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“Partnering hip-hop artists with charitable causes is nothing that I made up… but they’re infrequently covered by the media, perhaps, unless they’re related to a tragedy.” – Dessa

“Pop music shouldn’t always get a bad rap,” says Top Pops!, a recurring selection of pop music highlights across a selection of styles, updated throughout every month to bring you the best of the funk. +++ FULL POST + TOP POPS! COLUMNS + ALL MUSIC COLUMNS   James Blake – “Retrograde” James Blake is back with Overgrown on April 8th. Embedding this is a tricky feat — as the last time I embedded a James Blake track with the following review, UMG scolded us and demanded the video’s removal — but nonetheless, here it is, for all of your soulful listening desires. Slight electronic texturing still exists here — he hasn’t given himself up completely, certainly — but this is [...]

Aural Devastation is a regular column about heavy music. Here are some favorites from 2012, beginning with relatively structured songs and descending into the chaotic.   Baroness – “EULA” from Yellow & Green + ENTIRE RECORD STREAM As the last song on the Yellow Album, “EULA” had an interesting job, as it needed to take the listener from the harder sounds of Baroness into the more straight-up progressive rock edge of Green Album. Baroness knocked it out of the park with their attempt, as “EULA” is one of the better songs in their entire catalog. – PETER WOODBURN   Black Breath – “Feast of the Damned” from Sentenced to Life The opening track off of Black Breath’s mind-mashing 2012 album, [...]

“Pop music shouldn’t always get a bad rap,” says Top Pops!, a recurring selection of pop music highlights across a selection of styles. This round-up list includes our favorite pop tracks from 2012, listed in a spectrum from the chillest to the grooviest to the danciest.   Chromatics – “Into The Black” (Neil Young Cover) DOWNLOAD MP3 Well yeah, I’m a sucker for a good Neil Young cover. – JUDY NELSON   Night Moves – “Headlights” from Colored Emotions This track from Night Moves reminds me of Portugal. The Man’s Americana and psych rock blend on The Satanic Satanist. The questioning of personal comforts (“I just don’t know who I am”) mixed with gentle falsetto mantras (“It’s alright”) bring the [...]

“Pop music shouldn’t always get a bad rap,” says Top Pops!, a recurring selection of pop music highlights across a selection of styles. Dreamy sounds get unique filters through the eyes of sensational pop artist Beca, indie R&B-influenced BE/\R//FVCE, and doo-wop youngster Kirby Kaiser. SEE ALSO +++ FULL POST + ALL TOP POP COLUMNS + ALL MUSIC COLUMNS   Beca Beca caught our eye earlier this year with her single and music video for “Fall Into Light” (see our interview with Beca and the music video directors). The lady is now back with “Born To Fly”, which features sensual percussive rhythms that balance out breathy, feminine vocals, the combination of which lies somewhere between babymaking R&B material and water-cruising audio-oasis. [...]

Bleep is a column focusing on varying degrees of electronic music news, videos and MP3s. In this post, Kitsune shows off disco house singles from Gigamesh and Plastic Plates, and we quickly look at the John Talabot and Pional collaborations from earlier this year. ++ SEE: FULL POST + BLEEP POSTS or MUSIC COLUMNS Gigamesh In “Don’t Stop”, featuring Jana Nyberg, American producer Gigamesh pairs lyrics about speediness and constantly being on the run with a retro-futuristic video featuring some truly explosive footage from Death Race 2000. Centered around sex, hip architecture, and race tracks, the video manages to montage a fully sexy portrait of forward-thinking disco music. His latest EP release, All My Life, has just been released on [...]