Egyptrixx “Phones (Sharkslayer Nassau VIP)”

A couple of Fridays ago, we posted the premiere of the second of Sharkslayer‘s annual DJ mixes, entitled Dead Men Tell No Tales. The Finnish duo included a few of its own productions within the mix of club-ready tunes heavy with low-end, including this remix of Egyptrixx‘s (pictured above) “Phones.” Rubbery bass melodies, crunchy four-on-the-floor beats, wonky noise explosions, and sparse percussion all work together with precision and tenacity in Sharkslayer’s treatment, which is essentially a slightly tweaked, lengthy edit of the tune on all kinds of performance-enhancing and psychotropic drugs. (via Discobelle)

Phones (Sharkslayer VIP)

Phones (Sharkslayer VIP)

Mount Kimbie to Tour with The xx this Summer

The two fellas of UK- (enter whichever genre title you wish here) outfit Mount Kimbie, Dominic Maker and Kai Campos, are mere weeks from releasing their long-awaited debut full-length album for Hotflush, Crooks & Lovers. Yesterday, we got a taste of that upcoming record with the song “Field,” and now comes news of what the duo will be doing pre- and post-album release. Kicking off July 5, Mount Kimbie will be hitting the roads of Italy, Germany, and their surrounding regions for a handful of dates at music festivals and in support of UK electronic-pop crooners The xx. Check out the full list of dates below.

05. Jul 2010 Alcatraz/ Milan, ITALY – The xx support
06. Jul 2010 Cavea-Auditorium Parco della Musica/ Rome, ITALY – The xx support
09. Jul 2010 Berghain/ Berlin, GERMANY
11. Jul 2010 Golden Pudel/ Hamburg, GERMANY
22. Jul 2010 10 Days Off/ Ghent, BELGIUM
24. Jul 2010 Centre Pompidou/ Metz, FRANCE
31. Jul 2010 Field Day/ London, UK

13. Aug 2010 Recyclart/ Brussels, BELGIUM
14. Aug 2010 Satta Outside Festival/ LITHUANIA
21. Aug 2010 Strom Festival/ Copenhagen, DENMARK
26. Aug 20101 E-Werk/ Koln, GERMANY – The xx support
27. Aug 2010 Tonhalle/ Munich, GERMANY – The xx support

10. Sep 2010 Bestival (date TBC)/ Isle of Wight, UK
18. Sep 2010 Numusic/ Oslo, NORWAY

15. Oct 2010 Iceland Airwaves/ Airwaves Festival, ICELAND
24. Oct 2010 Unsound festival/ Krakow, POLAND

Tormenta Tropical Kicks Off East Coast Tour Tonight

Though born and bred in two of the finest cities on the West Coast, the globally minded dance music jump-off known as Tormenta Tropical is heading east for a small string of tour dates. Resident DJs and Bersa Discos label heads Disco Shawn and Oro11 (both pictured above) will convene with fellow DJs and producers for four exclusive parties in Baltimore, New York City, Washington, D.C., and Brooklyn. Among the folks joining the Tormenta DJs throughout the four events are Very Be Careful, Dave Nada, Sabo, Jubilee, Dre Skull, Matt Shadetek, Uproot Andy, and more. The tour dates are listed below, and more info can be found via Bersa Discos’ FaceBook page, here.

Tuesday, June 29 – The Hippo, Baltimore, MD
Wednesday, June 30 – Que Bajo?! at Santos Party House, New York, NY (w/ Very Be Careful)
Saturday, July 3 – U-Hall, Washington, DC (w/ Dave Nada, Sabo)
Sunday, July 4 – Union Pool, Brooklyn, NY (FREE afternoon party w/ Jubilee, Dave Nada, Dre Skull, Uproot Andy, Geko Jones, Matt Shadetek, Jillionaire, plus special guests)

Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs Shares New Video for “Garden”

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The brightly colored dance tunes from UK producer Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs are matched with equally effervescent visuals in this video for “Garden,” from the recently released All in Two Sixty Dancehalls EP. Two straight-faced performers, Louisa from Lulu and the Lampshades and TEED himself, don funny hats and shuffle about amidst a rainbow’s spectrum of colored lights, floating bubbles, and falling water. The duet continues back and forth throughout “Garden,” but the boy and girl don’t once acknowledge the other’s presence, which is appropriate for the exchange of lovers’ questions and requests being made in the lyrics. TEED’s song is like a few small letters sent back and forth via lovable dance-pop, but just as the video and music slowly fade out with no climactic conclusion, the two protagonists never reach a resolution for their wonderings.

Podcast 148: Moby’s Old-School Rave Mix

It’s easy to throw around words like ‘legend’ and ‘pioneer’ when talking about electronic music, and let’s face it, half the time people won’t say boo about these labels, most likely because they don’t know who they hell you’re talking about. But when it comes to true-blue dance music heavy-hitters, the kinds of artists that even your mom has heard of, it’s hard to top Moby. The man has changed a lot since getting his start making high-energy rave tunes in the early ’90s, but even as his music has morphed, changed, and, yes, mellowed, it’s always been clear that Moby still has a soft spot for that bygone era. Here at XLR8R, we’ve been itching for someone to do a classic rave mix, so we figured who better than Moby to put together a pumping session full of hyperactive synth stabs, feel-good piano melodies, whooshing hoover sounds, and endlessly pulsing beats. To our delight, he was up for the challenge, and the mix does not disappoint. Listen to the mix—we’ve had it on repeat since last week—and if you’re in the mood for more Moby DJ action, check out his recently released Wait for Me. Remixes! album on Mute, which features a Moby DJ set along with reworkings of songs from his last full-length.

01 Messiah “Temple of Dreams” (Kickin)
02 Mentasm “I Need Release”
03 Altern8 “Frequency” (Network)
04 N-Joi “Mindflux” (RCA)
05 Ragga Twins “Hooligan 69” (Shut Up and Dance)
06 Awesome 3 “Don’t Go” (City Beat)
07 Moby “Next is the E” (Instinct)
08 Hyper Go Go “High” (Hooj Choons)
09 Fierce Ruling Diva “You Gotta Believe” (React)
10 Bizarre Inc. “Playing With Knives” (Vinyl Solution)
11 Messiah “Xeroxed”
12 Dream Frequency “Feel So Real” (City Beat)

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Jeremy Jay Splash

The intriguing, undersung indie pop of Jeremy Jay‘s first few records feels wholly of another time and place. Sauntering somewhere between Del Shannon, the Field Mice, and the Left Banke, he ties together the wistful, romantic pop sounds of yesteryear for an alluring end result. In 2009, Jay ventured abroad from his hometown of Los Angeles to London and recorded Splash, his third LP and arguably his most satisfying artistic statement to date.

It starts off on a Pulp-like note with “As You Look Over the City,” an unusually glam cut guided along by Jay’s candid lyrics and brilliant bits of lead guitar from Jet Marshall, whose playing sets the largely Britpop tone of the whole record. It’s a new and effective context for Jay’s lyrics, giving the music the exciting edge that his raw, warbling voice has always had. Compared to last year’s new-wave-influenced Slow Dance, the use of synths is more judicious and tasteful, subtly rendering “Just Dial My Number” and “Hologram Feather” more mysterious and seductive.

Jay’s not a poet—his style of stringing together images can often feel clumsy and tedious—but he’s more keen than ever before on eliminating abstraction and capturing personal moments with colorful details, and that works in his favor here: “This Is Our Time” finds him riding his BMX, guitar strapped to his back, headphones on, and feeling thoroughly exhilarated. Though lovelorn as ever, Splash is more fun than its predecessors, and these songs are simply his best yet.

Frank Nitt “L.O.V.E. (feat. DJ Quik & J. Black)”

Sounds like the whole future-boogie movement is making its way into the hip-hop game, too. Californian producer Terrace Martin produced this number from Frank Nitt‘s recently released debut solo EP, Jewels in My Backpack, which also features flows from DJ Quik and J. Black on the track’s chorus. The soulful jam, “L.O.V.E.,” tackles jealousy, fidelity, disagreements, and all the various relationship issues in between. Nitt and Quik both declare their frustrations with and devotion to a special someone simultaneously over Martin’s funky instrumental, making for an unusually heartfelt hip-hop tune.

05 L.O.V.E. (feat. DJ Quik & J Black)

Kastle Hooks Up a Free Mix on Media Contender

As Kastle, Pittsburgh-based producer B. Rich pushes the kind of soulful, low-end-centered, forward-thinking dubstep tunes that could just as easily soundtrack a night out at the club as they could the lonely walk home afterwards. Before Better Off Alone, his debut EP for Secluasis, drops, Kastle was interviewed by Media Contender in a piece that also includes a fresh mix from the DJ/producer. The 45-minute DJ set, entitled Essential Mix, is made up entirely of Kastle productions, both originals and plenty of remixes of tracks like Kanye West’s “Coldest Winter,” Cassie’s “Me & U,” and “Soldier of Love” by Sade. You can check out the short interview, and download the mix here.

Local Natives “Wide Eyes (Teen Daze Remix)”

Admittedly, if we keep posting material from Teen Daze we’ll probably run out of poorly Photoshopped images from the anonymous Canadian producer’s MySpace page to run with each story. But still, the more we hear, the clearer it becomes that this guy’s forte is melody above anything else. His beats are appropriate, though safe, and the production is relatively amateur, but damn, if Teen Daze doesn’t know how to tug at your heart strings with a host of memorably poignant melodies. For this remix of “Wide Eyes,” originally by new indie-rock favorites Local Natives, the music maker transforms the song’s guitar work into a thick bed of wafting, reverb-heavy synths, romantic melodies, and twinkling textures—creating a perfect mix between beautiful swirling ambience and ecstatic dancefloor rhythms.

Wide Eyes (Teen Daze Remix)

Flavorwire Shares its 25 Favorite Albums of the Year so Far

It is certainly too soon for folks to be making any definitive lists for the year in music, but Flavorwire, the entertainment news and critique website by events hub Flavorpill, just shared its list of 25 albums from the first half of the year that they believe should not be overlooked. Among the album’s listed are a few XLR8R favorites, like Beach House’s (pictured above) Teen Dream, Caribou’s Swim, Toro Y Moi’s debut, Causers of This, and Before Today from Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, along with a few we could do without (looking at you, Hole). Check out the whole post, which is filled with lots of links, downloads, and music videos, here.

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