G-Dep Out of the Pen

Erstwhile Bad Boy rapper G-Dep, who you might possibly remember from the single “Special Delivery” and pretty much nothing else, has finally gotten out of the pen.

So what hip-hop cred-increasing crime was he in for? Pushing weight upstate? Cop killa? Pushing keys from overseas? No, he was behind bars for–and I’m not making this up–throwing a hissy-fit at a T-mobile store and breaking a display model.

Naturally, this raises the question: Why does breaking a cellie display get you sent to Rikers? Well, because bail was $750, and Dep couldn’t come up with it. Dude already pissed away the money from his five-album deal with Bad Boy. Whoopsie-daisy! Well, he’s at work on his comeback album, and if you’re a G-Dep fan, you really should buy it because you wouldn’t want your man to do more time for, say, hopping a turnstile.

DJ Enki 

DJ Star Eyes “Deadline Dance Party” Mix

Everytime we’re on deadline in the XLR8R San Francisco office we start going a little insane. Actually a lot insane. This leads to stuff like playing cardboard guitars, seeing if we can still do backbends (we can’t), making runs to eat disgusting food we probably shouldn’t, and finally coming to our senses to have a dance party.

Now I live in New York and so I miss out, but sometimes I put on some loud techno and do the running man in my house slippers just for old times sake. That’s what inspired this mix for the XLR8R Podcast, which also goes along with our Jan/Feb issue (#104). The loose theme of the issue is whether or not rave is back, but in my view it never really left. So this mix has some of the oldies (Awesome 3, 2 Bad Mice) and lots of new goodies (plenty of fidget house courtesy of Switch, Sinden, and Jesse Rose, plus some Drop The Lime and Dexplicit bangers), and, of course, Klaxons.

Anyway, this pretty much defines what I think rave music should sound like now. And yeah, it’s got some crunchy bits, but I freestyled it – and that’s what my brain sounds like on deadline anyway. So just think of it as glitch…

Vivian Host

myspace.com/djstareyes

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Tracklisting
1. New Young Pony Club “Ice Cream (Van She Rmx)”
2. Röyksopp “What Else Is There? (The Emperor Machine dub version)”
3. The Juan Maclean “Give Me Every Little Thing (Cajmere remix)”
4. Williams “The Arrival”
5. Herve “I’m Mo Try (Herve & Switch rmx)”
6. SharonPhillips “Want 2/Need 2 (Switch main mix)”
7. Fedde Le Grand “Put Ya Hands Up”
8. Drop The Lime “Get Up Refix”
9. P. Diddy & Christina Aguilera “Tell Me (Switch Rmx)”
10. Green Velvet “Shake & Pop (Mark Grant rmx)”
11. The Knife “Like A Pen (Hearthrob Rmx)”
12. DJ T. “The Calling”
13. 2 Bad Mice “Bombscare (’94 US mix)”
14. Edu K “Sex-O-Matic (feat. Deize Tigrona)”
15. DJ Sujinho & Cassiano “Baile Funk Satisfaction”
16. Os Carrascos “Piquè Ta”
17. Afro-Rican “Give It All You Got”
18. Solid Groove “This Is Sick”
19. The Federation “18 Dummy”
20. Party Crashers United “Ballers”
21. Jonny Blaze “Black Sheep”
22. DJ Taj “Bamabounce”
23. Cajmere “Percolator”
24. Qualifide “Badman (feat. Jason K) (Qualifide mix)”
25. Klaxons “Gravity’s Rainbow (Van She Remix)”
26. Mstrkrft “Easy Love”
27. Dirt Crew “Rok Da House”
28. Jesse Rose & Sinden “Me Mobile”
29: Epic Man & Plan B “More Is Enough (Sinden Rmx)”
30. M.I.A. “Pull Up The People (D’explicit Rmx)”
31. Awesome 3 “Don’t Go (Kicks Like A Mule Rmx)”
32. Pitbull “Culo”
33. Buraka Som Sistema “Sem Makas”
34. DJ Bang “Wanna Love You”
35. Passions “Emergency (feat. Star Eyes)”
36. Dexplicit “Might Be Remix (feat Gemma Fox)”
37. Bodyrox “Yeah Yeah (D Ramirez Mix)”
38. Psychotropic “Hypnosis”
39. Krome & Time “This Sound is For The Underground (E5 Mix)”)
40. Soulwax “Another Excuse (DFA Remix)”
41. Klaxons “Magick (Simian Mobile Disco Remix)”

Wax Tailor Preps New Album

Wax Tailor, real name JC le Saout and France’s answer to hip-hop meets downtempo, accomplished something of a feat in the music world with his debut album, Tales of the Forgotten Melodies. He released the record himself and still secured international distribution and attention from the U.S. (including 28 straight weeks in the electronic music charts of iTunes). He assembled a live four-piece and toured with Aceyalone and RJD2, and vocally expressed an interest in touring Stateside to show off his sample-laden tracks to a live audience.

Le Saout’s follow-up, Hope & Sorrow, shows him taking a different approach to making music. Tales was heavy on the samples, which contributed to the album’s character. But with Hope & Sorrow, he decided to replace much of this with live vocal melodies, and therefore the structures are significantly more pop oriented on the new album. This is in no small part due to the inclusion of guest vocalists on the album. In Le Saout’s own words, that factor “changed the way [he] approached songwriting.” Said guest artists include neo-soul figure Sharon Jones, Ursula Rucker of Spoken Words, and cellist Marin Quaisse.

Hope and Sorrow is out April 3, 2007 on Lab’oratoire.

Tracklisting
1.Once Upon a Past
2. The Way We Lived feat. Sharon Jones
3. The Games You Plan feat. Voice
4. The Tune
5. The Man With No Soul feat. Charlotte Savary
6. Radio Product
7. Positively Inclined feat. Marina Quaisse & ASM
8. Sometimes
9. The House of Wax feat. The Others
10. Beyond Words
11. To Dry Up feat. Charlotte Savary
12. We Be feat. Ursual Rucker
13. That Case
14. There is Danger
15. Alien in My Belly feat. Charlotte Savary

Loden Valeen Hope

Let’s not overlook the effect of shoegazers like My Bloody Valentine, Ride, or Swervedriver on non-rock music. Take the smeared laptop watercolors and coarse, bristled sounds of Loden’s full-length Mush debut, Valeen Hope, for example. You’d be forgiven for assuming the album’s varied timbres were all pulsing through a dozen tweaked effects pedals. But you’d be wrong. Instead, Loden borrows the production palate of many a Mush stalwart, dropping churned, IDM-inspired programming, but tenderizing the end results to Loveless-like (or at least Dead Cities-like) textures. In terms of songwriting, Loden’s compositions never touch the fucked-pop grandeur of MBV. But in terms of M83-sized sonic waves, Valeen Hope is a slab of screengazer perfection.

Various Artists Deep and Sexy 4: Compiled and Mixed by King Britt

Give your dance compilation a title as clichéd as Deep and Sexy and the music better be more amazing than a Democratic Presidential victory in 2008. Frankly, with compiler King Britt coming off a mediocre Detroit-techno stint as Nova Dream Sequence, I wasn’t sure this outing would be either deep or a winner. But over 12 blended tracks by artists like Tom & Joyce, Onda, Markus Enochson, and Britt’s own Scuba alias, the Philly soul brother mixes delicious vocals and colorful instrumentals into a tuneful set of lush house music. The title is apt, and Britt doesn’t disappoint.

Various Artists Cloud Control

Lock up your laptops, there’s an old-fashioned ’96 IDM revival happening-in North Carolina! Spread across 15 tracks, Cloud Control is both a survey and blender of the history of experimental electronic music, with this upstart label referencing and reformulating myriad highlights of the last 15 years of the noodly, cryptically named genre. From Tudikas Wayne Hunnicutt’s ephemeral dreamscapes to a grime-dripped Amen splatter from subQtaneous, the distinct vision of each particular artist is maintained throughout. Cloud Control is an auspicious debut from an unlikely place.

Various Artists Backspin: A Six Degrees 10 Year Anniversary Project

San Francisco label Six Degrees has been putting out world music with a tech twist for a decade now. Their roster has advanced both world music and electronic music culture by fusing global beats with technology. Oddly enough, they celebrate their forward-thinking philosophy with a covers album. Banco de Gaia takes on Pink Floyd’s “Echoes,” while tabla titan Karsh Kale versions The Police’s “Spirits in the Material World.” But did we really need another Police song from Los Mocosos? And where on earth is the label’s hero, Cheb i Sabbah?

Caetano Veloso Cê

After the unfortunate malaise of English cover songs this great Brazilian singer attempted in 2004, Tropicalia provocateur Caetano Veloso again flexes in true form, proving he hasn’t lost touch with the searing guitar riffs and sweet, slightly off-kilter falsetto vocals that made him a global icon. Credit is equally due to his son, Moreno, whose production efforts make Cê top notch. Caetano’s still got his way with the ladies, apparent on these luscious ballads, but it’s the hyper “Odeio” and screeching, Os Mutantes-esque throwback “Rocks” that take us back a few decades.

Midlake “Roscoe (Beyond The Wizard’s Sleeve Remix)”

Erol Alkan and Richard Noris, under the guise of Beyond The Wizard’s Sleeve, remix this much-loved track from retro-Americana’s latest stars, Midlake. Like magic, the band often touted as the next Radiohead suddenly gets a darker, kraut-rock-meets-acid twist.

Midlake – Roscoe (Beyond The Wizard’s Sleeve Remix)

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