Showing posts with label Sun Araw. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sun Araw. Show all posts

Thursday, December 23, 2010

More Goodies to Keep Scrooge at Bay

Hopefully, you kids are out drinking eggnog or some other holiday-related activity that bespeaks intoxication and good times. i expect no less from my LET brethren and sisteren. For those of us with Scrooge for a boss (working for oneself is such a hassle), i do have a couple of goodies to help you get through the rest of the day while you think about what you want to do with your significant other and a sugar plum later this evening.

You know i lurvs me some Autolux. Meg and i will get to our "Top CDs of 2010" lists in the coming weeks (seriously, how can you make a "Best of the Year" list before the year even is over?), but i'll tell you right now that Transit Transit is going to make one of my lists in some fashion. As luck would have it, the band just did a LiveBuzz session and decided to share this mp3 goodness with all y'all lucky bastards.


i hold Sun Araw in similar rarefied air, but i'll let Aristocrat P. Child do the talking about this next jam. The legendary invite-only parties at SUN ARK STUDIOS had reached a sort of frenzied climax in late summer of 2010, steamy and yet ambiguous police actions, multiple lenticular object sightings, and spontaneous dance-floor teleportations all were pointed at some sort of budding vortex, a sinister portal that was going to have to be danced through. Everything was coming up fungal, spiral filaments wrapping around wrists and ankles, yanking some chains. For the 3am set, MATTHEWDAVID joined SUN ARAW onstage for what would be the moment of germination: SUN ARAW passing retrieved melodic objects while MD dilated, distended, folded, and then flung them through the gateway. After listening from the control room with eyes closed, I wandered out onto the dancefloor to take stock: the partygoers as I remembered them had vanished, and the entities that were moving to these grooves were tough to identify, multiplying rapidly in fractal-like patterns and then slipping sideways into shadow. I caught a cab and got out of there. I have no idea who finished the recording.

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Friday, September 3, 2010

Late Night Free Music Friday: The After Hours, Beat the Meet Edition

It's been a looong fucking week at the office, but i ain't gots no time for none of that bullshit and various other grammatically incorrect vernacular vehemence! That being said, there was just too much good music this week not to share. As it happens, i probably could have made this a Beat Meet just as easily, but check your calendar, bitches.


Old school gets a lift from the new generation, which is an excellent thing for beat music fans. Brad Laner has a new one out called Natural Selections. What caught my immediate attention, however, was the fact that Baths decided to remix the first single. The Master of the Tub adds his airy touch to an already otherworldly jam. For the helium minded, natch.


Ever since i saw them open for Lykke Li a couple of years back, i've been impressed by Wildbirds & Peacedrums. And every new track i hear shows growth and improvement from the last, highlighting their growth as musicians. On this new one, the percussion heavy band adds steel drums to create a breezy, slower jam that's a nice send off to the quickly fading summer.


OK, i've dug 2010's foray into fuzz-reverb-heavy, Spector-esque chick bands as much as the next guy, but i think i'm about ready for this phase to wrap itself up. i'm well aware that Frankie Rose and the Outs comes from the highest of pedigrees within the genre, and this track isn't too shabby, but let's watch ourselves here, eh, kids? Too much of a good thing is just going to give you gas, children.


i kept meaning to check out Prince Rama, but there are only so many hours in the day, right? Of course, much like with Mr. Laner above, it only took the right man to remix things to pique my interest. Enter Sun Araw and one hell of a tribal treatment to his highness' beat.


And now a hearty thank you to the fine folks over at the Brainfeeder camp who just decided to overload us with audio riches this past week. Teebs' first single, "Arthur's Birds," for his Brainfeeder debut, Ardour, sounds like the music made by cyborg parakeets, so we've got that. The Gaslamp Killer is getting ready to drop a new one, too. To tease Death Gate, they've released a new track with Gonjasufi, which quite frankly, is the best Gonjasufi track i've ever heard; the two apparently like-minded artists just nail this Far East sounding jam. And what would Brainfeeder be without the magic of their maestro, Flying Lotus, behind it? That's conjecture for another day when we've got more weed than we do now, but you can groove along with him as he sits in with the Miguel Atwood-Ferguson Ensemble from this set, live in Los Angeles, July 23rd, 2010.




With the weather hopefully just starting to cool off a bit, i think i'm going to have to make good on my promise to start "paying back" Levi for their incredible Pioneer Sessions with the purchase of some denim. This week, it's Nas' take on Slick Rick's classic, "Hey, Young World."


Just when you think you've had enough and right after i bitched about having too much of a good thing, you don't think i'd send you off without this wafer thin offering from Low End Theory, did you? Here's Podcast 17, featuring Daddy Kev and Baths (sumbitch is everywhere lately, which is nice). Oh my.


Now off with you, and for my U.S. compatriots, enjoy the start of a long weekend.
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Friday, August 20, 2010

Free Music Friday Returns: The Funky, Undecipherable, Tribal, Groovy, Latino, Godless, Denim Edition

Jebus, after seemingly forever, we've finally got enough stuff to make for a pretty damn fine Free Music Friday, if i do say so my damn self. Good things come to those who wait, i suppose. Of course, that saying always makes me think of paraplegics for some reason, which just goes to show that the better the meds, the better the story.

i'm not sure how the Budos Band have managed to fly under my radar for as long as they have, but shame on me. As an old skool Funkateer myself, not getting into these cats sooner was a criminal mistake on my part. Tight horns, mucho impressive rhythm section and an ability to groove with the best of them make this a group that we both should be listening to.


i wish i could tell you more about Shugo Tokumaru, but as the Japanese artist's webpage is not in English, i don't have a whole lot to go on here. What i can tell you is that the 20-year-old is making some incredible bedroom tunes, apparently just him, a Mac and a microphone. i'm having a hell of a time trying to classify the sound--it's certainly not J-pop, and i wouldn't call it standard beat music or electro, either, yet it seems to somehow combine elements of all that and more. Whatever, this one is sunny, catchy and perfect to get your weekend started right.


i mentioned that one of my younger sibs recently returned from Africa. Said sib also now works with me at the day job, so i typically play DJ whenever we go to lunch or where ever. When he asked me to hip him to some new cats he might not now about, i quickly went to Sun Araw. i explained that this mofo was making raw, primal sounds, real tribal shit that essentially begs the listener to ingest some hallucinogenics, strip nekkid and dance around a fire. "Which tribe?," my brother replied. Sibs can be a pain in the ass. Regardless, in preparation for the new 12" he's about to drop on Woodsist, Sun's camp sent us this spastic booty shaker from the Mothership.


Ever since his appearance on Zero 7's The Garden, i've been a bit of a José González fan. His languid style and hazily romantic axemanship do something for me, you dig? The fact that he's formed a three piece combo called Junip, all hailing from Gothenburg, Sweden (featuring Tobias Winterkorn on keys, Elias Araya on skins and the aforementioned José González on vox and guitar) is Voltron-like in its own sweet perfection. The sound bears González's trademark soft groove, which is nice.


For whatever reason, we get surprisingly few submissions from Mexican bands. In and of itself, that's probably not a big deal, but for a site that prides itself on bringing you the finest in Nigerian speed rap, we are saddened that more of our continental neighbors don't see fit to send things our way. Fortunately, however, Mexico City's indie phenoms, Chikita Violenta, recently signed with the Arts & Crafts label, meaning we were able to get our grubby, little mitts on a couple of singles from their latest, TRE3S. Produced by Broken Social Scene's own Dave Newfeld, if you ever wondered how Canada's finest sprawling sound would play as performed by English-speaking Latinos, well, wonder no more. The short answer is pretty damn good. Cross cultural exchange at its finest, if you will.



Maybe it has something to do with the fact that i'm getting a bit too close for my own comfort to middle aged myself , but i have a major audio boner for Grinderman. Sure, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds are incredible in their own right, but the fire, piss and vinegar that Grinderman puts out there simply is in another league. i, for one, cannot wait for them to finally make it to the 9:30 Club for their upcoming fall tour. Sure, we posted the extended maxi-single for Heathen Child already a while ago, but in case that one was too long, they've just dropped the radio edit for your listening pleasure.


i haven't bought a pair of Levi's in i don't know how long, but if they're going to continue to keep putting out their stellar Pioneer Sessions, i might just have to head out to the mall and show my gratitude by way of a pair of boot cut denim purchase. This time around, they've given us the Dirty Projectors and their take on Dylan's classic, "I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine." So money.

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Saturday, June 26, 2010

FunJunkie's Summer Burn 2010, Part the Second

The Missus was more than kind enough to help me put together the covers for these mixtape masterpieces last night, so they're en route to recipients in far off lands even now. Part of the experience of FunJunkie's annual Summer Burn, you see, is the case itself.

Last year, i went shitty and just used iTunes auto-jewel-case-cover-program, which is pretty plebeian on its own. Of course, that was the year i exchanged with some graphic designer who sent me this lush, handmade piece with silk screening and the whole nine yards. So this year, i returned to my fourth grade collaging skills for the cover (pictured here) and even bought some nifty program at Best Buy that was supposed to be the shit's tits, but the paper fucked up my printer. Long story short if it's not too late already, The Missus came through like a champ, so they actually looked like they were made by more than a drunken goat herder.

If you enjoyed yesterday's foray into the mind of Uncle Terrible's summer mix mentality, here's some more of the same. Only infinitely different.





mp3: Exile (Enya from Watermark)





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