“Drunken Stars” finds Swift pursuing the new, new heavy metal with crunching darkcore breaks that are chopped up and cracked out. You’ll either love ’em or hate ’em. On the remix of Swift classic “Hi-Tek,” Friction preserves the producer’s previously more minimal techno style, speeding things up and adding a healthy dose of modern-day dancefloor bounce.
Booty Bouncers Get Dirty Baby
Wherein Deekline and Ollywood try their hand at a UK version of Miami bass and proceed to rock the house with classic electro sounds and tight breaks underneath vocalists Wonda, 2Za and Yo’ Mama dropping the slackness. An instrumental and a grittier, more techno-fied version from Friendly fill things out in all the right places.
Goudron Raw Voltage
Raw Voltage is not the disco-punk equivalent of the Stooges’ similarly titled Raw Power, but it does agitate with more aggression than most recent keyboard-centric efforts. Detroit musician/visual artist Goudron (Ron Zakrin) makes for a compelling doppelganger to his hometown label honchos in Adult.. Both Goudron and Adult. love those zany sounds of ’80s computer games, but they also infuse electro with a threatening undercurrent that’s equal parts Black Sabbath’s soot-encrusted riffing and D.A.F.’s brawny death disco. And Goudron has a more fucked-up palette of unhinged sounds zinging around his mind than his superiors at Ersatz. Dude, it’s dangerous to show up your boss.
Circlesquare Pre-Earthquake Anthem
Vancouver’s March 21 (Jeremy Shaw) ought to call himself Methodical Man. His debut album is as stark as North Dakota’s plains and as coldly calculated as Alfred Hitchcock. Circlesquare liberally uses slide-guitar sighs; typically these evoke vast, open spaces, but on Pre-Earthquake Anthem they cannot dissipate the tracks’ claustrophobic creepiness. He unspools hypnotic, repetitive grooves featuring near-catatonic vocals, distorted bass oscillations and rimshots that tick like time bombs. Homages/allusions to David Essex, Ry Cooder, Fripp/Eno and Faust sweeten Circlesquare’s musical molasses. If you dig the more static excursions by Tricky or Labradford, you’ll enjoy Circlesquare’s anomic, minimalist mantras.
Hu Vibrational Beautiful: Boonghee Music 2
It’s impossible not to feel cleansed and peaceful while listening to Beautiful. Master percussionists Hamid Drake and Adam Rudolph realize that the harder it is to pronounce an instrument (qarqarba, dusu’ngoni), the better it sounds. As Hu Vibrational, they unite jazz and African music with a stealthy rhythmic verve. Most tracks consist of simple melodies that glint like sunbeams hitting wet hippo flesh, while the rhythms mesmerize through repetition, exotic timbres and intricate interplay. Don’t be surprised if Timbaland strips Beautiful for its raw materials on his next production.
Xploding Plastix Rebop By Proxy
Jazz in space is an apt description for Oslo, Norway-based Xploding Plastix’s six-track beauty. “Rebop By Proxy” is a trippy excursion through layers of cinematic soundscapes. “Omar Sharif Bonanza” is a great example: deliciously dark with dense classical influences. Getting spaced out by this gem can only be a good thing.
Various Artists Soul 7
Stones Throw’s Egon compiled this box set of funk 7-inches from the ’60s and ’70s and you know it’s hot, so crack a window and check the non-stop throbbing bass on Soul Seven’s “Mr. Chicken.” The rock don’t stop, even when the record gets flipped over to “The Cissy’s Thang.” From Billy Ball & The Upsetter’s funkier-than-Willie-Mitchell “Popcorn 69” to the doleful organ and guitar on Booker T. Averheart’s “Heart N Soul” and past Soul Vibrations’ “The Dump” (you know that’s nasty) to Ernie and the Top Notes’ impossibly raw “Dap Walk,” this box is funkier than summer ass sweat.
E-A-Ski Ride
Do you wanna ride? Hell, yes. If the Bay is the next South (and it is), then Mr. Ski is on the verge of blowing up. “Ride” borrows a bit of Laid Back’s “White Horse” (complete with background singers), but it comes off Cali cool instead of corny. Ski combines with CMT on a keyboard-laden beat that meets Oakland’s sinister slump requirements, yet manages to be club and radio friendly.
Psyche Origami Nuff Teef
Great beats, blazing cuts, clever, well-delivered rhymes and the cutest toddler sample since Aaliyah’s “Are You That Somebody?” combine to form “Nuff Teef.” Dueling DJs Synthesis and Dainja back up MC Wyzsztyk, who lets would-be biters know that they don’t have what it takes to chew it. On “Dead Right,” Wyzsztyk looks back and within over classical piano samples with even more stellar scratching from his DJs.
Ohmega Watts A Request
From the opening bassline and syncopated snares, you know that “A Request” is gonna get backfields in motion. Ohmega Watts spits his vigorous verbals over a pure feel-good funk track laid down by his band Lightheaded. On the extra smooth “Illuminate,” Watts is joined by fellow Pacific Northwest-siders Lifesavas, and on the midtempo “Wind It Up,” Ohmega takes a break and lets his band work out the soulful keys and bass grooves.
