Music

                          In an industry full of people ready to jump ship to the latest fad, so deliriously sheeplike in their estranged convictions to remain the most unique, cutting edge and counter culture, it’s awfully refreshing to have artists like Monster Rally & RUMTUM remain so steadfast in their musical conviction. On their second release this year, following the excellent debut collaboration MR&RT in February, these two worldly beat makers have once again come together to compose a collage of Caribbean aesthetics and hip-hop inspired beats. Coasting is a reference to both Ted Feighan and John Hasting, better known as Monster Rally and RUMTUM respectively, having moved to 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. [...]

It has been a decade since Godspeed You! Black Emperor released Yanqui U.X.O., and since then the musical landscape has changed quite a bit. As a new generation of music lovers have grown up with the concept that music is free, and the people making it are entertainers in a vaudeville-like act, bands have been forced to find new and interesting ways to release physical albums that will make fans want to buy them In this day and age where all news makes it to Twitter whether or not it is even news, it is tough to actually pull a surprise on anyone. The internet makes it near impossible — yet that is exactly what GY!BE did with their latest [...]

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 [...]

In this bi-lingual Japanese and English interview, Jon Barthmus of Sun Airway and Takayuki Nakazawa, art director and designer for Japanese art collective NAM, offer their perspectives on designing an album cover together.

SPECTRAL HYPNOSIS is a recurring series, featuring mesmerizing songs for one to lose sense of time and space, mind and body. This post highlights only one musician and one release, with Mind Over Mirrors‘ Check Your Swing. SEE ALSO: ALL SPECTRAL HYPNOSIS POSTS + ALL COLUMNS   The moniker of Chicago musician Jaime Fennelly’s Mind Over Mirrors seems to contain a philosophical idea that hints at a mind’s ultimate “victory” over experiences in a world of mirrors and illusion. Yet at the same time, such an idea inherently contains a philosophical flaw if viewed logically; for what, truly, is “mind”, and what is experiencing the illusion if not for the mind? Steeped in analog and digital drones from a harmonium [...]

A generally daunting experience, CMJ Music Marathon hosts an extremely wide range of bands over the course of 5 days in NYC. To those who attempt to tackle this festival, the lineup can seem overwhelming. One advantage to being a 10-year CMJ veteran is that you not only know to have a strategy; you can put it all in perspective. And it’s good to have a basis for comparison, too. From year to year to year, CMJ has progressed, in both good ways and bad. While my first few years felt completely daunting, the past few have felt manageable. There weren’t so many bands that both my CMJ partner-in-crime Devorah and I were initially excited about, but that’s the thrill [...]

Remix City sifts through mountains of remix trash so you don’t have to, in an attempt to find those that contribute something original to their originals. Indie rockers Breton get a tranced out remix by Busy P and Trent Reznor‘s How To Destroy Angels gets a minimal track minimally reworked again by Dave Sitek. You can stream the entire new An Omen EP from HTDA as well. ++ SEE ALL: REMIX CITY POSTS – MUSIC COLUMNS – FULL POST   Breton + Busy P French electrohouse producer (and manager of Daft Punk and Justice, amongst other things) Busy P builds on Breton’s “Governing Correctly” with a bass-driven expansion upon the more straight-laced, vocal-driven rock band original. The track’s trancey potentials [...]

2012 marked the 16th anniversary of United States of Consciousness (USC)’s annual Halloween party, Freak Night. One of Seattle’s premiere electronic music massives, Freak Night has seen multiple venue changes through the years, beginning in spaces like indoor soccer fields (1998)1 and floating to and from miscellaneous warehouse and events spaces like Fremont Studios (2006)2. Yet these days, it always seems to end up back at its most high-profile venue, WaMu Theatre in Seattle’s SoDo neighborhood. WaMu Theater, formerly known as the Exhibition Hall, houses Freak Night’s multiple rooms comfortably, with a layout and configuration that seems to change from year to year as the event grows and shrinks accordingly to industry flux. And now, with electronic dance music (EDM) [...]

“Pop music shouldn’t always get a bad rap,” says Top Pops!, a recurring selection of pop music highlights across a selection of styles. Emil & Friends return with their signature indie electro sound and Spain’s Cocolixe groove. SEE ALSO +++ FULL POST + ALL TOP POP COLUMNS + ALL MUSIC COLUMNS   Emil & Friends Emil & Friends’ last two releases, 2011′s Lo & Behold and 2010′s Downed Economy EP, have been reliable releases year after year. This year’s short five-track EP (with two tracks and three remixes) does not pack quite the same punch, but the track below, “Internal Affairs” is veritably Emil & Friends, in the best of groovy and swaggery ways. You can also hear a minimix [...]