Black Milk Tronic

It‘s been a good year for Midwest hip-hop, and a better year for Detroit beatsmith Black Milk. He follows his recent contributions to eLZhi’s The Preface with his third full-length, Tronic. While Tronic still possesses that signature Motor City sound, Milk adopts more live instrumentation and even steps up his rhyme game. Tronic may not leave listeners with a long list of quotables, but Black Milk proves he‘s more than just a producer, holding his own alongside heavyweights Pharoahe Monch, Royce Da 5’9″, and Sean Price on “The Matrix.” Lyrically, he displays a boastful swagger, but his best work is behind the board, crafting pieces that range from futuristic to orchestral and push himself–and the genre–forward.

Best of 2008

Luca “Drop the Lime” Venezia tops our list for best artist of 2008, but there’s much more where he came from. We dig up the latest music coming out of Gothenburg, Sweden, chat with shoegaze bands of yesterday and today, go into the studio with Hot Chip and Matthew Herbert, and get the year-ending praise and jabs from Kid Sister, Telepathe, The Death Set, Vivian Girls, Cut Copy, Beach House, Matthew Dear, Santogold, and many more for our Best of 2008 feature.

Best of 2008: Drop the Lime

Best Artist of 2008: MGMT
This band brought out a beautifully fresh and nostalgic sound that painted mystery and lust.

Best Album of 2008: Metronomy Nights Out
Metronomy put together an amazing album this year. Nights Out had the perfect collage of pop and experimental dance music–wonky, wiggly, catchy melodies and pretty soundscapes.

Best Record Label of 2008: Greco Roman
This label’s whole vibe is fantastic, from their artists being illustrated into comic book characters in fighting arenas to the diverse collection of genres. This label is doing something new for underground music.

Best Live Event of 2008: Shambhala Festival, Kootenay Mountains, Canada
This festival is way deep in the woods middle of nowhere Canada. Ravers camp out for five days and party in treehouses nd fractal forests. The experience is majestically unreal, yet frightening at the same time with all those naked ravers running around come the last night.

Best Scene of 2008: The Tabac Crew parties in Tel Aviv
These kids are on some next-level bass with their soundsystems and party vibes. They manage to blend dubstep, bassline, and electro all in one night and keep the energy strong.

Best DJ of 2008: Boys Noize
His set at Coachella 2008 was one of the best DJ sets I’ve seen in years. Tricks, flips, slaps, drops, smacks –party was there and he was bonkering it up on that stage.

Best Music Trend of 2008: Kuduru
Cats like Buraka som Sistema are killing it at the moment. The amount of original attitude and energy coming out of this style of dance music is heavy. You can’t not shake to the percussive rhythm.

Worst Music Trend of 2008: The obsession with bass
Don’t get me wrong, I love bass, but let’s let the sucker breathe before we drain it from all its juice and it becomes a skinny little emaciated Chihuahua.

Best Music Hardware of 2008: Pioneer DJM-800 mixer
Gimme those cheeseball filters and roll delays for days.

Best Music Software of 2008: Logic Pro 8
The new layout on this software is incredible. Being able to stack all your windows into tabs and sequence/automate your tracks without any pop-up windows is brilliant and saves so much time when producing.

Best Shoe of 2008: SWEAR London
I am addicted to the Dean model. You can poke someone’s eyes out with those tips.

Best Book of 2008: The Road by Cormack McCarthy
This is an epic and beautiful tale of father and son traveling through the earth that’s been burned to dust to find shelter and safety.

Best of 2008
Drop the Lime
Abe Vigoda
Bradford Cox
Andrew Jeffrey Wright
eLZhi
Cut Copy
Fucked Up
Evidence
Vivian Girls
Matt Furie
dj/ Rupture
Telepathe
The Death Set
Holy Ghost
Mochipet
CTRL
Plump DJs
Jose James
Worship Worthy
Peter Beste
Hercules and Love Affair
Magda
The Alchemist
DC Recordings

Singing To The Earth

We frequently associate the word “fun” with Apollo Sunshine. When not gleefully discussing the Number of the Beast, the Leverett, MA-based trio is busy making upbeat indie rock, and colorful videos to go along with it. “Singing to the Earth” is off this year’s Shall Noise Upon, an album apparently made in a house “inhabited by spirits.” Nothing spooky about this video though, just colorful images of nature, paper, and other cheery items.

DJ Signify “Low Tide feat. Aesop Rock”

DJ Signify‘s talent as a hip-hop producer isn’t to be debated, given his infamous mixtapes from the mid-’90s, his spot in the legendary 1200 Hobos crew, and his work for Buck 65, Sage Francis, and the anticon. crew, but his latest release, Of Cities, is probably the best thing we’ve heard from him. He’s still pushing his drum-heavy style, which is tight as ever, but he’s also reeled in shades of glitch, new wave, Kraut-rock, and other genres for the tracks. Aesop Rock describing his nervous tic that involves whisting whilst he works adds a nice touch of humor to this track.

Of Cities
01 “The Sickness”
02 “Low Tide ft. Aesop Rock”
03 “Interlude #1”
04 “Costume Kids”
05 “Delight to the Sadist ft. Matt Kelly”
06 “Interlude #2”
07 “Vanessa”
08 “Interlude #3”
09 “1993”
10 “Interlude #4”
11 “Sink or Swim ft. Aesop Rock”
12 “The Gods Get Dirty”
13 “Interlude #5”
14 “Bollywood Babies”
15 “Interlude #6”
16 “Hold Me Don’t Touch”

DJ Signify – Low Tide Ft. Aesop Rock

Blackout Beach – Astoria, Menthol Lite, Hilltop, Wave of Evil, 1982

I Can See

Jazzanova‘s dreamy, freeform “I Can See” gets some delightfully quirky visual accompaniments with this Marie Alice and Brander-Woflszahn-directed video. Here, we find the six-man collective from Berlin lounging about in colorful rooms, singing from windows and picture frames, and staring at lots of two-dimensional shapes that float in and out of the screen intermittently. “I Can See” is off the group’s latest album, Of All Things, out this week.

Anthony Green Preps Tracks for Donation

On November 1, Anthony Green‘s cousin, Jacqui Haenn, was involved in an auto accident that left her in critical condition. In order to offset the extensive medical costs relating to the injury, Green has released two digital downloads.

Tracks include the previously unreleased “Ripped Apart” and a cover of the Monkees’ “Take A Giant Step.” Any donations made through PayPal will go directly to paying medical bills and the cost of medical helicopter transport to a Philadelphia hospital, where Haenn is being monitored 24/7 until she recuperates fully. Recovery may take up to a year.

Donations can be made at anthonygreenschildren.com/jackiehaenn.

Once a donation is made, a link will be provided for downloading the tracks.

Although this incident hits a bit closer to home, Green is no stranger to releasing tracks for a greater good. In early 2008, he and his band, Circa Survive, released another download titled “1,000 Witnesses,” a b-side off their most recent release, On Letting Go. The download benefited Invisible Children, Inc., a non-profit group that promotes global awareness of the civil war in northern Uganda, where children are often kidnapped and forced to join military brute squads. Circa Survive also released another download called “The Most Dangerous Commercials,” in order to help Siren Records relocate their offices.

Green released his first solo album, Avalon, in August of 2008.

Tracks:
01 Ripped Apart
02 Take A Giant Step (The Monkees Cover)

Guilt by Association 2 Announced

My Brightest Diamond has taken on “Tainted Love” and Takka Takka is singing Phil Collins, and those are just two of the 14 indie artists selected to participate in the second installment of Engine Room Recordings’ Guilt by Association series.

The basic concept is for contemporary bands to cover classic songs of days gone by, which generally end up being the ones you’d never actually admit to liking, yet have a secret soft spot in your heart for (come on, we know you tried to learn all the words to Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” too).

The compilation is currently available on iTunes. A physical version will hit record stores on February 17, and you can stream the entire thing via Engine Room’s site. Totally guilt free.

01 My Brightest Diamond: “Tainted Love” [Gloria Jones/Soft Cell]
02 The Bloodsugars: “Self-Control” [Laura Branigan]
03 Robbers on High Street: “Cool It Now” [New Edition]
04 Frightened Rabbit: “Set You Free” [N-Trance]
05 Matt Pond PA: “I’m Not Okay” [My Chemical Romance]
06 Takka Takka: “In the Air Tonight” [Phil Collins]
07 Kaki King: “I Think She Knows” [Justin Timberlake]
08 Francis and the Lights: “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” [Kanye West]
09 Lowry: “Africa” [Toto]
10 The Forms: “We Didn’t Start the Fire” [Billy Joel]
11 Rafter: “If You Leave” [OMD]
12 Cassettes Won’t Listen: “Need You Tonight” [INXS]
13 Jukebox the Ghost: “It’s a Beautiful Life” [Ace of Base]
14 Max Vernon: “I Kissed a Girl” [Katy Perry]
15 The Bloodsugars: “Lady in Red” [Chris de Burgh]

Various Artists Nublu Sound

Representing a fine array of artists that have launched their careers out of Nublu–an East Village club that has come to define innovative, independent music in New York–this 12-track collection showcases a far-reaching blend of global sounds. While the venue itself redefines “intimate” (acts set up across from the bar on the couch), to witness bands like the Brazilian Girls, Forro in the Dark, Otto, and Love Trio featuring U-Roy is a spectacle to behold. This collection, featuring all the above-mentioned acts and more, is merely a hint at the energy that circulates during their seven-night-a-week schedule. Spanning Brazilian forro and turntablism, quirky electronica, Turkish horn playing, and dub reggae, this collection, like this club, is borderless

Stefan Goldmann The Transitory State/Voices of the Dead

Berlin’s Stefan Goldmann resurfaces on his Macro label, bringing together the past and present with a rich double-disc release. Disc One, The Transitory State, compiles Goldmann’s exceptional techno works from the last few years, including minimalist gems like “Blood” and “Sleepy Hollow” from his Perlon and Innervisions outings. It’s the second disc, Voices of the Dead, that marks Goldmann’s current intrigue as the first in a three-part series of concept albums that delve into the “information lurking in he background” of all music. His explorations return some brilliantly crafted ambient pieces that take the listener through intelligently textured and spontaneously manifested soundscapes, one of which (“Turret”) was embedded by Richie Hawtin into his DE9: Transitions project. This guy’s packin’ some serious heat.

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