A Quiet Bump is putting out their first CD, which is also their first compilation (hence it’s name, UNO!). AQB are a truly awesome digi dub label of the very best kind, inheritors of Pole and Rhythm and Sound’s mantle. Based out of Italy though its head dudes now live in Berlin (where else?). Check it out, and you can download ALL of the labels other releases from their website for FREE! + They’ve got a great little new logo too.

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.

I work for these guys now! More info to come.

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.

This is one of, oh, I don’t know, like 100+ things that another new york artist Raja sent me. The kid is amazing. He put out 4 albums last year, 3 for free, and one under his old name infinitirock for Asthmatic Kitty (still one of the better label names out there). And he runs a little imprint called Guns of Kingston as well. Very much also part of the Kuhn circle as well in aesthetic. He hit me to say he’s got a new EP coming in the end of April, called He Won’t Pay Me. I think he’s looking for a home for it. And, oh, he’s a sophomore in college. And his name is Chester. So, what are YOU doing with your time?

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.

Been a lazy Sunday. Tinker is working on an updated sticker. I’m waiting for first drafts of a logo to come in from Luis of Conspira, who’s lettering I really like.

One project I’ve been working on a little has been to put together a mix, along with Tinker, of the Autonomic/dBridge inspired sound… I was really touched by the Exit records comp that came out last year, Mosaic, and I’m surprised I left it off my year end lists – I must have just missed it in the sweeps. But it’s the thing that really got me thinking about DnB again after so many years – it shows just how creative you can be in stretching a genre while still remaining within it.

Read full review of Mosaic Vol. 1 – Various / Exit Records on Boomkat.com ©

There’s a lot to explore here and I think if packaged right you could play a whole set of it to west-coast-ies and have them love it from a bouncy hip-hop emotive dance type of way, and then if you asked them what it was afterwards they wouldn’t even think it’s DnB. So I’m going to attempt to make that mix! As a little teaser for the some of the newest sounds, check out Synkro and Indigo’s Progression (sorry, I can only find a video with an MC over it). Out in a few days.

The mighty 2nd label showcase volume of the west coast’s hardest working hip-hop and abstract electronic music collective, Dropping Gems, is out! Gem Drops 2 is great stuff and well deserves everyone’s support – plus, they’re literally GIVING this stuff away! Click the art below to be taken to their Bandcamp page.

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!

My eyes have steadily opened over the last several years to the possibilities of techno. I’m not a techno DJ, but I’ve definitely felt that some of the most interesting things that have happened to dubstep over the last several years have been because of the influence of techno. One of those things is just listening to T++. Another has been Objekt. And a 3rd has been all the amazing stuff that Orphan101 and Bloodman have put out in the last year, both as individual producers, as collaborators, and as curators of the stellar DecaRhythm, one of my favorite labels of last year. Check out Orphan101′s Propa / Disemble and Bloodman’s Launch EP for good intros to their sound.

So I’m super thankful to them for welcoming me into the family in a small way, as they did Tinker last month, by featuring me in their podcast series! This mix definitely pushes my boundaries into areas I don’t know as well (Luke Slater and Plastikman, what?!?), but it was fun to make and I hope people still hear the kameleon in there. Long mixes, lots of dub echos, best listened to in one go.

INFINITY +1 TRACKLIST
01 Benjamin Damage & Doc Daneeka – Creeper
02 Radiohead – Good Evening Mrs Magpie (Modeselektor Rmx)
03 Presk – Mold
04 Boddika – Grand Prix
05 Nguzunguzu – Water Bass Power
06 Orphan 101 – Junker
07 Zack Christ – Koofpoin Low
08 Deadbeat – Third Quarter (The Vampire of Mumbai)
10 L.B. Dub Corp – Take it Down in (Dub)
09 T++ – Storm
11 Dadub – Metropolis
12 Sbtrk – Wildfire (Objekt Tool Mix)
13 Sbtrk – Wildfire (Objekt Remix)
14 Sbtrk – Wildfire (Objekt Dub Mix)
15 Datassette – Fallblattanzeige
16 Addison Groove – This Is It
17 Addison Groove – Work It
18 F – Full Throttle
19 Cosmic Revenge – Mind Eraser
20 Cosmic Revenge – Late Nights
21 Om Unit x Lorn – Obsidian
22 Clicks & Whistles – Radiator
23 Jaybird – What Da Funk!? (6Blocc Remix)
24 Munchi – Shottas (Nguzunguzu remix)
25 Breton – RDI (Girl Unit Remix)
26 Spooky – Bashment Woooo
27 Synkro – Tribe
28 Indigo – Primal
29 Subterra – Desecrated 909
30 Isotroph – Crossroads
31 Orphan 101 – Disemble
32 Plastikman – Helikopter
33 Vaetxh – Clipper
34 16 bit – Dinosaurs
35 16 bit – Le Hanwell Hustle
36 16 Bit – Skullcrack
37 Skrillex – Kill Everybody (Bare Noize remix)
38 Bare Noize – Twilight Zone

Here’s what the young bright future looks like. B-Ju is putting out a new EP soon, and to celebrate Error Broadcast is giving away his older one Dog Days for free. Grab it! And check an interview with him here.

I’m now part of Iron Blogger SF. Wish me luck! And check out some of the other blogs, a wide range of stuff.

I am extremely fortunate that every once in a while I get an unsolicited email about music and the music actually is mindblowingly good. Doesn’t happen all that often, and in order for me to read it I have to be clued in, in some small way, that it might be something I’m interested in (so often, though not always, the word “soulful” ends up getting archived). But in this case Bambooman hit me up and I saw that he had some stuff coming on Project:Mooncircle, one of my favorite labels of last year. And the mind was blown. It’s SO hard to mix up softer, more mellow vibes with glitch and wonky and get the proportions right enough to be both interesting and unique. Bambooman’s done just that. Check out the teaser tracks from his forthcoming limited release CD, and then the stuff from his previous Lost Souls EP. I THINK he might also be responsible for the mighty Sound Healers comp from last year, and his email hinted that the 2nd installment of was on the way as well. W00t!

Lost Souls EP by Bambooman