Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings 100 Days, 100 Nights

Throwback soul has become a staple of many producers, spanning a number of genres. But to hear soul music worthy of Motown is rare, which is what makes Sharon Jones so welcoming. She’s been singing gospel for decades, and it comes through in every dripping minute of this record. Launched from their Bushwick studio, the Dap-Kings are the Wailers of the modern day, backing up Amy Winehouse and Ghostface, among others. Hearing Jones’ voice mixed with the horns of “Nobody’s Baby” and the generous swagger of “Be Easy” is to feel yourself inside the church of somewhere holy. No dogma allowed-just a head shake and the words, “Damn, that’s hot” on the tip of your tongue.

Musab “Baaang!!!”

Formerly known as Beyond, Musab has risen from the Minneapolis hip-hop scene to work with groups like Atmosphere, Micronauts, and others, as well as release his own artist albums. A recent move from Rhymesayers to Hieroglyphics’ imprint finds this rapper dropping an autobiographical full-length that has tight beats and a lot to say about pimping. Bag this.

Musab – Baaang

Dirty Projectors Rise Above

The concept of Rise Above is too good to be true. Dirty Projectors’ Dave Longstreth (the only permanent Projector) goes back to his childhood home to clean out his old bedroom, and finds the empty cassette case for Black Flag’s seminal, pissed-the-fuck-off Damaged. True to his quirk, Longstreth doesn’t hunt for the tape and, instead, recreates it from memory. He doesn’t morph into Henry Rollins-or anything close, actually. Rise Above simply sounds like Dirty Projectors. Longstreth, backed here by a female shadow choir, couldn’t drop his smooth, hyperactive note-chasing any more than Morrissey could. There’s a few punches scattered throughout: aggressive electric guitar (amidst acoustic quick-picking), thick drum pounds, and, yes, choice lyrics stand out (“Depression’s gonna kill me,” “This fucking city is run by pigs”). Clever conceit, but, at its root, this is just another marvelous DP album.

XLR8R Podcast Live Mix Series: Magnum 38

Oliver “Magnum 38” Greschke is punk. The Berlin-based web programmer by day, gnarly producer by night, is so punk that he went from Germany’s drum and bass hotbed into the open arms of some of the most chopped-up, evil electro-noise imaginable. Recording for T. Raumschmiere’s Shitkatapult imprint, this programmer may not be as celebrated as his labelboss (yet), but with compositions this deadly, he’s well on his way. This installment of the XLR8R Podcast DJ Mix Series finds Magnum at his most raw; mixing a majority of tracks from his recently released Old Europe Strikes Back, live at Berlin’s Maria Club. You now have a taste of Berlin’s underworld, dark and uncompromising.

Download this podcast using iTunes, or with an RSS reader of your choice.

Tracklisting
1. Altitude 3600 feet
2. Intro
3. More
4. Grossstadtrauschen
5. DiscoToni
6. Du machst mich schmutzig
7. Pille Palle
8. kokswahn
9. Volle Kraft vorraus
10. Aligator (Remix)
11. Und ?
12. untitled
13. Saegeman

Podcast 16: Magnum 38

Oliver “Magnum 38” Greschke is punk. The Berlin-based web programmer by day, gnarly producer by night, is so punk that he went from Germany’s drum and bass hotbed into the open arms of some of the most chopped-up, evil electro-noise imaginable. Recording for T. Raumschmiere’s Shitkatapult imprint, this programmer may not be as celebrated as his labelboss (yet), but with compositions this deadly, he’s well on his way. This installment of the XLR8R Podcast Exclusive Mix Series finds Magnum at his most raw; mixing a majority of tracks from his recently released Old Europe Strikes Back, live at Berlin’s Maria Club. You now have a taste of Berlin’s underworld, dark and uncompromising.

Subscribe to this podcast: iTunes or mp3 format. For help, click here.

Tracklisting
1. Altitude 3600 feet
2. Intro
3. More
4. Grossstadtrauschen
5. DiscoToni
6. Du machst mich schmutzig
7. Pille Palle
8. kokswahn
9. Volle Kraft vorraus
10. Aligator (Remix)
11. Und ?
12. untitled
13. Saegeman

Download MP3
Download M4A (iTunes enhanced)
Subscribe to Podcast (RSS)

Podcast_Mix_2007_09_20

Prinzhorn Dance School: DFA’s Latest

If Prinzhorn Dance School were in charge of this article, it probably wouldn’t be very long. In fact, chances are this piece would be nothing more than a quote, a picture of the band holding some farm equipment, and a lot of white space. Not because the Brighton pair, who call themselves Suzi Horn and Tobin Prinz, have nothing to say–they just harness the power of saying very little.

Compared to mainstream pop music’s trillion-layer approach, Prinzhorn’s minimalist, self-titled debut on DFA sounds like a perverse mental experiment. Their sparse instrumentation consists of nothing more than a bass, a couple drums, and stabs of vocals and guitar, meticulously pieced together with precise gaps of nothing. Suzi Horn claims that “it’s nice to have space to drift in and find your own sounds–[like] the wobberly bit that follows the tom,” but maybe something more sinister is at work here. (The band’s name does come from Dr. Hans Prinzhorn, a German psychiatrist famous for showcasing his mentally ill patients’ artwork.)

“I like the process of thinking about sound and noise and how they fit together,” says Tobin Prinz, who carries out most of the band’s vocal duties. “I’m just trying to make visual things with an audio process, which is impossible in a way, and that’s probably why I like it–it’s an unattainable thing that I can obsess about.”

Horn, the band’s bassist, shares Prinz’s controlled enthusiasm. “We make charts to see how the songs work and how we can make them better. We probably worked for two days tuning the kick before we even mic’d it, then a day moving the mic!”

No wonder Prinzhorn ended up working with DFA’s similarly obsessive James Murphy. After the duo recorded most of their album in an isolated barn in Sussex, they sent a demo to the label stapled together with carpet underlay. Soon after, they found themselves in New York, mixing at Murphy’s Plantain Recording House. “I have a lot of respect for James [and] the way he worked on the record,” says Prinz. “It was always going to be hard because we work in isolation. And it was difficult at first, but soon the mixes began to work. I’m so happy with how the record sounds.”

As to be expected, Prinz and Horn didn’t answer questions about their favorite bands, their love life, or what cereal they ate that morning. “There isn’t much more to know, and even if there was, not knowing is the best bit,” claims Prinz. “We go into an old building and make noise late into the night. [We] scream and fight and drink vodka and send the masters to DFA and they put them out as records. That’s what we do.”

Shaggy’s Reggae Intoxication

He had the biggest summer single by taking on a sacrilegious topic, he’s been a recent guest on Craig Ferguson’s Late Late Show, and his label has racked up an impressive set of chart-topping dancehall riddims. Is there any doubt that the baritone-voiced deejay Shaggy is on track to make another run at the Billboard charts? Already one of reggae’s most successful selling artists, the 38-year old–born Orville Richard Burrell–will drop his eighth album, Intoxication, November 13 on Big Yard/VP.

And since he topped the international pop charts with tunes like “Boombastic,” “Oh Carolina,” and “It Wasn’t Me,” Shaggy has done the near impossible: thoroughly reclaimed his core reggae fan base. Well-timed dancehall burners like “Wild 2Nite,” “Reggae Vibes,” and the enormous summer single “Church Heathen” have again made the artist (who debuted in 1992 with “Mampie,” the dancehall ode to plus-sized women) a favorite with radio and club DJs.

The strategy to go back to his dancehall roots was entirely intentional.

“While creating the album I wasn’t signed to any particular label, so I didn’t have the usual A&R interference into my creative process,” says Shaggy of the new album’s recording process. “That’s what I was trying to get back to with Intoxication–both hardcore dancehall and reggae.”

Shaggy isn’t abandoning his more recent pop-attuned fans, however, as guest appearances on the album by Akon, Collie Buddz, and Sizzla attest. First single, “Bonafide Girl,” is a classic reggae-pop affair, reuniting Shaggy with “It Wasn’t Me” collaborator Rik Rok and adding Tony Gold to the potent mix. The single, produced by Big Yard mainstay producers Robert Livingston and Sting International, rides a new lick of the Desmond Dekker classic “007–Shanty Town” riddim.

Further reaching out to the core singles market, Big Yard has issued other tracks on the riddim, including Collie Buddz’s “Searching,” Daville’s “Fling It Pon Me,” and gruff-voice deejay Red Fox’s “I Don’t Think So.”

Intoxication is a return to form, a return to his roots, and most of all, a damn fun album. What else would you expect from one of reggae’s tough-but-grounded superstars?

Tracklisting
1. Can’t Hold Me
2. Bonafide Girl-feat. Rik Rok & Tony Gold
3. Intoxication
4. Those Days-feat. Nasha
5. More Woman
6. Woman Scorn
7. Mad Mad World- feat. Sizzla Kalonji & Collie Buddz
8. Out Of Control- feat. Rayvon
9. Church Heathen
10. Wear Di Crown- feat. Mischieve
11. Criteria
12. Body A Shake
13. What’s Love- feat. Akon
14. Holla At You
15. All About Love
16. Wrong Move
17. Reggae Vibes

Various Butter

Seattle’s Fourthcity collective turned label is known about Cascadia for two things: hip-hop and laptop music. On Butter, Fourthcity’s smooth, resolutely downtempo second comp, notably absent are laptops (on the highlights) passing the spotlight on to the collective’s CPU-free big names Plan B and Truckasauras. Laptops don’t exist in Truckasauras’ world: Their cut, “Porkwich,” is a melancholic, midtempo track built of 303s, 808s, and a Nanolooped Game Boy. Plan B comes across as a stateside, chamber-esque Lali Puna (in fact, Fourthcity as a whole feels a bit like Morr Music trapped in a rock town). Newcomer Snowmanplan steals the comp though, giving us a dreamy haze of atmospheric melody, trading between laptop and live band with nary a blink.

Junk Science Gran’Dad’s Nerve Tonic

Junk Science proudly reps the more easygoing side of Brooklyn hip-hop, in which lo-fi beats and everyday raps are customary. Following up their well-received debut, Feeding Einstein, MC Baje One and beatmaker Snafu return for more calm and clever joints that may not get you hype, but are sure to spark thought and a few head nods. While Snafu provides the laid-back, sample-centric grooves, Baje works his storytelling magic on songs like “Jerry McGuire”-a vivid vision about quitting a dead-end job. It’s not too often that hip-hop so real can provide such an escape.

Page 3088 of 3781
1 … 3,086 3,087 3,088 3,089 3,090 … 3,781