Bloc Party - Signs (MMMathias Remix)

Something quiet and inspiring for a Wednesday morning...

Bloc Party - Signs (MMMathias remix)

www.myspace.com/blocparty
Buy Bloc Party @ Itunes

Caroline Weeks - Folk Explosion

Caroline Weeks’ debut album, Songs For Edna, is to be made available on vinyl and for download in March 2009. This keenly anticipated collection will be released on the Los Angeles-based Manimal Vinyl, the same label that licensed the US vinyl release of Bat For Lashes’ Fur And Gold debut.

Having been a full time member of Natasha Khan’s Bat For Lashes for over three years, Caroline Weeks has now both cemented her position as Natasha’s right-hand gal and found the time to record her own stunning debut disc.

Caroline previously performed under the name Ginger Lee, but having discovered (via a somewhat shocking Google search) that a young American lady who appears to relish having her photo taken in the buff shared this particular moniker, Caroline has now reverted to using her family name.

Born and bread on the Sussex coast, Caroline comes from a long line of musicians: in the 1920s the fifteen-strong “Weeks brass band” was famed across East Sussex, while, more recently, her Grandfather can be seen playing the church organ in the movie of Stella Gibbons’ Cold Comfort Farm.

A classically trained flautist and effortlessly self-taught multi-instrumentalist, Caroline’s current weapon of choice is a three-quarter-sized classical Spanish guitar, which she uses to brew a heady mix of cantering finger picks and delicately decaying sound shapes, where the spaces are just as important as the notes. Add to this her own “secret” tuning (which has been known to flummox even the most competent of guitarists looking to have a quick strum in the Green Room) and you have a truly original sound.

Collected Sounds - Enjoy!

Caroline Weeks - Raven
Caroline Weeks - Renascence
Caroline Weeks - See Where Capella
Caroline Weeks - The Drowning Man
Caroline Weeks - What Lips My Lips Have Kissed
Caroline Weeks - Wild Swans
Caroline Weeks - Elegy

Royal Rumble

most of you know of royal rumble the wwf video game, but royal rumble is also one of the rare species of 3-man dj/production team. this trio of los angeleans (is that a word?) have been building quite a quality reputation around these parts due to their quality musical selections, unpretentious 'hush hush' events, and their production work.

their latest effort was a glitched-up rework of aussie's bipolar badwise.

MP3 - bipolar badwise - entwined (royal rumble remix)

another benefit to living in los angeles is that when you make a good edit, it gets passed around to prominent dj's just like this week's dj groupie.

MP3 - soulwax - miserable girl (royal rumble edit)

the guys are going to be rotating residents at guns n bombs new 'house of no culture' night wednesdays at the echo in los angeles. the first show is january 7th featuring rong music's free blood!

Jay NaSTY - Xmas Mix

Found this mix on this website Southside Discotech. Awesome summer mix. Enjoy!

JNSTY-Xmas Mix by JNSTY

MP3 - JNSTY - XMAS MIX - [Soundcloud] 

Christmas EVE 2008 Mix

Here is a mix of Christmas songs to get you all into the festive spirit. Ho Ho Ho!

The Knife - Christmas Reindeer

Sufjan Stevens - That Was The Worst Christmas Ever!

Of Montreal - Christmas Isn't Safe For Animals

El Perro Del Mar - Oh What A Christmas

Erland Oye - Last Christmas JOHNNIE'S FAVOURITE

The Kinks - Father Christmas

Polyphonic Spree - Carol of the Bells

Low – Just Like Christmas

FlyLo + ing + tus = Flying Lotus

It’s 2008, this man, this man here, direct blood of John Coltrane (that’s newsworthy but not a reason buy the record) has produced a series of records for Warp (great label shite website) that are quite frankly fucking brilliant. The production skills of this boy are ridic. When Gilles Peterson talks about artists joining the dots - it’s this man he’s talking about. Hip-hop beats and jazz tempos are in his blood - yet it’s his love of electronica and dubstep that augment his super silky production skills that really excite me - it’s that lo-fi heavy beat, highly atmospheric 30’s gramophone crackle and super slick ode to dub that pricks my ear.

This man is a pure talent. Previous a PLUG RESEARCH artist this boy has done his time - and it’s time for a new heavyweight to take his natural place as top of the cherry tree. Yes Flying Lotus - time to kick 20pence and his loonytunetribe aside and eat cherrypie. Buy his records here and i recommend Flylo for listening during times of afternoon sexual intercourse.



MP3: Roberta Flack (with Dolly)
MP3: Kanye West - Love Lockdown(Flying Lotus Remix)


Johnnie's Note: This remix of Kanye West's song "Love Lockdown" is a fantastic dub remix, bringing in a production value very similar to Burial! Post Rave Bliss... :P

La Roux - Quicksand

Came across this today. I've fallen in love with the videoclip - Johnnie

Also find the song here

MP3: La Roux - Quicksand (Chateau Marmont Remix) (ALT)

Bloc Party - Flux (MSTRKRFT JFK Remix)

MSTRKRFT back again, significantly improving this song. They strip away the absurdity of the electronic/trance flavor of the track and bring it back to proper Bloc Party style with guitars and drums; basically making it more indie rock, yet leaving an electro flavor to it. It starts with a nice, bouncing piano melody that remains throughout the song and then added is the MSTRKRFT signature of distorted and choppy guitars and synths. That signature riff really drives this mix to the goodness that it is.
MP3: Bloc Party - Flux (MSTRKRFT JFK Remix)

Friendly Fires - Paris [Ft. Au Revoir Simone] [Aeroplane Remix]

It is safe to say that Aeroplane are the big remixing surprise of 2008, the blogs' fondness initiated near the beginning of the year & slowly turned into an obsession as the months progressed, guaranteeing the duo a spot on the Hypem popular list for every remix dropped into the blog ring.

Turning electro & indie tunes to lux cloudy disco anthems is their signature sound & what were rejected remixes of Cut Copy/Grace Jones eventually demanded for a commercial release after the masses repeated the question "What the hell is wrong with the label?"; The magic peaked in my vision when they bravely erased out the original Friendly Fires vocals & replaced them with the healing glycerin like vocals of NYC chanteuses Au Revoir Simone that not only renewed my love for the track but made it a necessity for the original album version to be re-released with the new vocals as a stand alone production... unfortunately that doesn't happen often in this copyright & cash driven life.

This remix puts the original to shame.

MP3: Friendly Fires - Paris (ft. Au Revoir Simone) (Aeroplane Remix)

Happy Birthday

Röyksopp are officially back!

♫ Röyksopp - Happy Birthday 320kbps

Air France - No Way Down EP [Get Ready For Summer]

This feature may be called the “Top 50 Albums of 2008”, but the title alone does not give me enough justice to dismiss arguably the finest EP of the year in Air France’s No Way Down. Throughout the six tracks and 23 minutes that make up this fine EP, the Swedish duo crafts an audible world that is both magical and enlightening, with the effective atmospheric capabilities displayed being reminiscent of the Avalanches’ classicSince I Left You in its ambitious sample-led scope and sheer melodic aptitude. With twittering brass, sweeping strings, radiant synthesizers, and a variety of samples that are often comprised of pleasant sounds like the chirping of birds or the sounds of a seashore, No Way Down takes the listener to a world where relaxation and lighthearted innocence are at the forefront. A track like “No Excuses”, with its reflective keys and heavy chorus, sounds like it would be perfectly associated with the joyful state of a party-filled tropical island, while “Collapsing at Your Doorstep” invokes a similar fantasy world-setting that proves to be more emotionally resounding with a vocal sample and accompanying strings that are gradually accompanied by an evolving use of percussion, bass, and guitar. The prominent samples throughout “Collapsing at Your Doorstep” (taken from the ’80s TV series “Beauty and the Beast”) all feature the voices of children, a remarkably effective technique that perfectly initiates the feelings of that certain period in childhood when innocence allowed even the most trivial thing in life to utterly amaze you. The brilliant “June Evenings” sees the group increase their focus on pop music while still maintaining their atmospheric ingenuity. The instrumentation is more vigorous, but certain effects like the melodic whistling during the chorus, the subtly enriching bass line, and the calming female vocals that consume the verses make “June Evenings” one of the best tracks of the year. Forget the fact that No Way Down is too short to be a full-length; it is truly one of the most innovative releases of the year, EP or not.

Air France - June Evenings


Air France - Collapsing at Your Doorstep


MySpace

BUY from Itunes

MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/evangelicals

MP3: Evangelicals: Skeleton Man

MP3: Evangelicals: How Do You Sleep?

Mess is less on the second album from Oklahoma psych-rock band Evangelicals. There’s nothing wrong with a sprawling album, per se, as Pink Floyd’s Meddle and Blur’s 13attest to. But a sprawler is always a dangerous gambit for a band. It can easily trip over the line from cracked genius into failed experiment, as The Evening Descends does.

Evangelicals’ 2006 debut, So Gone, was already an eclectic affair, but it stayed anchored in stellar songs like “Hello, Jenn, I’m a Mess” and “The Water Is Warm.” There isn’t a similar standout to point to here. In fact, the record really isn’t song-based as much as it is a streaming cornucopia of music and noise -- in the form of old movie clips, band members mumbling, and, most insipid of all, Evangelicals staging little radio plays complete with mimed machinery noise.

The band does best when it sounds most like it did on So Gone, a debut that showed plenty of promise. “Snowflakes” unfolds over pretty, languid arpeggios. After an opening that really recalls a song off The Wall’s third or fourth side, “Here in the Deadlights” settles down into a brighter, breezier groove that much of So Gonesucceeded in. And “Skeleton Man” is the album’s most coherent tune, charging along on the type of pulsing bass line used so well in Arcade Fire’s “Rebellion (Lies)” and Electrelane’s “To the East.”

The song “Stoned Again,” and the overall druggy haze the album emits, got me thinking that the old Spacemen 3 equation “Take drugs to make music to take drugs to” only works out if both the drugs and the music are of high quality. Evangelicals must have gotten dealt some bad shit, because this isn’t exactly an enjoyable trip. At the end ofThe Evening Descends, on “Bloodstream,” lead Evangelical Josh Jones claims, “I was sleeping/ I must have been dreaming.” Maybe next time around this band will wake up to its true potential. Or at least get a better hookup on the pharmaceuticals.