Bat For Lashes

Bat For Lashes "Daniel"

It seems like I was meant to find with Bat For Lashes. I first heard "What's a girl to do" on Comcast Cable's free music videos. At the time I thought the song was good but never took it any further. Fast forward three months and a buddy of mine, whom I totally take any recommendation to heart, shared the new album "Two Suns"
. Literally a day later my girlfriends Nylon arrived in the mail. Flipping through pages and who do I see in a two page article, Ms. Natasha Kahn. It's funny how things happen...


What's a Girl To Do - Bat For Lashes


BFL on Nylon TV

Best show of the summer; AND IT'S FREE!

If anyone is interested, there is free show in Atlanta, GA at Opera Night Club on
July 3rd. This show should be amazing. Here is the complete
list of artist participating:

A-Track, MSTRKRFT, Major Lazer, DJ AM, Jazzy Jeff and Drop The Lime,
Matt & Kim

Here is the RSVP Link


If you want to go or think you may want to in July, sign up asap. I can't believe that A) They are doing this B) This won't sell out very fast


MSTRKRFT


Major Lazer


Matt & Kim


A-Track

Jon Hopkin & Grey's Anatomy

Okay, bear with me for a minute on this comparison. This idea came to me last night in the shower as I was listening to Jon Hopkins. Dr. Meredith Grey is the main character on ABC's Grey's Anatomy. Yes, I watch Grey's Anatomy but I digress. So Dr. Grey is the beautiful, caring, and sweet mannered doctor. But she proclaims to be "Dark and Twisty." She definitely has a morose side to her.

Jon Hopkins is Meredith Grey. His album Insides is absolutely stunning at times. Beautiful orchestra strings with melodic electronic layered synths. Then out of no where he pounds the listener with deep, dark, glitched out beats. So dark and so twisty. I love it. From song to song it is easy to get lost in this music. I find it so amazing that a week ago I had no idea that this man existed but now I find his music hard to go without. What a different seven days make...


Jon Hopkins - Insides

Free Diplo Bootleg @ Lenny's May 09'

I got a little gem here, free Diplo bootleg MP3 from Lenny's in Atlanta. Diplo managed to get a 20 minute set in before the crowd mobbed the stage and killed the power. Unfortunately they never left but the show went on. Here you download the first 20 minutes for free. Good audio and a nice start to his set before he started going through the motions.

Link: Diplo MP3 @ Lennys

The Return Au Revoir Simone

My girls are back with a new release, "Still Night, Still Light." It's everything that you would expect from an Au Revoir Simone release - beautiful vocals, melodic Electronica, and well written songs and lyrics. They are one of the bands that I will blindly buy anything they release. I have never been disappointed in the past and today, one day after purchasing "Still Night, Still Light", I am very satisfied.

Junior Boys Playlist from the Earl Show

Sorry it took me so long everyone. All 10 songs (minus Hazel: we were late!).

Ninja Tune's Oddity: Fink

I have been listening to the Ninja Tune label for almost a decade now. For the past ten years there has only been one artist that has been signed as a singer/songwriter with no electronic instrumentation. There is one artist on the Ninja Tune Label that stands apart from the rest.

Fink began as an electronic producer but found his niche as a singer songwriter. His latest album, Sort of Revolution
isn't due until March 25th, 2009 but I have been lucky enough to be previewing it for a week now.

I have been blown away by what I have heard. He has incredibly soul full sound. I was comparing to a friend that had never heard of him as, "If Jack Johnson had Soul...". What I really like about Fink is the use of real organic sounds which is interesting because he started his career as an electronic producer. Beats produced by percussion on the guitar body isn't a new technique but Fink applies it perfectly throughout the album. The music is great, don't get me wrong, but the real star of the album is Fink's vocal ability. The decision to get out from behind the turntables and step out in front with a guitar and a microphone was a brilliant one. He has too unique of a voice and point of view to not continue this for the rest of his days creating music. I hope to be there for every step of the way. He has just found another new fan.

The “New” Passion Pit

Just this morning I was on the way into work listening to Chunk of Change EP. I have worn this EP out for the past four months. There is a certain purity to this recording. It’s a homemade love album. That is so bad ass.

I remember making many of these as a kid. Tape after tape of my prized 15 year old teenage music collection, recorded on my old Sony boombox, for the girls that I was courting. Michael Angelakos was so much cooler in the fact that he made his own six song mixtape. Now how do you top that?

Manners will be released on Tuesday the 19th for the general public. I was luck enough to be previewing it this week. Michael is back this time with a full band. With that change, the sound of Passion Pit has to be influences by each band member. People will have to get over the fact that the sound is going to change. Manners is a different record completely than Chunk of Change. I have to admit that that I loved the raw and unfinished sound of the EP but I am really starting to embrace what a talent like Michael Angelakos can do with the resources of a large record label and studio. He has taken every aspect of the EP to a new level with the full length. The range of instruments has doubled if not tripled. The Scratchy distorted vocals are refined with clear production and even back up singers. If Chunk of Change was a vision of what Passion Pit could be, Manners is fulfillment of the vision. Now that Passion Pit has all the tools at it’s disposal, the next question is where do they go from here?

Moderat : The Perfect Marriage

Moderat is the love child between Sascha Ring (aka Apparat) and Gernot Bronsert and Sabastian Szary (aka Modeselektor). I discovered Apparat a few years ago and last year was exposed to Modeselektor when hearing their track with Radiohead front man Thom Yorke. That one track alone got me on a Modeselektor binge that force me to buy every album and EP I could get my hands on. You can only guess how excited I was when finding this gem of a album.
Back to the history: after recording their first EP for BPitch Control records in 2002, they broke up and went their separate ways. In the next 6 six years both groups would release multiple albums and countless EPs. In 2008 they back together to start recording their first full length album, “Moderat”, which released on April 20, 2009. A lot had changed but their fondness of dark, dirty, grimy electronic music had not changed.
I was not disappointed by what I heard. I know it sounds corny that the album would sound like a mix between the two artists but that is exactly what “Moderat” is. If you take the auditory sound-scapes of Apparat and mix in the brutally rough and chopped beats of Modeselektor, you have the mixings of great new band. Sprinkle in guest Vocalist and MC’s on selected tracks and now you have a true cross-over album marketable to the great unwashed. Don’t be surprised if you start hearing them in the media around you.

Astronautalis

I downloaded his 06' "The Mighty Ocean and 9 Dark Theatres" last night and have been listening to it all day. I am three years behind on this one but better late then never. Some compare Andy Bothwell to The Stone Throw's artist Why. He is part Hip Hop and definitely part experimental. He is way intriguing non the less and I can't wait to download more.

Pretty Light May 14th

I only have a few minutes to get this up for all of you. Unfortunately the internet in the smith household is down until Tuesday. There is an amazing show coming up on Thursday the 14th at the Masquerade.

I got introduced to Pretty Lights from a friend of a friend and have been listening to their albums now for a constant two weeks. Check out their website for free downloads. I am going back to give a dontation, I promise!

Some audio to preview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62VASkbu1gw

Diplo Sleepwalks his way at Lenny's

Let me first start this off by saying that I love Diplo. The dude has some unbelievable spining skills. His ear for new music is hardly matched in the Dj Scene. But Last night both my girlfriend (seen him 2X in the last year) and I (seen him 1X in the last year) walked away disappointed. I have to admit the fist seven or eight songs were in a mix that I have never heard. Then he started pulling out "standards." Yes, the aragement of songs was really good when we heard them at Whirley Ball. Then again at The Masquerade. When I heard those same mixes again Lenny's I was literally calling the next song because I have heard the so many times before. One of them was going back as far as 06 in December when I saw him spin the Outkast Bombs over Baghdad to Le Tigre (From the Fabric Live). Toward the end of his set he stopped trying all together just cutting from one track to another. I am dissapointed because I know he can do better. The dude puts out quality podcasts on a weekly basis. Last week I found two unbelievable mixtapes with all new songs and mixes. With all this, why does he have to revert to spinning the same music live for year straight?

The Tape vs RQM

First and foremost, happy May everybody. The weather is finally starting to get toasty in Atlanta. The showers are coming and turning this dead and brown city green again.

I discovered a new band to start the month off on the right note. I found the Tape vs RQM in the electro section of emusic. They feel into the electro/hip category because there is a sick MC who appears on the tracks. The rest of the tracks range from Aphex Twins inspired R&B to female Electronic ballads. They best describe the act off their website:

"Originally entitled Black and Bruised: The Mixtape For Suicidal Lovers, Public Transport is deep blue on the sound spectrum. Like the previous The Tape vs RQM efforts it remains a subtle genre bender. The compositions swim fluidly between acoustic and electronic, between Hip Hop, Neo-Folk, and the endless shades of Rock, while a universe of IDM stutters, clicks, glitches, and rewinds forms the space for the heartbroken confessions of the featured vocalists. Back on vocalduty alongside RQM are the familiar voices of Malte Beckenbach and Sasha Perera of Jahcoozi, but also new timbres, that of Elle P and Ira. The emotional depth and the honesty found on this record is a rare occurrence in music these days."

Also check out their website for what looks to be a free sick mixtape. Downloading it will be on of the first things I do when I get home.

THE TAPE - MIXTAPE PART III - http://www.thetape.de/the_tape-mixtape_part_3.mp3

Tracklist:

1. Wolfmother vs. The Tape vs. RQM - Scuffed Up Sneakers
2. Apparat feat. Raz Ohara - Holdon
(Chris de Luca vs Phon.O remix)
3. Nas - Hip Hop Is Dead
4. Foxy Brown feat. Pharrell Williams - Magnetic
5. 50weapons 001 - Game Over
6. Snoop Dogg - Psst!
7. Elle P - Tricks (Jahcoozi Remix)
8. The Tape vs RQM - 718
9. Santogold - Creator
10. Vetiver - You May Be Blue
11. Al Haca - Baby Blue
12. Mama Shamone - Over (Jahcoozi Remix)
13. Filewile feat. RQM - Damn (Jahcoozi Remix)
14. Mark Ronson - Toxic
15. Klaxons - Golden Skans (Sebastian Remix)
16. Grimetime Allstars - Jah Studio Jam
(Robot Koch`s Heavy Metal Chrome Tape Remix)