After dropping records this year on Not Not Fun and 100% Silk, Brooklyn-based producer Ital (a.k.a. Daniel Martin-McCormick) is set to release a five-song EP on Planet Mu early next year. Hive Mind will see Ital continuing his sneakily weird and oddly danceable electronic subversions, the creation of which he described in detail during his recent B2B conversation with Magic Touch (a.k.a. Damon Palermo, Martin-McCormick’s partner in Mi Ami). The EP won’t come out until February 13 of next year, but you can check out the artwork and tracklist below.
01 Doesn’t Matter (If You Love Him) 02 Floridian Void 03 Privacy Settings 04 Israel 05 First Wave
Wichita, Kansas newcomer Indigo Bunting (a.k.a. Zach White) sent over this new, quasi-experimental track featuring skittering drums and vocals that have been pitch bent to oblivion. During its melodic parts, “Ritual” contains catchy synth and xylophone licks, but most of the production stays firmly planted in leftfield territory, for instance, employing a soft jazz interlude as the song’s primary breakdown.
Next week, Kingdom will be releasing the Dreama EP via the still-potent Night Slugs label. The four-track offering is Kingdom’s first Night Slugs release since last year’s That Mystic EP, so anticipation is running high. In a effort to both quench the collective thirst for his new tunes and simultaneously ramp up excitement for the official release date, the LA-based producer and Fade to Mind boss has let loose a stream of opening cut “Let You No.” The song is streaming below, and finds Kingdom combining slinky sinogrime synths with sexy R&B sensibilities.
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As the end of 2011 creeps closer with each passing day, it seems that producers and labels are all scrambling to put out one last single before the calendar flips to 2012. Add Bristol’s Julio Bashmore to the list of artists getting into the year-end action, as he’ll be releasing a new EP, Riff Wrath (artwork above), on December 19. Set to drop via the Futureboogie label, the two-song record is described as a “beautifully filmic piece of house music” that’s also a “perfect embodiment of Bashmore’s fluid modern soul and understated drive with a dusty haze of of cosmic strumming.” While that kind of fluffy language reads like pretty standard PR speak, Bashmore’s previous 2011 releases—Everyone Needs a Theme Tune, Batty Knee Dance, and “Father Father”—have been undeniably great, so it’s certainly not out of the realm of possibility that Riff Wrath will offer similarly high-quality productions. The EP’s tracklist is below.
The recent Red Bull Music Academy World Tour included all sorts of amazing events around the globe, but perhaps none was as celebrated (or exciting) as the stop in London. The latest installment of the ongoing video series documenting the tour includes behind-the-scenes footage of the RBMA takeover of the iconic London Eye. Somehow, RBMA corralled 30 different crews of DJs, artists, producers, and labels and installed them in the different pods of the giant observation wheel for a once-in-a-lifetime dance party. The entire thing was streamed live online (we were certainly tuned in here at XLR8R HQ), but this video offers a closer look at what it was actually like to be there. Watch it above, and, just to get you feeling even more depressed that you couldn’t attend, peruse the list of all-star participants below.
Professor Green Skream & Benga w/ Sgt Pokes Metalheadz feat. Goldie & MC Justyce Ms Dynamite Kano Beardyman Digital Soundboy Soundsystem feat. Shy FX, Breakage, B. Traits, Donae’o, Stamina MC & Youngman David Rodigan FabricLive pres. Hessle Audio feat. Pearson Sound, Ben UFO & Pangaea Andrew Weatherall Roller Express (Toddla T & Redlight) Rob Da Bank presents Sunday Best feat. Scroobius Pip Don Letts YoYo feat. Seb Chew, Leo G & Lil Silva Deviation feat. Benji B & Special Guest The 2 Bears Jackmaster B2B Deadboy Night Slugs feat. L-Vis 1990 B2B Bok Bok Channel One Soundsystem Horse Meat Disco Jess Mills & Zinc Lunice Afrikan Boy Red Bull Music Academy Madrid feat. XXXY & Doc Daneeka Andreya Triana & Tanya Auclair Red Bull Music Academy Allstars feat. Space Dimension Controller B2B Braiden Red Bull Studio presents Ben Westbeech Roundhouse Studios Soweto Kinch Moshi Moshi feat. D/R/U/G/S & Night Angles
On his first full-length album, Runner (artwork above), Denver’s Muta (a.k.a. Cliff Harris) draws inspiration from the ’70s science-fiction flick Logan’s Run, a tale of a young man who flees his dystopian home to avoid his scheduled termination. Now, we know Logan’s Run is a cult classic, but let’s be real for a moment. The music from the film is a distractingly trite melting pot of cliched futuristic noises and rudimentary synth sounds which, in reality, matches up well with the movie’s stilted acting and goofy special effects. Thankfully, since the film’s release in 1976, electronic-music production has come of age, and Muta uses various newfangled technologies to craft a nine-song album with a decidedly 21st-century aesthetic. “Lock Jaw” is a lurching, synthesizer-laden tune with a hip-hop feel that recalls the music of artists like Lazer Sword, but also uniquely employs sundry sci-fi sampling, including noises that easily could have been taken from conversing Star Wars droids.
Over the past few months, XLR8R has been curating a special set of charts for Beatport. The latest edition comes from youthful French beatmaker Canblaster, who just completed a term at this year’s Red Bull Music Academy in Madrid. More than a year has passed since we tagged him as a Bubblin’ artist, and his hyperactive, genre-melding sounds continue to make waves while he pulls from across the electronic-music spectrum for inspiration. Given his schizophrenic ways, it comes as little surprise that his Beatport chart offers a variety of sounds, including grime, techno, bass music, and, of course, some tunes from his Club Cheval affiliates.
Listen to each individual track by clicking the song titles above, or go here to check out the entire chart. To see the rest of the charts in the XLR8R x Beatport series, click here.
Certainly one of 2011’s busiest house DJ/producers, Dallas, TX native Maceo Plex is primed to follow up a handful of singles, EPs, and one full-length for Crosstown Rebels with yet another EP, but this time for his own label, the brand-new Ellum Audio. The name for Plex’s imprint is inspired by the art district in his hometown, which hosted a plethora of massive warehouse raves throughout the ’90s. Since Ellum Audio was founded in that vein, we asked the artist to let us in on some of his favorites from that era. We think you’ll like what he suggested.
Jazz N Groove “House Vibe No. 1”
This is a great record from ’94 that was released on a local Dallas label called Doghouse. A local Dallas DJ by the name of Luke Sardello ran this label, and this particular release is my favorite. Amazing deep house here, and easily as good as the more internationally known house tracks that were coming out at the same time. This one wasn’t as hyped up, but it should have been!
I/O Too Loco for Techno
Here’s a pretty obscure record and the first record produced by a good friend of mine who produces under the names Gerard Hanson, Convextion, and ERP. He also does three tracks on this various artists 12″, called Too Loco for Techno, under the name I/O, and the label was a local Dallas label ran by Dan Kurzius. Amazing deep electro here and one of my favorite records of all time. Shortly after hearing this record, and others like it at the time, I began making my own music with just an Akai AX60 synth and R8 drum machine. Plus, I started getting away from the early rave stuff that I was playing up until ’94/’95.
Taxi C.A.B. “Chunk-A-Nova (Red Dog Mix)”
One of my favorite house tracks here, and I think the best use of the old sample from Wood, Brass & Steel’s “Funkanova.” Black Science Orchestra and Terrence Parker also sampled them, but I think this one is best for its use of female vocals that work perfectly with the funky beat. Top stuff you can play to this day!
TC ’95 “Just Get Up & Dance (Sure Is Pure Remix)”
Here’s a big influence on my production from 1995. I’m known for my basslines as Maceo Plex and Maetrik, and here’s a big track that I used to emulate the bassline of. At the time I would play this with Green Velvet’s “I Want to Leave my Body.” Both records had PHAT ASS BASS!!
DJ Food “Dark Lady”
One of the best records of all time in my opinion. It’s soft, funky, and beautiful, just how I like music to be. This record makes me want to keep showing off other slow records of the time that aren’t all that known, but I’ll stop here. Amazing record.
On their new album Mr. Machine, Daniel Brandt, Jan Brauer, and Paul Frick defy dance music conventions by eschewing computers, 808s, and sampling in favor of the kind of live instrumentation you might find in a mini-orchestra. The jazzy compositions created by violin, cello, piano, tuba, harp, various percussion, and warm synth bass experiment freely with dissonance and complex rhythms and would probably feel more at home on a playlist including Medeski, Martin, and Wood than pumping out of a subwoofer at a club. That being said, it appears that Soul Clap (pictured above), like Brandt, Brauer, and Frick, understand that the differences between jazz, classical, and house music are more subtle than one might expect. On this remix of “Pretend,” the party-loving Boston duo keeps the haunting feel of the original by rearranging its screeching violins, rolling piano half-steps, and the melancholy vocals provided by Ninja Tune artist Emika, but also lets the song’s latent dance grooves shine through by adding extra emphasis to the marimba loop, adding some four-on-the-floor, and thickening up the cello and Moog bass.
All of the sudden, Dubbel Dutch is everywhere. Sure, the Austin-based producer’s name has been bandied about for a couple of years as one of the leading US producers turning out what’s now being referred to as bass music, but, until recently, there weren’t many official Dubbel Dutch releases to be found. Nevertheless, anyone who follows the blogosphere could easily see that the man is an incredibly prolific producer; his tunes and remixes have been littering various DJs’ sets for awhile, so it was just a matter of time until the floodgates opened. Earlier this year, he dropped a double white-label 12″ on Dutty Artz, which was followed by the stellar “B Leave” single on UTTU. Now, he’s offering up the Hymn EP, a four-track effort and his first release for Dre Skull‘s Mixpak label, which recently added Dubbel Dutch to its official artist roster.
Dubbel Dutch’s strength has always lain in his drum work, and Hymn does not disappoint on that front. While the drum patterns may not mirror those of UK funky, the producer has certainly cribbed notes from the percussion-heavy genre, insofar that his drums always sound big and clean while riding high in the mix. Part of what makes Dubbel Dutch so interesting is that he filters this approach through an obvious love for hip-hop, dancehall, and various Latin/African rhythms, all of which gives his production a uniquely propulsive sound. This is especially true on “Darq,” the clear highlight of the EP and a song that largely eschews melody in favor of pounding drums, ominous chords, and a dark synth pulse that recalls Untold’s best work. Similarly successful is the EP’s first track, “Open Up,” a subtly hyperactive tune that employs multiple layers of percussion while pulling heavily from grime’s sound palette. The track also manages to utilize a sample of a barking dog without seeming trite or annoying; in fact, the sound only adds to the song’s eerie feel.
More upbeat is the EP’s latter half, as “Heartbruk” and “Hymn” both find Dubbel Dutch experimenting with more overt melodies. Unfortunately, the results are mixed. The former features some absolutely stellar and complex percussion, but also rolls out a questionable synth that’s somewhere between an ’80s movie soundtrack and a dancehall slow jam. While it doesn’t derail “Heartbruk” completely—the drums are too good for that—the melodic interludes detract from the song’s momentum and might have been better left on the cutting room floor. “Hymn” suffers a similar fate, although its upbeat synths are even more prominent. While the track’s synthesized horns and airy primary melody were likely meant as some kind of hook, they ultimately sound a bit saccharine and, yes, cheesy.
That being said, the Hymn EP is an effort with far more strengths than weaknesses, and although its second half does sputter, it’s clear that Dubbel Dutch is an immensely talented producer. With that arsenal of drums in his pocket and more Mixpak releases planned for 2012, it’s a safe bet that Dubbel Dutch will right the ship the next time around.
