Muzjiks

A Gift

2011-08-07T21:13:00.000-04:00

Here is a cleaned up, organized version of the aforementioned Bon Iver show. Nifty cover art, done by yours truly, included. Enjoy!

Bon Iver | 9:30 Club [8.3.11]

2011-08-03T12:24:00.008-04:00

Last night, I made my first visit to the DC indie rock mecca, the 9:30 Club. Oh, and I might add, seeing the second of two sold-out Bon Iver shows, was not a bad way to start. Justin Vernon and the ever-expanding cast of the Bon Iver road crew blasted through the majority of their recently release Bon Iver, Bon Iver and reworked some favorites from the campfire, freak-folk staple food For Emma, Forever Ago.

Around the internet are reviews of both shows from the sold out stint at the 9:30 Club written with universal acclaim, even giddiness. Though, each reviewer cites a different facet of the show that pushed it over the top. Whether it was Vernon's noise solos during the coda of some favorites or the choice it bring along 2 drummers, every aspect contributed to an incredibly round show.

What made the show hold so strongly for me was the complexity and roundness of these arrangements. Each tune, especially the more sprawling of the like from the new record, benefited from incredibly detailed arrangements. The subtlety of the rapidly evolving brass and winds (every band member seemed to be able to play every instrument in the western hemisphere) the intricate, interlocking rhythms of the percussion "section," and the sheer beauty of Vernon's falsetto created a sum that well outweighed its parts.

The sound of this show will stay with me for quite some time. Lucky enough for me (and you) is that our good friends at NPR Music were there to record the spectacle and nice enough to host the performance on their site. A wonderful, wonderful parting gift, indeed. Listen here.

Set List

Perth
Minnesota, WI
Towers
Holocene
Creature Fear
Flume
Hinnom, TX
Wash.
Brackett, WI
Blood Bank
Who Is It (Bjork cover)
Re: Stacks
Calgary
Wolves (Act I and II)

ENCORE:
Skinny Love
Beth/Rest
For Emma

Oh, and don't be a shit head at your next hyper-sensitive local beard fest.

Wet Hot Capital Summer

2011-08-03T12:19:00.003-04:00

I have not posted since getting to DC as part of my stint with Future of Music Coalition. In the last few months, I have gone to some incredible shows, and listened to some incredible records. In an effort to share this with you, I will be documenting my experience in the District with a series of posts going back to the beginning of this sticky Mid-Atlantic summer. Recaps will be in the not-so-distant future.

Thank you and all the best.

DW | TB

3/17 Broadcast: Posthumous Swag

2011-03-23T07:08:00.003-04:00

PLAYLIST

1. Drums and Tuba: Tobalino

2. Thom Yorke/Four Tet/Burial: Mirror

3. Musiq Soulchild: Money Right

4. My Morning Jacket: Golden

5. 213: I'm Fly

6. The Strokes: 12.51

7. Jim Gaffigan on Bowling

8. Animal Collective: Daily Routine (Phaseone Remix)

9. Local Natives: Wide Eyes (Fool's Gold Remix)

3/10 Broadcast: I'm A Unicorn And He's A Table

2011-03-11T12:06:00.002-05:00

**NOTE: Fool's gold is pyrite, not cubic zirconia. Cubic zirconia is fake diamond. Steven has the IQ of a snail.

Playlist

1. TV on the Radio: Caffeinated Consciousness

2. Yuck: Suicide Policeman

3. Alex Clare: Relax My Beloved

4. One.Be.Lo: Enecs Eht No Kcab

5. Frank Ocean: There Will Be Tears

6. Earl Sweatshirt: FYC x Gruzen

7. Curren$y: Audio Dope II

8. Britney Spears: Till the World Ends (*Steven's mistake*)

9. Patton Oswalt on "Death Bed"

10. Battles: Race : In

Welcome to The Unicorn Ranch

2011-03-09T16:28:00.005-05:00

Apart from the weekly show I do with Danny Weiss from 10-11 PM on Thursday, I (Steven Hummel) am now doing my own solo show every Tuesday from 10-11 PM on WALT. Unfortunately, for the time being, you can only listen live if you're on the Davidson College network, but all shows will be uploaded here thereafter for the international audience's listening pleasure. So far, there have been two episodes, which are detailed below. In the future, you can find the archive on the right sidebar. As always, I sincerely appreciate your support and readership.

Episode 1 (Download)
1. Desto: Gremlinz
2. Jam City: Magic Drops
3. MellowHype (ft. Earl Sweatshirt & Wolf Haley): Chordaroy
4. CyHi da Prynce: Ring Bellz
5. Sugar Glyder: Sleepless We Seem
6. Skepta (ft. N-Dubz): So Alive

Episode 2 (Download)
**NOTE: I was an idiot and didn't turn the mic on for the introduction, so that's why you hear the intro song cut right into "Novacane."
1. Frank Ocean: Novacane
2. La Roux: Bulletproof (Nacey Remix)
3. TV on the Radio: Will Do
4. Tyler, the Creator tells a joke
5. MellowHype (ft. Domo Genesis): Brain
6. Michael Caine impersonations on The Trip
7. Sugar Glyder: Sans Matador
8. Comedian Bill Burr on obese kids
9. Kanye West: I Wonder
10. Estelle (ft. Cee-Lo): Pretty Please (Love Me)
11. jj: STILL
12. Grouplove: Naked Kids

Explanation + Update

2011-02-25T06:46:00.001-05:00

What happened? Where did Muzjiks go? In short, Muzjiks returned from winter break and got its ass kicked by college. It's still here, it's still evolving, it's still producing content and staying on the bleeding edge of what's hot in the world of music—it's just happening beneath the surface. Muzjiks is in no way abandoned; in fact, it's still embryonic, as far as I'm concerned. Here's what's on tap (in roughly chronological order):

change from muzjiksradio.com domain to muzjiks.com domain (something I'd wanted to do since the site's inception)
in-depth Odd Future piece in the vein of my Kanye West piece in terms of scope
new logo with an eventual redesign/overhaul to come this summer
maintaining regular broadcasts and podcasts of both MuzjiksFM and my solo show, The Unicorn Ranch (more info on that to come in the near future)
overall, more exhaustive coverage of daily news with lengthier features mixed in

In the meantime, please bear with me and don't delete that Muzjiks bookmark—just update it when the switch over to muzjiks.com happens.

As always, I appreciate your continued readership.

Steven

2/15/11 Broadcast

2011-02-25T06:29:00.001-05:00

PLAYLIST

1. TV on the Radio: Dry Drunk Emperor

2. Earl Sweatshirt: Molliwopped

3. Sugar Glyder: The Work (And What May Come)

4. Thom Yorke: Atoms for Peace

5. CyHi da Prynce: Top of the World

6. Atlas Sound: Shelia

7. The Slip: Airplane/Primitive

8. Tommy Emmanuel: Amazing Grace

2/1/11 Broadcast

2011-02-02T19:58:00.003-05:00

Playlist
1. Gemmy: Supligen
2. Led Zeppelin: Going to California
3. James Blake: Unluck
4. Wilco: Wishful Thinking
5. EarlWolf: Orange Juice
6. Steve Reich: Electric Counterpoint
7. Steve Reich: Music for 18 Musicians
8. Squarepusher/AFX: Freeman Hardy & Willis Acid
9. Noisia: Alpha Centauri (Excision & Datsik Remix)
10. Radiohead: Worrywort

Sugar Glyder Continues Ascent With 'Lovers'

2011-01-29T20:15:00.016-05:00

Although surely not the most boring day in history (that woeful honor goes to April 11, 1954), August 4, 2010, was still rather unremarkable. Weather was seasonably warm across the country. The stock market behaved in its characteristic downtrending manner. No one particularly notable died, nor were there any noteworthy news stories that day. But that night on the corner of 32^nd Street and 7^th Avenue, Arcade Fire played a packed Madison Square Garden and a clogged (the Internet is a series of tubes, mind you) online live YouTube audience in support of their long-awaited Neon Bible followup, The Suburbs. The same Win Butler blog heartthrob who brought Merge Records its greatest record since the mythic In the Aeroplane Over the Sea with Funeral was performing in one of the most storied American venues this side of Radio City. No longer was this Canadian collective a Montreal secret. If it hadn't happened already, then August 4, 2010, surely marked Arcade Fire's arrival as a bona fide arena rock band. Like Kings of Leon before them, Arcade Fire had successfully risen from obscurity and indiehood to the mainstream—and accomplished the feat largely on the quality of their music alone. This was no corporate force-feeding by way of ClearChannel airwave saturation; rather, this was a direct result of old-fashioned good music winning over the ears of the masses.

Arcade Fire's music is of the variety that sounds at home reverberating off the walls of spacious venues; that begs to be echoed by a choir of frenzied concertgoers; that requires a space large enough to can contain Sarah Neufeld's passionate violin swells, Win Butler and Régine Chassagne's matrimonious harmonies, and the band's ambitious album concepts. You might call it… epic. But don't tell anyone I told you that. After all, if there's any rock equivalent of the dubstep "filthier than..." meme, it's the brotastic label of "epic" under which all Muse, Explosions in the Sky, and Coldplay records are categorized. But like Arcade Fire and quite unlike most bands that seek to fashion an "epic" sound, North Carolina's Sugar Glyder achieves such sprawling, larger-than-life sonorities without overblown production, without kitchen sink philosophies of the-more-layered-textures-the-better, and without vocals drenched in more reverb than St. Peter’s Cathedral on a hot day. It's grandness without grandiosity.

In this respect, Lovers at Lightspeed picks up where Poor Baby Zebra left off, offering Sugar Glyder's trademark blend of soaring guitar-driven rock, hummable melodies, phonaesthetically-conscious phrasings, and an acute awareness of how to manipulate chaos and order in the way that would make the Pixies jealous. That's not to say that the band's sound is outdated, however. Combined with these foundational elements that undergird any talented rock band are quintessentially now qualities that situate Sugar Glyder at the forefront of undiscovered independent artistry. Tracks like "Deep Into Summer" find the band integrating Local Natives-esque percussion while "The Work (and What May Come)" finds Howie, Rigo, Aoyagi, and Matthews effortlessly transitioning between tempos in an impressive display of their ever-progressing songwriting abilities.

And although they might be taking stylistic cues from Death Cab for Cutie (see: Howie's vocal timbre on "Ocean, I Love You" and melodramatic lyrical direction of the EP), Minus the Bear (see: repetition of short, simplistic melodic bits in guitar), and the aforementioned Local Natives, Sugar Glyder manages to make the EP unmistakably their own. The anthemic chants in "Ocean, I Love You" recall "The OK Song" and "Blackbeard Has Feelings Too," and the organ that introduces "The Work" hearkens back to the groovy organ that commands the breakdown in We Cracked the Sky's "Ice Cubes for Igloos." And perhaps most encouraging on this effort is Daniel Howie’s further vocal development, exploring the tone colors that his instrument is capable of as he scales up and down his register. Yet Howie doesn't allow his explorations to trigger timidity; instead, he flexes his vocal capabilities perhaps most impressively on any track in Sugar Glyder’s discography in "Deep Into Summer" as he effortlessly hits a note that puts Kelcey Ayer's wail in "Airplanes" to shame. Further adding to the vocal textures on Lovers, though, are welcome appearances from Bobby Matthews and Chris Rigo, lending their pipes to the chorus in "Deep Into Summer" and throughout the EP.

Praises aside, however, I must admit that this release, while stellar, does leave some to be desired for this listener. For one, the band seems wary to delve into the weirdness hinted at in earlier songs like "B C D E," "I Fear I Might Have Lost You…," and bizarre MacSpeak interludes of previous releases. While this may be a personal preference, I feel that it’s these more avant-garde leanings that would really set apart Sugar Glyder’s music from the rest, and perhaps this avenue will be investigated on the LP to come. Moreover, the lyrical content of Lovers is rather hackneyed for my taste. Granted, this may come with the territory, being a record about lovers and all, but I confess that I did find myself wincing at some of the nauseatingly love drunk words coming out of Howie’s mouth. But if Howie’s lyricism is the EP’s downfall, then it’s also Howie simultaneously saving the release with his incredible knack for pleasant-sounding phrasings. Referred to earlier with the Pitchfork-worthy (i.e., pretentious) terminology of “phonaesthetic,” Howie’s awareness of the euphony in words is perhaps the single element the unifies Sugar Glyder’s irresistible sound—that is, along with Rigo’s precisely-engineered melodious guitar lines, Aoyagi’s thumping bass, and Matthews’s noticeably more technical drumming. Take, for instance, “One More Snow,” which finds Howie’s proficiency as a wordsmith at its finest:

Seasoned with my infatuation for love and what it means

Reasons, sweet deliberation's got me tossin’ in my sheets.

If the selection and arrangement of those words doesn’t highlight the inherent sonic beauty of the English language, then I don’t know what does. It’s rhythmic and bouncy just sitting on the page, for cryin' out loud.

And when these words do come to life on Lovers at Lightspeed, I can’t help but wonder when August 4, 2010, is going to happen for Sugar Glyder. Because if there’s any justice in this music industry, then that day is coming. The band might stand to hasten the arrival of that day by marketing themselves less as a “punk” band and more as a buzzword-exploiting “experimental indie rock/post-punk” outfit, but I foresee the end result as inevitable: Chris Rigo, Daniel Howie, Bobby Matthews, and Emily Aoyagi are going to fill arenas. It’s simply a matter of time.

One More Snow

Not Swag.

2011-01-22T20:29:00.002-05:00

Mashup extraordinaires The White Panda are "performing" at Davidson College tonight. Let's just say I'm skeptical. Might start Twitter beef about it. Follow @muzjikssteven. If you don't get a review out of Muzjiks, then it's safe to assume that the "concert" was atrocious beyond words.

Hi, my name is Steven Hummel, and I'm a pessimistic, elitist fuckhead. I appreciate your readership.

Episode 1: The Return

2011-01-14T00:10:00.002-05:00

Playlist
1. Sugar Glyder: "One More Snow"
2. Rick Ross ft. Kanye West: "Live Fast, Die Young"
3. jj: "Still"
4. Gorillaz: "Hillbilly Man"
5. James Blake: "I Never Learnt to Share"
6. Endgames: "Ecstasy (Jam City Refix)"
7. Velour: "Booty Slammer"
8. Young Galaxy: "Peripheral Visionaries"
9. Chris Brown ft. Busta Rhymes & Lil Waynes: "Look At Me Now"
10. Kanye West ft. CyHi da Prynce: "Christmas in Harlem"
11. Earl Sweatshirt: "Earl"
12. Flying Lotus: "Do The Astral Plane"

MuzjiksFM is back!

2011-01-12T19:34:00.005-05:00

Tomorrow night at 10 PM EST, MuzjiksFM will finally return to the airwaves. Watch this space for the streaming URL, the playlist, the podcast link, and the Soundcloud download. Get ready—Sirius XMU has nothing on us. Seriously. We run shit.

UPDATE: Stream here.

Mainstream Pop's First Attempt at Dubstep

2011-01-10T16:17:00.004-05:00

Prepare to hear this for the next four months...

Funky disco soul revival?

2011-01-07T13:21:00.003-05:00

It's not prevalent enough yet to call it a revival, but with Cee-Lo Green leading the pack with his Stevie Wonder-esque The Lady Killer, it's conceivable that a full-blown resurgence of the funkadelic sounds of the 70s could be on their way back to the mainstream. Perhaps it's just my wishful thinking, but here's a handful of examples of recent music that are fully indebted to the sounds of the yesteryear and give me hope for the future of grooviness. Now we jive.

Estelle (ft. Cee-Lo): Pretty Please (Love Me)

Breakbot (ft. Irfane): Baby I'm Yours

Reset!: The Love Anthem (If We Try) (Broke One Remix)

Duck Sauce: The Motion

Keep your eyes on the throne

2011-01-07T05:41:00.005-05:00

This from Kanye's Twitter: Looks like the lead single from Watch the Throne, Yeezy's collaborative album with Jay-Z, is going to be in our hands sooner rather than later—as in this coming Tuesday.

Daft Punk: Unmasked

2011-01-05T18:02:00.002-05:00

Really cool article over at Trash Menagerie documenting Daft Punk sans masks. Check it out here.

News from EITS

2011-01-04T18:33:00.001-05:00

Received this e-mail today from Explosions in the Sky:

Hi Everyone,
Welcome to 2011.
We're excited (and a little nervous) to announce that on April 6th we'll be playing at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. Radio City is one of the most legendary and beautiful theaters in the world, so we feel pretty honored and lucky. It's like some sort of absurd daydream come true for us. Anyway, we'll be playing a bunch of new songs so we hope some of you can make it out that night. If you're interested in tickets, please go here.
Speaking of new songs...as we'd mentioned previously, our new album will be coming out sometime this spring. We're anxious to get it out there into the world and we'll have more details about it in the next few weeks.
Thanks for caring.
Love,
Explosions

More than just WOMP

2011-01-04T15:32:00.005-05:00

Bacon. Related enough.

Dubstep has the reputation—especially in the United States—of being a genre all about devastating bass that sometimes sounds like whales mating, other times sounds like grinding chainsaws, and still other times just sounds like a migraine waiting to happen. However, to reduce the genre to this would be entirely unfair. Although represented more prevalently in Europe, dubstep usually incorporates stuttering, off-kilter rhythms, groovy synthesized lines that reflect UK garage and funky influences, and more explicit dub vibes. You might say that it's the difference between dubstep and brostep, although that comes off fallaciously as sophistication versus novelty, which is not always the case. I will likely put together some kind of longer feature on the difference between dubstep and brostep in the near future, but for now, enjoy some tunes that are about more than just WOMP and WUBWUBWUB.

Also, a side note: if you haven't already, do yourself a favor and get Desto's discography. Dude's the absolute truth.

Desto: Broken Memory

501: Back Up

Fine Cut Bodies: Beaver Blink (Ooah Remix)

A brush with Odd Future

2011-01-04T15:19:00.003-05:00

Above is the video for "Clear Eyes" off of OFWGKTA member Domo Genesis' latest, Rolling Papers. As you'll see, there's a shot with a phone ringing and a number being displayed on the screen. It reads "Tyler," so when I called the number, I thought maybe I would get in contact with the leader of the pack himself, Tyler, the Creator. Instead, I reached the director of the video who requested that I post his work on Muzjiks. This is the least I can do. Little does he know that he could potentially be in store for the Mike Jones treatment. Regardless, it's some unsettling visuals for Odd Future's signature drugged-out, listless brand of hip hop. Not nearly as shocking as Earl Sweatshirt's unbelievable "EARL" vid, but still worth a view nevertheless. If you like what you hear, you can head over to OF's tumblr to get Domo's Rolling Papers in full—fo' free.

Clear Eyes

Reupholstering vaginas since 1977

2011-01-04T01:15:00.010-05:00

Related.

With its 808s-esque blip-bloop bouncing along and a distorted guitar riff giving the track a certain edginess beneath Kanye's rhymes, this My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy cut didn't quite make it off the Hawaiian cutting room floor. Frankly, I'm not sure where the song would've fit into the retail tracklist without sounding sorely out of place. In fact, before doing a quick Google search, I thought this was a leak from Watch the Throne, as the overall feel of "Eyes Closed" was altogether un-MBDTF-like. But then again, this is likely not completely mixed and mastered as it would have appeared on a final pressing. Regardless, it's is another quality piece of Yeezian hip hop for us to sink our teeth into, so I'm not complaining. Enjoy.

Eyes Closed

Decatur's Finest: CyHi

2011-01-03T21:47:00.005-05:00

It's official. I'm on CyHi Da Prynce's nuts. I'm not ashamed. Dude is the next big thing in hip hop. Not only do I have a man crush on the guy's voice, but his flow is dope as hell. If you liked what you heard on "Christian Dior Denim Flow" or "So Appaled," do yourself a favor and check out his two official mixtapes, namely Royal Flush. And you better believe that when CyHi drops his full-length, it's going to be fire. With Yeezy at the helm of GOOD Music production, you know Da Prynce's album is going to be on point. Enough babbling. Listen.

CyHi Da Prynce: "Top of the World"

XV: "All for Me (ft. CyHi, Vado, & Erin Christine)"

Smell ya, 2010

2010-12-29T22:04:00.005-05:00

Note: These lists are numbered, but only to satisfy convention. I happen to be one of the most indecisive human being on the planet, so pretty much everything other than my album of the year designation is arbitrarily ranked.

The Man, The Myth, The Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

2010-12-29T10:00:00.002-05:00

The Man, The Myth, The Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

If you like it, please consider sharing this with your friends, posting it on your Facebook, and/or tweeting the link to @kanyewest. As always, Muzjiks appreciates your loyal readership.

Kanye West: Through the Wire

Stenchman: Part 1

2010-12-27T23:54:00.008-05:00

[video: vaguely related]

This guy knows how to wobble and wobble with conviction. Stenchman brings a unique wobble bass to the bro/dubstep (I can't tell which he is yet) genre. The following are dangerously unclean cuts. The wobble bass on these four is some of the grimiest, wide-wobbling I have ever heard. I'll stop not making sense and come to your own conclusion. Look for another post concerning Stenchman very soon.

His name is Stenchman for christ's sake. Oh, and Swine--the last one is for you.

Burial: "Archangel" (Stenchman Remix)

Phoenix: "Lisztomania" (Stenchman Remix)

Stenchman: "Overtaker"

Stenchman: "Prime Time Swine"

Big thanks to www.likedubstep.com for sharing these.

dw|tb

Swag on Swag

2010-12-27T04:11:00.000-05:00

Now Until Sin: 12.26.10

2010-12-26T02:16:00.005-05:00

I decided to take Christmas off for the series. The time off allowed me to take inventory of the amazing releases from Xmas 2010. Now, I have never celebrated Christmas "officially," but I assume there has to some kind of hangover involved. Heavy meats, deserts, booze, and distant family can be a lethal mix for someone trying to be productive on the Sunday after Christmas--so, what's the point? Embrace it and enjoy the 2nd track from The Fall, the Gorillaz iPad album (when is the marketing for that little Damon Albarn nugget going to start, Steve Jobs?).

You have to love the inclusion of the nylon strings on the album. On both "Revolving Doors" and "Hillbilly Man," those guitars paint beautiful soundscapes on their own. Can't wait to hear some acoustic versions of these songs. For now, we'll just have to do with this. By the way, each track comes with its own photograph--the photo for "Revolving Doors" is included below. What a nice touch, 2D.

Christmas is over, we made it another year my Jewish brethren.

Gorillaz: "Revolving Doors"

dw|tb

Now Until Sin: 12.24.10

2010-12-24T18:32:00.006-05:00

For some reason, I have been running into Mike a lot recently. The 30 for 30 on his stint with the Birmingham Barons has been circulating around the ESPN networks, I have caught myself watching 1 too many Bulls games recently, and I just made an amazing MJ related purchase. Now, this tune just came across my radar. It had the "1996 bulls" in the tag, and let's be honest, how can it suck?

Little Red: "Rock It" ('96 Bulls Remix)
via@ www.analoggiant.com

dw|tb

Insane in the Brain

2010-12-24T10:00:00.000-05:00

Sure, in terms of musicality, so-called brostep may be a total gimmick, but I don't think anyone can resist a good drop. So here's a handful of some of the most mental drops I've come across. Likely, this is just part one of many, but for now, four tracks will have to suffice.

Ready. Set. Rage.

Plan B: Love Goes Down (Doctor P Remix)

Noisia: Alpha Centauri (Excision and Datsik Remix)

Netsky: Iron Heart

J. Rabbit: I'm So Happy

Phoner to Arizona

2010-12-24T00:57:00.003-05:00

As the Christmas Eve offering of the Gorillaz advent calendar, Damon Albarn and the gang have released the first cut off of The Fall, an instrumental track with a lot of synthesized bleeps and bloops. It's only track one, though, so I guess you could consider this the equivalent of Plastic Beach's "Orchestral Intro." Only one more day to wait until we have the LP in its entirety! There's literally nothing Santa schlep down the chimney that would make me a happier SWiNE than The Fall—which is a good thing because that fat schmuck doesn't come to my house.

Gorillaz: Phoner to Arizona

Now Until Sin: 12.23.10

2010-12-23T23:44:00.007-05:00

[Grooves so hard, it hurts]

Prince: "D.M.S.R."

dw|tb

More new Deadmau5

2010-12-23T23:44:00.002-05:00

Still not Strobe...

Meowingtons Hax more. by fuckmylife

Golf Wang

2010-12-23T14:40:00.008-05:00

Above: "Bastard" and "French" performed live at The Roxy Theatre in West Hollywood

I have a confession: I have a man crush on OFWGKTA's Tyler, the Creator. I follow him @fucktyler on Twitter, I've spun Bastard countless times, and I have a playlist on my iPod filled with every single Odd Future release. Tyler explains the appeal well in "Seven," the second cut off of Bastard: "Because I'm 17, compose my own beats, lyrically I'm dope enough to ass fuck the guy who made nicotine." Or maybe the allure is in those lethargic beats of which Tyler speaks, listlessly stumbling forward like the Wicked Witch of the East on barbiturates and giving Disaro's best a run for their gravewave money.

And if it's not the high-quality material this crew is producing at such a young age, it's Tyler, the Creator's perfectly gravelly voice. Pause. But really, the first time I heard him rap, I was sure that there was some kind of pitch shift or filter on his voice. It's got the gnarl of street veteran whose vocal chords have seen a bit too much smoke in their day—not a high schooler. In fact, I'd go as far as to proclaim Tyler, the Creator the joint recipient of the Best Rapper Voice award along with CyHi da Prynce (exhibit a: "she found out about April so she chose to Maaarch"; exhibit b: "my name ring beeellz"; exhibit c: "thugs think I'm a Blood 'cause I won't take this red suit oooff").

I'm sure that my love for all things OFWGKTA will yield a much longer piece in the future, but I'm trying to direct all my creative juices into this Kanye piece I'm working on (HYPE!), so I'll quit now before I dig myself deeper into a hole with all these questionable remarks about how much I love some dudes' voices. Now, get the hell on the East Coast's Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All bandwagon. I'm the driver.

Tyler, the Creator: Sandwitches (ft. Hodgy Beats)

MellowHype: Chordaroy (ft. Earl Sweatshirt and Wolf Haley)

Earl Sweatshirt: Luper

Domo Genesis: Super Market (ft. Ace Creator)

Now Until Sin: 12.22.10

2010-12-23T13:36:00.005-05:00

Sorry this is late, but better than never. The Knocks are a electro duo that I have become very fond in the last few months. They write great dance tunes, perform live, and make great remixes. This is their 2nd or 3rd single (not sure what actually clarifies a song as a single anymore) after the epic, "Dancing With The DJ." Wham, bam I blacked out. The song is about selective memory after an epic night. L'chaim.

The Knocks: "Blackout"
Learn more @ http://heavyrocmusic.com

dw|tb

Taylor Gang or teabag a bear trap

2010-12-23T03:30:00.003-05:00

Ricky Rozay: Former correctional officer

New Rick Ross song featuring Wiz Khalifa just released via Twitter. Guess what they're is rapping about? Morality and the importance of the War on Drugs. Just joshin'.

Rick Ross ft. Wiz Khalifa: "Retrosuperfuture"

New Deadmau5

2010-12-22T22:02:00.000-05:00

Still waiting on that Strobe killer...

Deadmau5 - Limit Break by fuckmylife

2010-12-22T21:02:00.002-05:00

B-A-N-A-N-A-Z

2010-12-22T13:43:00.002-05:00

For normal people, Christmas is about family and giving thanks and presents and food and all that lovey-dovey bullshit. For me, Christmas 2010 is about one thing and one thing only: The Fall. On Saturday, Damon Albarn and the Gorillaz will be releasing their so-called "iPad album" on their website. (It's only available to stream for non-fan club members, but fuck knows it will be all over the Interwebz minutes after it's put up.) Comprised exclusively of songs written and recorded during the Gorillaz American tour, The Fall is a separate entity entirely from Plastic Beach; however, the LP is sure to have ample noodlings of Albarn on synthesizers, a direction hinted on Demon Days cuts like "Dare," developed further throughout PB, and continued on "Doncamatic (All Played Out)," the only track we've heard since Plastic Beach's release this past March.

It's this "Doncamatic" track that's likely to offer the most accurate hints in terms of what kinds of sounds will be populating The Fall. Although the original version of "Doncamatic" is stellar in its own right, the Joker remix found on the single release puts a purple spin on the tune. Let this one hold you over until Christmas morning, kiddies.

Gorillaz: "Doncamatic (Joker Remix)"

Now Until Sin: 12.21.10

2010-12-21T22:14:00.003-05:00

More traditional tonight. One thing I can't understand, though--how did this song not blow up? Chris Brown beatin up the beat (oh!), Yeezy with a above average verse and a killer hook. I guess Jive just doesn't have the distribution to get this in the hands of radio DJs and the oh so important bloggers...totally possible. This is indie major, man.

Chris Brown (feat. Kayne West): "Down"

dw|tb

Swag

2010-12-21T16:39:00.008-05:00

The posse that brought you 2010 standouts Bastard (Tyler, the Creator) and EARL (Earl Sweatshirt) dropped this Christmas-themed gem today on the OFWGKTA website. The beat is languid and lurching, as is typical of Tyler, the Creator's production, and Earl Sweatshirt returns from the abyss (boarding school?). What better Christmas present than Golf Wang's weirdo drugged-out raps and an Earl sighting?

For the record, in a totally non-elitist way, I'd like to remark that it amazes me how few people still don't know about these guys. They're making some of the freshest hip hop I've heard in a long time. Don't sleep!

Earl Sweatshirt, Hodgy Beats, and Tyler, the Creator: Fuck this Christmas

Important

2010-12-20T22:21:00.007-05:00

Save us and the rest of the internet. Support net neutrality.
Learn:

Now Until Sin: 12.20.10

2010-12-20T22:07:00.004-05:00

Day 2 of the countdown: maybe not your traditional bump and grind but...I just feel a little dirty when I listen to this cut from Sound of Silver. The chunk of muted guitars and that subterranean bass line can drive you crazy, man.

...at least he's relaxed.

LCD Soundsystem: "North American Scum"

"I know you wouldn't touch us with a ten foot pole."
Yea, that dirty.
dw|tb

Return to the airwaves

2010-12-20T14:06:00.004-05:00

Video unrelated.

For all of our loyal listeners, the wait is almost over. MuzjiksFM live from WALT studios in Davidson, NC, will be back on air beginning in January, so start carving out an hour of your life every Thursday at 10 PM so that you can spend it with us. And, as always, we will be offering a podcast and, this go around, Soundcloud uploads of every episode for your continued pleasure. As the date grows closer, check back here for the streaming link and more information. Until then, we suggest you subscribe to our podcast (click that big purple icon on the right sidebar) right now and enjoy your time here on the blog.

Oh, and here's some dubstep, foo'...

Desto: Cold VIP

Slugs that go bump in the Night

2010-12-20T10:00:00.002-05:00

I'm admittedly pretty disillusioned right now after having experienced and been disappointed by my first live dubstep gig this past weekend in Atlanta (more on that later), but as long as there's labels like Night Slugs around, there's still hope for the movement—no matter how many raving, MDMA-maddened bros there are to dilute the solution. With a roster consisting of Jam City, Girl Unit, Egyptrixx, Velour, and Kingdom among others, NS has been unbelievably consistent in releasing one quality record after another. And did I mention that NS released a roster-spanning compilation at the end of last month? With head-spinning tunes from track one to track thirteen, the compilation could've very well been a five-year retrospective, but Night Slugs have only been at it for one year. Along with the Hyperdub, DMZ, and Circus, it's no stretch to categorize NS up there with the trailblazers of the genre—if not sprinting ahead of them tauntingly with its innovative mix of dub, electro, glitch, IDM, and UK garage.

Perhaps this is the label's biggest compliment, however: if you played me twenty dubstep tracks and asked me to pick out the Night Slugs releases, I probably could do it. Not because my ear is stellar or because I'm all-knowing or anything like that, but rather because there's a certain sheen to everything NS puts out. From the Day-Glo color palette employed in the album art to the meticulous mastering that ensures precise kicks and delightful sound separation, Night Slugs makes it perfectly clear that they mean business and aren't going anywhere any time soon.

Endgame + Velour + Girl Unit + Kingdom=

http://nightslugs.net/

Now Until Sin: 12.19.10

2010-12-19T15:31:00.001-05:00

Every day from here to 2011, we will be featuring a unique party track. This is a way for me to both get my head screwed on straight for a special NYE/NYD trip and to possibly create the mix of all mixes. This will be meticulously curated and I hope you have the time to appreciate our selections. We are going to start with a pretty dusty record from MC Breed.

MC Breed: "Well Alright"

dw|tb

Prog Hop + Eggnog

2010-12-18T18:05:00.011-05:00

So the acclaim for MBDTF has spiraled out of control. The amount of praise of Kanye West's latest album has become a national epidemic for which there is nor will be a vaccine (check Muzjiks in the coming days for more on that). What hasn't been mentioned enough, in my opinion, is the structural formation of some of these album tracks and tracks included in Yeezy's "Good Friday" series. I have personally never seen anything like this. These are hip-hop jazz epics. The man has collected what he has dubbed the best in his genre at the given time (or what he has access to) and allowed them to take free reign over a melodic idea. Please listen to John Coltrane's "Moment's Notice" and note the melody that begins at :39. This is the nugget that drives the piece, but John Coltrane (tenor saxophone), Chris Fuller (trombone), Lee Morgan (trumpet), Paul Chambers (D Bass), and Kenny Drew (keys) all get their hacks before the whole thing is bookended by the piece's outro.

Listen to "Monster" and "So Appalled" and tell me you don't feel the same thing. Kanye grabs a melodic idea, flushes it out, and lets his friends shit all over it. Listen to "Christian Dior Denim Flow" and the new single, "Christmas in Harlem" and dismiss them as b-sides; I dare you. Now you have no excuse, the latter two are featured below in down-loadable MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 format.

Enjoy yourselves, now you can say you listen to jazz.

Kanye West: "Christmas in Harlem"

Kanye West: "Christian Dior Denim Flow"

dw|tb

Twitter Live Report: Dub the Halls

2010-12-18T12:56:00.003-05:00

A break from grind gives the both of us time to reimmerse ourselves in the blogosphere. Within the hour, I will make the arduous journey down to Atlanta for The Masquerade's Dub the Halls show, braving the snow and sleet for this meeting of the dub gods on our side of the pond. Throughout the gig, I will be tweeting pictures and updates @muzjikssteven.

Blue Foundation: Eyes on Fire (Zeds Dead Remix)

J. Rabbit: Ninja Gaiden

Nero: Innocence

SWiNE

Young Canuck

2010-12-16T19:53:00.003-05:00

So the site is a little rusty. Everyone is done with finals, I have two arms to work with and I figure we should start throwing up some music. Dream pop baby--picked this up from the G vs. B November mix and just cannot stop spinning. Young Galaxy is signed to Arts&Crafts (good for them, they seem to know what they're doing). I hope you enjoy the song. Look for more soon. We loooove you.

Young Galaxy: "Peripheral Visionaries"

dw|tb

All I Want for Christmas is Filth

2010-12-08T10:00:00.001-05:00

All I Want for Christmas is Filth by derphead

It's not Strobe...

2010-11-17T00:15:00.000-05:00

where is my coat by fuckmylife

Trippin' at the Shule

2010-10-15T12:36:00.004-04:00

Not Daniel Goldstein.

Our friend Daniel Goldstein sent this Wolfgang Gartner mashup over to us. He pairs the club banger that reportedly took Gartner 600 hours to make with Stevie Wonder's pop classic, "Superstition." We're glad to share this with you all. Hope you enjoy.

If you like what you hear, check our fellow lantzman's Soundcloud.

Illmerica (DG Superstition Edit) [alt]

MuzjiksRx (10.14): Mashups for the Meatheads

2010-10-14T14:50:00.004-04:00

Unrelated.

Honestly, this is a shameless attempt to drum up some site traffic because I know Hype Machine users go ape for mashups. Yes, we're selling out. Deal with it.

Antoine Dodson: Bed Intruder (Novelty Dubstep Remix) [alt]

ELO vs. The Supremes: Supreme Evil [alt]

Lil Wayne vs. Passion Pit: Ambien (Sleepy Trip) [alt]

Nu-Jazz: A Microcosmogrammatical Examination

2010-10-14T12:13:00.004-04:00

If you're not familiar with the microgenre of nu-jazz, please allow me to explain: Imagine an alternate planetary system somewhere way out in the cosmic unknown. Let's say that at the center of this system is a sun, and this sun happens to be called Jazz. Like all suns, Jazz has a gravitational pull that causes other celestial objects to orbit around it. Now, envision Nu-Jazz on the very outskirts of Jazz’s pull—the Pluto of this musical solar system, as it were. Fittingly enough, some might argue that Nu-Jazz isn't even part is this solar system, and these folks have a valid case. After all, even though Nu-Jazz is still within Jazz’s field, it wobbles on its axis in a most peculiar way and revolves ever so off-kilter, threatening to hurdle off into space at any moment—perhaps to the neighboring Hip Hop galaxy or maybe to the Electronic sector or perchance to the Funk nebula. It may be grounded in the tenets of traditional jazz—what with its jittering syncopations and intricate polyrhythms—but the ancestry of nu-jazz ultimately sums to a sound wholly unique from its parts.

Now, please follow me back to Earth and join me in Winnetka, California. A small town outside of Los Angeles, Winnetka is to nu-jazz as Columbia, SC, is to chillwave and Manchester was to post-punk in the late ‘70s; that is, it is the birthplace, the evolutionary nexus, and for all intents and purposes, the headquarters of the genre. Specifically, the HQ is located at Brainfeeder Records, the label started by nu-jazz giant Steven Ellison, the man behind the Flying Lotus moniker. A nu-jazz all-star lineup, Brainfeeder is also home to fellow genre bigwigs Daedelus, Samiyam, and The Gaslamp Killer. I’m not sure one abstruse, name-dropping example will help clarify another, but it might help to think of Brainfeeder as the nu-jazz equivalent of witch house’s Disaro Records, which lays claim to oOoOO, White Ring, and host of other esoterically renowned musicians…

On second thought, like the often abrupt harmonic shifts in nu-jazz music, allow me to abandon my admittedly futile attempts at explaining music through obscure analogy and convoluted imagery, and let’s let the music do the explaining—specifically Flying Lotus’s magnum opus, Cosmogramma. Sure, the LP came out this past May, but if there was ever such a thing as an instant classic, this is it. A surprisingly tightly conceived concept album, the record builds in warm, ethereal, yet altogether epileptic samples that let the listener know that he’s in nu-jazz’s nerve center, as it were. This pre-liftoff procedure continues until track six, “Computer Face/Pure Being,” where FlyLo introduces the first out-and-out melody in the form of a massive synth line, and the engines start revving.

Then, Flying Lotus at ground control sends Major Thom Yorke to outer space on “…And the World Laughs with You.” And it is here, I’d say, where Ellison’s true genius is exhibited: instead of putting Yorke’s vocals front and center in the mix, he opts to utilize the Brit’s wavering wail as an instrument. This is ballsy. After landing perhaps the biggest and most respected name in modern music in the Radiohead frontman, Steven Ellison buries Yorke’s voice beneath a load of reverb and dizzying synthesizers and even chops it up—just to feed it back to us in sampled splices.

These moments of genius are by no means scarce events, mind you; rather, they’re hidden and are only revealed through repeat listens. For example, in the sensual “MmmHmm,” you’d have yourself a radio-worthy R&B hook and melody if the frantic bass line and overdriven percussion were silenced. Then, in “Do the Astral Plane,” FlyLo plays with the listener at 3:32, dropping out the Kanye-esque lilting strings and club-ready electro synths so that only the claps remain. It is here, in the negative space, that the listener realizes how much controlled chaos Flying Lotus is managing at one time.

And when we get to “Table Tennis,” we find nu-jazz’s answer to Enrique Iglesias’s “Do You Know.” But unlike its pop counterpart, the intervallically irregular ping-pong in “Table Tennis” is in no way danceable or immediately poppy; instead, it brings us full circle. That is, “Table Tennis”—perhaps the anthem of the nu-jazz microgenre—features guest vocalist Laura Darlington singing of gravity and motion and energy and elasticity, reminding us of the abstract lineage of this music. In a way, this penultimate song of Cosmogramma brings us back to a certain aural Great Unknown. We once again find ourselves traveling through the acoustic cosmos, steadily learning the arcane musical grammar of nu-jazz with each listen with Flying Lotus as our guide.

Do the Astral Plane [alt]

MmmHmm (ft. Thundercat) [alt]

Table Tennis (ft. Laura Darlington) [alt]

MuzjiksRx: Special Edition | Taylor Gang or Start Another Oil Spill

2010-10-14T10:00:00.000-04:00

Wiz Khalifa: Know Your Name [alt]

$$$

2010-10-11T03:55:00.001-04:00

Ke$ha vs. The Beatles - Tik Tok Together (A doctordude Mashup) by DJGreenleaf

♥

2010-10-09T23:41:00.003-04:00

No Title

2010-09-27T18:18:00.002-04:00

We don't have enough bandwidth for this.

Lil' Wayne feat. Jay Sean: "That Ain't Me" [alt]

2010-09-27T10:07:00.000-04:00

New Weezy

2010-09-23T20:32:00.003-04:00

What's Wrong With Them (ft. Nicki Minaj) [alt]
YM Salute (ft. Lil Twist, Lil Chuckee, Gudda Gudda, Jae Millz, & Nicki Minaj) [alt]

I am Human, Nico.

2010-09-23T14:28:00.005-04:00

The last two weeks of writing/posting on this blog has been hectic to say the least. Its been full of covers, mash-ups, and remixes--none of which I am honestly proud to put my name behind. So to right the ship, I thought we would go back to where indie, arguably, began--the movement of the Velvet Underground, Nico, and Andy Warhol.

After Andy Warhol took the reigns of PR for the Velvet Underground, he suggested a musical/cultural partnership with Christa Päffgen (AKA Nico). The band was hesitant, but the partnership ultimatley led to the band's reformation and subsequent debut The Velvet Underground and Nico-- need I say more? Following her work with Lou Reed, Nico moved on to a solo career and a partnership with some of the most important American songwriters in our musical history. That's what leads me to today's post.

Nico: "I'll Keep it With Mine" [Buy]

Bob Dylan penned this song for the beautiful, talented Christa Päffgen and she grabbs it by the balls. The string arrangements and the vocal cadences make the song--oh and the writing isn't bad either.

It feels good to be human again.

dw|tb

[Untiitilated]

2010-09-23T00:56:00.004-04:00

"Where Burial finds romance in the darkest night, Salem’s dubstep-drenched electro exists in a world of prostitution, violence and abuse, employing bizarre half-tempo rap sections that growl like burst exhausts."

So we're pretty into dubstep around here, but what Salem brings is almost sacrificial, sacrilegious dubstep--you immediatley know whose violenlty distorted bass is blaring through the speakers and you shiver. Let's see what happens when they get a hold of one of the Boss' greatest darkly tinged pop tunes. Both are provided for reference and clarity's sake.

edit: my bad, this is "Witch-House"--just for iTunes library. Everyone can breathe now.

Salem: "Streets of Philadelphia"

Bruce Springsteen: "Streets of Philadelphia"

dw|tb

The Miracle Wrip

2010-09-22T15:47:00.005-04:00

This had to be a ton of hard work. Norwegian Recycling sent Muzjiks a message in hopes we would post his latest DJ Earworm style mashup-- this shit is too cool not to post. Keep on truckin' Pete. Hopefully, we will another full feature concerning the validity of this type stuff in the near future (maybe an interview, Pete??). The Miracle Rip...

Norwegian Recycling: "Miracles"

Help! I've fallen, and I can't get up!

2010-09-21T15:09:00.001-04:00

I might not even be of legal drinking age, but I already find myself nostalgic about my youth, wary about growing old. I miss Freeze Pops and Capri Suns after riding around on my neighbor's Razor scooter (my parents never let me get one). I miss being scared shitless by Are You Afraid of the Dark? and loving every minute of it. I miss SuperSoakers and Creepy Crawlers and SNICK. Music, however, is a medium that allows one to momentary return to a certain place and time—Third Eye Blind, Semisonic, No Doubt, Blind Melon, and Chumbawamba just a handful of the artists with that evocative capacity.

Essentially taking the lead from DJ DoYou of "Stuntin' Like Mufasa" fame, rapper A-1 has capitalized on my generation's collective nostalgia and made a somewhat gimmicky, somewhat kickass mixtape that combines A-1's Wale-esque raps with popular 90s TV themes. Reading Rainbow, All That, Pokemon—hell, even Doug makes an appearance. Perhaps my favorite moment, however, comes as A-1 fakes being sick in order to stay home from school in classic Ferris Bueller fashion. One of his first orders of business? Watch The Price is Right, the mainstay of every sick child's programming schedule. I think everyone remembers watching Bob Barker and those 80-year-old-and-up targeted ads (see: Hoveround, Colonial Penn, and Wilford Brimley) with a glass of orange juice and some Campbell's Chicken Noodle (or, if you're as lucky as me, mom's homemade matzo ball soup and matzo brei).

So, without further ado, I invite you to sit back, turn on these tunes, and relive your youth for a few minutes. And for the full experience, consider downloading the full mixtape, After School Special, over at DatPiff. Enjoy.

The Price is Right [alt]
Doug (Funnie Bitch) [alt]
Reading Rainbow [alt]
All That! [alt]

Somebody Get Me Usher Tickets--Now.

2010-09-21T12:34:00.004-04:00

Usher (Feat. Pitbull): "DJ Got Us Falling in Love" (Brass Knuckles Remix)

Brass Knuckles--y'all gotta put us on the payroll. Keep up the good work.

MuzjiksRx (9.20): Blogospherical Prostitution

2010-09-20T14:05:00.004-04:00

Katy Perry vs. Bloc Party: I Kissed a Girl at a Banquet [alt]

+

Lady Gaga vs. Eurythmics: Just Dance in My Sweet Dreams [alt]

+

The Killers vs. Alphaville: Are We Human? Or Are We Forever Young? [alt]

=

Cover Up Your Sundays

2010-09-19T12:43:00.003-04:00

So there are probably some days that artists are too damn lazy to write their own songs. Besides aren't there enough songs written already? Well, there are also days where bloggers are too lazy to find new music--so we post covers. After a long weekend, bask in the laziness and the creativity of some sweet covers (two separate Britney Spears covers!).

The Flaming Lips: "Money" (feat. Henry Rollins)

Franz Ferdinand: "Womanizer" (Britney Spears Cover)

Nickel Creek: "Toxic" (Live at ACL 2006)

Mark Ronson: "Amy" (Ryan Adams Cover)

Cold War Kids: "A Change is Gonna Come" (Sam Cooke Cover)

MuzjiksRx (9.18)

2010-09-18T08:37:00.005-04:00

Hip hop ain't dead. It just went underground...

Jedi Mind Tricks (ft. Kool G. Rap): Animal Rap [alt]

+

Illogic: Perfect Storm [alt]

+

iCON the Mic King: From Dusk 'Til Dawn [alt]

=

Get to the Choppa!!

2010-09-18T08:08:00.007-04:00

A bit of background: Above is my first project from the Music Technology and Production class at Davidson College. Each student's task was to score this trailer, which was given to us with the original audio removed. It was then up to our imaginations, creativity, and the vast selection of studio equipment at our disposal to create our own score for the clip. This is my attempt...

Although I’m obviously not as musically talented as Clint Mansell, his scoring work—namely in π and Requiem for a Dream—was a big influence on the approach I took to this project. The dark atmosphere of the T3 trailer and the metallic substance that demands the viewer’s attention throughout really gives me the sense that a crunchy, industrial sound is the best fit musically. I considered this visual subject matter along with the short running time of the clip and the obvious suggestions of mickey mousing (sawing of the numeral “3” from the metallic block, the droplets, etc.) and thereby concluded that this should not be a hum-worthy, melodic piece—that is, no theme music here. Thus, I set out to create a largely dissonant score that is respectful of the long-standing film music convention of synchronizing visual events with musical events, an idea that dates back perhaps most famously to Max Steiner's score for 1933 King Kong.

I think that one of the main questions an artist—or someone attempting to be artistic—asks himself after reaching a stopping point on a piece (art, as it is said, is never “finished,” per se) is whether or not the image on the canvas or the sound coming out of the speakers is what he had envisioned in his head. To this query, I must say: No. Not only am I limited in terms of my past music-making experience, but there were also several instances in which I had a certain timbre in my head and couldn’t figure out how to make the technology produce that sound. For instance: ideally, I would’ve liked a sort of aural chase between booming metallic footsteps and pitter-pattering sneaker footfalls that created a rhythmic percussion over which I could lay the industrial synths. However, both my music-making chops and technological aptitude will improve with time and practice, and honestly, I must say that I’m fairly satisfied with my first stab at electronic music production, all things considered. Enjoy.

Imma Remix the Ish Outta You

2010-09-16T20:00:00.003-04:00

So Cee-Lo's "Fuck You" has become a transcendent party/club/r&b/pop hit. It was bound to be--the song is just too amazing. This is the first remix of the song, its a true club thumper with shades of the original dusted in. The remix is courtesy of Brass Knuckles.

Cee-Lo Green: "Fuck You" (Brass Knuckles Remix)

dw|tb

MuzjiksRx (9.15): Kiss Your Bandwidth Goodbye, TB

2010-09-15T10:00:00.000-04:00

Will Smith vs. Ke$ha: Ke$ha in Black [alt]

+

Led Zeppelin vs. Black Sabbath: Whole Lotta Sabbath [alt]

+

Nirvana vs. Jackson 5: Smells Like Rockin' Robin [alt]

=

Friendly Reminder

2010-09-14T17:43:00.005-04:00

Video unrelated.

If you enjoy what we do here at Muzjiks, please consider showing your support by...

following me on Twitter
liking the Facebook page
listening to the radio show(s?) on WALT in the upcoming weeks
attending Muzjiks DJ shows at Davidson College, the first of which is occurring tomorrow night at KA
picking up a copy of The Davidsonian, which will soon be running a regular column written by yours truly
tattooing our logo on your back... or the forehead of your first born (see below)

MuzjiksRx (9.14): Hot Fire

2010-09-14T15:48:00.003-04:00

Immortal Technique: No Me Importa [alt]

+

Big K.R.I.T.: Children of the World [alt]

+

Cunninlynguists: 616 Rewind (ft. Tonedeff, Sankofa, Kashal-Tee, and Celph Titled) [alt]

=

The Emancipation of Music in the Internet Age: A Half-Assed Review

2010-09-14T10:00:00.003-04:00

Perhaps more than any other industry, music has been revolutionized by the Internet. Sure, online shopping has changed the way we think about acquiring goods, but it's not like you see your local supermarket or hardware store going out of business. And yes, the accessibility of visual media—feature films, TV shows, documentaries—on the world wide web is just a Google search away, but the cinema down the street and the 1000+ channels available on satellite TV are still very much alive and kicking. But the music industry, on the other hand, is nothing like it was in 1992 when Al Gore invented the Interwebs (or was that Ted Stevens?). Remember that Virgin Records where you got your first CD as a child? It's gone. Remember what it was like to struggle to tear off the cellophane around that CD? Or what it was like to read the liner notes on that glossy insert? Hell, do you even remember CDs?

And it's not just CDs; it's even buying music at all. Even if you decide against purchasing the physical copy of an album and instead opt to download it digitally off iTunes, you're still in the minority. I'm going to share a little trick with you: Think of the first song that pops into your head. Now, type the name of that song and its artist into Google, tacking on 'mp3', 'mediafire', or 'rapidshare' to the end of the query. I'd venture to say that 90% of you are able to find a downloadable copy of that song on the first page of results. Right?

Now, it's not all bad. For every horror story of the RIAA punting babies whose parents downloaded the latest Justin Bieber single (just joshin'), there's a story of a bedroom producer or local upstart band or some other musically-inclined starving artist who's been able to get their stuff out there with MySpace Music or bandcamp or Soundcloud. Doug Appling falls into the latter category, but not only did Appling—or, as he's better known, Emancipator—got his stuff out there, he became Internet famous. Exposed to the masses primarily via pirating communities and the blogosphere, Emancipator's instrumental hip hop has found quite the following by way of Internet word-of-type. So much so, in fact, that the one-man act Emancipator finds himself opening for BoomBox in venues across the country. Lucky for me, one of those venues happened to be Charlotte's Neighborhood Theater.

So, last Friday night, I headed up to NoDa and paid my hard-earned cash to see these two acts perform. When Emancipator finally took the stage, I actually mistook him for a roadie—his unassuming dress and demeanor caught me off guard. Perhaps this should have been a sign, a sign that a performer—no less good music—was not on the docket that night. What ensued for the following sixty minutes was some of the most uninspired music I've heard in quite some time. From the mundane, tired rhythms undergirding the pieces to their irritatingly predictable turns and melodies, I quickly found myself wondering what the hype was all about. Aside from "Greenland," the opening track from Emacipator's sophomore release, Safe in the Steep Cliffs, the rest of the overlong set was utterly snore-inducing.

Allow me to elaborate: In my estimation, the appeal of "Greenland" lies in its unabashed indebtedness to video game music. The nearly 8-bit line that begins the piece to ethereal synths to the driving boom-boom-clap to the heartrending violin sample—it all screams Halo to me. It's geeky cool like an acne-faced pothead hipster version of DragonForce. And that's fine. It's fine because it's Emancipator forging himself a new niche in the genre, rather than retracing steps on the same well-trod ground that Dilla, Shadow, and RJD2 conquered years ago. Except this is the only evidence of hypeworthiness that he showed all night.

The rest of the sound Emancipator produced with his laptop, sequencer, and Squier guitar (I shit you not) ranged from half-baked renditions of Pretty Lights to the music you'd hear on the Weather Channel in the room of an upscale island resort. And all of it sounded like it was produced on GarageBand with the default loops and samples that came with the pre-installed iLife package. For fuck's sake, pirate some upgrade packs. And as for the samples, I swear they were all 128 kbps Dirpy rips. To add insult to injury, not only were the samples low quality, but they all succeeded in butchering what made the originals great. Pink Floyd, The Fugees, Sigur Ros—they all were criminally defiled. To top it off, the man missed several blatant opportunities to kick up the tempo, drop the beat, and create danceable pieces of music like the crowd wanted. I mean, I understand you're supposed to be a "trip-hop" act, but that doesn't mean who can't give the average concertgoer what he/she wants, just for shits and giggles...

And the funniest thing is that, despite all my criticisms, I respect the guy. Emancipator is living the dream: a 19-year-old making a living off of music. Maybe he's just getting a handle on the rudiments of live performance. Maybe I was charmed by his meek request that concertgoers buy some of his merch. Or maybe I'm just a softie and should continue ripping on an unsuspecting musician. I won't, though. Instead, I applaud Doug Appling for seizing the opportunities presented by the Internet and wish him the best luck moving forward as he hones his craft.

...oh, and as for BoomBox: don't waste your money. Unless you've dosed yourself with enough MDMA to tranquilize a horse or are tripping on so much acid you swear that light fixture just honked its clown nose at you, you're going to be bored shitless. Save singer Zion Godchaux's god-awful vocal interludes, you'll be hearing the same arpeggiated chords and fatiguing electronic basslines for an hour and a half. Instead, save up your money and go see Phish. Period.

Emancipator
Greenland [alt]
Shook (Mobb Deep vs. Sigur Ros) [alt] | Listen for "Vaka" sample
All Through the Night [alt] | Listen for "Hey You" sample

BoomBox
Midnight on the Run [alt]

Gaylor Tang or Yill Tourself

2010-09-13T23:26:00.002-04:00

Wiz Khalifa: Get Big (Remix) [alt]

The Mend

2010-09-12T14:57:00.003-04:00

As a way to remedy our mini-feud with senor Torpeedoh, I wanted to throw out there one track of off Square Pegs that I really enjoy. Its a bit of a trance mix of one of our favorite Sigur Ros songs. This is the intro to the aforementioned Square Pegs mixtape--oh and a sweet party track for good measure.

Torpeedoh: "Intro"

Supersize: "Just the Two of Us"

dw|tb

Taylor Gang or Start Another Oil Spill

2010-09-08T22:54:00.002-04:00

Wiz Khalifa: Damn It Feels Good to Be a Taylor [alt]

I'd go to the grave before I acted as a cowardly African American

2010-09-08T14:04:00.006-04:00

Muzjiks Nation, I'm sorry to inform you that I will be taking a leave of absence... until Friday (see what I did there?). As much as enjoy doing this, it is secondary to school, so I must tend to that first. I hope that you will understand and survive the next few days without me. Until then, consider the following...

– Sugar Glyder Sugar Glyder Sugar Glyder Sugar Glyder Sugar Glyder
– Tiesto (ft. Jónsi): Kaleidoscope (ADD Edit) [alt] | Although the full song is superior, for my upcoming DJ gigs, I figure that I should cut the song down, extracting much of the atmospheric Jónsi falsetto, and get to the meat of it—that is, the absurd drop. After some quick Audacity tweaks, we have what I've called the (musical) ADD edit of the title track to Tiesto's 2009 LP.
– Follow me on the Twitters.
– Acquaint yourself with WALT.
– And take notes on this...

Influential Talk

2010-09-06T21:24:00.008-04:00

Talk Talk's album Laughing Stock has been influential in the making of both the indie and post-rock genres we know today. The slippery, bending guitars envelop the mix and Mark Hollis' lyrics are what we call "universally cryptic." If you haven't gave Laughing Stock a chance, please do so. Begin your exposure to the album with its centerpiece, "New Grass." Enjoy.

Talk Talk: "New Grass" [alt]

MuzjiksRx (9.6 v2): Overdose

2010-09-06T16:09:00.004-04:00

Coming down from this morning's prescription? Stay up with some more musical narcotics to cure that case of the Mondays...

Rick Ross (ft. Jay-Z and John Legend): Free Mason [alt]

+

Notorious BIG: Live Freestyle '95 (DJ Vlad RMX) [alt]

+

Wiz Khalifa: Boarding Pass [alt]

=

MuzjiksRx (9.6): Vegetable man, where are you?

2010-09-06T11:44:00.004-04:00

King Crimson: Red [alt] (compare to this!)

+

Nektar: Astronaut's Nightmare [alt]

+

Pink Floyd: Embryo (BBC Peel Sessions) [alt]

Bring Us Together

2010-09-06T02:47:00.002-04:00

Stardust - Music Sounds Better With You (Eat More Cake Remix) by MikeRog10

Big props to Why FuKK When You Can Dance. Great find.

dw|tb

How Strange It Is to Be Anything at All: A Discussion of Musical Morality and the Mashup Genre as a Societal Barometer

2010-09-05T09:02:00.008-04:00

In general, I try my best to stay off my high horse when it comes to my musical opinions and tastes. Listeners have their own concepts of what music should be, and I respect that, despite any disagreements I may have in terms of subjective preference. However, there come instances in which the music lover in me cannot sleep soundly without expressing my qualms. This is one of those instances.

The mashup genre as we know it today can be traced back to Greg Gillis—or, as he's more popularly known, Girl Talk. Sure, there were records like Since I Left You and The Grey Album and Endtroducing... that are all several years Feed the Animals' senior. Hell, the genre is even indebted to musique concrete of the mid-twentieth century. But when somebody describes something as being a "mashup," the archetype that's been constructed in our heads is one of popular songs meshed together with a hip hop bass line and I-buy-my-shirts-at-Target ironic song titles. It's DJ Earworm's annual "United State of Pop." It's The White Panda's "Throw Some Tik on that Tok." It's Super Mash Bros' "Boom Boom Pau." It's any acne-faced computer geek with GarageBand, a YouTube account, and a dream. Now, this is not to say that just because the mashup genre happens to be DIY-friendly that it is inherently illegitimate. After all, never before has music technology and knowledge in general been as readily accessible as it is right now—what with Internet in our computers and phones, mp3s an informed Google search away, and tutorials on how to do everything from tying a tie to boiling an alligator head all at our fingertips. In a way, it's the modern-day equivalent of recreating a popular Tin Pan Alley song after dinner on the nineteenth century middle-class family's piano.

Allow me to reiterate: I have no beef with the mashup genre, nor do I have a problem with its gentle learning curve. Where my blood pressure starts getting raised, though, is when unwritten rules of popular music are broken. I'm not talking about music theory or the marriage of unlikely songs or even the aesthetics of the often-shoddy production jobs; I'm talking about the unacceptable pairings of bona fide masterpieces of pop with half-assed, got-drunk-in-the-studio-and-threw-on-AutoTune drivel. In other words, pairings that defy the will of the musical deities that be and disregard the spiritual capacity of music (and there is one, mind you)...

Torpeedoh has committed one of these mortal sins with "Get Loose," from his Girl Talk-aspiring Buckwild (that ultimately just lands him in the land of Gillis wannabes along with E-603 and Easter Egg). The track begins unassumingly and expectedly enough with an adrenaline-rousing Blur, Tag Team, and UNK musical stew, ebbing and flowing in intensity along with Albarn's 'woo hoo' and Coxon's massive guitar riff. At 1:28, however, the song falters and satisfies our society's perpetual musical ADD by leaving the trio of samples behind and instead opting for the duo of Drake's "Best I Ever Had" and... Neutral Milk Hotel's "In the Aeroplane over the Sea"?!?!

Some background: I first heard this track on Friday night at a college party. It was replete with the mainstays you might expect at such a gathering, including plenty of alcohol. The experience I'm about to describe to you I wouldn't wish on anyone. Hearing two dozen drunk girls chanting "you da fuckin' best" over Jeff Mangum's magnum opus of magnum opuses with their arms in the air in that way only drunk girls do was legitimately saddening. That enchantingly simple four-chord progression that serves as a backdrop to quite possibly the most perfect three minutes and twenty-two seconds of pop music in the past two decades. That musical canvas Mangum paints with his unrefined, yet heart-achingly beautiful voice. Those lyrics Mangum penned in a Romantic outpouring of emotion after the diary of Anne Frank haunted his dreams... All of it defiled by a corporate puppet who used to play this guy on Degrassi.

Perhaps worst of all is that less than a minute later (2:24), the agony is over, and Journey's ubiquitous "Don't Stop Believin'" keyboard riff exchanges duties for instrumental backup to Drake's annoying croon. Just like that. I'm not sure if you've ever listened to In the Aeroplane over the Sea, but it's fucking emotionally draining. I have to clear out time in my day if I want to listen to that record because every single song touches me at my core. Even listening to just one song requires at least five minutes of quiet reflection afterward. This shit is heavy. Torpeedoh blots out Neutral Milk Hotel's candid emotionalism and substitutes Drake's hedonism and self-indulgence in its place.

So what?

Call me a cynic. Call me a snob. Tell me I'm overreacting. Tell me that there are much more important things to worry about, that there are bigger fish to fry. You're more than welcome to do so. But when I hear music of this caliber—a form of art, I'd say—that has been treated in this manner, I can't help but feel a little upset, as it reflects not only a decline in general music appreciation, but more importantly and alarmingly, it is a sign of society's appraisal of sensation over substance, of "feelin' for a fix" rather than "lay[ing] in the sun and count[ing] every beautiful thing we can see."

Neutral Milk Hotel: In the Aeroplane over the Sea [alt]
Torpeedoh: Get Loose [alt]

Microcosmic Adventures in La-La Land

2010-09-04T12:45:00.006-04:00

How big of a deal is Beyonce Knowles? A really fucking big deal. Sure, you could cite her success with Destiny's Child or her stellar solo debut in 2003 (remember 'Crazy in Love,' 'Me, Myself and I,' and even 'Daddy'?), but for the sake of this post, I'm going to stay fairly recent and focus exclusively on Sasha Fierce—namely, 'Sweet Dreams.'

Dedicated readers of Muzjiks know my stance on mashups. In general, I consider them the lowest form of music, except in cases where the artist takes two or more original pieces of pop music and fuses them to create an entirely new song that challenges our ear to decide whether the original is the predominant version in our mind any longer. Such is the case for The White Panda's 'Stuntin' Like My Energy' and the majority of Girl Talk's output (case in point: 'Here's the Thing'). However, 'Sweet Dreams' has gone above and beyond the mashup treatment, something that just about every top 40 hit of the past four decades has gotten at this point. That is, 'Sweet Dreams' has been sampled, covered, and altogether transformed several times over.

Allow me a brief digression: dubstep godfather Burial has taken such universally recognizable songs as Christina Aguilera's 'Beautiful,' Destiny's Child's 'Emotion,' and Massive Attack's (of House fame) 'Teardop' and completely reworked them into brooding, experiencing-the-inception-of-the-apocalypse-in-the-dark-alley-next-to-a-British-club soundscapes. It is this relative of the mashup culture which I'd argue is the primary progressive force in popular music today—not only is it cognizant and respectful of the past, but it simultaneously pushes pop forward.

Jigga's got the hottest chick in the game wearing his chain, and her 'Sweet Dreams' received the aforementioned Burial-esque treatment. From psych-rockers (and Jaguar promoters) The Big Pink to dubstep behemoth Kingdom to the Great Weezy F, 'Sweet Dreams' has transcended the scope and reach that one could ever imagine a single three-and-a-half-minute song achieving. The Big Pink covered it and made it an atmospheric, drugged-out, introspective anthem of angst and waking-up-the-next-morning-with-the-taste-of-vomit-in-your-mouth-and-a-wholly-unfulfilling-cluelessness-of-who's-asleep-next-to-you. Kingdom offers a glimpse of what happened the night before in the club when that sweet dream hadn't yet morphed into the beautiful nightmare it would become. And Weezy—well, he and heiress to the throne/rapper equivalent of Beyonce Nicki Minaj just command 'Sweet Dreams' and have their way with it on No Ceilings.

Beyonce Knowles' 'Sweet Dreams': a microcosm of where pop is and where it's headed...

The Big Pink: Sweet Dreams (cover) [alt]
Kingdom: Fogs [alt]
Lil Wayne (ft. Nicki Minaj): Sweet Dreams [alt]

EDIT 9/4: It's Beyonce's birthday today. She turns 29. Totally didn't plan that! Weird.

Kanye Does It Again

2010-09-04T01:20:00.003-04:00

The man is a genius. A genius, I tell you.

Kanye West: Devil in a New Dress [alt]

MuzjiksRx (9.3)

2010-09-03T10:04:00.004-04:00

Note to patient: Though MDMA is not required to listen to this music, it certainly helps.

Monster! Monster!: Died In Your Arms (Dubstep Remix) [alt]

+

Vitalic: Flashmob [alt]

+

Guido: Mad Sax [alt]

=

[Posh British accent] Extraordinary Record [/Posh British accent]

2010-09-02T10:00:00.002-04:00

"Sometimes I feel like they [Radiohead] cleared a path with a machete, and we came afterward and put up a strip mall."
–Chris Martin

Air Traffic is your girlfriend's next favorite band. They're infectiously poppy and fall into the Radiohead-lite category along with Keane, Coldplay, Muse, and the like. Honestly, they're probably just one Twilight soundtrack or Stephenie Meyer cosign away from American teenybopper hysteria. And if you know anything about me, you know of my unabashed Radiohead elitism and general music snobbery. Hell, I own a shirt that reads "I listen to bands that don't even exist yet." So, why the hell am I posting this?

I'll admit it: Air Traffic is my guilty pleasure. I've been spinning their 2007 debut, Fractured Life, on the regular for the past three years now. In fact, the Bournemouth four-piece occupies two spots in my top 20 most played songs in iTunes. I guess you could say that Air Traffic fills that soft spot I have for Brits who sing with their native accent and proudly wear their indebtedness to The Great Thom Yorke on their sleeves.

Don't expect anything terribly groundbreaking or progressive here, but do prepare yourself from some catchy britpop, memorable melodies, and a band whose material you'll probably find yourself coming back to for the foreseeable future...

No More Running Away [alt]
Shooting Star [alt]
Charlotte [alt]

Derp

2010-09-01T13:00:00.000-04:00

Sure, the Princeton Review might've awarded the University of Georgia top honors when it came to party schools, but Davidson College students know that those rankings are all politics anyway. Apparently, this is the DC fight song, but with Tom Ross leaving and rumors abound of the campus going dry under the new police regime, I propose the following as the new fight song of Davidson College... [/tongue-in-cheek]

Tim Berg: Alcoholic (Dada Life Remix) [alt]

Can you dig it?

2010-09-01T10:00:00.000-04:00

You've heard of the Budos Band. You just don't know it. Perhaps you're familiar with Black Eyed Peas' "Imma Be," which sampled the band's "Ride or Ride." Or maybe you've heard Wale's Mixtape About Nothing, which lifted the beat for "The Chicago Falcon (Remix)" from the opening track of The Budos Band II. Blending jazz, funk, afrobeat, and the sound of the 1970s blaxploitation film into a nostalgic retro style, the Staten Island-based collective evokes Super Fly and Shaft so authentically that I thought I was listening to an obscure '70s band, rather than an alive-and-well group that's only been together since 2005.

Now, don't misconstrue my words. Just because the Budos Band is making music characteristic of four decades ago doesn't mean that they're retracing steps on well-trod ground; rather, these musicians are fusing the aforementioned genres into something new, something fresh. And as you can see in the picture above, there's a lot of people in Budos. They combine their efforts to yield groovy syncopation, subtle melodies, sultry horn lines, and countless other musical ingredients that ultimately create a dense sound that rewards repeat listens, as there's simply too many elements demanding interest for the ear to process it all at once.

Golden Dunes [alt]
Chicago Falcon [alt]
Ride or Die [alt]

Oh Yea!!

2010-09-01T02:42:00.004-04:00

These are way better.

Beyonce and Andy Griffith: "Single Ladies" (Mashup)

The White Panda: "Signs to Blow" (Drake v Bloc Party)

dw|tb

Wake up, bake up!

2010-09-01T01:17:00.003-04:00

Wiz Khalifa reps his hometown in this brand new track, entitled "Black and Yellow." Taylor Gang or start another oil spill, motherfuckers. Enjoy.

Black and Yellow [alt]

Oh, we suck again!

2010-08-31T15:06:00.007-04:00

Back on that mashup ish...

The White Panda: "Oh What Money to Blow" (Billy Joel v. Drake)

dw|tb

Yeezy.Chef.Beiber

2010-08-31T14:45:00.004-04:00

These Kanye collabos have been pretty mind blowing and this one doesn't disappoint. The remix has Justin Beiber's "Runaway Love" pitted against Wu Tang's "Wu-Tang Clan Ain't Nuthing Ta Fuck Wit" in a fight to prepubescent death. Wu Tang wins but this is one hell of a juxtaposition--I'm with ya Yeezy.

Justin Bieber feat. Kanye West and Raekwon: "Runaway Love" Remix

Cheers.
dw|tb

MuzjiksRx (8.31): Second Hit

2010-08-31T10:00:00.001-04:00

Disclaimer: Muzjiks neither condones nor partakes in the consumption of illegal substances. However, Muzjiks also wishes to cater to the widest spectrum of music listeners possible, and it's undeniable that marijuana culture is a sizable part of genres spanning from hip hop to reggae to psychedelic rock and beyond. Enjoy the following tunes responsibly.

Sublime: Smoke Two Joints [alt]

+

Lil Wayne: Ice Cream Paint Job [alt]

+

Easy Star All-Stars: With a Little Help from My Friends [alt]

=

MuzjiksRx (8.30): First Hit

2010-08-30T10:00:00.001-04:00

Disclaimer: Muzjiks neither condones nor partakes in the consumption of illegal substances. However, Muzjiks also wishes to cater to the widest spectrum of music listeners possible, and it's undeniable that marijuana culture is a sizable part of genres spanning from hip hop to psychedelic rock to reggae and beyond. Enjoy the following tunes responsibly.

Wiz Khalifa: In the Cut [alt]

+

Madvillain: America's Most Blunted [alt]

+

Rapid Ric: Gettin' High (ft. Devin the Dude, B.o.B, Cory Mo, & Chalie Boy) [alt]

=

What the game's been missing

2010-08-29T11:38:00.005-04:00

I was having a conversation with an old friend of Muzjiks, the Color Commentator, about how unbelievable it is that Lil Wayne was able to do what he did with The Carter III. Despite the pirating of the internet leak, the general migration away from physical formats toward digital, the proliferation of music blogs that provide easy access to mp3s for even the most computer illiterate, and all the other socioeconomic factors contributing to the death of the CD, Mr. Dwayne Michael Carter Jr. sold one million copies in the first week. That's simply unheard of nowadays. Could you imagine if—all other things being equal in terms of public music taste—Weezy dropped C3 in the '90s? There's no doubt in my mind that we'd be talking about it in the same context as Thriller and Dark Side of the Moon in terms of album sales.

Even so, like any album with that kind of sales success, C3 was timely, full of genius singles, but ultimately just a downright solid album from start to finish. Case and point: play just about any song off of that release at a party—even non-singles like "3 Peat," "Phone Home," or "Let the Beat Build"—and I promise you that over 95% of people will know the lyrics. That's why you don't see artists like Soulja Boy or Jay Sean selling records like Wayne. Sure, they'll go platinum, but they won't reach the stratospheric heights that Wayne did because, when it comes down to it, the collective ears of the public still want an album.

Another illustrative example: If you had a pulse in 2004, you knew J-Kwon's "Tipsy." The song was massive—you'd hear it four times just flipping through radio stations on any given car ride. Now, just for shits and giggles, check out this tracklist to the album on which "Tipsy" appeared. I dare you to tell me truthfully that you've heard of any other song on there. Although J-Kwon has been relegated to the mashup treatment and one-hit-wonder status, in the summer of 2004, he was it. No one bigger in the music biz than this fake ID-toting rapper who experienced a meteoric rise to fame. How many albums did he sell, you ask? 1.6 million to date.

Arguably the crowning achievement of C3 is the unrelenting "A Milli." It's gotten remixed after mashuped after freestyled over the past two years, but few ever recapture the song's original charm. However, with the virtuosic Flying Lotus on the boards, a helium-saturated Weezy is introduced to a fumbling beat that's kept from collapsing on itself by spitfire rhymes alone. You almost think that if Wayne stops rapping, somehow the whole track will devolve into cacophony. And the best part? The masterful FlyLo tests it out, dissolving the beat entirely at the 1:31 mark. The listener wonders whether the Best Rapper Alive has failed, whether he was unable to keep all the instrumental plates spinning, but then, at 1:43, he cobbles the beat back together with a triumphant "You ain't got shit." Did you really think Dr. Carter was going to lose a patient?

Lil Wayne: A Milli (Flying Lotus Remix) [alt]

Van Dope

2010-08-28T13:49:00.003-04:00

I know this has been out for a few days but oh-my-gosh...

Kanye West: "Power" (Official Remix)

dw|tb

MuzjiksRx (8.28): Second Dose

2010-08-28T10:00:00.000-04:00

Side effects: Perspiration, restless leg syndrome, and increased heart rate.

Freestylers: Cracks (Flux Pavilion Remix) [alt]

+

Picture Book: Sunshine [alt]

+

Ratatat: Drugs [alt]

=

New Kanyeezy

2010-08-27T21:22:00.003-04:00

The rapper everyone loves to hate (until he puts out yet another dope album) has dropped another track for everyone. Enjoy.

Monster (ft. Jay-Z, Rick Ross, Nicki Minaj, & Bon Iver) [alt]

MuzjiksRx (8.27): First Dose

2010-08-27T11:41:00.007-04:00

It's Friday. Here's a prescription to bring out the party animal/dancing machine in you. Fill at your local party.
–Dr. Muzjiks

(Pretty Lights: Finally Moving [alt] / Hot Like Sauce [alt])

+

The White Panda: Stuntin' Like My Energy (Lil Wayne vs. Keri Hilson) [alt]

=

Burning

2010-08-26T20:43:00.005-04:00

Mogwai has released a sprawling live DVD spanning a large portion of their enourmous catalog. The movie is now available on iTunes and is directed by Vincent Moon and Nathanaël Le Scouarnec.

Along with the DVD, Mogwai has released and accompanying live album entitled Special Moves. Lucky enough for me (and you) one of my favorite songs, "Friend of the Night" is included in the live compilation. The live version has some nice fuzzy moss that isn't included in the studio cut. Enjoy.

Mogwai: "Friend of the Night" (Live) [Buy]

dw|tb