NY-based party-starting tunestress Star Eyes (a.k.a. Vivian Host, former XLR8R editor) has just unveiled her next record for the longstanding Trouble & Bass imprint, a three-song EP entitled White Gloves. Along with the title track, Host’s release also features “What Do You Mean” and “Ride or Die,” making for a trifecta of tunes that mesh the sounds old-school rave, jungle, house, grime, and bass music into hyperactive, peak-hour club music. You can grab the whole thing when it drops on June 7.
In support of their just-released LP, Air Museum, Brookyln’s droned-out ambient duo Mountains (whose track, “Thousand Square,” we recently wrote about here) has just released a video for album cut “Blue Lantern on East Oxford.” Mimicking the slow-morphing ambient feedback and gentle pulse of the song, the video silently touches on themes of natural inconstancy and elemental shift. Doubled-up and timelapsed cinematography of cumulonimbus clouds melt into sparkling waters and oceanic depths. Check out the video above and pick up a copy of Air Museum from your favorite distributor.
Heads up! Slo-mo R&B dance remixer Physical Therapy has recently teamed up with the excellent Hippos in Tanks label to put out some releases in the near future. First up is an excellent remix of Sleep ? Over‘s (pictured above) just released “Casual Diamond.” Taking the original’s breezy Mazzy Star-meets-Cocteau Twins aesthetic and throwing it in a screwed-up blender, Physical Therapy’s remix turns the song into a psychedelically tinged rave anthem for codeine enthusiasts, as marching drums for a lazy militia compete with blurry pitch-bent synth stabs, conch horns, and what sounds like a sample from Holy Ghost Inc.’s <a “Walk On Air.” Give the remix a shot below and look out for more music from Physical Therapy, who’ll be dropping a record of his own via Hippos in Tanks this fall. (via FACT)
Helmed by some of the most in-demand artists on the techno scene (Seth Troxler and Ryan Crosson among them), the DJ collective, production outfit, and label known as Visionquest has been on quite a roll lately. With the latest release on the label, Visionquest Spring Showcase, that spree is bound to continue with an EP that explores the limits of tech-house with occasional jaunts into the territories of celestial pop, melodic house, and deep techno. Doing exactly what it says on the tin, Visionquest Spring Showcase defines the direction of the label while showing off brand-new joints from the likes of Vernon Bara & Igor Vicente, Matthew Burton & Nick Lawson, and Laura Jones. The EP comes out June 16, but you can check out the tracklist and album art below.
1. Vernon Bara & Igor Vicente – Don’t Feel No Way
2. Matthew Burton & Nick Lawson – Gruff It
3. Laura Jones – Live a Little
It’s been nearly two years (about a lifetime and a half in internet years) since Denver’s resident dark-pop patron and dimensional tamperer Pictureplane released his most recent LP, Dark Rift. But fear not, readers, the wait for its successor is almost over. July 19 marks the release of a new Pictureplane full-length, an 11-song “celebration of human touch in a digital world” called Thee Physical. This homemade rave jam is the world’s first taste of that album, and exhibits Travis Egedy’s continually evolving take on classic dance music, as well as his new penchant for hushed vocal hooks. (There’s a pretty awesome video of a live performance of the tune here, too.) The emotive “Real Is a Feeling” is simultaneously familiar and fresh territory for Pictureplane, and excites us even more for the impending release of his long-awaited new effort. (via Pitchfork)
Now onto its sixth release, Nicolas Jaar‘s (pictured above) personal imprint, Clown and Sunset, has established itself as a respected disseminator of quirky downtempo house music (much like the sounds heard on the podcast Jaar did for XLR8R earlier this year). With Anytime Will Do, the debut EP from Valentin Stip, the label adds a fresh new face to its roster that slots in nicely with the label’s intimate aesthetic. Hailing from Montreal, Stip is a 19-year-old, classically schooled pianist who recently turned his attention away from training for the concert circuit and towards electronic experimentation. The result is muted and thoughtful sound that blends Stip’s piano work floating on top of a bedrock collage of found sounds. You can check out the artwork and tracklist for the Anytime Will Do EP, which will be out May 31, below.
A1 Anytime Will Do
A2 Le Dormeur
B1 Gravels (1 et 2)
B2 Esquis(e)
It wasn’t that long ago when we told you about multifaceted New York producer Travis Stewart (a.k.a. Machinedrum) planning a 12″ release for the UK’s prolific Planet Mu label, and now, we’ve just got word that the artist will also drop a full-length record on that imprint, called Room(s). The latest album from Machinedrum will be made available on July 11, and will feature 11 tracks of his particular brand of glitchy, juke-influenced bass music. On the creation of his record, Stewart says, “I feel like the energy of a song is lost the longer you spend working on it. This experiment in becoming less attached to my work essentially led to a lot of songs that are connected sonically and aesthetically.” You can hear clips of what that sounds like over on Planet Mu’s website, here, and check out the album art and tracklist for Room(s) below. (via FACT)
01. She Died There
02. Now U Know Tha Deal 4 Real
03. Sacred Frequency
04. U Don’t Survive
05. Come1
06. Youniverse
07. GBYE
08. The Statue
09. Lay Me Down
10. Door(s)
11. Where Did We Go Wrong?
Two hotly tipped artists working on the forefront of dark electronic music, Brooklyn’s Gatekeeper (pictured above) and London’s Nowa Huta, have teamed up for a remix exchange, which has produced a couple of lovely tunes. Here, we’ve got the latter of those two artists refixing Gatekeeper’s “Serpent” from last year (remember this funny little video?) into a frenzied mix of fractured beat work, ominous bass melodies, and haunting atmospheres tinged with just a touch of otherworldly soul; these ethereal touches provide an excellent balance to the original version’s overwhelming industrial sounds. And make sure you check out the other track to emerge from this trade-off, “Gang Waves (Gatekeeper Remix),” here.
XLR8R has been tracking the progress of John Talabot for more than a year now, and although we’ve gleefully devoured one washed-out, blissful house tune after another from the Spanish producer, precious little information has emerged as to who he actually is. (For instance, John Talabot is not even his real name.) However, we do know that he resides in Barcelona, pals around with the guys in Delorean, has released a couple of singles on Permanent Vacation, and has been tapped to remix folks like The xx, Glasser, and Teengirl Fantasy. This week, Talabot released another batch of new music, the Families EP, via Young Turks. To commemorate the occasion, Talabot has put together an exclusive mix for the XLR8R podcast series, an offering that finds the mysterious auteur hazily winding his way through sun-soaked house, spacey disco, washy techno, and all points in between.
01 Holy Other “YR Love” (Tri Angle)
02 Good Parts “Temptation 100” (Star-Fi)
03 dBridge “Wonder Where” (NonPlus)
04 Matthew Herbert “Kerstin Basler (Pional Unofficial Edit)”
05 Unknown
06 Missing Linkx “Got a Minute” (Philpot)
07 Aera “Daidalus” (Aera)
08 Kornél Kovács “Baby Step” (Studio Barnhus)
09 Unknown “See the Music”
10 Schakarchi & Stranéus “Clinton Hill” (Studio Barnhus)
11 Shatrax “9” (Shatrax)
12 Arto Mwambe “LoveLift (Osborne Remix)” (Brontosaurus)
13 John Talabot “Leave Me” (Permanent Vacation)
14 Maria Minerva “Disko Bliss” (100% Silk)
15 TT “Party Girl (Talabot Friendly Edit)”
16 Jo Jo “Mind Games” (Il Discotto)
Download MP3
Download M4A (iTunes enhanced)
Subscribe to Podcast (RSS)
Who:Salva
Where: Los Angeles, Ca
Twenty-nine-year-old Paul Salva has spent most of his life bouncing around the US, as he grew up in Chicago worshipping house (both classic and ghetto) and later moved to Miami, where he dug into bass and electro and fell in love with the 808. After more than a decade of DJing, producing, and throwing parties, he eventually settled in San Francisco, where he founded the Frite Nite label and rubbed elbows with like-minded artists such as Lazer Sword. Now, on the heels of releasing his debut full-length, Complex Housing, Salva has gone and moved again, heading south to the wilds of Los Angeles. Southern California isn’t exactly lacking in forward-thinking beatmakers, but there’s little chance of Salva getting lost in the shuffle. Apart from his own music, he’s also launched a collaborative project with Lando Kal, begun producing tracks for leftfield MC Zackey Force Funk, and been tapped to remix Beans and Rainbow Arabia.
Listen: “Wake Ups”
Watch: “Keys Open Doors”
