Apparently, just being a hotly tipped DJ/producer isn’t enough for Kingdom. Fresh off the release of his Mind Reader EP, the NYC artist has decided to launch his own party with a little help from his pal Dre Skull. They’re calling it Club Infinity, and the first one is going down this Saturday at NY’s The Studio at Webster Hall. They’ll be joined by Jubilee and Cubic Zirconia, and Toronto’s Egyptrixx will be performing live to celebrate the release of his new EP on Night Slugs (for which Kingdom contributed a remix). For those who won’t be in NY this Saturday, or simply can’t wait that long to get the party started, Kingdom has dug into his archives and unearthed this remix of Brooklyn Auto-Tune dancehall whiz kid Ricky Blaze.
Amish women serving ribs, broken-bottle mosaics, and bullshit sessions. Oh, Philly.
For the most recent City Guide episode, we sent a camera to Mad Decent‘s Philly Club prodigy, DJ Sega. Sega (and Dirty South Joe) comb the streets of Philly to show off dancing waitresses at a chain restaurant, record store philosophers, and some of the most retarded graffiti the East Coast has to offer.
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 Philadelphia edition of XLR8R‘s City Guide iPhone application. To download the City Guide app, go to xlr8r.com/cityguide or type “XLR8R Scion City Guide” in the iTunes app store.
Scotland’s Loops Haunt crafts noisy, industrial dubstep sounds, and on this edit from Oakland’s NastyNasty, the noise is brought to new levels. Perhaps it is the percussion’s more pronounced stutter, or maybe it is the addition of a cut-up vocal snippet, but the piece is infinitely more disorienting and strange than the original’s Richard D. James-does-dubstep feel. Quite something here, though its dancefloor efficacy is questionable.
The first full-length from Thomas Moen Hermansen under his Prins Thomas moniker is coming soon, and if “Uggebugg” is any indication, the record doesn’t depart much from the sound that Hermansen has created with Hans-Peter Lindstrøm. Featuring sentimental, heavily delayed guitar lines evoking expansive vistas, a monstrous bass sound, and an organic balearic percussion sound, “Uggebugg” is certainly a move away from Hermansen’s work under the Major Swellings alias, but will definitely please fans of his past singles and collaborations.
Among the myriad skills Paul Rose (a.k.a. Scuba) possesses is putting his projects in a right, tight context before the music even begins. Triangulation, his second album of original productions, is a largely seamless distillation of regional dance vibes found in the Berlin, Detroit, and London power centers. If it were mere formula, or history lesson, it would have less impact. But Scuba’s magic is in turning established musical styles into something organic and fresh, like dark ambient dubs (“Latch” and “Lights Out”) that recall Basic Channel sides—but not quite. The same can be said for Motor City house and techno inspiration on “Before” and “You Got Me.” Pitched-down UK rave influences are apparent throughout, notably on the soulful “So You Think You’re Special” and “Three Sided Shape.” But like everything else on this remarkable LP, the most significant “place” being mined is the artist’s own fertile imagination.
Ever since Dave Nada stumbled upon a new style by slowing down Dutch house to reggaeton speed and subsequently labeled the genre moombahton, the sound has been taking over. Earlier this month, he released a free EP of moombahton edits and moombahton was literally on blast everywhere at SXSW and WMC. Today the train just keeps on rolling, as the DC-area DJ has assembled a Moombahton Megamix for the Fool’s Gold podcast (a.k.a. Foolcast). Loaded with moombahton edits from both Nada and others inspired by his work, several selections from the Bersa Discos catalog, and a little sonidero-style MC work from Oro11, the mix will definitely put some Latin-flavored bounce into your Monday. Is 108 the new 130? We hope so.
Tracklist: 1. Dave Nada – “Moombahton” 2. Dave Nada – “Seductive Sound (Moombahton Edit)” 3. Dave Nada – “Ruffcut (Moombahton Edit)” 4. Sabo & Cassady – “Esa Loca Cumbia” 5. Style of Eye – “The Big Kazoo (Nacho Lovers Limb By Limb Edit)” 6. Sabo – “Soundboy Cumbia” 7. Sabo & Cassady – “La Curura” 8. Dave Nada – “Riverside (Moombahton Edit)” 9. Dave Nada – “La Gata” 10. Neoterico – “Hey Got Lines” 11. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – “Heads Will Roll (A-Mac Moombahton Edit)” 12. Steve Starks – “Lydia (Nadastrom’s Moombahton Remix)” 13. Dave Nada – “Punk Rock Latino (Moombahton Dub)” 14. Dave Nada – “Punk Rock Latino (Moombahton Edit)” 15. Kid Sister – “Daydreaming (Nick Catchdubs x Proper Villians Style of Moombahton Edit)” 16. Tito El Bambino ft. Beenie Man & Dnes – “Flow Natural” 17. Crystal Fighters – “I Love London (A-Mac Moombahton Remix)” 18. A-Mac – “Long Train to Moombahton”
Twenty-six-year-old Jamaican dancehall artist Natalie Cole is hot right now. How hot? “I was only wearing my bra and undies during the interview,” she reveals when asked about her outfit that day, adding coyly, “I swear, I’m not flirting!” The bubbly, fashionista MC known for colorful hairstyles is warming up the dancehall scene with her glamorous global club music. Now friends and fans have latched on to her new nickname: Hotalie. “I was voicing a song and in the intro I said, ‘A Hotalie Storm, a nuh Natalie again!’ and people seemed to like it.”
The new handle is apt. The last three years she’s been on fire, recording UK funky tracks with Sticky, electro-pop with Danish producers Enur, doing mixtapes and tours with fellow female artists Tifa and Timberlee as T.N.T., and issuing solo dancehall singles. She produces, sings, writes lyrics for other artists, and makes cameos in dancehall videos. And if you missed any of that, not to worry—Cole tweets her exploits almost hourly.
The self-described “shy girl” born in rural Trelawny but raised in Kingston is definitely looking “to di world,” as the patois expression goes. Cole has toured Canada, Europe, and the Eastern US, and enthusiastically incorporates global bass genres into her dancehall repertoire. She’s even found symmetry between her earthy “Natalie” side, an Aquarian woman who likes to swim, dance, and write in her free time, and her alter-ego, “Storm,” inspired by the X-Men character. “Natalie and Storm are two sides of me,” she explains. “I like to wear jeans and t-shirts and kickback with a few brewskis or whatever, but the Storm side of me is the person who will be up in your face, telling you like it is,” she says.
She’s been forward with the hits, too, recording with producers Jam 2, Seanizzle, Don Corleon, and Cordell “Skatta” Burrell. The turning point came in 2006 when she left the vocal group Make Boyz Cry and linked up with manager Dylan Powe, who promotes the weekly Passa Passa party. Cole recorded the Swatch (a.k.a. Swash) International produced track “Talk Di Ting Dem,” which became a hit and the Natalie Storm era began.
Cole says her future collabos will span R&B, pop, one-drop, calypso, and electro, genres in which she’s already established her presence. She voiced five songs on Enur’s 2008 album, Raggatronic, recorded “Look Pon Mi” on the Sticky-produced Jumeirah Riddim, and has plans to keep experimenting. “No matter what style I work with—electro, R&B, pop—I will always be representing Natalie Storm vibes,” she says, describing her approach as a mix of patois vocals, electro sounds, and hardcore garrison beats. “It’s a mashup, a bashment sound.”
True to her inclement name, and exuberant fashions, Cole looks to stay on the move. “I love being busy. For 2010, I don’t want to limit myself; I’m just going to be breaking down doors, yo!”
Cloud Seed, the “lost” second album of dubstep pioneers Vex’d is finally seeing the light of day in April, and “Disposition” is taken from that release. Though low, atmospheric bass still rumbles through the track, its less frenetic pace and rhyming courtesy of Jest are nice surprises. The vocal intonations are somewhat similar to those of Aesop, so paired with the industrial thrum of the instrumental and the soulful vocal snippets punctuating the piece, “Disposition” is a 21st-century take on hip-hop tropes that really works.
Thomas Fehlmann‘s latest effort is a soundtrack to the longest documentary film in history, 24H Berlin, which follows Berlin residents around their city for 24 hours. Fehlmann, known best for his ambient works and membership in The Orb, gets balearic on “Permanent Touch,” utilizing arpeggiated synths, sunny high-frequency squelches, and lush, watery pans to create an atmosphere that reminds one more of the beach than Berlin’s concrete jungle. Like an exemplary Lindstrom & Prins Thomas collaboration, “Permanent Touch” is the sort of track that will definitely be blasting from smoky car speakers this spring and summer.
In the early ’00s, Sydney’s Paul Gough (a.k.a. Pimmon proudly broke the bones of pop tunes and left them as mangled paperclip sculptures that embodied the fearlessness and merciless self-indulgence of glitch-techno. He matures a bit on Smudges Another Yesterday. Opener “Come Join the Choir Invisible” unfolds waves of choir-synth harmonies that glide through ecstasy and dread, while the mesmerizing “Hidden” recalls Tim Hecker’s best fever dreams as Gough elegantly smothers a bellowing, low drone in thick layers of sandblasted organ melodies. However, Gough’s knack for racket remains, as he builds feedback squeals and squawks to no payoff on “Dervieux” and drains great emotion out of murky guitar tones on “Some Days Are Tones.” Growing pains, indeed.
