Yelle “Je Veux Te Voir (Club-Club Version)”

The 25-year-old Julie Budet comes from a sparsely populated patch of countryside in northwest France, but her alter ego, Yelle, has risen from the Parisian nightclubs into the florescent-lined world of pop music. “When I’m Yelle, I like to wear more colorful clothes and be sexier,” she told XLR8R in Issue 118. Her first track, “Short Dick Cuizi,” took a jab at TTC rapper Cuizinier and also caught the ear of Source Etc. With a production team of Tepr and Grand Marnier making bubbly electronic beats, Yelle released a debut full length, Pop-Up, for the label late last year. The group will be touring nonstop for the foreseeable future, playing dates across the EU and, later this summer, a festival in the pop-loving metropolis of Tokyo. Wyatt Williams

Yelle_-_Je_Veux_Te_Voir_(Club-Club_Version)

Buzzin’ Fly Plans Birthday Bash

Ben Watt has a couple good reasons to celebrate this month. His Buzzin’ Fly imprint is not only celebrating its five-year anniversary, but there’s also a triple-disc compilation set for release on June 23 that showcases both the label’s history and future, from Watt’s infamous “Lone Cat” track to dark techno bangers from John Tejada.

Just before the sampler drops, Watt and Co will head down to The End and AKA clubs in London for a proper birthday party. Watt will be joined by deep-house maestro Charles Webster–who has a couple releases on Buzzin’ Fly–in the main room, while in the club’s lounge, Paris-based Mademoiselle Caro will spin a DJ set of her trademark electro, rock, and techno. Find tech-disco DJ Luke Solomon holding the party down upstairs, at AKA.

Londoners should head down on Saturday, June 21 beginning at 11 p.m. Cost of admission is £16–not a bad deal, since the shindig goes until 7 a.m.

A-Trak Preps Nike+ Original Run Song

The mix drops June 24 and will be available exclusively in the Nike Sport Music section of iTunes.

Montreal-born, New York-based producer A-Trak will tackle the fourth installment of Nike’s Original Run series, which, for the last few years, has commissioned producers to create a single, continuous track supposedly fit for one’s iPod when running on a treadmill.

LCD Soundsytem interpreted that concept with a disco-flavored dance mix back in 2005. Aesop Rock followed up with hip-hop. For his mix, turntable master and Fool’s Gold boss A-Trak married his synth-heavy electro and bumping hip-hop tastes together for the 45-minute composition.

“I wanted this record to showcase my current style, but I also didn’t want to stray from hip-hop completely,” he said in a recent press release. “That’s why you find guest rap verses, plenty of chopped and screwed vocals, and a hefty dose of drum breaks that are surely more block party than Ibiza.”

The mix drops June 24 and will be available exclusively in the Nike Sport Music section of iTunes.

Daft Punk’s Electroma Gets DVD Release

When Daft Punk‘s Electroma was released to theaters in July of 2007, it was hard to visit any electronic music-oriented site (or any music site, for that matter) without bumping into a mention of the duo’s feature-length directorial debut, which follows the story of two robots on the quest to become human.

Now that the tidal wave of press has passed, Vice Records will release a widescreen DVD version of the film on July 22 (it’s currently available in the U.K. and Australia). The disc will come packaged with a 40-page booklet of film images in a Steelbook case.

Chris Duncan’s Little Things

Oakland, California-based artist Chris Duncan doesn’t have to look far for inspiration. Duncan is a punk mystic, known for geometry, bright colors, string sculpture, and head-scratching titles. Though his work is abstract, his inspirations are close at hand–community, friends, headlines, and most of all, his daughter Aya. Here, we look at his work, his day, and his latest show at San Francisco’s Luggage Store gallery.

More on Chris Duncan

Munk “Live Fast Die Old (The Juan Maclean Remix)”

This track isn’t the first time Gomma co-founder Mathias Modica has collaborated with a DFA Records artist under his Munk guise. Anyone who has been following Modica’s career will remember his banging “Kick Out the Chairs” hit done with James Murphy, and this one’s an equally hard-hitting number (albeit somewhat slower and sans Murphy’s frantic yelling). Juan Maclean laid the piano and vocal elements of original track, off Modica’s newest full length, Cloudbuster, over a thumping 4/4 beat and thrown some good old-fashioned synths in there, for optimal dancefloor enjoyment.

Munk – Live Fast Die Old (The Juan Maclean Remix)

The Orb The Dream

If Okie Dokie It’s the Orb on Kompakt was entirely colored by Thomas Fehlmann’s cool aura, The Dream is warm and prismatic under the direction of mad wizard Alex Paterson. The former album, its soft techno synchronized to the ’00s, introduced a new generation to the ambient-experimental legends. This one could drive those folks away, or better, into the vaults for classic Primal Scream and FSOL. The nostalgic Dream works best as a companion to 1992’s UFOrb, down to that album’s “Blue Room” sharing a sample with new track “The Truth Is…” It’s a hallucination of snipped radio transmissions, oceanic textures, and soulful vocals. Desi beats and plenty of dub brush up next to a track anchored with a pan-flute–the mix gets weirder and better with every listen. Cheers to a vision creatively executed without regard to trends.

Lexie Mountain Boys Sacred Vacation?

On paper, Sacred Vacation is just an acapella album, and The Lexie Mountain Boys are just five women from Baltimore singing in a church, occasionally stomping their feet or clapping their hands without any sort of instruments or effects. Paper belongs to the stale world of press releases and music magazines, though, and The Lexie Mountain Boys aren’t having anything to do with that world on Sacred Vacation. Instead, these songs gently fuck with gender, skewering your favorite doo-wop song with surrealistic howls, and wordlessly disowning anything close to reality. The Boys nod in the direction of other vocal traditions (shape-note groups, radio-pop divas, B-more stutter tracks), but Sacred Vacation is a vision quest on their own mountain trail.

Various Carolina Funk: First In Funk

From the folks that brought you Midwest, Texas, and Florida Funk, Carolina Funk offers up even more lost gems. This time, the obscure recordings have been scoured from the southeast, featuring unknowns like The Ultimates, The Black Exotics, and Wally Coco. The 22-tracker is a vibrant, sweat-drenched listen from start to finish. Roy Roberts’ “You Ain’t Miss It” and Frankie and The Damons’ “Bad Woman” are spirited, upbeat recordings that would make James Brown proud. The release comes packed with a full-color booklet explaining the tattered history behind the music and its makers. The sound quality is superb, the energy is through the roof, and the artists are all heart. This right here is real funk.

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