Five Star By RJD2

Expanding upon the themes of the primarily instrumental Since We Last Spoke (Definitive Jux), The Third Hand finds former sampling maestro RJD2 doing his own drum programming, instrumentation, and vocals.

“It got to the point, with sampling on the MPC, where it just got stupid,” RJ says of his new direction. “I was lifting such minute samples, it was just easier to make them myself. Also, I’m a little dude making little records on little independent labels. I’m not in a Just Blaze-type situation where I have the resources to clear all those samples.”

While figuring out the intricacies of placing microphones and engineering, RJ is also grappling with putting feelings into words. “[Songwriting is] the most intimidating and daunting part of making music,” he says. “I’m in awe of people who can put such eloquence in their songs. I feel like words are much more concrete than chords and riffs.” With that in mind, we asked RJ about some of his favorite songwriters.

1. The Teeth
One of my new favorite bands is Philly’s The Teeth; they sound a lot like the early Kinks’ records. They have really great chord progressions and vocal harmonies and are one of the few groups that have impressed me with their writing.

2. The Zombies
I feel like Odessey and Oracle is a record I’m never going to be able to live down. If I built a small list of records that shaped the way I think about music, [this album] would be on it.

3. The Beatles
Everything about them is perfect. The more I listen to Paul McCartney’s singing, I realize he has such clarity–his ability to hit every single note without any melisma is unbelievable. And [their engineers], George Martin and Geoff Emmerich, were really pushing the boundaries.

4. Donny Hathaway
He and Curtis Mayfield are both lyrically inspiring. There are a lot of people I find terribly poetic, and both these guys have written some songs that are amazingly poignant.

5. Radiohead
They know grooves and know how to make it work. It was really exciting to me when they first made that transition to Kid A. It was like the second season of The Wire: the show just kept widening its focus without dumping the previous season. That’s what Radiohead does.

Graniph: Wrap Battle

Japanese and German design sensibilities are generally thought to be some of the most refined in the world, so it should come as no surprise that one of the hottest graphically focused clothing lines on earth comes from a creative combination of the two. Started in 2000 by German expats living in Tokyo, Graniph has been consistently knocking out some of the most exquisitely produced gear in a city where progressive fashion is nothing short of ubiquitous. Most of the company’s t-shirts sell for around $25 USD (dirt cheap by Japanese standards) and they’re constantly updating their collections, which can be perused at the tiny, cramped storefronts they’ve hidden throughout Tokyo. For the non-Shibuya-bound, Graniph also takes orders through their website–which will begin shipping internationally starting next month–and there is talk of a store opening in NYC sometime this year.

Having worked with a legion of graphic design’s leading lights–among them Build, Vault 49, Deanne Cheuk, and Craig Metzger–Graniph is now opening up their line to the pixel-pushing superstars of tomorrow. Through March 31, 2007 the company is accepting entries for an international design award; winners will receive cold, hard U.S. currency and the opportunity to have their t-shirt design mass-produced. Jump on this shit before Lupe Fiasco raps about it.

Spank Rock Does Fabriclive

Fans of 2006’s YoYoYoYoYo can expect some of the usual hip-hop mashed up with Baltimore club and filthy lyrics on Fabriclive 33, but the boys collectively known as Spank Rock make it clear that they’re more about enjoying the mix than repeating past glories on this latest release. “I think a big part of the aesthetic of our performance and how we roll, as far as making the party, is debauchery and fun…we just sort of carried that over into the Fabric mix,” says Chris Devlin, who also notes that the group added their own sound effects that appear throughout the mix.

Fun seems to be the key here, something reflected in the dancefloor-friendly artists on the comp (Hot Chip, Mylo, members of the Ed Banger crew) and also in the fact that Spank Rock isn’t afraid to make a left turn and include something as unusual as “Owner of a Lonely Heart” by Yes. The result is an hour-long mix of feel-good numbers that seek to rev up partygoers, cure last night’s hangovers, and, most importantly, pick Fabric’s somewhat slumping series up and get it back on the dancefloor where it truly belongs.

Fabriclive. 33: Spank Rock is out May 29, 2007 on Fabric.

Tracklisting
1. Intro
2. Kurtis Blow “The Breaks”
3. CSS “Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death From Above (Spank Rock Remix)”
4. Mr Oizo “Nazis (Justice Mix)”
5. Dominatrix “The Dominatrix Sleeps Tonight”
6. Yello “Bostich”
7. Zongamin “Bongo Song”
8. Kano “I’m Ready”
9. Daft Punk “Technologic”
10. Switch “A Bit Patchy”
11. The Contours “Do You Love Me”
12. Mylo “Drop The Pressure”
13. Yes “Owner of a Lonely Heart”
14. Para One “Dudun Dun”
15. Best Fwends “Myself (XXXchange Remix)”
16. KW Griff “Good Man”
17. Uffie “Hot Chick (Feadz Edit)”
18. Metro Area “Orange Alert (DFA Remix)”
19. Tangerine Dream “Love On A Real Train”
20. Simian Mobile Disco “Hustler”
21. The Romantics “Talking in Your Sleep”
22. Chicks on Speed “Wordy Rappinghood (The Playgroup Remix)”
23. Bonde Do Role “Melo Do Tabacco (XXXchange Remix w/ The Ford Granada)”
24. Miss Kittin and The Hacker “Stock Exchange”
25. Rick Ross “Hustlin'”
26. Hot Chip “Over and Over (Maurice Fulton Remix)”
27. Gaz Nevada “I.C. Love Affair”
28. L.T.D. “Love To the World”
29. Outro

Action Figure

Nadine Sutherland is a rare but thankfully growing commodity in the Jamaican music landscape, an independent female in charge of her own budding career. Like her contemporaries Lady Saw, Tanya Stephens, Cecile, and the producer DJ Sunshine, Sutherland has chart experience and raw talent under her belt, and is ready to launch a new phase of her career.

But first, let’s rewind to 1993, when Sutherland had everyone singing, “I need some action, tender satisfaction/My chemistry is flowing, can you cause a chain reaction.” The Dave Kelly-produced song “Action” (Mad House Records), featuring deejay Terror Fabulous and Sutherland, has since become a staple of dancehalls worldwide and remains in-print on vinyl in VP Record’s reggae classics series. 

Only one album, 1997’s Nadine, followed her massive single, and after several years away from the music scene many wondered where the caramel-skinned beauty went. Now comes word that Sutherland has just wrapped shooting on the music video for her newest hit single “Big Tingz,” from her upcoming album Call My Name, in stores April 3 on Eight76 Records. With a catchy chorus of “Big tingz a gwaan tonight/Everybody in a party vibe,” it’s easy to imagine crowds once again rocking to the queen’s singing. Other tunes like “Can’t Take It,” and “Keep Me Safe” round out an album that spans all types of reggae and Jamaican music, from rootsy one-drop to dervish-inducing dancehall cuts.

Sutherland is also a renaissance woman who has worked as a newspaper columnist, television presenter, and certified fitness instructor. Dancehall needs more female action heroes and Nadine Sutherland stands ready to don her cape and soar to new heights in 2007. 

Optimo Walkabout

Few selectors can roam as deeply or as broadly through underground music’s teeming treasures with as much acumen as Glasgow-based DJs Jonnie Wilkes and JD Twitch (a.k.a. Optimo). Their How To Kill the DJ series raised expectations stratospherically, and Walkabout continues their streak. Previous Optimo releases stressed their penchant for forging logical segues from illogical juxtapositions. With Walkabout, they focus more cohesively on headfuck minimal techno, with interludes of ill atmospheric pieces (by Boris and Godsy), to stunning effect. Throbbing Gristle’s “Walkabout” subverts the disc’s grand motif with unsettling undercurrents, a point further driven home by Pan Sonic, Philus, 6k, and others. Walkabout triggers paranoia-check the chilling transition from Suicide’s “Radiation” into Eventell and Metaboman’s “Control A Zoid”-while freeing your ass to move into clubland’s Twilight Zone.

Patrick Wolf The Magic Position

Few 23-year-olds can match pipes and world-weariness with Marianne Faithfull, but Brit crooner Patrick Wolf nearly does just that on “Magpie,” a track from his stellar third album. The grim, piano- and string-drenched duet exemplifies Wolf’s baroque-pop style, filled with bursting crescendos, orchestral swells, and anguished poetry. Wolf can channel Antony’s drama, but his commanding delivery isn’t nearly as fragile. And on cathartic stompers like “Get Lost” and the title track, he gets deliciously delirious. A few production tweaks let you know the album is of its time, but his words and delivery are timeless.

Various Artists Nitin Sawhney: In the Mind of Nitin Sawhney

Over two decades, London producer/musician Nitin Sawhney has worked on an impressive list of projects, including film scores (ie. the excellent Cirque du Soleil soundtrack to Varekai), commercials, and his own dexterous records. For chapter one in an ongoing series, District 6 tapped Sawhney’s inquisitive Mind, which proves to be rich and downtempo-heavy: D’Angelo’s “Brown Sugar,” Massive Attack’s “Teardrop” (as well as their remix of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan), and One Self’s excellent “Be Your Own” are mixed graciously. The blending of Ojos de Brujo into Paco de Luc’a connects the cross-generational approach Sawhney himself has so capably represented on the face of global music.

Pelican City of Echoes

There is epic music and then there is epic music. Chicago instrumental quartet Pelican is proudly guilty of producing the latter, penning tunes so ambitious and triumphant that your everyday life seems insignificant in comparison. Simply put, they rock harder than similarly motivated Texans Explosions in the Sky and are more melodious and listenable than like-minded Japanese trio Boris. “Cinematic” is an understatement, unless your idea of movie night is 24 straight hours of Kurosawa and Peckinpah. And while City of Echoes occasionally shows their more temperate side, it is nonetheless a classic third album-coherent and explosive.

Twilight Sad Tours

FatCat’s deliciously mournful balladeers The Twilight Sad take their melancholy, atmospheric pop to the U.S. this spring, alongside Mary Timony and Aereogramme.

The Glasgow-based band will release its debut full-length, Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters, this April, an album that’s already received praise on XLR8R‘s Top Ten Album Picks when we hailed it as a soundtrack of melodic pop songs appropriate to have on rotation when breaking up with one’s significant other. Calling up comparisons to Mice Parade or Sigur Rós, the music contains exactly the kind of heart-wrenching vocals and pensive chord progressions that get indie kids running to the concert venues in droves. If you’re headed for Breakupville, or simply want to be depressed in the best possible way, check the band when they arrive in North America.

Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters is out April 24, 2007 on FatCat. 

Tour Dates
03/19 Birmingham, AL, The Bottletree Lounge
03/20 Mt Pleasant, SC, Village Tavern
03/21 Raleigh, NC, King’s Lounge
03/22 Norfolk, VA, The Boot
03/23 Washington, DC, Black Cat
04/01 Philadelphia, PA, Johnny Brenda’s
04/02 New York, NY, Knitting Factory
04/03 Brooklyn, NY, Luna Lounge
04/04 Cambridge, MA, The Middle East
04/05 Montreal, QC, Main Hall
04/06 Toronto, ON, El Mocambo
04/07 Hamilton, ON, Casbah
04/09 Chicago, IL, Subterranean
04/10 Minneapolis, MN, 7th St. Entry
04/13 Seattle, WA, Crocodile Café
04/14 Portland, OR, Dante’s
04/15 San Francisco, CA, The Independent
04/16 San Luis Obispo, CA, Downtown Brew
04/17 San Diego, CA, Casbah
04/18 Los Angeles, CA, Knitting Factory
04/19 Phoenix, AZ, Modified
04/21 Austin, TX, Emo’s
04/22 Denton, TX, Hailey’s

Battles Releases Debut LP

They have no plan, they’re not a band, and they make some of the most challenging and inventive music around. Battles’ offerings so far have been more about quality than quantity, which means they’ve never had enough tracks to release a full-length.

All of that changes this Spring, when Mirrors drops. This new album sees the group’s previously upbeat, instrumental compositions exploring a wider range of sounds and emotions, as well as the addition of vocals to the tracks.

Battles has never adhered to any specific formula as far as genre is concerned, nor has the group proclaimed a mission statement. A far cry from more traditional acts that operate as a single entity with a lead soloist, Battles is made up of only soloists, artists with separate careers and divergent approaches to the music. This, more than anything, explains why frantically strummed guitars can coexist with slow, precise drumbeats, gentle bells, and vocals that often resemble an acapella chorus from the Renaissance. In Battles’ universe, this is just another day in the studio.

Mirrors is out May 15, 2007 on Warp.

Tracklisting
1. Race:In
2. Atlas
3. Ddiamondd
4. Tonto
5. Leyendecker
6. Rainbow
7. Bad Trails
8. Prismism
9. Snare Hangar
10. Tij
11. Race:Out

Meanwhile, the group hits the road at the end of this month for an extensive tour around North America, including a stop-off at the annual Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago.

Tour Dates
03/20 Baltimore, MD: Ottobar
03/22 Philadelphia, PA: First Unitarian Church
03/23 Washington, DC: Black Cat
03/24 Chapel Hill, NC: Local 506
03/25 Atlanta, GA: Drunken Unicorn
03/27 Birmingham, AL: Bottletree
03/28 Lexington, KY: The Dame
03/29 Cleveland Heights, OH: Grog Shop
03/30 Chicago, IL: Empty Bottle
03/31 Pittsburgh, PA: Gooskis
04/01 Toronto, ON: Lees Palace
04/02 Buffalo, NY: Soundlab
04/03 New York, NY: Bowery Ballroom
04/04 Montreal, QC: La Sala Rossa
04/05 Boston, MA: Great Scott
04/06 Providence, RI: AS220

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