Rumpistol and Red Baron on Project Mooncircle

Burnt Friedman and Jaki Liebezeit – Secret Rhythms 4

The Hidden Agenda Discography

The new Daniel Savio album coming on Dodpop.

I had a few Shatter Hands tracks from the Outsourced compilations on outlier, but Tinker called my attention back to him – super amazing stuff. ANOTHER Danish producer in my top favs at the moment.

And in case you had any doubts, this is AWESOME:

I just came back from Hawaii. Man, that’s a pretty place. And strikingly diverse. And there’s a lot of stories I could tell about my time there, but I’ll keep it brief. We played at Source Maui. It’s Maui’s regional burn (that is, a burning man type event that sometimes, though not always, serves as a fund-raiser / prep time for larger camps). It happened here:

Photo by Elias Arjan

Pretty, right? And here’s what the camp looked like when it was all starting out (the big white dome in the back is the main stage).

Photo by Elias Arjan

And after several days of rain and 1000 pairs of feet tredding back and forth, it ended up looking like this:

Photo by JJ Stafford

Pretty amazing, right? And it was STILL an awesome time.

My Oubys record came in the mail today. This is the guy I wrote about for my last Create Digital Music post. I think it’s the first piece of vinyl I’ve received in several years. The Substance mix is incredible.

Jason Forrest’s Network Awesome has relaunched! Dope curated TV from experts in the weird and wonderful. Check it out!

Also, my man Alex DFRNT is running and Indiegogo campaign to raise money to turn his album forthcoming on Echodub into a vinyl and CD (so far it’s only ever been a digital label). Help him out!

DFRNT – Fading – IndieGoGo Project Pitch from DFRNT on Vimeo.

Awesome new collaboration from My Panda Shall Fly and Benjamin Jackson. Super glisten-y:

Finally, been going back and collecting old Monolake stuff. His website is actually a trove of great wonderful releases and points you to his entire discography. Currently listening to the Layering Buddha Live mix from 2008 – was lucky enough to see a performance of this at Mutek07, still stays with me. Download for free from his website.

Readers know that I have a thing for both Echodub and Cut, Alex DFRNT’s two impeccably designed and curated labels. That’s not to say that I think every single release is flawless or exactly up my ally, but the overall quality is VERY high and in terms of showing the world how to run two slightly different but similar labels, I think Alex is truly on point.

His free label, Cut, reached its 10th release today, the first release on the label by Alex himself, the Actaeon EP. It explores his take on the Autonomic sound I’ve been writing about, although Alex’s approach is decidedly maximal as opposed to minimal. But you still have great tricky rhythms going on. And, like always, it’s free! Supremely good stuff.

And, on a flipped note, a venerable DnB producer, Makoto, who has spent years making liquid DnB, the precursor to some of the Autonomic sound (or at least the flourishes) has done a release for the very strong french minimal tech-y dubstep label 7even Recordings, run by the awesome F. Check out the inverse below.

Been chilling this week with Kuhn of Astro Nautico. Totally awesome guy who’s been catching me up on what it’s like to be in the NYC music scene in 2012, what Williamsburg is like now, and his ideas on beats, politics, running a label, and doing an awesome job of conveying that he doesn’t give a f*** while very strongly giving a f*** about everything that matters. If you haven’t heard his Slime Beach single, check it! (below is a bunch of his tunes that he edited together)

Astro Nautico is a pretty awesome headtrip of a non-label – “We don’t do ANYTHING a label should do” Kuhn told me. Except that they make dope music available for free! There are two other label boses. One is Paul Jones (who’s responsible for this incredibly awesome piece of trippyness http://fatdudes.tumblr.com/ – “That dude has way more friends online than he does in real life” – Kuhn) including:

Seriously, this guy is my blogging hero, I WISH I was that cool. Obey City is the third member of the core crew, and I know less about his music, but check this awesome remix he did of the Teegan and Bunny forgotten 80s classic Cars That Go Boom.

All of their stuff can be found on their bandcamp page, definitely check both them and the artists they’ve featured (like RAJA) out. They’re all playing in LA tonight this week, so check that out if you’re there.

San Francisco now has Bungalows, apparently. Tonight! Should be fun, I’m on at 11. Got a good set of some classics (lots of Baltimore Club) and some new stuff. This is the promoter’s first party, happy to support and be a part of it!

Other stuff that’s been on my mind (lots of charts and graphics) include this fascinating chart of “Influencers” on Soundcloud – Would be super interested to know how they came up with their formula.

Little study put together by Root Music. Note that only 3% of bands on facebook consider themselves electronic! And this isn’t a case of misclassification, people categorize themselves! My world is very very very small.

Finally, I’ve been meaning to do a post about PROTECT-IP / SOPA and fortunately it’s been pushed off till January but this is still an issue near and dear to my heart. Awesome letter here from the 100 or so people that basically built the internet/web/networks of today about what a bad idea it is. Check it out, brought to you by the EFF, of course.

Best of list coming tomorrow, and possible also the final mix of the year if I can get it together!

The latest release on DFRNT’s label Echodub is out. Super stellar release from a relatively new French producer named Isotroph. Lots of variation, with one track in the skippy nu-garage vein, two it the slightly more house/drummy mode, and one totally excellent joint (Fission) in that weird netherworld between hip-hop and dnb – the syncopated Autonomic sound of people like Indigo and Synkro.

Beyond just being a good solid, full release, it’s definitely a credit to Alex/DFRNT for what he does with both Echodub and his “other” label Cut for being able to do that thing of making and putting out sweeping, big, synth-heavy tunes that tweak emotions but don’t come across as cheesy or over the top, or calling on tropes and signals that miss the mark. It’s VERY hard to do that, and most people fail at it – and Echodub isn’t flawless, there are some things that aren’t for me on there. But on the whole it’s super impressive undertaking. Plus it’s just well run and well presented as a label/experience – and DFRNT even does all the art. Who knows how he has the time!

*It takes a lot to impress me when anything “Soulful” comes across my radar – only a few people do it well. Afta-1 is one of them. And now so is Abjo. Seriously amazing Sankofa EP from this cat from San Diego, hits that verrrrry difficult balance between smooth without being cheesy, chill crisp beats without being limp, and interesting from first note to last. Apparently he’s got 10 other albums to check out! From the Soulection label, who are giving away a gigantic comp packed with awesomeness that you should check out.

*My man Henry in Portland who goes by the name The Plain Ensemble has a whole EP worth of beats that he’s shopping around and that really needs a home. This guy is young and seriously talented, and he ends up making whatever he touches turn gold. He has me listening to Disco, a rare feat. Check out his tunes at his myspace page and help them find a home (I’m thinking maybe Top Billin’?)

*New-to-me Russian DnB producer Oak released his single Otaku this week. Totally beautiful beguiling stuff for fans of Bop – he and Oak run the Microfunk.ru blog, which is a the heart of this sound at the moment. Otaku has a killer remix by ASC as well.

*Super quality beautiful stuff from the Dewtone label coming at a rate of one per month. Another group of artists that I hadn’t heard before but are also doing a balancing act of ambient house and techno (and straight up ambient), drawing you in and not being cheesy at the same time. I like everything about their presentation too, their artwork is particularly nice. Personal favorites are Nadia Popoff, nikosf., and Recue, but check out their Foundations Compilation for the full range of flavors.

*I’ve been rediscovering Alva Noto’s Xerrox Vol 1. and 2. You should too.

*The eLan album is out on Monkeytown and totally overflowing with tons of quality tracks and remixes. It’s pretty hard to keep up with all that’s going on here, but eLan’s definitely nailed his sound and come into his own on this release. And the supporting cast of remixers is stellar.

*The Brokenchord remix of Fulgeance‘s “London Falling” is off the hook! Look out for it when it’s released on the Fulgance album.

*Finally, my partner Tinker has a new mix out, part of the big up magazine podcast series. It’s excellent, all flash and zazzle. Go fan her on facebook here.

Tim Staypuft knows what’s what. For a couple years now he’s been touting Skweee! Skweee’s this crazy, kind of simple but kind of infectious strange combination of dancehall, R&B, 8bit music and instrumental pop that basically only comes from Finland, Sweden, and now Norway. The big labels to know are Flogsta Danshall and Harmonia, but recently Oslo has gotten into the act as well with the Dodpop label and put out my two favorite releases so far, entirely Norweigan artists. Apparently 003 and 004 are on the way, can’t wait! Skweee’s weird stuff, but it’s all worth checking out, and I’ve definitely been bitten by the skweee bug! Basically it’s homebase is here, at Nation of Skweee. The added bonus about the whole genre is that it has great art (see below)

Just recently, the awesome Ramp Recordings has put out a whole comp of the stuff called Skweee Tooth that’s an excellent primer on the whole scene. And I wrote an article about it for XLR8R, which is finally up. Check it out!

Currently I’m listening to something that has nothing to do with Skweee … it’s Mux Mool! Check him out!

*Closed the comments to entries on the blog older than 3 weeks old, I was just inundated with spam. This goes along with some general housekeeping that’s designed to get me blogging more often (I know I know, a perpetual promise, but things are different this time…)

*Updated my fav tracks section of the moment. Looks like I’m actually listening to a lot of dubstep again, which wasn’t the case for a while. But really favoring the stuff that’s so complex and ethereal in some ways that it reminds me more of icelandic electronica or Vladislav Delay or almost field records/tape music … Specifically I’d shout out Rich Reason and Fantastic Mr. Fox, who clearly have a level of sonic detail that leaves many others in the dust. A lot of this stuff now gets featured on Rob Booth’s Electronic Explorations show, which I’ve been catching up on back episodes of. Highly recommended.

*I’ve done the recording, but not the editing for, a mix for Modyfier. I’m sort of not happy with it at the moment, but I want it done. I’ll go back and edit it, and then probably discuss that process, since that’s the whole point. Rayna might get a big ramble from me, but hey, when you access Kid K to process, he takes it there. The funny caveat to making this mix was meeting the woman of mystery herself at GAFFTA meeting, an organization we’ll both have a nebulous connection to in the coming months. Very cool. Keep and eye here, Gaffta.org, and at Modyfier for more info.

*Getting very excited for Surya Dub this weekend, I’m still convinced that Mala and EPROM is a great Surya Dub pairing. But I’m not sure how much buzz there is around the show (and only partially because I haven’t been paying attention). If you’re reading this and are coming or even if you’re not but support us, send folks to the going link and have them get their tickets early! www.going.com/suryadubmay30 Or just have them come out! Maybe it’s just pre-show jitters.

*PS – More meta – my god, I just realized how different this blog looks on FF vs Safari. I can only imagine what it looks like on IE. If anyone knows specific resources about alignment/layout/photos/embedding in working with the Royale theme in WP, hit me!