Heavy Rotation 009: The Glitch Mob | Drink The Sea.

So I'm gonna make an effort to post more Heavy Rotation entries. I mean, I listen to music almost constantly; you'd think I could write about it more often ...

Of all the sub-genres of electronic music I've been dipping my ears into over the past decade, glitch-hop has become one of my favorites. Getting into it was easy. The sub-genre is pretty accessible to new ears and the sounds are essentially radio-friendly (interestingly enough, I hate writing that) -- at least compared to other permutations of IDM. Anyway It's been a minute since I've posted a Heavy Rotation entry, and while I was composing this one I halfway-remembered that I'd already written about The Glitch Mob before.

Drink The Sea was released this summer and it's been a fixture in my playlist ever since. Certain elements of the album sound very similar to Crush Mode, but I'm pleased with the direction of DTS as a whole. There's the familiar, creaky wonk of glitch, but I hear a subtle lushness to the production as well. The tracks flow into each other, giving the entire experience an expansive, epic feel. I've listened to the album during long drives, while running, getting ready to go out, and even as a backdrop at bedtime. My brother uses it as study music, even.

Swan

Two tracks that stand out for me are "Bad Wings" and "Between Two Points," the lyrics of which are below. I love the melody and the way Swan's voice is manipulated at key points in the song, blending it beautifully with the instrumentation.

The Glitch Mob - "Between Two Points (feat. Swan)"
Lyrics by S. Palermo

we’ve got forever
slippin through our hands
we’ve got more time
to never understand

falling footsteps
weighing heavy on me

behind darkness
beneath candles
whispers waltz
around our dreams

the shortest distance
between two points
is the line
from me to you

feet turning black
is this the path we must walk
no turning back
wish i could just hear you talk

can something like this be pulled
from under our feet
leaving our skin
and burning coals to meet

tell me now

the shortest distance
between two points
is the line
from me to you

The song is gorgeous. Actually, so's the whole album -- do yourself a favor and cop it. Oh yeah, if that wasn't enough, the FREE mixtape, featuring mash-ups with La Roux, Drake, Daft Punk, Mobb Deep, Jay-Z, etc., is pure flames as well. You're welcome.

Heavy Rotation 008: Cassette Kids | "Spin".

This is my song of the week. The video is three kinds of weird, but it's weird in a simple offbeat way.


It's so loud, we're so close
We are all about to lose control
And I, well I can feel it rushing up inside my mind
Everybody on your feet now

Heat rocks!!

Cassette Kids are a relatively new band from Australia, having formed in 2007. Their EP, We Are, made some noise down under and they've been making moves and touring ever since (they recently performed at SXSW in Austin). "Spin" just has a great energy to it that makes me think of a perfect boisterous night out with friends, culminating in a bangin' after-hours house party in an apartment overlooking a neon-tinged city skyline. This was just begging for someone to flip it -- so Russ Chimes' ridiculously dope house remix was extremely welcome blasting through my speakers. I've seriously had this joint on repeat for days. It's damn near therapeutic. You need to do the same.

Cassette Kids' debut album Nothing On TV will be released on 16 April 2010. And just 'cause I think it fits the feel of this entry for some reason, a photo.

[via]

Have a great weekend everyone. Let's spin some records.

PM Update 004: Most Recent Tracks.

Over the past week or so I joined two music sites to further supplement my already-ravenous appetite for music. You'll find links to my most recent tracks played on The Hype Machine and last.fm (yeaaah I know I'm extremely late on the second one, no excuses) in the sidebar. These are an excellent representation of what I'm listening to currently, since I've fallen off on posting regular Heavy Rotation entries. I've also added links to my profiles on both sites to the bottom of the page. Clicky clicky.

Enjoy the music. Any recommendations?

Heavy Rotation 007: Starsmith | The Remixes.

Okay so I've been slightly obsessed with electro-pop and dubstep for a few months now, scouring music blogs and sites for the latest wobble and synth to grace my noise-cancelling headphones. Both sub-genres have been bubbling for a minute, and it seems like they're really starting to accelerate and blow the f!ck up globally. There's a ton of artists and producers releasing quality material on the daily. And although I don't really check for Top 40 anymore, paradoxically enough I'm really feeling some dubstep and electro remixes of pop songs that caught fire on the Web (I mean, just type "electro" in the search box on The Hype Machine and see if I'm lying).

One electro-pop producer I'm excited about, however, is Starsmith [MySpace, Facebook]. A young cat hailing from London and freshly signed to Island, son is making significant noise in the scene. Having just completed Ellie Goulding's album (one of my favorite new British singers who no doubt deserves another Heavy Rotation post by herself), he's about to start working on his own project, but has done a grip of remixes under his belt that have to be heard.

No, really: You need to hear them.

So I took all the tracks I could find* from a handful of blogs, tagged them, zipped the whole thing up and now I'm sharing them with you. Before you do anything else today, grab Starsmith: The Remixes*.

Yeah, I couldn't help myself and made an album cover. Haha hopefully it's not that cheesy. Anyway here's a track listing:

1. Passion Pit - "Sleepyhead (feat. Ellie Goulding)"
2. Frankmusik - "Better Off As Two"
3. Katy Perry - "I Kissed A Girl"
4. Lisa Mitchell - "Coin Laundry"
5. Marina & The Diamonds - "I Am Not A Robot"
6. Paloma Faith - "New York"
7. Private - "My Secret Lover"
8. Lady Gaga - "Bad Romance"

Only eight songs deep at the moment, but all quality. Boom it out the speakers and push that "Repeat All" button. This is something different for your brain to nosh on -- something upbeat, springy and undeniably good -- and you won't go wrong with it. Thank me later.

*I know there are lots more out there, and according to his Facebook fan page at the time of this post, he just finished a Timbaland remix. I'll update the link when I get them for those who are interested.

Edit: Seems Mediafire took the link down. Ah well ... Google is your friend :)

Heavy Rotation 006: Esthero | Breath From Another.

Yeah. I know this album came out in 1998. I copped it a year later -- and Breath From Another has the unique distinction as being one of the very few albums to truly remain in heavy rotation in my headphones for over a decade. (In fact, I'm listening to it as I write this entry.) I knew basically nothing about Esthero at the time I bought the CD, but:

1. I was in the mood for more trip-hop/"electronica," being on that Sneaker Pimps/Mono/Hooverphonic tip back then; and
   
   
2. I absolutely loved the album cover design, minimalist as it was. It's gorgeous:

Something about this jewel of an album just succeeds in holding up over time and refuses to sound dated. I really wouldn't classify Breath From Another as a "trip-hop" record; the overall mixture ends up being much more than that. Borrowing influences from a myriad of genres, Esthero never overindulges, but uses them more like vitamin supplements for her own style of music. The tracks flow together without blurring into each other, possessing different moods and emotions, and giving you an oddly satisfying sense of completeness after the last song. The result is that I can play Breath From Another from beginning to end each and every time I cue it up, with zero skips. That being said, I can't say that I have any favorite songs on the album; it's clichéd, but to me, having a favorite would mean neglecting the other tracks. With this LP, that's not going to happen.


Check back with me in 2020. I guarantee you this'll still be getting major spins out of my speakers.

Heavy Rotation 005: Sade | Lovers Rock.

[Inspired by the fact that a new Sade album is supposed to drop late this year.]

Please dig the Clear Channel wax out of your ears for a few minutes and marinate in this:



Timeless, classy and sexy. Although I knew a couple of people who disliked Lovers Rock (one friend of mine thought that "the snares hit too hard") when it dropped back in 2000, I thought it was a great way for Sade to reintroduce herself since releasing Love Deluxe eight years before. They were probably expecting Love Deluxe 2 or something, and truthfully if she'd come out with another LP with the exact same sound as the one popularized by, say, "Cherish The Day", I probably would've copped it off general principle. Say word.

Lovers Rock is undoubtedly a Sade album though. I have no idea how many initial songs she originally had to whittle down to the final eleven that made the cut, but the joints that did make it are damn near flawless. Influences range from roots reggae, a little rock, folk and even some slight hip-hop nuances -- but the overall mood of the record retains the "quiet storm" feeling familiar to any Sade fan. It possesses an intangibly cool, layered sensibility that modern R&B/soul "divas" would do well to try to emulate.

Actually, they shouldn't. I don't want any Sade Lite clones running around and cluttering up the music scene anymore than it already is. So fire up last.fm or Pandora and spin some Lovers Rock. You need a little Sade in your life.

FYI: "Somebody Already Broke My Heart" is the cut!

Heavy Rotation 004: Rontronik | Radio:Rontronik Broadcast 1 (Permanent Midnight).

You know that time of night when it's too way late and way too early at the same time?  Like around 3:30-4:00am and you don't know whether to throw in the towel or just stick it out and catch the dawn suicidal-vampire style, and there's that irritatingly eerie silence that's just begging to be crushed out with a precise, fine-tuned mixture of ear candy?  That was last weekend for me.  Owing to my weekend rotation, I stayed in like a good little boy and, having nothing better to do, dug around in my exponentially-growing collection of music blogs for something to soothe the nocturnal quiet and please my soul.

Good news, My Peoples.  I found a gem.

Rontronik (website, blog) is an NYC-based "digital DJ/producer/sound designer" well-versed in the arts of IDM (intelligence dance music).  Since I really can't describe it too well myself, Wikipedia informs us that the genre

is influenced by a wide range of musical styles particularly electronic dance music such as Detroit Techno. Stylistically, IDM tends to rely upon individualistic experimentation rather than on a particular set of musical characteristics. The range of post-techno styles to emerge in the early 1990s were described variously as art techno, ambient techno, intelligent techno, and electronica.

Vague enough for you?  Yeah I couldn't really wrap my head around that either, but mainly 'cause it was like 4:12 in the morning.  But I digress.

Rontronik describes his particular flavor of music as abstract electronica.  To get a taste, download and immerse yourself in Radio Rontronik: Broadcast 1 (Permanent Midnight), a mixtape that I can only describe as a glitchy, aggressive cat-walk down a humid city block clogged with steamy taxis, uninhibited bar-hoppers, pseudo-hipsters and people in dirty hoodies who try to cram neon-splashed afterparty flyers down your gullet. It's "dark and dubstep tinged with a few surprises thrown in, Rontronik style."  The dubstep is actually what caught my eye/ear, and this joint definitely does not disappoint.



The wobbly, funky-ass dubstep remix of Sister Nancy's "Bam Bam" is fire!  Needless to say, silence was effectively vanquished in my humble home and before I knew it, it was daytime.  Fuuuuuck.

"Sound designer"?  I'd have to agree a hundred-plus percent.  Cop this.

Heavy Rotation 003: Goapele | "Milk & Honey".

I'm sorry, but this song just ... freaking ... hits.



I'm really feeling the video too.  The images and colors are invitingly warm and fit the music like ... uh, milk and honey.  Loving the drums and synths ... so lush.  I've been a fan of Goapele's voice for a minute now, and I'm not even mad at the Auto-Tune, 'cause she doesn't overdo it and it works with the track.

Just lay back, relax, let me blow your mind ...

I could hear this joint bumping out some big-ass speakers at 3am in the red-lit basement of some chill house party, smoke in the air, bottles and glasses clinking.  On the real, a perfect late night summer song.

I need more.  Someone let me know if there are any remixes floating around, but damn if this version isn't sick.

Heavy Rotation 002: The Glitch Mob | Crush Mode.

Can I get a late pass?

I stumbled onto The Glitch Mob by happy accident a couple weeks ago, via a software-related question in Ask Metafilter (kinda like Yahoo Answers, only a hundred times less ignorant). I'd only heard about "glitch" in passing, and knew that it was a subgenre of electronica, but had never took it upon myself to explore and listen to any of it.

Unsurprisingly, there are several types of glitch, the most interesting to me being "glitch hop" which is:

... marked by the DSP laden sonic tapestry and twitchiness of glitch with a more hip-hop style framework. The beat tends to follow hip-hop's break-derived conventions, falling into a range between 85-100 bpm. Instead of using just traditional drum kits, glitch hop's "nerdified drums" are augmented with clicks, bent circuits, and sometimes the cut up vocals of the MC.

Whoa, okay. It sounded like an interesting mash-up of stuff that I already liked. Since I was in the mood to try out some new sounds anyway, curiosity found me on The Glitch Mob's website downloading their free mixtape, Crush Mode.



Soooo I think I've found my new Friday/Saturday night soundtrack for the next month. Not for the faint of heart or eardrum, this album taunts -- no, dares -- you not to blast it. Over the course of twelve seamlessly-blended tracks, Crush Mode smashes your senses with a barrage of aggressive bangers that wouldn't seem out of place in some underground nightclub movie scene. Not that this is trendy hipster music -- these joints bleed a combo of testosterone and vodka, and I'm pretty sure they would probably complement your choice of uppers for the night quite nicely.

But even without a little baggie of amphetamines, the album does its job like a champ. Be forewarned: These are bass-heavy automatic headnodders tailor-made for pre-funking at home, and close-quarter bouncing in the whip on the way to the spot to get your drunken pop-lock on. Cop this music, because Crush Mode does just that: It kicks you in the grill, spikes your drink and frankly, doesn't give a damn. The funny thing is, you'll be saying hell yeah right along with it.

Heavy Rotation 001: Emily Wells | The Symphonies: Dreams Memories & Parties.

Emily Wells is ill. Check out her on-the-fly sampling skillz:



She doesn't have a Wikipedia page yet (although she deserves one), but here's an excerpt from a bio she wrote on her MySpace page:

I love rap music and Vivaldi. Nina Simone and Biggie Smalls make my world go round.

I do a lot of live sampling and looping in an attempt to bring the studio to the stage. All the live looping is like a sporting event, or keeping the first take of every recording. I could fall off the balance beam ... which makes it all so much more exciting.

[In 2008] I released my latest work, The Symphonies: Dreams Memories & Parties, which consists of 10 songs heavily influenced by classical music and hip hop production.

Critics have called her music "electronic folk" and "classically-based pop" which seem both appropriate and yet not quite accurate. Like much of the music that's being produced today, it's a creative hybrid of genres that defies any typical definition. (Her interview on NPR is a great listen, shedding more light on the development of her musical style.) Wells' melodies are brooding, melancholy and unmistakably catchy. The violin she plays throughout Symphonies complements and weaves around her unusual voice (sometimes she sounds like a funkier early Nelly Furtado, if that were even possible).

Hell, if Kanye hadn't come up with the title already, she could have called her latest album 808s & Heartbreak and it would've fit. The production on Symphonies is just as creative. Fortunately, there's neither self-pity nor Auto-Tune to be found anywhere on the album.

Short and sweet, The Symphonies: Dreams Memories & Parties clocks in at almost 37 minutes, but the brief detour into Emily Wells' world is absolutely worth it. This joint has been on heavy rotation in my apartment for the past couple of days and is still offering little surprises here and there that require a closer listen the next time around. If she ever comes to Kansas City, I'd definitely be in the audience.

So don't sleep on this.