Podcast 187: Uproot Andy

It’s hard to believe that more than a year has passed since Uproot Andy was profiled in the pages of XLR8R. In the often-nebulous, internet-driven world of tropical bass music, the NY-based DJ and producer is basically what passes for a veteran presence. In recent years, he’s released both original productions and remixes on labels such as Bersa Discos, ZZK, Dutty Artz, and Ghetto Bassquake. Last year’s remix of Los Rakas’ “Abrazame” was a certifiable summer jam, and the Que Bajo?! party that he puts on with tropical co-conspirator (and Dutty Artz crew member) Geko Jones is the spot in NY for upfront, electronically minded tropical and Latin dance music. Apart from that, Andy is currently at work on a proper debut album, but we finally convinced him to turn in an exclusive mix for the XLR8R podcast, right before he hopped on a plane to Colombia for a string of DJ gigs. As expected, his podcast traverses the globe, weaving together bass-heavy Latin re-edits—many of which are unreleased and of his own creation—with UK funky, dancehall, ghettotech, and plenty more indescribable points in between. For those of us muddling through the chilly final throes of winter, Uproot Andy’s mix is more than capable of heating things up until spring arrives.

01 Uproot Andy/Florence Stamp “Axe Chop riddim/Satisfied”
02 Malente & Dex “In Nightclubs” (Exploited)
03 Zinc “Number 1 Girls feat. Benga and Sweetie Irie” (Bingo Bass)
04 A.J. Holmes & the Hackney Empire “Fraudian Slip (Uproot Andy Remix)” (Ghetto Bassquake)
05 Velour “Kick It Till It Breaks” (Night Slugs)
06 Tim Dolla “Switch (Sheeqo Beat Remix)” (Cool)
07 Matt Shadetek “This is Love” (Dutty Artz)
08 Oscar Neves “Mabele (Uproot Andy & Geko Jones Remix)”
09 Four Tet “Sing (Mosca Remix)” (Domino)
10 Antony Santos “Vete (Uproot Andy Remix)”
11 TNT “Hot Gyal” (T&A)
12 R1 Ryders “Hydraulic” (R1 Ryders)
13 Kano “Get Wild feat. Aidonia & Wiley (Redlight Remix)” (Bigger Picture)
14 Schlachthofbronx “Chambacu” (Mad Decent)
15 Warrior One “Lord of Bashy (Douster Remix)” (Mixpak)
16 HeavyFeet “Are You Dumb? feat. Miski (Dre Skull Remix)” (Stamp! Beats)
17 Myrryrs “Feel U (Clicks & Whistles Remix)” (Discobelle)
18 Ku Bo “Sumanita feat. Daniecell” (Man)
19 DJ Godfather “Ayo Technology” (Databass)
20 Canblaster “Thunderdome Got Crunk” (Sounds of Sumo)

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Siriusmo Mosaik

The cover photo for Berlin producer Moritz Friedrich’s album Mosaik depicts a scene that looks like a drug-addicted teenager’s messy bedroom. Picture a pile of junk littered with toy figures, a Casio keyboard taped to a shotgun handle, white Mickey Mouse gloves, glue, balloons, candles, and cables. The image is an apt metaphor for Siriusmo‘s manic energy and playful ideas. Mosaik bursts with dramatic mood shifts and youthful sturm und drang manifest as clubby techno, glitchy hip-hop, and whomping dubstep tracks. Taken as a whole, the album sounds like a house-party mixtape, as its multiple styles and genres are all crammed into a 57-minute presentation. But it’s not all an ADD mess, as Friedrich’s execution is sharp and challenging; the album is a rollercoaster ride where you can’t tell what’s around the next turn, but you know it’s probably exciting.

Opening with “High Together”—a number that evokes early Daft Punk or Chemical Brothers—we’re immediately thrust into freaky electro territory on CD-bonus track “Sirimande,” which sounds like drum & bass producer Jonny L’s hit “Piper” remade by lazer-house star Sinden. Friedrich makes club-friendly tracks that aren’t needlessly drawn out and adds a little late-20th-century nostalgia to the mix. Mosaik‘s best songs put a novel spin on ’90s IDM and dance palettes, whether it’s DJ Shadow-style scratch collages or wonky, arpeggiated electronica. Elsewhere, the coyly named “Bad Idea” mines the sample bin with abandon, while “Einmal in der Woche Schreien” (“Cry Once a Week”) is jubilant Italo house tinted with Friedrich’s deft sonic acrylics. Overall, Mosaik‘s many shards form a coherent but explosive picture.

Lucy “Gas”

Berlin aural auteur Lucy is about to release his latest, a full-length concept album built on the sounds of deep techno grooves and thick layers of noise. Entitled Wordplay for Working Bees, the album is coming out on March 4 via Stroboscopic Artefacts, and this entrancing six minutes of ominous sound is one of its 11 tracks. “Gas” crawls out slowly from the primordial goop of producer Luca Mortellaro’s creative psyche, into a chrome-lined incubation chamber warmed by distorted dissonance and thought-engulfing sub frequencies, before developing into a fully formed, dark minimal-techno track for the dystopic future. At only four cuts in, it’s part of a decidedly strong start to Lucy’s LP, the whole of which can be heard on his Soundcloud profile, here.

Gas

Gas

Hot City to Release New EP This April

The UK club-tune specialists in DJ/production outfit Hot City have another hotly tipped EP on its way down the pipeline, an offering of four original tracks called Go Bang. The Moshi Moshi label will release the music, which has been described as an “epic mix up of UK funky with big basslines and deep grooves,” on April 4. Before that record drops, you can check out a brand-new mini-mix Hot City put together for the upcoming Urban Nerds party at XOYO on March 26, along with the EP art and tracklist, below.

1. Hot City – Lonely Boy
2. Hot City – Untitled
3. DJ Haus N Benz – More Girls
4. Hot City – Head Work
5. Hot City – Another Girl

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Listen to Four Tet’s and Caribou’s Upcoming Split Single Now

Though we’re not entirely sure of the exact details, it seems like Kieran Hebden (pictured above), the creative force behind last year’s gorgeous Four Tet album, There Is Love in You, is readying a new single for his own Text label, called “Pinnacles.” And apparently, it will be a split single, with Caribou‘s Dan Snaith sporting a new moniker, Daphni, on the flipside. You can stream both dancefloor-centric tracks from the forthcoming 12″ below, and keep an eye on the Four Tet website for further updates on the release. (via Nutriot)

Four Tet “Pinnacles”

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Daphni “Ye Ye”

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Rainbow Arabia Boys and Diamonds

One could trace Rainbow Arabia‘s multifarious aesthetic to several origins, whether dancehall, ’80s synth-pop, African highlife, Arabic disco, or any number of other realms, depending on the song snippet in question. In any case, the band’s first full-length, Boys and Diamonds, renders discussions of genre pretty pointless—more than anything, it’s a pop album, and a solid one at that.

Boys and Diamonds, coming on the heels of the Los Angeles-based husband-and-wife duo’s two earlier EPs, features both cosmic, wayward jams and finely tuned pop tracks, some of which sound like guaranteed dancefloor fillers right out of the box. “Without You” and “Mechanical” are the most immediately infectious cuts, deploying huge melodies and infectious drum patterns with lean, measured production. Considering the assortment of sounds that Rainbow Arabia draws upon, the economical construction of every track here is striking, providing a hardened melodic core for Tiffany Preston’s charmingly affected vocal to interface with.

It’s the pop parts that stick out at first, but the more nebulous, sinuous tracks of the album’s middle section, including “Papai” and the creeping “Jungle Bear,” gradually reveal themselves as standouts on par with the catchier material. “This Life Is Practice” kicks off a strong closing trio of tunes riding sublime synth sequences, wrapping, appropriately, with a song called “Sequenced,” which pairs Tiffany’s forlorn wail with ringing guitar chords to hypnotic effect.

With Boys and Diamonds, Rainbow Arabia has refined its various sonic fascinations, incongruous though they may at first seem, into the band’s most intriguing, inviting release yet.

Unsound Festival Adds Kode9, Appleblim, Laurel Halo, and More to 2011 Lineup

Late last month we told you about the first wave of artists announced to play the second Unsound Festival in the US, scheduled to take place between April 1 and April 10 in New York City. Now, along with the likes of Emeralds, Demdike Stare, Lone, Ben Frost, and Brian Eno (pictured above with Frost), ticketholders can look forward to performances from Kode9, Laurel Halo, Julianna Barwick, Appleblim, Raime, James Ferraro, Pink Skull, Lizzie Bougatsos of Gang Gang Dance, Harald Grosskopf, Sepalcure, Svarte Greiner, and many others. As we’ve pointed out before, you can find more information—including the full lineup and ticket information—in the coming weeks on the Unsound website, here.

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Video: Caribou “Jamelia”

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In writing about contemporary music and the images occasionally paired with such sounds, words like hazy, foggy, and murky are often batted around—especially in regards to the fresh crop of artists popping up as of late. But rarely are those descriptors so apt as with this video for the closing track from Caribou’s year-end-list-toppingSwim LP. This piece for “Jamelia” was created by production outfit Video Marsh, a trio of artists with a serious penchant for small bodies of water and the wildlife that surrounds them. Stare into the entrancing shallows of tide pools, lovingly shot close up and in extremely low contrast. Marvel as tiny crabs crawl across the protagonist’s palm and an eagle soars majestically above her head. Gasp in fear and bewilderment as a man suddenly appears, wielding a sword, and gives chase to our curious nature lover. And above all, listen closely to the excellently crafted and intimately epic music providing the soundtrack for the whole affair.

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Shlohmo “Places”

It has been a minute since we posted a proper track from West Coast beat-kid extraordinaire Shlohmo, but listening to “Places,” it seems that the wait was well worth it. If this song is any indication, Shlohmo has been absorbing some smoother sounds lately, along the lines of say D’Angelo and others from the late-’90s neo-soul heyday, and flipped them seamlessly into his repertoire. The trademark stuttering clicks, pops, claps, and hiss that we’ve come to know and love are all still here, but thrown into the mix is a sultry guitar, gasps of falsetto vocals, and countless gorgeous melodies. One might even say that “Places,” the title track from his forthcoming digital-only EP, is a step towards maturity as beat music goes, perhaps taking us a small step away from merely nodding our heads and taking a small step toward scratching our chins in contemplation as well. Places (artwork above) is set to drop March 15, followed by a “Places” b/w “Seriously” (a non-EP song) 7″ that will be for sale at Shlohmo’s upcoming performances during the Magical Properties 3 tour with Daedelus and Tokimonsta. You can check those tour dates after the jump.

Magical Properties 3 Tour Dates:
March 15, Dallas, TX @ Trees
March 16-18, Austin, TX @ SXSW
March 20, New Orleans, LA @ Howlin’ Wolf
March 22, Oxford, MS @ The Lyric
March 23, Birmingham, AL @ Zydeco
March 25, Tallahassee, FL @ Engine Room
March 27, Miami, FL @ Ultra
April 1, Syracuse, NY @ Wescott Theater
April 2, Brooklyn, NY @ MHOW
April 5, Montreal, WC @ La Belmont
April 6, Buffalo, NY @ Soundlab
April 7, Toronto, ON @ Wrongbar
April 9, Chicago, IL @ Bottom Lounge
April 13, Denver, CO @ Cervantes
April 14, Tempe, AZ @ Club Red
April 16, Indo, CA @ Coachella
April 18, Arcata, CA @ Humbrews
April 20, Eugene, OR @ WOW Hall
April 21, Portland, OR @ Branx
April 23, Pomona, CA @ The Glasshouse

Places

Bubblin’: T. Williams

Who:T. Williams
Where: London, UK

Tesfa Williams spent much of 2010 making a name for himself in house music circles, but the UK producer originally got his start as Dread D, a member of legendary grime crew Black Ops. These days he’s one half of the Deep Teknologi production duo and label, but his solo releases on labels such as PTN, Enchufada, and Local Action—for whom he produced the label’s debut 12″ and the more recent “Heartbeat” single with singer Terri Walker—have solidified his name as a singular artist. He also teamed up with L-Vis 1990 for a track on the Night Slugs Allstars compilation, and plenty more is on the way in 2011.

Listen/Download: XLR8R Podcast

Listen: “Heartbeat”

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Listen: “People’s Choice”

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Listen: “Getting Mine”

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