San Antonio’s Ernest Gonzales (pictured above) transforms the indie-pop sound of A Sunny Day in Glasgow‘s “Shy” into a track that floats in an ambient ether, then suddenly becomes a lo-fi take on drum & bass. With a catchy synth loop and Annie Frederickson’s vocals hovering above it all, though, no amount of genre nostalgia can bring down the track’s luminosity. For more on A Sunny Day in Glasgow, check out our feature on the group in our Philly City Special.
Syntaks, the Danish duo comprised of producer Jakob Skott and vocalist Anna Cecilia, has shared the opening track from their debut album Ylajali, an ethereal intro entitled “Twentytwohundred.” The song’s long-stretching angelic vocals wouldn’t be out of place on an M83 record and sound even more powerful when flanked by dark rhythms and swirling synth melodies.
Ylajali is out now on Ghostly.
San Francisco-based Dirtybird and Mothership impresario Claude VonStroke (a.k.a. Barclay Crenshaw) is one of the few electronic music producers who can inject humor into his tracks without coming off like a doofus. On his follow-up to 2006’s Beware of the Bird, VonStroke balances levity with darkness, as on “Monster Island,” where a madcap 303 whoop contrasts with percussive, jangling chains and hazy strings. Sometimes things dip into silliness (guest vocalist Bootsy Collins’ lyrical shenanigans on “The Greasy Beat,” the Detroit Grand Pubahs-esque boob homage “Big n’ Round”), but overall Bird Brain stakes out distinctive territory among tech-house’s most eccentric proclivities, Carl Craig-esque Detroitisms, lascivious Dr. Dre tributes, and Raymond Scott’s Soothing Sounds For Baby.
American dubstep heroes DJ /rupture and Matt Shadetek have just released a new video that also gives fans a glimpse of their newly released album, Solar Life Raft. Directed and animated by Rome-based filmmaker Sara Taigher, the video depicts a hallucinogenic, dystopic future reminiscent of Waterworld, all to the lush sounds of select bits from the record, which is out now on The Agriculture. Check it out below!
London’s Gold Panda is no stranger to the remix, having already taken shots at songs by artists like HEALTH and Telepathe, so it’s no wonder his own rendition of The Field‘s “I Have the Moon, You Have the Internet” sounds so well-conceived and fully fleshed-out. Built on samples gathered from the original track on vinyl, Gold Panda’s remix features the kinds of cuts and crackles one might find in a Flying Lotus or Dilla remix, yet remains true to the chilly techno source material. It’s a strong fit and should remain a standout next to other reworkings from Walls and Rainbow Arabia when Yesterday and Today Remixe sees release on December 7.
Designer Mike Davis gives us the best of this year’s Philately Fridays from his So Much Pileup blog.
MACCABIAH GAMES (above): ?Designed by renowned Israeli graphic artist Dan Reisinger, who created the logos for most of the Maccabiah Games. I love his use of bright colors and clever geometry, especially the visual puns on the Star of David.
BRAZIL EYEBALL: ?Ahhhh, art about computers in the dawn of the post-Tron era. The pixelated eyeball has a nice Big Brother thing about it, too, what with the stamp being from 1984 ?and all.
MENTAL HEALTH: ?This is a stamp promoting German mental-health awareness. I love how even a topic as heavy and serious as that can be depicted with the same wild energy and color scheme as a Jefferson Airplane poster.
JAPANESE FAMILY: ?A lot of design in the ’60s and ’70s was all about stripping down objects to their most absolute basics and emphasizing the nuances that make them what they are. These curvy blobs have just enough detail and seasoning to tell you they’re people, members of a family at that. They don’t need a single extra line added—and can’t afford to lose one.
DUTCH DRUMMER: ?Why don’t stamps look like this anymore? Psychedelic swirls and a rock drummer smashing his set apart? Sign me up for a lifetime supply of postage if this is the case.?
Taking a break from his other projects like Cobblestone Jazz and Midnight Operator, Mathew Jonson is focusing on his solo efforts, and, in the process, has broken in his new Wagon Repair studio. The Berlin-based producer and label head pulled together three tracks for the forthcoming Ghosts in the AI EP, each with its own genus and back-story, and will be sharing them with the world November 30 on his label. Tracklist below.
Tracklist:
A1 Ghosts in the AI
B1 Technology
B2 The Alchemist
Blockhead makes instrumental hip-hop that merges the crate-digging sensibilities of early DJ Shadow with the more electronic proclivities of Prefuse 73. With a warped jazz loop, a booming breakbeat, and various melodic passages peppered in, the NYC-based producer/DJ takes the listener on a slow-grooving journey with “Which One of You Jerks Drank My Arnold Palmer,” a track taken from his forthcoming third album, The Music Scene. The composition plays a lot mellower than its title would suggest, and makes for a perfect head-nodding soundtrack for that early-morning ride to work or late-night walk home after the bars let out.
NYC techno don Abe Duque collaborated in 2004 with fellow producer Blake Baxter on the single “What Happened?,” a veritable call-out of clubs and musical icons who dropped the ball somewhere down the line. Now, following the recent release of Duque’s Don’t Be So Mean album, the contemporary techno hit has been reissued and newly remixed by the UK’s Max Cooper. Cooper’s version trades the original claps and percussion elements for a stripped-down electronic bounce and glitches out Baxter’s vocal through just about the song’s entire six-and-a-half minutes.
Fabric might be famously located in London, but the album series spawned by the club has been admirably international, and although Toddla T is a fellow Brit, his entry into the line reflects the same border-hopping spirit. The 24-year-old is a Sheffield boy, and his mix of 21 tracks draws heavily on dubstep, dancehall, and ragga. Much here comes courtesy of Toddla T himself, but he manages to shoehorn in Busy Signal, a Duffy remix, Sticky, and others in a relentlessly breathless set. “Amen,” from Stone featuring Roots Manuva, threads in gospel against manic beats, the Wittyboy remix of Alex Mills’ “Beyond Words” brings in yearning female vocals, and the Caspa remix of “I Remember” from Deadmau5 and Kaskade, the album closer, winds things down nicely.
