Yesterday, we reported on the upcoming single from Gavin Russom‘s latest moniker, The Crystal Ark, to be released in March on DFA, and now we’ve got more to share. The taste-making label has been extremely busy already in 2010, releasing lovable singles from London’s Ray Mang, who reinterprets George Clinton’s funky jam “Bullet Proof” with a vocal assist from the legendary Lady Miss Kier, and Germany’s Black Van, a collaboration between Kris Menace and Moonbootica‘s KoweSix. Their poignant original tune, “Yearning,” is a classic house track, complete with epic piano and synth melodies, a straightforward dance beat, and groovy bass rhythms, sure to provide a night-closing song for many DJ sets to come.
Next up on DFA’s single release schedule is another pulsing single from Dublin’s dirty house patron, Shit Robot. His new track, the synth-heavy anthem “I Got a Feeling,” comes to us March 9 backed with the bouncing electro-tinged percussion of “Norfolk Nights.” Not long after comes a new jam from San Francisco’s Michoacan. Producer Fernando Rios’ slow and steady disco-funk is honed to a fine point on “In the Dark of the Night,” which is matched with a more upbeat remix by Italy’s Clap Rules on the single’s b-side. “In the Dark of the Night” will be available March 30, and you can check out the video for the song below.
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Texas has long been a hotbed for DJs and producers messing about with cumbia and other Latin rhythms, and DJ Orion has carved himself a niche right in the thick of it. The former Yo Majesty tour DJ and leader of the Austin-based Peligrosa blog/party just unveiled Carajo Colombia, a collection of his own remixes and edits of classic cumbias and other Latin jams. “Ritmo de Juventud” finds Orion slicing up accordion riffs and slapping them down over a fiesty B-more beat—Carajo Colombia is loaded with these kinds of heaters, and the whole thing is available for free download. New Yorkers should also take note that Orion has left the warm confines of Austin this week, as he’ll be spinning at the always-banging Que Bajo?! party with Uproot Andy on Thursday night at Santos Party House.
The Brooklyn wonder duo says it’s all about fun and sampling.
Together, DJs Marcos Cabral and Jacques Renault are Runaway, a Brooklyn-based production team, as well as the founders of disco/house imprint On the Prowl. We caught up with them on Renault’s roof in Williamsburg to talk about the art of one-upsmanship, disco edits, and ’90s New York rave culture. Also, Renault gives us the dirt on his name.
While this isn’t exactly shocking, Berlin’s always-churning techno scene is cooking up some potentially pleasing listens for spring release. Two of the most exciting options include a new album from Hrdvsion on Wagon Repair, available May 15, and another from Pier Bucci, coming April 19 on his own label, Maruca. Where Did You Just Go? is the new full-length from Nathan Jonson, who, under his Hrdvsion moniker, fills his forthcoming record with his attempts to mix hard-hitting, glitchy techno productions with the subtler side of electronic music. The album is the culmination of Jonson combing through tons of unreleased songs and ideas after his 2009 move to Berlin. “It was like this collaboration between the old me and the new me,” said Nathan on the process of making Where Did You Just Go?.
Earlier in the season comes Pier Bucci’s Amigo. The Chilean-born producer follows up his release for Crosstown Rebels, Familia, with a sophomore release that, although recorded in Berlin, is deeply rooted in the sounds of Latin America, and utilizes the vocal talents of Armelle Pioline (from Parisian band Holden) along with fellow Chileans Washingtone Miranda and Jorge Gonzales. Amigo is set to stand as a new direction for Bucci, as the artist aims to convey specific feelings and evoke certain memories in his listeners instead of simply making them dance. Though, we’re sure it’ll do that too. Check out each album’s artwork and tracklists below.
Where Did You Just Go? tracklist: 01 Orange Juice 02 842 Colours 03 Captivated Heart 04 Betrayed 05 City Girls 06 Bonker Brainss 07 Closed Eyes 08 Making It Home 09 Kiss Yesterday Goodbye 10 Cause I Love You 11 Own Risk (tt mix) 12 Claustraneonia 13 Summer’s Beds 14 Home 15 Before Than After 16 Amsterdam at 4:47 17 I Wish I Could Directly Effect
Amigo tracklist: 01 La Cortina De Hierro y El Pajaro Cantor 02 Canto Libre 03 Papa Guede 04 Cuando 05 Eternelle 06 Verte Tan 07 Iskrenne 08 Wayna Wasi 09 La Payaya 10 For Free
Antye Greie has spent the past 20 years trying to make sense of the world she literally woke up to on November 9, 1989. Communist East German society raised her to believe that the Berlin Wall was justified for two decades—and on that fateful morning, both the Wall and her nation were gone. That experience often haunts her poetry and post-techno explorations as AGF, and it’s explicit in her online audio poem, Reflections on the Wall, an oral history specked with shocks of mechanical noise and fragmented vocals. She spoke to XLR8R about the emotional walls she still climbs.
XLR8R: How did the idea for this project ?come about? Antye Greie: I realized more than a year ago that it was going to be quite an anniversary for me… I spent 20 years in East Germany and another 20 years in the West… I was thinking about it for a very long time and wasn’t sure how I would express everything or what I felt about it. I had set up the website a year ago and even looked for some funding because I wanted it to be an online project. I wanted it to be permanent, and [something] everybody could access… I called it Reflections of the Wall Coming Down, and one day I was sitting in my office and I was staring at the wall and suddenly I saw an insane light… I was looking for where it was coming from and then I realized that it was the sun coming through the window going into a sparkling water bottle; the bubbles’ sparkling made that light. It was amazing. I got the camera out and I recorded it, and realized these were reflections on the wall… I liked the idea of something very abstract to go along with a very personal memory.
What was your experience when the Wall actually came down? The night it happened, I was in my favorite student club where I went almost every day. I was just drinking beer and dancing when somebody came in and yelled, “Hey, the Berlin Wall is down!” We all looked at him like he was stupid and insane… I think that maybe two people left and checked if it was true—or nobody bothered. I didn’t bother—we just kept drinking, talking, and laughing. Then I went to bed. The next morning, I don’t know if [I heard it] on TV or the radio, but it was a big shock.
“Wortspur,” from AGF’s former band, Laub
Was there any sound or image that stayed with you over the years that sparked this project? I’ll never forget that image of driving by the Wall and seeing the West for the first time. If you didn’t live in Berlin, you lived somewhere in the middle of East Germany. As a kid, you didn’t know about all that stuff—you knew that we were in a Cold War and the evil West was trying to destroy us; that we had to be strong. This is how they brainwashed us and how I was raised… [But] it’s just humans making stuff up like a border; they forbid other people to go from A to B… I just really realized that whole thing after the Wall came down, and I walked behind it and this is one of my strong memories: I first stood behind the Brandenburg Gate and I looked from the west side to the east side. This emotion and image I will never forget. Everything collapses in your brain…
Our favorite global-bass-loving Germans, Schlachthofbronx, have offered up this back-to-basics remix of the latest tune by DJ Mujava, whose contribution to the forthcoming Ayobaness: The Sound of South African House EP follows a strange hiatus since releasing 2008’s massive Township Funk single. The remix retains many of the original’s elements, namely the melodic dual vocals, but tightens up Mujava’s sounds for a giddy club track that could put some pep into anyone’s step.
Tobacco, the elusive, partially anonymous frontman for Pennsylvania’s psych-pop outfit Black Moth Super Rainbow, is about to deliver his follow-up to the 2008 debut solo album, Fucked Up Friends. Maniac Meat comes to us May 25 on Bay Area hip-hop-cum-indie label Anticon, and is purported to contain the same kind of vintage analog synth tones, crunchy head-nodding beats, and gritty earth-toned atmospheres readily available on most of Tobacco’s musical work. So what’s new? Well, superstar indie-supporter Beck makes the sole guest appearance on two tracks from Maniac Meat. Check out the totally wacky artwork and album tracklist below.
01. Constellation Dirtbike Head 02. Fresh Hex (Featuring Beck) 03. Mexican Icecream 04. Lick The Witch 05. Sweatmother 06. Motorlicker 07. Unholy Demon Rhythms 08. Heavy Makeup 09. Grape Aerosmith (Featuring Beck) 10. New Juices From The Hot Tub Freaks 11. Six Royal Vipers 12. Overheater 13. Creepy Phone Calls 14. TV All Greasy 15. Stretch Your Face 16. Nuclear Waste Aerobics
Brooklyn’s Light Asylum just might be one of the biggest secrets in electronic music right now, but that is going to change soon. With an unstoppable sound that is as post-punk as it is synth-wave and a fierce live show fronted by !!!-collaborator Shannon Funchess, the duo is set to take the world by storm. With its punk beat, confrontational yet somehow romantic vocals, and crackling synth flourishes, “Knights and Week-ends” sounds like Alan Vega and Martin Rev taking over Joy Division. Playing this slice at a party will definitely get everyone out on the floor, shimmying and stomping like the world is about to end.
For those reading the title of Xiu Xiu’s latest record and wondering, “They’re kidding, right?” the answer is: probably. Because despite packing the group’s last six albums with some of the most serious heart-on-sleeve lyrics ever heard in indie rock, frontman Jamie Stewart actually has quite a sense of humor—and it seems like it’s finally beginning to surface. At the very least, Dear God, I Hate Myself marks a new level of maturity and self-awareness for the band. When, on the majestically arranged, Scott Walker-esque opener, “Gray Death,” Stewart half-croons “You expect me to be outrageous/I will be extra-outrageous,” one can’t help but feel like he’s now on the outside looking in—like an upbeat, self-reflexive, Xiu Xiu-on-Xiu Xiu post-modern experiment.
The man behind the epic proto-techno jams of Black Meteoric Star, DFA bad-boy Gavin Russom, returned home after spending over a month on tour in Brazil with a new set of musical inspirations that have come together to form his latest project, The Crystal Ark. Under this moniker, Russom, along with vocalist Viva Ruiz, has written a new single, a 12-minute slow-burning number called “The City Never Sleeps,” for release on the prolific DFA label. While the sounds heard on The Crystal Ark’s debut track aren’t unfamiliar for Russom’s catalog, the strong vocal presence throughout the song is a new leaf for a producer who erases nearly any human element from his work. “The City Never Sleeps” will be available March 16 on 12″ and digital download.
