The Bay Area’s Roche was being as straightforward as possible when naming his new song “Space Blue Pt. 1.” Released on Solos, the label he co-founded, Roche’s cosmically soulful offering is equal parts Kraftwerk and Dilla with a sampled R&B bassline thrown in the mix for good measure. As the four-and-a-half minute journey begins to touch down, one can’t help but speculate where the second part of “Space Blue” might take you—thankfully, it’s the next track on the release.
Chillwave, glo-fi, haze-pop… You can tag whatever name you want onto the warped, fuzzy sounds of Toro Y Moi, but it doesn’t change that the South Carolinan producer utilizes just as many genres for his songs as he does languages for his moniker. “Blessa” showcases many of those influences in style—ambient textures, faint guitar plucks, simple drum-machine beats, and plaintive vocal delivery à la Panda Bear—making the track a warm introduction to Moi’s forthcoming debut album, Causers of This.
On this 18-track mix, KZA and Toshiya Kawasaki probe dance music’s more leisurely conceits. Theo Parrish’s dub of Kuniyuki’s “All These Things” sets the disc’s woozy, sensual tone, and Discosession’s remix of Naum Gabo’s “Black Lab” conjures a serious Italo-kosmische hybrid before Soft Rocks and John Daly inject some dramatic prog rock and Detroit-techno bump into the laid-back disco vibe. A peak occurs with Prins Thomas’ revamp of Force of Nature’s “To the Brain,” its funky disco buoyed by percolating bongos/congas and a baby-making bassline, and Wild Rumpus’ hard-rock/disco gangbang. KZA & Kawasaki then take the mix into an excitingly exotic detour through African-inflected disco and house, ably recalibrating conventional notions of disco and midtempo dance music.
With a title that could possibly be the most fitting name for an album from Oakland’s Jamie Stewart and friends, Xiu Xiu is preparing to release the lush and enigmatic Dear God, I Hate Myself on Kill Rock Stars February 23. Dear God is the first Xiu Xiu album co-produced by Deerhoof’s Greg Saunier since 2006’s The Air Force, and also features new musical cohort Angela Seo taking over the multi-instrumentalist duties after Caralee McElroy joined Philly’s Cold Cave. Contributions from percussionist Ches Smith along with Deerhoof guitarist John Dieterich are also peppered throughout the album. A sneak peak of Dear God, I Hate Myself reveals Stewart carrying on with much of his past work while confidently treading new kinds of equally warped, soulful, and musically strange grounds. Check out the cover and tracklist for this exciting new album below.
1. Gray Death
2. Chocolate Makes You Happy
3. Apple for a Brain
4. House Sparrow
5. Hyunhye’s Theme
6. Dear God, I Hate Myself
7. Secret Motel
8. Falkland Rd.
9. The Fabrizio Palumbo Retaliation
10. Cumberland Gap
11. This Too Shall Pass Away (for Freddy)
12. Impossible Feeling
While you’re thumbing through the virtual pages of XLR8R.com, make sure to download the brand-new November/December issue of the magazine, where we go deep into our favorites of 2009. Bristol dubstep prince Joker takes the top spot, followed closely by the likes of The Field, Hudson Mohawke, Nite Jewel, Martyn, Schlachthofbronx, Holy Ghost!, and tons more. Peep our musical faves of the year, and also see what’s up in the world of music tech, style, and videogames, just in time for the holidays.
Fresh off their highly-touted debut album with singer Esau Mwamwaya as The Very Best, Radioclit keep the ball rolling with a reissue of their Secousse EP. The record comes complete with remixes from Brodinski, Round Table Knights, and, featured here, Riva Starr. Starr’s treatment finds the UK producer relying on wobbling bass, a four-on-the-floor beat, and enough percussion and delayed synths to drive listeners straight to the dancefloor. If that kind of remix doesn’t make you want to add the 12″ to your collection, maybe the fur cover will.
As part of the kick-off for our brand-new City Guide page and mobile application, we’ve invited some of our favorite artists to put together special editions of the XLR8R podcast highlighting the artists and sounds that make their hometowns unique. For this week’s installment we head south into the wilds of Los Angeles for a heavy dose of spaced-out future-hop, courtesy of native son Nosaj Thing. With a litany of unreleased and exclusive tunes at his disposal—many of them coming from Low End Theory compatriots like Flying Lotus, Daedelus, and The Gaslamp Killer—Mr. Thing assembles a mix that captures the boundary-pushing spirit and chilled-out vibes of Southern California.
01 Teebs “My Whole World” (Brainfeeder)
02 Flying Lotus “Unreleased”
03 Free The Robots “La Lune” (Alpha Pup)
04 Tokimonsta “Doing It My Way”
05 Exile “Summer Sun (Take Remix)” (Plug Research)
06 The Gaslamp Killer “Anything Worse” (Brainfeeder)
07 Ras G “Disco 4000”
08 Daedelus “LA Nocturn” (Friends of Friends)
09 Samiyam “My Buddy”
10 Kab & Tully “Unreleased” (My Hollow Drum)
11 Teebs “Unreleased”
12 Nosaj Thing “Us” (Alpha Pup)
13 Flying Lotus “Camel (Nosaj Thing Remix)” (Warp)
14 Nosaj Thing “Ice Cube Remix”
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While we where pretty burnt on definitive best-of lists, we couldn’t resist crowning Bristol cover star Joker the 2009 king of bass music. On top of that, in this year-end issue we survey a host of our favorite artists of 2009, including Martyn, Hudson Mohawke, The Field, Holy Ghost!, Nite Jewel, Schlachthofbronx, DJ Koze and tons more. As well, we look at the year’s best technology and videogames, just in time for the holidays. View online at Issuu.
Chicago-area producer Stephen Hitchell (a.k.a. Intrusion) crafts dub-techno that sounds like it’s underwater, or floating through the air from a basement club 10 blocks away. Under his many monikers, including the collaborative Echospace project with Rod Modell, Hitchell has helped bring about a renaissance of the genre, which many had assumed would falter after the dissolution of Basic Channel. But with a studio full of analog gear and a penchant for warm, crackling tones, Hitchell has brought an airiness to a sound that originated in hard, deeply contrasting sonic textures, particularly on this year’s Seduction of Silence (Echospace).
Sound Design
Sound design is by far one of the most personal aspects of my music and what I generally spend the most time doing. Get involved with your synths—every aspect of their functions and unique personalities. Like a person, each one has its own unique sonic signature, its own “sound”—one which could be built upon by learning the instrument inside and out. If you get a new synth (hardware or VST), delete the factory presets and start from ground zero (most synths have a factory restore!). Build a library of sounds that are your own, as it will help to build a unique sonic signature for yourself.
Sampling
Sampling is an art in itself and an integral part of how this music came to be. Many samplers out there can help add warmth, and give a flat and dull digital sound a new lease on life. I’ve found with samplers, the older the better. Some of my favorites are the Emulator 1 and SCI Prophet 2002, both of which use 8- and 12-bit sampling at lower frequencies. The unique tonal character they give to whatever you’re sampling is out of this world. Sometimes in moving forward it’s best to go in reverse.
Signal Paths
It’s best to research how a sound should be processed rather than playing the guessing game, which helps to highlight and emphasize the best acoustic and tonal characteristics. It’s like running an EQ into a compressor—when you change the EQ settings, your compression rate also changes, and usually turns into a muddy mess. Learn about your processors (whether hardware or VST), how they can be best applied, and how to highlight their own unique features. I’ve had numerous clients run their entire mixes through compression and hard limiting to the point of hammering the mix into a square box, and this is not a good thing!
Recording to Tape
Everything I record I bounce down to tape. Granted, 1/4″ and 1/2″ tape is getting harder and harder to come by (at least stuff that isn’t shedding), but if you can find a good machine and tape, it will warm your mixes in indescribable ways. Part of its magic is in the machine itself: old tape machines, if calibrated correctly, can push the compression scheme three-fold without distorting the source signal, which adds to the saturation and yields a much higher quality master than in a DAW. Tape compression and true tape saturation make for some of the best masters you’ll ever hear.
Mastering
Some of the best mastering engineers I know were not musicians. It’s very important to separate yourself from the music you make when mastering it. I try to explain to my clients that I don’t listen to their music. Rather, I pay attention to the technical data and what the equipment is telling me. You can make a good song sound bad if you’re not paying attention, so it’s important to go over every small detail in the finalization process. I don’t ever try to get material to its “peak” level but to its most “natural” level. And always check your master in different environments: your car, headphones, home stereo, crappy boom box, studio, and club, if that is your target audience.
Scottish dance experimentalist Gravious produces tracks that quickly and confidently coalesce the choice elements of some of dubstep’s heavy hitters—Burial’s tweaked and sampled vocal snippets, Zomby’s booming and wonky bass, and Joy Orbison’s refined sheen. Here, he unlocks the dubby grooves of Australian tech-house producer Deepchild‘s latest single, “Wannado.” The house elements shine through Gravious’ shuffling beats and give his remix a slight retro garage feel while remaining focused on dubstep’s future.
