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:

This is from 18 year old Quam who hit me up with some really good stuff. Seems like he’s one of a number of producers that are floating around the world of Kuhn these days. And apparently he is in Berlin hanging out with Robert Henke, which makes me jealous. Kuhn, by the way, is in San Francisco and looking for gigs, if by some small chance someone reads this who can give him one.

My buddies LV just did the most recent podcast for XLR8R. Click on the picture above – it’s super dope. I don’t know why Will looks so glum though. Perhaps because I’m beating him at scrabble at the moment!

Project Mooncircle is turning 10! And they’re putting out a ginormous box set with all the flare and character and good art and awesome music that you’d expect. Check the sampler above.

Local hommie Benito, who is extremely cued in to all things awesome and has turned me on to many good things has his own EP coming out on Brap Dem recordings. Super awesome wobbly clean 150bpm bass stuff. This is what everyone who’s listening to sluggish glittery dubstep SHOULD be listening to.

I was also going to announce that Percussion Lab had finally gotten their act together and upgraded their servers, which was a very long time coming – but right now they’re having a server error (although it did tell me that very fast). Sigh – but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and you should check back soon to hear all the stuff I’ve posted there over the last year, as well as everyone elses’s stuff.

Been listening to a lot of Beastie Respond‘s stuff lately. If you haven’t heard Syncope, above, definitely give it a listen! I’ve heard rumblings that new things are coming from him soon!

Finally, just as a last little teaser, my pal David Gunn has gotten one of the more interesting projects I’ve heard of in the last little while of the ground by self-releasing this collaboration with Cambiodian electronic and traditional musicians. Gonna hold off on writing more because it deserves a bigger story, but click on the beautiful CD above to see the announcement.

Also out yesterday is the latest from Donky Pitch, from Brighton, who’s been picking up key releases by some exciting new artists. This one though is from established heads Ghost Mutt and it’s true form digi weirdness from the man who brought you the dance floor smashing Thoroughbred. Sweat Mode pretty much rocks. Again, click below for the bandcamp page.

Also also, the Astro-Dynamics website has gotten a cool refresh (and he’s not the only one, check out the new Electronic Explorations website!). And while he’s at it, Luke Owen is introducing a new artist, 1991, for his next release, and then following that with a Samoyed remix of El Kid – which is like a match made in heaven for me. Check ‘em out below.

And finally, my top 10 list of albums, EPs and singles from 2011 is up now on Create Digital Music, although with the announcement that I’ll be contributing to that website occasionally. Check it out here!

This is LAMA – they’re a super group from Japan and their album came out today! My connection to them is Mr. Kensuke Ushio otherwise known as Agraph, who’s all the way to the right in the above photo. The other members apparently have incredible pedigree, but I’m nowhere near as versed in that world as I could be, so the only previous groups I recognized the names of were Number Girl and Supercar. It’s not available in the US yet, but hopefully the internets will somehow overcome that gap. Here they are performing “One Day” – with I think Agraph possibly appearing live from his bedroom!

A second group of music makers on my mind recent have been Recue and Jolea from Helsinki. Riku and I have struck up a lively conversation in advance of my mix coming out on the BBC on Friday – It contains a world premier of a new song by the duo called “We’re Not Like The Most” that is truly stellar. They’re both producers in their own right, together they run the Audiobaum label, and Jolea is blessed with a truly incredible, shiver-inducing voice. Links to a couple of their albums below, and the track that got me into Recue below that.

And then I’ll be at the Open Video Conference for Friday and Saturday. So many good people speaking and being there that I don’t even know where to begin praising. AND if that weren’t enough, I’m playing the afterparty at Le Poisson Rouge, which is free to conference goers and and $15 otherwise (and I think that includes open bar!) I’m playing early, 7-7:45, and I think if everything works out I’ll have visuals by Mssngpeces, who I was fortunate enough to meet last year. Lovely.

AND OMG BEN SISTO JUST POSTED THE FLYER AND IT’S F’IN INCREDIBLE!!!!!

Best Poster Ever

Currently listen to this compilation of all the All City 7″ releases (of which there were 8, so I’m not so sure why it got called 7×7). Please people, go listen to this. It’s like this true testimate to how far beat music has come in the last 20 odd years. It incorporates everything that’s interesting and subtle and complex about the stuff that’s Post-Fly Lo (Can we say that now?), but totally showcases the diversity of it all. Snowman’s bangers, Fulgence’s awesome head-noders, Hud Mo’s almost beatless crackles (who knew he had it in him?) And kind of above everything else, Dimlite’s sheer utter brilliance. This man is THE composer of our time. I’m gonna do a full post on him in a bit, but it’s safe to say that both Quiz Tears on this comp and Ravemonds Young Problems on the Beat Dimensions comp are two of the most original pieces of music I’ve ever heard. And every time I play one of them someone comes up to me and says “What the F is that?” but can’t stop smiling!

Hope to see folks in New York. Oh, and, wordpress, thank you so much for fixing everything that was wrong with the interface. You actually making it somewhat enjoyable to blog again!

Just thought I’d post a few pics from Surya Dub, just trying to keep folks in the loop. It was an amazing night. The positives were many. Both Sander/Eprom’s set and Mala’s set were truly great in totally separate ways. Eprom is really taking this melding of dubstep and glitch to another level, and doing so with such crazy synths that it goes off almost into prog territory for a minute, but always comes crashing back so hard that it just makes it perfect party music. The west coast is really creating its own version of “Dubstep”, loosely defined, at the moment, and no one is doing it better than Eprom.

Mala’s set was dark dark dark. I felt almost like I was listening to industrial or metal music, even through most of the common musical tropes from those genres weren’t there. It was just dub after dub of very slow bass-heavy stuff… a few remixes I did recognize of older tracks but mostly just new stuff. I’d assume it was almost entirely dubs from himself and Loefah, but there might have been a few other folks in there as well. Mostly very 1/2 time, but occasionally it would kick up into energetic full swung rhythms. It was truly an unforgettable and unique musical experience, so much so that it actually knocked me on my ass for about 1/2 an hour and all I could do was listen.

The less the positive thing, and something we don’t always let on, is that once again we lost money on the show… Surya only barely breaks even most times, sometimes it loses money, and only twice have we gone into the black (and even then we just use that money to pay back debts)… Maneesh and I tried to dissect what went wrong, why 350 people isn’t enough in Club Six, and frankly we’re not sure what else we could have done. It’s just hard hard hard to do a show in this town if you don’t have a built in audience of hundreds for your event and if you are reliant totally on door sales.

Don’t take this as griping too much, it was a great show and I wouldn’t have changed anything, but man, throwing events in this town is harder than ever. Still though, very proud of what we made!

Photos up, thanks as always to Kelly!

But memory lane is just a diversion when there’s a ton going on here and now. Basically I just wanted to shout out this producer who I know nothing about but who has already made my favorite album for the year. It’s J Todd, and you can find him on Myspace here. I found out about him because he had one of the most charming tracks on the superb Beat Dimensions comp from 2007, The Night. That was a little more sample-based hip-hop, like his first album XOXO. Now he’s got Ryzzynynce out through Itunes direct, and it totally rocks me. And I almost can’t even say why. It exists at this weird intersection between what Flying Lotus and all the Brainfeeder cats are doing in the wonky hip-hop space, 80s synth throwback stuff that you’d almost expect more in an electro set, and something else sort of undefinable. Actually, what it mostly makes me think of is rainy hot summers in the South, something about those syrup-y bass and synth lines. Strange, considering Todd’s from cold-ass Milwaukee, a city I have great love for. Sometimes the music gets a little hyper, like on Otaku Sunrise, but all the better for switching up the energy. Anyway, XLR8R tells me that he’s also part of some other fine groups, seems more a beat man for others in those cases. There’s even pictures of him MCing all over his myspace, so perhaps he’s got talent across the spectrum. Amazing that clearly he’s been doing his thing for forever (which you can kind of tell in how developed his sound is on Ryzzynynce) and yet he came at me like a bolt out of the blue. Thanks to Salva, Frite Nite, and Bryant/Lazer Sword for turing me on to him beyond the Beat Dimensions comp!

My new mix will feature him heavily, as have all my sets recently, so definitely check him! I myself hope to stay in the loop with his upcoming productions.

PS 1 on this – Looks like Beat Dimensions 2 is FINALLY on it’s way! Rush Hour just shows a couple of EPs right now, but it’s all the dopest beat makers out there at the moment, and, like always, a few that I’ve never heard of. Big up Cinnaman and Jay Scarlett as always. EP 1 here. EP 2 here.
PS 2 on this – Holy Schnikee’s I hadn’t actually taken the time to really check out the new Brainfeeder site! Go there right now and let your brain explode.

Also wanted to point out that a group that I’ve been following for a long long time is on the verge of releasing their first solo album, finally, after like years of tweaking. Think I’ve been in touch with these guys for 3 years and they’ve only had one official release before they struck out on their own and founded their own 3by3 label. It’s Cloaks, and they’re mindblowing if you can take it. Their album and site features awesome artwork by my buddy El Kano (which you can see to the left). Can’t post any tracks here, but just head to their myspace page and check out the sound (also, their website itself is gorgeous)… That sound is, well, …  judge for yourself, but to me it’s this crazy clash between glitch, dubstep and industrial. But genre descriptions aren’t actually that helpful to describe their music, it would be more accurate to say it sounds more like a digital robot tearing apart chunks of rusted metal … it’s right on the edge of beat music, but whenever you start to lose faith the rhythm creeps back in. Plus, as bonus points, I’ve heard that they make ALL this music complete with analog gear. I know they’re based somewhere way outside the mainstream of the UK music scene (I’m thinking Norwich … which, forgive me Brit’s if that’s like THE place to be at the moment).

Anyway, all this to say that their 9 track (get it? 3×3?) LP Versus Grain is out on their own label a month from tomorrow. I’m sure Boomkat will carry it. Looks like they’re playing at Corsica Studios in a week, so check ‘em out there if you happen to be in London (man do I ever wish that SF had a place where we could do shows like Cloaks… oh wait… maybe that’s GAFFTA! But more on that to come…)

Ah, what the heck, here’s one short track, Low Quality, with drops in it, to give you an idea. Be scared or enjoy, it’s your choice.