Shifting quite quickly from his lengthy lull in releasing solo material, musical icon Brian Eno has just announced he will drop his second album in less than a year. Drums Between the Bells finds the pioneering producer working with an array of vocalists using the words of writer/poet Rick Holland, and will be delivered to the world by Warp on July 5. The 15-song LP will be available in double-disc hardback book (one disc with the album, the other with instrumental versions of each song), double-LP, regular CD, and digital formats—all complete with images created by Eno himself with design help from Nick Robertson. You can pre-order Drums Between the Bellshere, and check out the tracklist and first song available from the record, “glitch,” below.
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1. bless this space 2. glitch 3. dreambirds 4. pour it out 5. seedpods 6. the real 7. the airman 8. ?erce aisles of light 9. as if your eyes were partly closed as if you honed the swirl within them and offered me … the world 10. a title 11. sounds alien 12. dow 13. multimedia 14. cloud 4
Silence
15. breath of crows
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For an artist located in Amsterdam, Tom Trago‘s music sure does have a lot of soul. The shapeshifting DJ/producer, who’s been releasing music—primarily through the unparalleled Rush Hour label—since 2006, has dabbled in numerous genres over the years, from off-kilter hip-hop to soulful house and disco. His new album, Iris, came out last week and finds Trago fusing together his various musical infatuations into the lengthiest statement of his career. As such, we figured now would be a fine time to enlist Trago’s services for the XLR8R podcast series. Over the course of an hour, he adeptly combines several fresh cuts—many of them from the Rush Hour roster—with vintage house, disco, and electro-funk. Somewhat surprisingly, the man doesn’t utilize a single one of his own productions. His diverse tastes apparently overruled any sort of self-promotional impulse—not that we’re complaining.
01 Brenda Taylor “You Can’t Have Your Cake” (West End) 02 Tony Cook & The Party People “On The Floor” (Half Moon) 03 Fingers “A Path Unreleased (Virgo Tracks Version)” (Kstarke) 04 Virgo Four “It’s a Crime (Caribou Mix)” (Rush Hour) 05 Daphni “Ye Ye” (Text) 06 Skudge “Give It on Up (Aardvarck Mix)” (Skudge) 07 Cosmin TRG “Magnetic Bodies” (Rush Hour) 08 Space Dimension Controller “Journey to the Core of the Unknown Sphere” (Royal Oak) 09 Common Factor “Deeper Quest” (SSR) 10 Braille “The Year 3000” (Rush Hour) 11 D’PAc & Terrence FM “Wouldn’t Lie” (Vicious) 12 Rondenion “Like A Child” (Bosconi) 13 Gesloten Cirkel “Yamagic” (Moustache) 14 Prince “The Future” (Warner Bros.)
Australian outfit Cut Copy is one of those groups that’s long danced at the fringes of more serious electronic music, but we didn’t realize that the band was serious enough to enlist Detroit techno legend Carl Craig for a remix. The upcoming “Need You Now” remix package is set for release on April 19 and also features a rework from Gavin Russom and a new version of the song from Architecture in Helsinki, but Craig’s 13-plus minute take is definitely the single’s big ticket item. The remix is streaming below, and finds Craig stripping out most of the original song and instead piecing together a pulsing, synth-driven techno workout. Give it a listen and also peep all of Cut Copy’s summer tour dates, which we’ve also listed for your convenience.
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Cut Copy Tour Dates:
Jun 4 – Aguadilla, Puerto Rico – Indie Rock Fest Jun 5 – Houston, TX – Free Press Summer Fest Jul 5 – Richmond, VA – The National Jul 6 – Baltimore, MD – Rams Head Live! Jul 7 – Pattersonville, NY – Camp Bisco Jul 9 – Detroit, MI – Royal Oak Music Hall Jul 11 – Pittsburgh, PA – Club Zoo Jul 17 – Chicago, IL – Pitchfork Music Festival @ Union Park Aug 11 – Brooklyn, NY – Celebrate Brooklyn @ Prospect Park Band Shell Aug 12 – Tempe, AZ – The Marquee Aug 13 – Orange County, CA – Pacific Festival @ Oak Canyon Park
It was only the start of summer 2010 when Jeff Bratton and Sandra Croft crossed paths and bonded immediately over a mutual love of Scandinavian pop and the in-house cover versions of classic hits released by Embassy Records in the ’50s and ’60s. Driven by that shared passion for precious, hook-driven music and their discovery of Finnish band Shine 2009, Bratton and Croft decided to form “an experimental pop label,” calling it Cascine. Now, less than a year later, the imprint has released six singles/EPs by an array of burgeoning artists hard at work mining the disparate permutations of pop music. As Bratton’s and Croft’s endeavor continues to grow into its recognizable brand with Shine 2009’s forthcoming full-length album and a brand-new EP from one of the label’s strongest producers, Chad Valley, we take a look at three EPs that helped put Cascine on the map.
Shine 2009 Associates EP Sounding like the marriage of Primal Scream’s drug-addled psych-pop and Chapterhouse’s electronic shoegaze, Cascine’s first release is a record of calm, collected dance-pop cuts by Helsinki’s Shine 2009. Three equally strong singles—the groovy opener “Naturally,” the club-friendly “Higher,” and the airy ballad “New Rules”—all vie for your attention on the EP’s first half, while instrumental remixes and acoustic versions of those catchy tunes help round out the flipside of Associates. The seven-song record seems to effortlessly encapsulate Cascine’s taste for both the past and future of popular music.
“New Rules”
Selebrities Ladies Man Effect EP Selebrities may be the grittiest outfit on Cascine’s roster, the raw Ladies Man Effect EP its most ramshackle collection of songs. But it’s within the frayed edges of Maria Usbeck’s coy vocal delivery, Jer Robert Paulin’s simplistic guitar riffs, and the vintage-inspired production of Max Peterson that Selebrities’ heart and soul exist. Each of the four songs on the EP seem to call upon different eras of Peter Hook’s and Bernard Summer’s musical careers for inspiration, so it’s the delivery of those ideas that holds the most weight. Thankfully, the Brooklyn band makes sure to package each infectious song with refreshing nuance and youthful exuberance.
“Secret Garden”
Chad Valley Chad Valley EP Were Cascine ever called upon to give the world its answer to Delorean’s Subiza, Chad Valley‘s self-titled EP would be its best bet. Through the swaying branches of palm trees and over the hot sands of Ibiza, the Oxford-based artist shoots his funky disco-house productions straight into the atmosphere, leaving trails of ecstasy in their wake. Valley sports Auto-Tuned vocal hooks, smooth R&B melodies, slap-and-pop basslines, shimmering synth tones, and thumping club beats on the four original cuts featured on Chad Valley, and keeps his heart displayed prominently on his sleeve all the while, too. Grab this EP, and you’ll be spinning “Ensoniq Funk” and “Anything” on repeat for weeks.
The two fellas behind Scotland’s The Blessings, Dominic Flannigan and Martyn Flyn, just sent over this fresh cut taken from a forthcoming EP scheduled for release via their home label, LuckyMe. “Real Guns” is a booming, high-energy track that finds the duo juggling a load of club-ready sonics of the grittier kind to work out a hyped-up groove. Swelling synth riffs, neck-snapping dance rhythms, and wriggling bass frequencies mash together with an array of vocal, brass, and percussion samples to give The Blessings’ tune its unique ghetto-rave swagger. We suggest keeping an eye out for the rest of the EP when it drops later this year.
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Pacific Northwest sound experimentalist Grouper just self-released a two-part album called A I A on her Yellowelectric label, one particularly excellent cut from which is the spectral “Alien Observer.” Here, that relatively pop-leaning and hypnotic song by Liz Harris is paired with equally strange and beautiful visuals by director Hamish Parkinson. The images in Grouper’s video alternate back and forth from the hazily obscured to the brightly direct, but remain shadowy, confusing, and oddly sexual throughout. Towards the end, things become more sinister, and we certainly get the feeling that we’ve observed something completely alien (at least to us). (via Gorilla vs. Bear)
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Next month, Australian house label Templar Sound will drop a new EP from Grown Folk (pictured above), a Montreal production duo making “house music for the new decade.” Although this edit of the outfit’s “Steady Moving” tune by half-Canadian brethren LOL Boys isn’t on the six-track City Wind EP, it certainly fits well next to the kinds of futuristic dance music that record does feature, save the Damu and Dubbel Dutch remixes that we haven’t even heard yet (though we’re sure those will be great, too). LOL Boys’ edit is also one of the pair’s mellowest tunes to date, as the producers seem to have exchanged their fiery, tropically inclined club-tune palette for something a bit deeper that relies more on smooth synth pads, quietly delayed vocal samples, and hypnotic dancefloor rhythms that settle into you instead of smashing on top of you. You can compare “Steady Moving (LOL Boys VIP Re-Edit)” to the rest of Grown Folk’s upcoming release here.
Young lover of Detroit’s historic dance music sounds Danilo Plessow (a.k.a. Motor City Drum Ensemble) has been selected as next in line to contribute his own mix to the ongoing DJ-Kicks series. The German DJ/producer curated 22 tracks for his DJ set, which he described as a search for “magic moments,” and included classic tracks, exciting rarities, and other choice cuts from the likes of Mr. Fingers, Robert Hood, Sun Ra, Aphex Twin, Loose Joints, Recloose, Tony Allen, and a brand-new original production from MCDE himself, among others. The soulful, eclectic dance mix will drop in July, but you can check out the artwork and tracklist for upcoming release before then, below.
1. Sun Ra – Door To The Cosmos 2. Electric Wire Hustle – Again (Scratch 22 Remix) 3. Rhythm & Sound – Mango Drive 4. Tony Allen – Ariya 5. Peven Everett – Stuck (Original) 6. Bad Jazz Troupe – Breakdown Treat – Dusty Rework (MCDE Edit) 7. Mr. Fingers – The Juice 8. Rick “Poppa” Howard – Can Your Love Find It’s Way (Club Vocal) 9. Stone – Girl I Like The Way That You Move (Dub) 10. Fred P – On This Vibe 11. Creative Swing Alliance – Don’t Forget Your Keyz 12. Geraldo Pino & The Heartbeats – Black Woman Experience 13. Philippe Sarde – Le Cortège Et Course 14. Robert Hood – The Pace 15. Loose Joints – Pop Your Funk (Vocal Version) 16. Arts & Crafts – I’ve Been Searching (Walter Gibbons 12” Mix) 17. Motor City Drum Ensemble – L.O.V.E. (DJ-Kicks) 18. Aphex Twin – Actium 19. Recloose – Cardiology (Isolée Mix) 20. Latecomer – Cosmic Cart 21. Timo Lassy – African Rumble 22. James Mason – Sweet Power, Your Embrace
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According to the press release for the new two-song release by Norwich producer Magic Panda, The Glass Mountains EP (pictured above), his dreamy electronic music has been seven years in the making, only crystalizing into its finished state around January 2010 when he decided to take it out of the studio and onto the stage. That being said, we can excuse 29-year-old Jamie Robson’s ‘Panda’ moniker, and also the sonic similarities he shares with another UK-based Panda on the bubbly “Dream Theory.” The bounty of slightly tweaked sounds that make up the melodic portion of Magic Panda’s upbeat track float and flitter throughout the ambient soundscape he’s crafted here, and are all driven by a quick-pulsing dance rhythm from start to finish. Like we said before, there are certainly elements reminiscent of Gold Panda on “Dream Theory,” but Robson brings a somewhat more organic, almost playful approach to the ambient techno sound, which helps set him apart.
A member of the UK’s expansive bass scene for some years now, and head of the Super imprint, London resident Raffertie recently announced he has signed with veteran electronic music hub Ninja Tune. The producer sent out a message to mark the occasion, saying, “A massive thank you to everyone who has come out to shows and supported my music over the past few years, it means everything.” Ninja Tune has scheduled Raffertie’s debut artist album to drop early next year, but is offering a free download of the brand-new track “Not Asleep, Not Awake” when you join his mailing list here.
