing the tune in almost new-age territory for the briefest of moments. If the original version from The Pearl is half as good as this, then the forthcoming 7″ from Circuitree (artwork above)—which will serve as home to both versions of “Flesh Eaters”—should prove a worthwhile use of wax. You can pre-order that 7” before it officially drops on April 12 over on the label’s Bandcamp.

Flesh Eaters (Distal Remix)

Page 2077 of 3781
1 … 2,075 2,076 2,077 2,078 2,079 … 3,781