Just in case you have yet to catch our feature on Berlin’s Shed in the most recent issue of XLR8R (and if you haven’t been reading a single word from the electronic music press of late), producer René Pawlowitz just released his second full-length album for Ostgut Ton, entitled The Traveller. As expected, it’s a great record, as this cut from LP shows with ease and assurance. “No Way!” employs a small number of sounds—a thick rumbling, just enough samples to construct a pared-down beat, and one solid synth melody nearly sum it up—in comparison to a large amount of contemporary electronic music, distancing the inspired artist from the rest of the post-dub-tech-whatchamacallit pack. The point has been harped on, but it bears repeating: Shed’s gonna do whatever Shed wants to do. Thank your lucky stars that’s the case. (via Little White Earbuds)
Berlin’s Radio Slave is keeping himself pretty darn busy this fall. The DJ/producer born Matt Edwards just announced he’ll be mixing the fifth installment of the Strictly Rhythms mix series. Now, there’s word that the prolific music maker will also be dropping a new collaborative record, incorporating his productions as The Machine with images created by designer Misha Hollenbach of Perks and Mini and a short piece from filmmakers Jigoku. Sharing more on the background of his multimedia album, Red Head, Edwards says, “The idea of recycling and creating collages has been something that I’ve been doing since art school, from working with a photocopy machine and a scalpel blade. With The Machine, I wanted to explore [that] through the medium of music, and create sound collages from found sources and music from around the globe. I also wanted to pull together visual artists whose work captures the spirit of recycling…The music itself is a departure from what people might expect from me, but I’ve always wanted to make an electronic LP that captures a sense of travel. It feels like a natural progression.” Red Heads will be released on November 8 via the Rekids label.
On the heels of its recently released sophomore mix album, Horse Meat Disco II (we’ve got a tune from that record here), London-based DJ crew Horse Meat Disco (pictured above) is jumping across the pond to give North America a taste of what its disco- and house-centric party is all about. Residents Jim Stanton, Luke Howard (a.k.a. Filthy Luka), James Hillard, and Severino touch down for their first performance on Friday, September 24 at Toronto’s Wrong Bar, and continue on a seven-day jaunt from there that ends up in Brooklyn on October 9 at a super-secret warehouse location. You can get the full extent of the tour’s details here, and find the dates and a promo mix by the Horse Meat crew below.
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Sep 24 Fri – Toronto @ Wrong Bar Sep 25 Sat – Calgary – CEMF Afterparty @ Skybar Sep 26 Sun – San Francisco @Public Works w/Honey Sound System Oct 2 Sat – Los Angeles @ A Club Called Rhonda Oct 6 Wed – Portland @ Holocene Oct 7 Thu – Chicago – Stardust @ Berlin Oct 9 Sat – Brooklyn @ Let’s Play House (RSVP to [email protected] for secret warehouse location information, which you will receive at noon on October 9)
We were all aglow last month with the news of young Glaswegian producer Rustie finally sharing the details of his forthcoming EP for Warp, Sunburst. So, you can imagine just about how pleased we are to share this cut from that highly anticipated release. “Hyperthrust” closes out Rustie’s Sunburst EP, and finds Hudson Mohawke’s close musical relative employing similarly wonky bass experiments, hip-hop-flavored beat work, and glowing lazer synths lifted straight out of that one episode of Miami Vice where Don Johnson gets trapped inside of the Tron videogame. You can stream “Hyperthrust” below, and grab the rest of Sunburst when it’s released on October 5.
“Hyperthrust”
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XLR8R is many things, but it’s not exactly known as a go-to destination for love jams. (As much as we like the stuff, we admit that there’s nothing particularly sexy about post-dubstep-future-garage bass music.) Nevertheless, if we keep posting tunes from How to Dress Well, maybe our rep can become just a bit steamier. On September 21, he’ll be releasing his debut album, Love Remains. It’s stuffed with slow-burning slices of tender audio, the kind of songs that are perfect for soundtracking a cool-kids make-out session. In the meantime, How to Dress Well (a.k.a Tom Krell) has sent along this new clip for “Ready to the World,” and while the video’s out-of-focus images of what appears to be a man in drag crying during a visit to a ’70s casino don’t exactly scream “let’s get it on,” they do work nicely with the chilly oddity that bubbles beneath the surface of Krell’s silky falsetto.
For the Baltimore City Guide episode, we sent a camera to Unruly Records’ B-more club king Scottie B to get us the goods on his neck of the woods. Whether it’s keeping his look fresh or his car game tight, Scottie’s got the hook up for the best sneaker spots, vinyl outlets, eateries, and blinged-out rim shops in Charm City. If that’s not enough, he’s even got special appearances by King Tutt and Graeme Sinden!
Since 2002, XLR8R has produced in-depth city guides by talking to the people who know cities best: the musicians and artists responsible for creating vibrant local scenes. This episode also coincides with the release of the Baltimore edition of XLR8R‘s City Guide app. To download the City Guide app, go to xlr8r.com/cityguide or type “XLR8R Scion City Guide” in the iTunes app store or the Android Marketplace.
San Francisco producer Dean Grenier (a.k.a. DJG) plopped this one in our inbox just the other day on behalf of a forthcoming double helping of tracks he’ll be self-releasing come next week. The project is called Voids, and giving us a little background, Grenier says, “It’s not an album, but I do feel the tracks belong together, and I decided they belong in two parts; Voids One is really for the ravers, the DJs. These songs represent a sound I pushed hard in the club over the last few years: dark, energetic, moody rave vibes. Voids Two is more personal, a bit lighter maybe, and closer to my heart.” This track, “Round,” comes from the latter release. It has a smooth shuffle to its bouncing beat, a thick, rolling bassline, and plenty of distant, reverberated sonics filling in the production’s white space. “Round” could be described as a “lighter” kind of dubstep, but it still wouldn’t be the least bit out of place blasting from a club’s soundsystem. It certainly leads one to wonder how the other half of Voids will shape up in contrast. You can find out for yourself at DJG’s website on September 15.
For the second familial outing of Daedelus‘ Magical Properties label, the SoCal-based beatsmith is taking along a large number of his local music-making peers. The Gaslamp Killer will co-headline the whole tour with Daedelus, and the two DJ/producers will be joined along the way by the likes of Samiyam, Teebs, 12th Planet, and Free the Robots. Kicking off in mid-October, The Magical Properties Tour will travel across North America through the West Coast, parts of Canada, the East Coast, and the South. You can check out the full list of dates, along with who’s playing which shows, and a flier for the whole thing, below.
10/14 – Voyeur, San Diego, CA w/ 12th Planet & Teebs 10/15 – 103 Harriet, San Francisco, CA w/ 12th Planet & Teebs 10/16 – Arcata Theater, Arcata, CA w/ 12th Planet & Teebs 10/19 – Holocene, Portland, OR w/ 12th Planet & Teebs 10/20 – Neumos, Seattle, WA w/ 12th Planet & Teebs 10/21 – Fortune Sound Club, Vancouver, BC w/ 12th Planet & Teebs 10/22 – Sugar Night Club, Victoria, BC w/ 12th Planet & Teebs 10/23 – Hi-Fi Club, Calgary, AB w/ 12th Planet & Teebs 10/26 – W Lounge, Salt Lake City, UT w/ 12th Planet & Teebs 10/27 – Bluebird Theater, Denver, CO w/ 12th Planet & Teebs 10/29 – Double Door, Chicago, IL w/ 12th Planet & Teebs 10/30 – Sound Academy, Toronto, ON w/ 12th Planet & Teebs 10/31 – Grog Shop, Cleveland, OH w/ 12th Planet & Teebs 11/2 – Le Belmont, Montreal, QC w/ Samiyam & Teebs 11/3 – Harpers Ferry, Allston, MA w/ Samiyam & Teebs 11/4 – Le Poisson Rouge, NYC, NY w/ Free the Robots & Samiyam 11/6 – Bourbon Street, Baltimore, MD w/ Free the Robots & Samiyam 11/7 – DC9, Washington, DC w/ Free the Robots & Samiyam 11/9 – Club 828, Asheville, NC w/ Free the Robots & Samiyam 11/12 – The Masquerade, Atlanta, GA w/ Free the Robots & Samiyam 11/13 – The Howlin’ Wolf, New Orleans, LA w/ Free the Robots & Samiyam 11/14 – Barcelona, Austin, TX w/ Free the Robots & Samiyam 11/16 – Trees, Dallas, TX w/ Free the Robots & Samiyam 11/17 – Ground Hall, Houston, TX w/ Free the Robots & Samiyam 11/19 – Club Red, Tempe, AZ w/ Free the Robots & Samiyam 11/20 – House Of Blues, Los Angeles, CA w/ Free the Robots, Samiyam & Teebs
Geographical proximity and recent label-sharing aside, it’s no wonder Eskmo is Amon Tobin’s kindred production partner; everything the Bay Area tunesmith and recent Ninja Tune signee creates just sounds amazing. Even on his b-sides, like “Come Back” from the Cloudlight EP, preciously crafted organic textures writhe and squirm underneath smashing rhythms made of an amalgam of living samples and field recordings—the total number of which only producer Brendan Angelides is likely to know. Couple that with the song’s swelling synth melodies and Eskmo’s disembodied rasp, and you’ve got a production many music makers would love to include on their proper full-length. Angelides’ debut self-titled album drops on October 19, but if you feel so inclined to catch him before that, check out his upcoming tour dates here.
We’ve been following the work coming from the side project of Oneohtrix Point Never‘s Daniel Lopatin and Joel Ford of Tigercity, Games, for a good while now (you can find those tunes here and here), so we’re pretty excited to hear about the Brooklyn production duo’s debut EP finally surfacing this fall. That We Can Play is a six-track release set to drop on November 2 via Hippos in Tanks, and features four original songs and two remixes from Gatekeeper and Games itself. On the creation of the forthcoming debut, Games collectively says, “Most of the tracks on the EP were recorded with all outboard, secondhand vintage synths and sequencers, using only a single stereo Pro Tools track. [We] did everything bedroom style—most of the EP was made during a period of time while [we] were squatting at [our] future apartment with no heat or hot water.” So, apparently, That We Play is a serious labor of love. You can check out the artwork and tracklist below.
1. Strawberry Skies 2. Midi Drift 3. Planet Party 4. Shadows In Bloom 5. It Was Never Meant To Be (Games Remix) 6. Strawberry Skies (Gatekeeper Remix)
