Rafter “Splash (XLR8R Exclusive)”

Asthmatic Kitty’s resident Renaissance man furnished XLR8R with this exclusive track, which seems to encompass every genre and instrument on the planet. No surprise there. Rafter Roberts is known for love of eclecticism, having spent his youth darting between punk bands, house shows, and everything in between. His recently released Music for Total Chickens album is a bizarro pop music journey, with twisted time signatures, distorted guitars, and drums that sound as though they’re having a wresting match.

Rafter – Splash

M83 Announces Tour

“I’m really thrilled about going back to North America!” says Anthony Gonzalez, better known to all of us as M83. The French producer, whose new shoegaze-friendly album, Saturdays = Youth, drops April 15, will hit major U.S. and Canadian cities in May, and not alone. For these live shows, Gonzalez will take drummer Loic Maurin, Pierre-Marie Maulini, who will man bass and guitar, and Morgan Kibby, who did vocals for the new album.

A new single, “Couleurs,” will be released on February 26 on Mute.

Tour Dates
05/20 Los Angeles, CA: Echoplex
05/21 San Francisco, CA: Great American Music Hall
05/23 Portland, OR: Doug Fir Lounge
05/24 Vancouver, BC: Richards on Richards
05/25 Seattle, WA: Neumos
05/28 Minneapolis, MN: Triple Rock Club
05/29 Chicago, IL: Empty Bottle
05/30 Toronto, ON: The Mod Club
05/31 Montreal, QC: Cabaret Music Hall
06/02 Cambridge, MA: Middle East Downstairs
06/03 Brooklyn, NY: Music Hall of Williamsburg
06/04 New York, NY: Bowery Ballroom
06/06 Philadelphia, PA: First Unitarian Church
06/07 Washington, DC: Black Cat

Various Disco Not Disco: 1974-1986

Strut’s Disco Not Disco compilations posit that the genre is anything but one-dimensional. The 14 tracks here range widely and rewardingly over the styles referenced in its title. The lineup favors U.S. and U.K. artists, but Japan (YMO), Belgium (Kazino), and Germany (Liaisons Dangereuses, whose tough, clipped electro was huge in Detroit clubs) are represented, too. Brits like Delta 5 and Vivien Goldman rely on elastic, buoyant basslines to move crowds and imprint their skewed, Caucasoid funk indelibly in your memory, while Konk, Material, and James White & The Blacks (August Darnell’s sleek disco remix of “Contort Yourself”) add multi-culti NYC flavor. Interestingly, the madly intricate jazz fusion of Isotope’s “Crunch Cake” is the best–and least “disco”–cut here.

Mahjongg Kontpab

A slightly odd fit at indie mainstay K Records, Chicago’s Mahjongg looks to blaze new territory on their second record, Kontpab, by combining motorik rhythms with a tribal-influenced (think ’80s Talking Heads) classic indie aesthetic. It’s an ambitious formula, and when these disparate elements coalesce, like on album standout “Wipe Out,” the band achieves an effective, trance-like insistence, though the recipe doesn’t always work. Often, the excessively choppy sonic components are just too broken up to ever unite. That might be Mahjongg’s intention–to maintain a herky-jerky quality–but it makes the record’s melodic moments, while engaging and rewarding, too infrequent. A few minutes into Kontpab’s final track, “Rise Rice,” the band pulls off an excellent tribal breakdown, but it comes too late. Definite points for creativity here, at the very least.

Ellen Allien Mixes Boogy Bytes 4, Tours

BPitch Control label boss Ellen Allien will join the ranks of Sascha Funke and Modeselektor when she releases latest edition of the label’s Boogy Bytes compilation series. Yes, that is the series that features pale-faced European techno artists making strange faces on the CD covers. This installment, due out on March 31, is said in a press release to be “a motif of motion, consisting of bass lines and effects.” Allien herself is a little more to-the-point when it comes to describing the mix, calling it “emotional, noisy, trippy, weird, and sexual.”

She also promises a new, AGF-produced album, SooL, for May of this year. In the meantime, Sascha Funke will join her on the road for a few select U.S. tour dates.

Boogy Bytes Volume 4 Tracklisting
1. AGF “Liniendicke”
2. Vera “In the Nook”
3. Ricardo Villalobos & Patrick Ense “Fizpatrick”
4. Melon “Nitzi (in my mind, so fine)”
5. Andres Zacco & Lucas Mari “Carbonela“ (Seph’s Vidrionela Rmx)
6. Konpiúta “Christmas Fairytale” (Moessap Edit)
7. Sozadams “Eyes Forlon”
8. Richard Seeley “Juicy Vermin”
9. Lucio Aquilina “My Cube”
10. Melchior Productions “Don Juan”
11. Friendly People “Music is improper“ (Damien Schwartz Rmx)
12. Sascha Funke “Double Checked”
13. Gaiser “Withdrawal”
14. Kassem Mosse “a1”
15. Little Dragon “Twice”

Tour Dates
05/01 Seattle, WA: Chop Suey
05/022 San Francisco, CA: Mighty
05/03 Hollywood, CA: Avalon
05/04 Portland, OR: Holocene
05/08 Montreal, QC: Club Parking
05/09 Quebec, QC: Le Cercle
05/10 Brooklyn, NY: Studio B

Photo by Axl Jansen.

Grooverider Sentenced To 4 Years For Cannabis Possession in Dubai

“Grooverider has paid a very high price for a serious mistake.”

So commented a BBC spokesperson when Radio 1 DJ Grooverider was jailed for four years in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, after admitting cannabis possession.

Grooverider, whose real name is Raymond Bingham, co-presented Radio 1’s Drum ‘n’ Bass Show With Fabio; the show will continue with Fabio taking solo control for the foreseeable future.

Bingham was arrested on November 23, 2007, after being caught with 2.16 grams of cannabis at the airport hours before he was due to play a sold-out show at The Lodge, one of the Gulf state’s hottest clubs.
Bingham claims he forgot the spliff’s worth of pot in a pair of pants and hadn’t intended to bring cannabis into the country.

Before his trial date, Bingham had commented, “I just want this to end and to never come back. It was a small amount. Back home I would not even get prosecuted.” The minimum sentence for drug possession in the UAE is four years.

Bingham’s prosecution caps a period in which dozens of foreign nationals have been punished for drug possession in the Muslim country.

40-year-old Bingham, who has released music as Codename John and other aliases, is considered drum & bass music’s godfather and one of the genre’s most respected DJs.

Q&A: Caspa & Rusko

Outtakes from our interview with London dubstep dudes Caspa & Rusko.

XLR8R: How would you say you guys are different, production-wise?

Caspa: Rusko’s really into his drums. He’s big on melodies and chords and stuff. I am always into LFOs and basslines. But we have a friendly rivalry in the studio. We’re brutally honest with each other. He will be like “Gary, that’s shit.” Oh, and I do everything in Reason.

Rusko: I use Acid.

How do you feel about the dubstep scene at the moment?

Caspa: I think the dubstep scene is very refreshing and very exciting. In the beginning, it was like being in a new relationship. The honeymoon period is over now, but you still get that same feeling every time you play around the world.

Rusko: Dubstep virgins. They’re the people I love to play to.

What other producers are you inspired by?

Caspa: Timbaland is making absolute stormers. I am so determined that he used to listen to two-step garage. That tune he did with 50 Cent, “Ayo Technology,” is like a dubstep tune without all the bass. And Mala from Digital Mystikz makes some really nice deep stuff.

Rusko: I’m loving even harder, techno-influenced stuff. Production-wise, I’m into Squarepusher. I’m a proper geek. I love the melodies and technicality of it.

Caspa: And we both love jump up drum & bass, like Hazard, Clipse, and TC. Those guys have been playing dubstep tracks as well. I’m working on a tune with Clipse from Bristol at the moment.

I notice you cut dubplates rather than play CDs or MP3s…

Rusko: I’m a DJ/producer. I wanted my own dubplates and stuff to play out. But I’ve only just been doing it since 2005. Not that long.

Caspa: It’s purely for sound quality. We like our tracks to sound bassy, loud, and crispy.

So you go to the dubplate house and sit there for hours while they cut your plates?

Rusko: I’ve got a bit of a cushy deal. I have a fast internet connection so I just sort [the guy] out with weed. I’d love to go and sit down there but usually I don’t have the time.

Caspa: I won’t master unless I can sit there with them.

What can people expect of your Fabriclive CD?

Rusko: It’s exactly what you get when you come see us live.

Caspa: It’s not, like, Dubstep Now 40.

Rusko: We played two hours back-to-back, dubplate-to-dubplate. You can hear the raw crackle on the vinyl, the dirt on the record.

Caspa: Plus I had a few Staropramen [beers].

Rusko: Yeah, I mean, we’re not robots.

What are you doing when you’re not DJing?

Caspa: I usually like to get on the lash, get smashed off my tits, and get in a fight with someone. I was out at 3 a.m. on Friday. I turned up at Forward and it was empty so I came to Fabric ’til 5 and was talking absolute cobblers to Sinden and Diplo.

Rusko: I really like to go to Rotterdam in Holland and just hang out. I love the waffles there.

Débruit “Pointy”

Frenchman Débruit’s latest LP finds the man and his machines making danceable bangers so varied in style they sound as though each could have been made by a different producer. From its Modeselektor-esque synth jams to drum programming à la Flying Lotus, Coupé Décalé will likely be on the hard drives of every DJ’s digital set from here to Copenhagen.

Debruit – Pointy

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