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Steve Aoki Gives N.A.S.A. the Remix Treatment on “Gifted”

Posted in Audio, Downloads, Music News with tags , , , , , , , , on Thursday, May 7, 2009 by Erik Burg

      N.A.S.A‘s more than audacious project of an album Spirt of Apollo has been polarizing to this point. It’s not quite a hip-hop album, it’s not quite the electro album it tries to be at points either. 

      Here is where doctor Steve Aoki steps in to cure the problem. Taking what is arguably the album’s best track “Gifted” featuring Kanye West, Santogold, and Lykke Li, Aoki gives the song a strong does of banging electro medicine. Turning many of the choruses into mashed-up tweaked-out bass-ladened masterpieces, Aoki delivers once again. I’ve heard endless amounts of Aoki production, mixes, and remixes already, but I have to say that this might be his strongest to date. 

steve-aoki-crowd

      Aoki is able to make “Gifted” sound like it was always this dirty European techno track, going back and listening to the original is almost a let down knowing that it never reaches the peak that Aoki takes it to in this remix. If you enjoy anything in this line of work, it’s worth checking out for sure. Enjoy!

N.A.S.A.- Gifted (Feat. Kanye West, Santogold, Lykke Li) Steve Aoki Remix

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Simian Mobile Disco Drop Info On New Album + Two New Tracks

Posted in Audio, Music News, Video with tags , , , , , , , on Wednesday, May 6, 2009 by Erik Burg

      In a year dominated by releases of heavyweights Animal Collective and Grizzly Bear, the London duo of James Ford and James Shaw are aiming to dethrone the likes of said bands and steal the show with their new album Temporary Pleasure. Simian Mobile Disco‘s debut album Attack Sustain Decay Release in 2007 was a bit lost amongst the shuffle thanks to electro monsters Justice, but anybody who took the time to listen to it found a gem of an album. The album combined deep deep bass lines with some Simian-like pop vocals and synths patterns that simply can’t be matched.

      So if Attack and SMD’s various remixes are any indication, Temporary Pleasure will surely be a fan favorite again this year and hopefully propelling them into the spotlight much like what what Cross was able to do for the aforementioned Parisian duo. But this time around they’ve thrown a little extra pizzaz into the album, enlisting tons of guest spots on the tracks. Highlights include the likes of Mind Inversion favorite Yeasayer, Alexis Taylor of Hot Chip, and Jamie Lidell. The cameo I’m most interested in hearing, simply do to the risk/reward aspect of it, is Telepathe on the closing track. The female duo (how many times am I going to use that word in this column) that make up the ghostly Telepathe were terrible live, yet terrific on record. 

smd

       Temporary Pleasure will be released August 17th in the UK on Witchita Records, but SMD have been kind enough to release two of the tracks (unfortunately neither of which feature a guest) already via video. The videos aren’t exactly normal videos though, the tracks are set to live visual backing for each and feature tons of lighting patterns set to the bass and synth hits. Think Windows Media Player on crack. I highly recommend the HD version is you’re running a nice computer. Be excited people… Be very excited.

Temporary Pleasure:

01 Cream Dream [ft. Gruff Rhys]
02 Audacity of Huge [ft. Chris Keating] 
03 10000 Horses Can’t Be Wrong 
04 Cruel Intentions [ft. Beth Ditto] 
05 Off the Map [ft. Jamie Lidell] 
06 Synthesise 
07 Bad Blood [ft. Alexis Taylor] 
08 Turn Up The Dial [ft. Young Fathers] 
09 Ambulance 
10 Pinball [ft. Telepathe]

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Fleet Foxes release “Mykonos” 7″ and plan tour dates

Posted in Audio, Concert Dates, Downloads, Music News with tags , , , , , , , on Tuesday, May 5, 2009 by Erik Burg

robin-pecknold     The beloved folk-pop group Fleet Foxes have already toured once in support of their chart topping 2008 release of the same name, and now they’re sketching out some more dates for this summer as well.

     The tour is fairly scattered, including many festival dates both here and across the pond, but the boys were nice enough to squeeze in a First Avenue show on August 9. Tickets are on sale now for $22 (get them here). If you’re a fan of their records at all they are certainly worth seeing live, when I had the chance to see them at Pitchfork last year the acoustics of an outdoor setting didn’t bog them down at all, and they still sounded amazing. So I know I’m certianly excited for a more intimate setting, but if you’re a big festival goer there are plenty of chances to see them at these fine gatherings:

5-25 Sasquatch

6-23 Hove Festival

6-26 Glastonbury 

7-31 All Points West

8-07 Lollapalooza 

     Fleet Foxes released a new single today as well. The “Mykonos” 7″ features the awesome “False Knight On The Road” on the Bfleetfoxes_mykonos2side. MP3s of False Knight have been floating around on the web for a while now, but here it gets a well deserved official release. “False Knight On The Road” is well worth the purchase, the echoing vocals recorded mostly by frontman Rob Pecknold are much more in line with his or fellow Fox’s J. Tillman solo projects, but the song could have just as easily appeared on their self-titled group debut. If you’re broke though, or out a record player, check the MP3 below for what you’re missing. Enjoy!

Fleet Foxes – “False Knight On The Road”

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The Cool Kids release two new tracks in anticipation of new mixtape

Posted in Audio, Downloads, Music News with tags , , , , , , , on Friday, May 1, 2009 by Erik Burg

The indie friendly hip-hop stars Mikey Rocks and Chuck Inglish have been busy since their stellar Bake Sale EP release in 2008. With the release of the That’s Stupid Mixtape the same year in conjunction with a tour, and now they’re working on their second studio album When Fish Ride Bicycles slated for release later this year. But they’ve got another project ready to drop this week. The Gone Fishing Mixtape will be released Monday May 4th on Cake Recordings.

gone-fishing

The tape was produced and performed along side their long time friend Don Cannon, and the two singles that they leaked today display some of their best work to date. “Champions” shows some of the Cool Kids most interesting production to date, adding tons of fuzzed out and over the top bass lines to the usual snare kicks that they’ve perfected by now. I absolutely love this track, the way that the chorus bangs is absolutely unreal. Maybe it’s not quite as smooth as some of their other material and a little bit more of what some people would call “mainstream” but it’s still awesome. The other single, “Popcorn” is a lot more in line with their other material. Some really good samples and some really smooth vocals. It’s always a good mix for Mikey and Chuck.

The Cool Kids – “Champions”

The Cool Kids – “Popcorn”

So grab the MP3s and check their blog Monday to download the whole Gone Fishing Mixtape!

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Cave In ends hiatus and prepares 2009 EP for release

Posted in Music News with tags , , , , , on Wednesday, April 29, 2009 by Ryan Buege

An official statement from Cave In reads:

“After 3 1/2 long years, Cave In has decided to end its hiatus. Please join us for an EP release show at Great Scott’s (1222 Commonwealth Ave., Allston MA) on Sunday, July 19th @ 9PM. Also playing will be our friends Disappearer and Phantom Glue. Copies of the Planets Of Old limited 12″ (recorded by Adam Taylor, Alex Hartman & Johnny Northrup @ Camp St. Studio) from Hydra Head Records will be available that night.

We hope to see your lovely selves.

Steve, Adam, J.R., Caleb
CAVE IN”

Hell yes! I knew it would be long (seriously, this band sounds too awesome live to be separated forever). The visionary indie/space/hardcore/roc/metal legends are back and it’s good to see that J.R. Connors is in the saddle for the ride.

Expect a preoder of Planets Of Old to be up on Hydra Head’s online store any time now..

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My life has been sucked away

Posted in Audio, Concert Dates, Downloads, Music News, Video with tags , , , , , , , , , , on Wednesday, April 29, 2009 by Erik Burg

Okay so I have been and will continue to be basically incommunicato for the next week. 18 credits the week before finals and 30 a week at work will do that to you. The music world, sadly, goes on without me. But here is a round-up of various ongoing over the past few days.

1. Calvin Harris remixes Passion Pits new single “The Reeling”

2. White Denim released a new track entitled “Mirrored and Reverse”

White Denim – “Mirrored and Reverse”

3. Phoenix gets remixed twice. Once by Classixx another adding a Dub. They play this tour date (be there): 06/23 Minneapolis, MN @ Varsity

Phoenix – “1901 (Ivan Beck Dub)”

4. I have to give two presentations now. Hope you enjoy! See you in a week!

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Apparently Clipse aren’t bullshittin’…

Posted in Music News with tags , , on Tuesday, April 28, 2009 by Tim Althaus

brothers-thortonMalice & Pusha T aren’t kidding when they talk about birds, pies, or any coke reference for that matter. Apparently the ex-manager for Clipse has been indicted on charges of leading a $10 million drug ring. According to the article at HipHop DX, Anthony Gonzalez has been running the drug ring mostly out of his club Encore Lounge in Virginia.

The article goes on to say that Gonzalez has pushed over a ton of marijuana and one hundred pounds of cocaine since 2003. Even though his operation is out of Virginia, his operation has supposedly reached as far as South America. The indictment on the individuals involved claims that,  “the people that were involved put themselves in the position of music producers, rappers, entrepreneurs, club owners, clothing designers and other legitimate occupations to conceal their real identity”.

Gonzalez was the manager for the Brothers Thornton up until 2006. Clipse has still not publicly commented on the issue. They are currently managed by Steven Victor.

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De La Soul to release new album with Nike tomorrow

Posted in Music News with tags , , , on Monday, April 27, 2009 by Tim Althaus

de-la-soul2According to an article over at HipHop DX, De La Soul will be releasing their first full album in five years partnering with Nike to release Are You In? The Hip-Hop pioneers will be releasing the 44-minute workout album tomorrow (April 28th) via Nike’s label SportMusic. Apparently the folks over at Nike promote creativity and meshing of minds. The guys in De La said that’s the main reason why they chose Nike’s SportMusic to release their album instead of a major or independent label.

I can assure you that this is going to be one workout album that you are going to want to have on your iPod. In addition to this album, the article mentioned that De La is in the lab working on another full length, as well as touring Australia & Europe. You can pick up Are You In? on iTunes tomorrow 4/28/2009.

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Xasthur’s All Reflections Drained LP prepared for May release

Posted in Music News with tags , , , , on Friday, April 24, 2009 by Ryan Buege

Xasthur

Underground ambient US black metal entity Xasthur has finished putting together the All Reflections Drained LP that has been recorded throughout 2007 and 2008 (with M.H. as guest vocalist), and Hydrahead is now prepared to release the album on May 26th in 2xLP, 2xCD, and even as a cassette tape. As with all Hydrahead releases, the packaging is looking very impressive for the vinyl with cover art from Tim Lehi and photography by Faith Coloccia – the 2xCD is encased in a DVD style digipack and features a second disc of bonus material, including alternate versions, unreleased material, and several covers. Knowing how reclusive Xasthur’s Malefic (Scott Connor) is, I didn’t expect that we’d get to hear much from the release before Hydrahead officially sent it out, but thankfully there has been some media uploaded from the release. If you’re in the mood for new Xasthur, head over to the newly launched, HH-run MySpace Preview page for the release here to listen to all but two songs from the All Reflections Drained!

1. Dirge Forsaken (5:38) – LISTEN
2. Maze Of Oppression (5:12) – LISTEN
3. Achieve Emptiness Part II (4:56) – LISTEN
4. Masquerade Of Incisions (15:30)
5. Damage Your Soul (4:50) – LISTEN
6. Inner Sanctum Surveillance (6:58) – LISTEN
7. Obfuscated In Oblivion (5:22) – LISTEN>
8. All Reflections Drained (7:44)

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Of Montreal debut two new songs, continue covers rampage

Posted in Audio, Music News, Video with tags , , , , , , on Thursday, April 23, 2009 by Erik Burg

kevin-barnes Of Montreal continue their romp through the world of covers. Though my favorite to this point is either “Day Man” from It’s Always Sunny or “Melody Day” by Caribou, this cut of The Beatles White Album classic “I’m So Tired” is pretty great. 

 

Check out their entire cover archive at You Ain’t No Picasso

Performed in-studio for 90.7 WFUV, Kevin Barnes and friends strip the song down just a little bit but build to an ending that’s just as sentimental as the original song. I’ve been a huge fan of nearly all OM’s acoustic studio tracks in this nature (including the awesome tracks they did for The Current here in Minneapolis). Barnes’ unique voice and styling has a way of shining even more than on record in this format which is pleasing to note, along with his awesome scarf-glasses combo which he probably has patented by now. 

And if you missed it earlier in the week, Of Montreal played a few new tracks at the Music Hall of Williamsburg as well. It’s live, so yeah the audio isn’t perfect, but what is for certain is that OM hasn’t missed a beat since Skeletal Lamping. The tracks are little bit more rock-ish than anything they’ve done to this point, but it all seems a natural progression if you listen to their last two or three albums. They can do no wrong for me, especially after seeing them on their off-the-wall tour this fall. Enjoy!

Of Montreal – “Like a Tourist”

Of Montreal – “Conquet Coquet”

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