Anika - Yang Yang [Stones Throw, 2011]
1. It’s a Yoko Ono cover
2. She has the 80’s New York punk funk sound going, not far off from legendary groups such as Bush Tetras, ESG, DNA, Liquid Liquid or something to that effect.
3. It’s on Stones Throw
4. It’s a damn good song
5. I think she’s hot.
Download at rcrdlbl: http://rcrdlbl.com/artists/Anika/track/Yang_Yang
Or maybe this is better, the more dancefloor oriented edit of a Bush Tetras track:
Leftfield - Rhythm & Stealth [Hard Hands, 1999]
OK, we’ve been out of tune for the past 3 months, we’re back and we’ll make sure to post the good stuff every week.
The year was 1999, people were freaking out because the clock will turn 2____ and Leftfield released the seminal Rhythm & Stealth, We like most ‘Dusted’ and ‘Swords’ from the album, so here’s one of them. Oh BTW, that year had the maddest new year raves for obvious reasons.
INDIESINIMARI 30 SEPT DAIKANYAMA feat. DJ RIBUT 10.59, ALEX ASQUARED and XES XES LOVESEAT
La Dusseldorf - La Dusseldorf [Nova; 1976]
Over and over again. One of our favourite Krautrock record, with the 13min long track Dusseldorf being wholesome motorik epic-ness. Let’s go.
The Human League - Never Let Me Go (Aeroplane remix) [Wall of Sound; 2011]
Utter dancefloor destroyer is the Aeroplane remix of The Human League-Never Let Me Go. Booty shaking Italo goodness. This is what you get when New Wave gods, The Human League jam together with Italo kings, Aeroplane. We wish we have a dancefloor to destroy!
And The Human League back in action with new album, Credo? It’s a good day today.
A dancefloor oriented Italo mix coming up soon!
Grab here: http://www.mediafire.com/?377c34jxog8m09n
While we’re at this Italo business and if you have the patience to enjoy this, go check out our current favourite track: ‘The Third of The Storms’ from the venerable Italo label Italians Do It Better’s head honcho Mark Simonetti (feat. Sam Sparro). Will post it next.
Folk And Pop Sounds Of Sumatra Volume 1 [Sublime; 2003]
When I first heard Samsimar-Indang Pariaman on Ariel Pink’s mixtape for FACT my jaw dropped. “What is this?”, I asked myself. It’s sort of freaky gypsy-esque folk music and was very hypnotizing. I kept repeating the mix only to listen to that song.
I had the shock of my life, when I found out it was actually folk music coming from Sumatra, of a people I share my ancestry with. Ariel Pink BTW has been cited as one of the most influential indie musician in the past 10-15 years, on his own pushing the lo-fi movement thus all this chillwave that we’re getting lately.
Funny that how, a very influential American musician don’t see any problem championing this kind of sound, when our own fans are clearly quite embarrassed to even listen to their own local music, let alone championing it. The leading light in alternative dance music, Optimo meanwhile are currently championing Space System, a band from Indonesia by releasing the gamelan inspired Petik, which is taking off quite nicely.
So the point I want to make is: don’t underestimate or under appreciate our own music, tradition or culture. Some of it has been around for thousand of years for a reason:they’re great and it means something. Well we can start off by supporting our own bands and break free of MTV.
This compilation is certainly interesting especially with the 2 tracks by Samsimar (which were clearly field recordings).
Nicolas Jaar - Space Is Only Noise [Circus; 2011]
Last year, we decided that the two breakthrough artists were James Blake and Nicolas Jaar and we’ve championed the two, right off the bat when James Blake released his first EP, CMYK and before Jaar released his 6 Edits. Both are now officially huge.
Already this year, how great it is to have Blake and Jaar releasing full albums. Fans across different genres know James Blake, his a bona-fide superstar, and damn with his new look he’s actually quite good looking too.
The two has turned the way we perceived music upside down, with a lot more thought being put into the use of silence and space. (It is well known fact that Blake, to the annoyance of some punters, intentionally stops any music from coming out for a good 30 seconds, before he comes in again in a DJ set)
So we are recommending the more understated less exposed Jaar’s Space Is Only Noise. Think Philip Glass meets slowed down deep techno meets afro-jazz, and make it a lot weirder. Pick of the lot is Colomb and Balance Her Between Your Eyes.
Bjork + Dirty Projectors - Mount Wittenberg Orca [Self-released for charity; 2010]
What a combo, you’d just know that these two are a match made in sonic heaven. Dirty Projector’s Bitte Orca was one of our major favourite in 2009, with Useful Chamber, although not really a DJ track, receiving heavy airplay at the clubs we were playing at. They’re based in Brooklyn being led by their mastermind David Longstreth and Bjork? I won’t bother explaining.
Mount Wittenberg Orca was released digitally in the second half of last year with not much fanfare. To be honest we missed this one and didn’t manage to include this interesting EP in our annual list. Not only do Bjork and Dirty Projectors are almost like musical Siamese twins having the same misfit eye for catchy anomalies and the experimental but they are also dead serious about protecting the environment which goes way beyond singing about birds, mountains, whales and sunrises. All proceeds from the collaboration will be donated to the National Geographic Society with the aim of creating international marine-protected areas.
Bjork and Longstreth’s songcraft dovetail beautifully on this EP with Bjork’s pleading chants skipping playfully over Dirty Projectors’ odd melodies. Dirty Projectors vocal quartet’s unique style of singing, which made Bitte Orca so special is used only sparingly on Mount Wittenberg Orca and never is directly engaged to Bjork’s vocal input. That’s a great shame because we were already wetting our pants imagining a bizarre soul crunching take-out that happens when anything like Bjork’s version of Gloomy Sunday being sung hand on hand with Amber Coffman’s lead in Stillness In the Move or Longstreath’s wailing in Temucula Sunrise or Rise Above from 2007. That would be epic, a glorious volcano erupting by a calm lake where you see Bjork swimming with Orcas, another name for killer whales.
Our pick as the EP’s best track: Bjork + Dirty Projectors - Sharing Orb
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GRAB EP here —> http://www.mediafire.com/?ozm4xra2wwn
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Imagine this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCEJtUNe90A
Meets this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyihN5qoTWI
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You might be interested to know that with a couple of gonzos we’re planning to rape and take apart the track Ocean from Mount Wittenberg in a live performance (Watch out for updates)
