In much the same vein as other recent offerings from these two, dan le sac and Scroobius Pip have crafted an electro anthem of dry wit and quick beats. “Look for the Woman” is the first single off the duo’s forthcoming debut album, Angles, and finds vocalist Pip in a slightly more serious frame of mind as he waxes poetic about a woman he misses. Can’t take him too seriously though, especially now that we’ve seen this number
GTA IV comes to PC
Rockstar officially announced that the latest in its epic crime-committing series, Grand Theft Auto IV, will be hitting the PC on November 18 in North America and November 21 in Europe.
Little in the way of details is known about new content, however, we are aware that Rockstar North is handling the port itself and there will be expanded multi-player options. We just don’t know what they are yet. Though we expect lots more hi-def Russian accents!
Force Unleashed on the iPhone
Seems the highly anticipated Star Wars: The Force Unleashed has ensnared the Jesus Phone in its invisible grasp, as screenshots of the game were made available earlier this week.
While it will be a toned down version of the home console counterparts, the iPhone version will utilize the device’s touch controls, allowing you to… well… unleash the Force… by tilting the phone and moving your fingers in various patterns across the screen, with swirly motions to strangle and zig-zags for lightning bolts. Neat!
Cars Exclusive to Rock Band
A Newsweek report this week detailed a deal regarding the Cars’ debut album and its appearance in Rock Band.
The self-titled debut is apparently exclusive to Rock Band, but this is not to say that certain songs from the album wouldn’t appear anywhere else.
According to Rhino Records, “The deal we made for The Cars is a full album game download and Rock Band is the only game title out there putting full albums up as downloadable content.”
He should have added “at the moment,” since Activision has recently begun snatching up full album deals itself (Metallica’s next album) in preparation for Guitar Hero: World Tour this October.
The Cars’ debut album is expected to show up on Rock Band this fall.
Warcraft Wants Your Friends, Warhammer Gets Dated
Finally, two bits of MMORPG news for those of us who prefer to interact with one another via Guild Chat and clandestine IMs today involving World of Warcraft and the upcoming Warhammer title.
First off, WoW is offering players who are able to ensnare friends into their web of Orcs and Blood Elves for two months up-front a new mount, the unicorn/zebra hybrid, the Zhevra (which is a handsome steed, we’ll admit). Other incentives include triple XP points and the ability to summon your friend from anywhere in the game world, which, if you’ve actually tried waiting for you friends to get from one end of the world to another without, you know is pretty much worth it right there.
Second, the long-awaited MMORPG Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, which some are calling the only true challenge to Warcraft’s golden throne, will finally see a release date of September 18.
It would be glib–yet not inaccurate–to dub Sahara Swing an exercise in Fela-Can synthesis, and be done with it. The 19-track disc abounds with Afro-Germanic funk from this Munich-based ensemble led by Karl Hector (Funk Pilots) and Poets of Rhythm/Whitefield Brothers guitarist Jay Whitefield. All of the 10 players assembled here are steeped in the mystical ways of the One, and they invest these sweet Tony Allen-meets-Jaki Liebezeit rhythms with urgency. The vibrant horn section’s studied Africa ’70’s heroic gestures while Whitefield has honed his chattering, wah-ed guitar licks to machete sharpness. Bo Baral’s drums–embellished by Hector and Thomas Myland’s picante percussion–are simultaneously loose-limbed and rigorous, generating a joy tempered by humid paranoia. It’s party music that sets you on edge–and it’s crucial.
Rafter Robert‘s Sweaty Magic EP began long before he decided to lay some tracks onto an actual disk. Some time back, he hooked up with photographer Lizeth Santos, who was up for the task of completing one art project a day so long as Roberts made one song a day, entirely from scratch. A number of these tracks were published, along with their corresponding artwork, last year on the AK website, and now Rafter has taken several of them to use for the EP. “Juicy” is, like much of Roberts’ music, a genre-defying affair that features accessible acoustic guitar melodies and bizarre electronic noises over a helping of falsetto vocals.
Detroit ghettotech master DJ Godfather (a.k.a. Brian Jeffries) is a DJ’s DJ, so when he made the switch to Serato Scratch LIVE, he no doubt convinced more than a few others to follow suit. Rane’s innovative hardware/software DJ package enables DJs to kiss goodbye their heavy vinyl stacks (for better or worse, we know), and jump right into the mix with a pretty simple DJ setup. The user’s laptop hooks up to a mixer via USB and two turntables or CD players (playing the system’s time-coded vinyl or CDs) manipulate the performer’s digital-audio files.
Godfather’s The Detroit Connection Pt.3: For the Freaks, concocted earlier this year as the first commercial release mixed with Scratch LIVE, packs 66 digital tracks into a seamless ghetto-tech mix that never loses a beat and never, ever slows down. The tracks’ immediacy and brevity evoke images of a sweat-drenched Jeffries frantically throwing records on his decks from piles of vinyl, but all it took was a laptop and a couple of turntables. He gave us a few pointers on how to keep our Scratch LIVE game tight.
1. Set Your Cue Points Early
Always set up a cue point at the beginning of each track for fast loading. Then, in the setup, click the option that allows you to load the track at the first cue point. You should do this if you mix your records really fast like me. It helps load the track at the exact point at the exact second. You can almost punch the track in on time.
2. Set the BPMs
This is also good for mixing your records fast. It puts everything in order by bpm so you know right away what songs will mix perfectly in speed with each other. I used to organize my record crates that way, too.
3. Pre-build Your Overviews
Making sure your overviews are always built avoids the computer doing it while you are playing the track. It will free the computer’s CPU up a little more and won’t lag in the middle of a high-powered set.
4. Learn the Rane TTM 57 Serato Mixer
It takes DJing with Serato to a new level. You can set the mixer up to do anything you want, which can make your set more creative. There is a list of options you can choose for each button so you can map your own little tricks with the mixer.
5. Use the Instant Double Feature
The Instant Double is good for beat-juggling and other things. It locks the same track together on both turntables, if you’re at the same pitch in each table. I use it if I want to do a scratch echo, then I’ll hit the Instant Double button on my mixer and it locks the tracks on both turntables again.
“I-Ight” is a relentless instrumental offering, in some ways reminiscent of Gino Soccio’s 1979 classic “Dancer.” Courtesy of the Tokyo-based duo of KZA and DJ Kent (a.k.a. Force of Nature), who’ve built up an impressive body of work since their 2002 debut, this is yet another track guaranteed to pick up plenty of DJ support.
If there’s a true Bushwick funk sound (and there ought to be, just so we can all say “Bushwick funk” on the regular), then the good people at Daptone certainly deserve credit for putting the rough-and-tumble Brooklyn neighborhood on the map. The label’s acclaimed 7-inch catalog has sparked a collective soul revival since its inception in 2001, hovering in the spaces between Stax and Motown on the strength of charismatic singers like Sharon Jones, Charles Bradley and Lee Fields–all of whom step into the spotlight here. From the grinding backbeat of The Mighty Imperials’ “The Matador” to the revolution-of-the-mind-style funk of Lee Fields’ “Stand Up” (parts I and II, with the Sugarman 3 locked into a hypnotic groove throughout), this second volume of singles plays like a sweat-inducing house party set from the ’60s, retrofitted for the here and now.
Matthew Herbert–musical innovator, multi-instrumentalist, and lover of experiment (see 2004’s Plat Du Jour, an album comprised entirely of sounds made from food). The British artist has been dropping tracks for over a decade now, and shows no signs of either slowing down or embracing convention.
For 2008, he returns with his famed Big Band to release There’s Me and There’s You via !K7 on October 28, and the album is being touted as a collection of protest songs that cover Iraq war victims, Palestine, and other politically hot topics. As expected, he’s sampled everything from gunshots to the incubator that kept his prematurely born son alive, and turned these sounds into music you can still follow.
There’s Me and There’s You
01 The Story
02 Pontificate
03 Waiting
04 The yesness
05 Battery
06 Regina
07 The Rich Man’s Prayer
08 Breathe
09 Knowing
10 Nonsound
11 One Life
12 Just Swing
It’s surprising that songwriters Praveen Sharma and Benoît Pioulard have only met a few times, because tracks on the forthcoming Songs Spun Simla sound as though they’ve spent the last two years in the same room arranging the musical pieces of each song. In fact, the two found one another mutually, and after Praveen returned from a trip to India, began collaborating on tracks that eventually became Songs. The lush, dense instrumentals and digital effects on the album are the work of Praveen, while Pioulard was at the helm of all things voice-related, weaving layered vocal harmonies throughout the music in chillingly pretty patterns.
After exhausting themselves on the road earlier this year, Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally (otherwise known as gauzy guitar duo Beach House) holed up in the studio to write a new track, “Used to Be,” which they’ll release as a limited edition 7″ on October 21. The single will also contain a four-track demo version of “Apple Orchard,” a song from the duo’s self-titled album from 2006. The latter is said to be one of the first tracks Legrand and Scally ever recorded, so there’s a nice slice of history for you. Hopefully they’ll unveil live versions of both tracks when they hit the road this month.
“Used to Be
01 “Used to Be”
02 “Apple Orchard (Virgin 4 Track Recording”
Dates
08/09 Philadelphia, PA: Johnny Brenda’s
08/10 Baltimore, MD: Creative Alliance
08/12 Greensboro, NC: Square One
08/13 Asheville, NC: Grey Eagle
08/20 Sydney, Australia: The Hopetown
08/21 Sydney, Australia: The Hopetown
08/22 Melbourne, Australia: Roxanne Parlour
08/23 Brisbane, Australia, The Troubadour
09/24 Perth, Australia: Mojo’s
08/27 Melbourne, Australia: The Toff
08/29 Wellington, New Zealand: Bar Bodega
08/30 Auckland, New Zealand: The Kings Arms
09/27 Big Sur, CA: Fernwood Resort
More on Beach House
Feature: Ether and Lace
MP3: “Gila”
Photo by Paul O’Valle.
