Imagine hanging out on the top floor of Dinosaur Jr. guitar virtuoso J. Mascis’ house (a.k.a. Bisquiteen Studio) and recording a solo record at your own pace. It’s about noon, and you’re in need of a shredding guitar solo. You holler, “Jayyyyyy!” and quite suddenly, the indie legend appears and does his business. Well, that was Sonic Youth frontman Thurston Moore’s experience while prepping Trees Outside the Academy, his first solo record in 12 years.

Recorded mostly with acoustic guitar and bass, the album features guests like Christina Carter (Charalambides), noise genius Leslie Keffer, and Sunburned Hand of the Man’s John Moloney, as well as stripped-down, lyric-driven tracks with a few noisy quirks here and there (find a track of Moore at age 13, making some sort of sound theater).

The album will be released by the Moore’s own Ecstatic Peace imprint, and represents another landmark for the king of avant-indie. Just hope that a solo tour eventually materializes.

Trees Outside the Academy is out in September on Ecstatic Peace.

Tracklisting
1. Frozen Gtr
2. The Shape Is In A Trance
3. Honest James
4. Silver>blue
5. Fri/End
6. American Coffin
7. Wonderful Witches
8. Off Work
9. Never Light
10. Free Noise Among Friends
11. Trees Outside the Academy
12. Thurston@13

Diplo loves the kids. When the DJ and Mad Decent label founder isn’t flying from gig to gig, or signing acts like Bonde Do Role to his roster, he’s doing things like starting Heaps Decent, a new non-profit dedicated to giving underprivileged Australian kids access to music education.

A recent trip through the land down under left Diplo amazed at the different hip-hop projects emerging from some of Australia’s more remote regions, and with the help of partners Andrew Levins and Nina Agzarian, he developed a studio filled with equipment, meant to educate the indigenous kids of these areas. According to the man himself, “This project is way to give back in larger ways and to be proactive, and the new, faster forms of multimedia and communication are working in our favor to even the field. I feel like any artist with any level of success can find it easy to take some time out and give back to an initiative such as Heaps Decent.”

The project will teach technical as well as public performance skills, and Diplo has plans to see Heaps Decent reach other parts of the globe as well. The next studio is slated to open sometime in 2008, in the Rocinha favela in Rio de Janeiro.

After a series of energetic live performances this spring (All Tomorrows Parties, Donau Festival), the legendary post-punk howler is back with his first solo endeavor since 1999’s 2007 (you got that?). Now that it’s actually 2007, the Suicide front man is fulfilling a prophecy of sorts with Station.

On this latest album Vega hoots, hollers, and shows off some stark electronic production with tracks like ”WARRIOR! FIGHT FOR YA LIFE!!!” and “Psychopatha,” This should nullify any typical criticism Vega usually receives for having excessive rockabilly elements in his solo work, and open the door to a new era.

Station is out July 31, 2007 on Mute.

Tracklisting
1. Freedom’s Smashed
2. Station Station
3. Psychopatha
4. Crime Street Cree
5. Traceman
6. Gun God Game
7. 13 Crosses, 16 Blazin’ Skulls
8. S.S. Eyes
9. Why Couldn’t It Be You
10. WARRIOR! FIGHT FOR YA LIFE!!!
11. Devastated 

Brianna Pope invades the studio of Detroit’s go-to hip-hop producer, Black Milk, as he takes the helm on the upcoming Sean Price and Guilty Simpson collaboration. Black talks technique, inspiration, and tips while Sean Price rolls around on the floor and goofs on “rappity-rap.” Both show mad respect for Beanie Sigel.

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Previous Episodes
Episode 10: Recombinant Media Labs, Part I
Episode 11: Pole
Episode 12: Soul Skate ’07
Episode 13: Detroit Ghettotech

All Episodes

Every once and a while, unlikely supergroups emerge, and Angel is one such collective. Featuring members of Pan Sonic, Schneider TM, and Múm, Angel is an analog-monster of beastly proportions that has thus far released two live recordings on the Bip_Hop and Oral imprints, and has the much-anticipated Kalmukia release in the works.

We recently caught up with group members Ilpo Väisänen and Dirk Dresselhaus to see what records inspired this new wave of noise transcendence.

Angel Top Ten
John Carpenter Dark Star Soundtrack Celine
The Guitar & The Gun Highlife Music from Ghana Earthworks
King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown Clocktower
The Velvet Underground The ‘Guitar Amp’ Tape Bootleg
Sunn 0))) Black One Southern Lord
Keiji Haino 21st Century Hurdy Gurdy Man P.S.F.
Henryk Gorecki 3rd Symphony Nonesuch
Aphrodite’s Child 666 One Way
G.I. Gurdjieff Harmonic Development Harmonium
Martin Rev Strange World Sahko

“Irst_Te” is a dose of the heavy-hitting space-tech music that dirtybird keeps cranking out. With Christian Martin (one-half of the Martin brothers) summoning the drum & bass demons, Worthy‘s single could easily make a NASA space shuttle an instantaneous rager.

Download this song as an MP3, or preview a week’s worth of tracks at the XLR8R Podcast. Subscribe using iTunes, or with an RSS reader of your choice.

Daft Punk may be responsible for turning the electro-house genre into a legitimate movement, but the French duo isn’t satisfied to stop there, and has prepped its directorial debut with a long-awaited feature-length film, Electroma.

The story of two robots on a quest to become human, Electroma is a dialog-free expedition that’s been compared to Vincent Gallo’s The Brown Bunny (i.e. with lots of drawn-out driving scenes). In keeping with the duo’s policy of hiding their true identities under masks (literally), Daft Punk has opted to forgo playing the robots themselves (heaven forbid they do anything that predictable), and hired actors instead. Don’t expect to hear an original soundtrack either. Instead, the film unfolds to the atmospheric sounds of Brian Eno and Sebastian Tellier, amongst others.

Opening in theaters in July, and on DVD in September, the film will no doubt cause a stir, or at least more salivation for another full-length from the group. For those who can’t contain themselves, look for the electro-house purveyors at a few select, probably way sold-out dates.

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Tourdates
07/21 Los Angeles, CA: Sports Arena
07/27 Berkeley, CA: Greek Theatre
07/29 Seattle, WA: WAMU Theater
07/31 Denver, CO: Red Rocks
08/03 Chicago, IL: Lollapalooza
08/05 Toronto, ON: Arrow Hall
08/07 Montreal, QC: Bell Centre
08/09 New York, NY: Keyspan Park

The year was 1992, and Enta Da Stage (Nervous Records) by Black Moon, was the album rocking real hip-hop fan’s domes. Different from the often-cartoonish gangster rappers of the time, Buckshot and crew brought high-def resolution to “reality rap” on tracks like ”Who Got The Props” and “How Many Emcees (Must Get Dissed).”

It wasn’t long before Buckshot and affiliate Dru Ha would create a tight-knit crew–the Boot Camp Clik–that included Heltah Skeltah, Smif N Wessun (later renamed Cocoa Brovaz), and Originoo Gun Clappaz. In 1995 the Clik encompassed both a label and marketing company called Duck Down Entertainment.

Headed by Buckshot and Dru Ha, Duck Down has put out albums and compilations by various Boot Camp Clik members, (distributed by Priority Records 1995-2000). From 2002 through April of 2005, Duck Down Records had an exclusive distribution deal with Koch Entertainment, the world’s largest distributor for independent music, before bouncing to Navarre Distribution, and then recently back to Koch.

Following the success in 2007 of Sean Price’s Jesus Price Superstar album, Duck Down is looking to expand its release schedule. Over the next few months, the imprint will release a host of new projects, including Sean Price’s Master P mixtape, Steele’s (of Smif N Wesson) Hotstyle Takeover mixtape, and Boot Camp Clik’s Casualties Of War, which will be released on August 14 (Casualties Of War is not the latest “official” Boot Camp Clik LP, but a collection of tracks recorded for The Last Stand and various Boot Camp Click members’ solo projects that were not previously released).

While Heltah Skeltah continues to work on its forthcoming LP (and rumors swirl about Sean Price being courted by major labels) Price will begin working on his next solo LP, Mic Tyson. Slated to arrive in the fall of 2007 are LPs from Smif N Wesson, a still untitled collaborative LP from Sean Price, Black Milk, and Guilty Simpson (that all three members are currently finishing in Detroit), and the highly-anticipated Buckshot and 9th Wonder sequel, The Formula (their official follow-up to the album Chemistry).