MEN are not men. Well, mostly not. In their first incarnation, MEN were primarily a DJ collective dabbling in a little bit of remixing and production, comprised of JD Samson and Johanna Fateman, two thirds of cult lesbian dance-punk band Le Tigre.
MEN have now expanded to a full live band with their own original songs, no longer featuring Fateman (although she's helping out behind the scenes) and including Ginger Brooks Takahashi and Michael O'Neill. The music they're producing isn't especially groundbreaking, being punk-funk and slotting in comfortably alongside much of Le Tigre's back catalouge, as well as similar bands like LCD Soundsystem, The Rapture and !!! (Chk Chk Chk). However, since Le Tigre were so good at what they did, the production on MEN's material is top notch.
Of the several tracks the collective have released into the blogosphere, Simultaneously is the clear stand out. It's a combination of gently pounding beats, touches of tropical percussion, restrained strummed guitars, and a melancholy melody that shares alot in common with 80's post punk. All the different elements of the song are quite subtle, and it's the way they interplay with each other that makes the song so special. At six and half minutes long it's fairly lengthy, but due to a gradual build and a lovely vocal, it flies by.
Check the brilliant Ohh! Crappp... blog HERE for a free download of the song along with two others. MEN's newest track Make It Reverse is also to be featured on the forthcoming Kitsune Maison 7, a trailer for which can be watched below.
Somewhere in the void between My Bloody Valentine, Burial, The Knife, Three Six Mafia, Mazzy Star, Flying Lotus, The Cocteau Twins and Prefuse 73 lies Salem. Whilst that might seem like a far too disparate list of artists to place a group in it's the best I can offer you. Salem make dark, distorted and disturbing pop music. Still sound a bit wrong? Well it is. Incorporating various genres (Shoegaze/Electronica/Goth/Instrumental hip-hop/dubstep) and mashing up terrifying waves of feedback, spooky snythesizers, delay effects, crunk beats and vocals digitally altered to sound like Satan himself they've created a sound that is wholly their own. "That's not pop music!" you scream. Well, lurking beneath the surface of the majority of their songs are very beautiful melodies, breathy vocals and solid song structures. So not pop music in any traditional sense, but it's there all the same.
New track OhK is, appropriately, the poppiest track they have unleashed upon the public. It shares more with disco than any of their previous numbers, with more regular and faster beats, a tangible bassline and (relatively) straightforward vocals. It's not dissimilar to semi-odd electronic popsters Telepathe, their closest musical contemporaries. It's very good too, and might gain them some exposure outside of Muso circles. Interestingly a previous single, Redlights, closed Sinden's recent Fabriclive, a long running CD mix series.
The Salem EP is available from all the usual places, including iTunes where it retails at a very bargainous 1.99 for 4 tracks. Check them out on myspace HERE, where there are a number or tracks in their player. Also, watch a frankly quite terrifying garage-cum-strip-club-cum-sci-fi-film video for their track Dirt below. If I had to sum Salem up in a sentence, I think it would be something like 'The wrongest, whitest, darkest hip-hop you've ever heard'. But I'm not sure that's even getting close...
The easter eggs have been eaten, most of the hardcore deadlines have been reached or are within touching distance and the sun is shining gloriously over London town. Was there ever a better time for Beats and Pieces to return to the airwaves of Smoke Radio? No there wasn't! I've acquired an abundance of shockingly brilliant music in the last month, so expect a particularly rambunctious show this evening as we go into the home straight before the summer holidays. On between 7-8pm (GMT) and featuring music from the likes of:
Altern-8 (as part of the 'One For The Aging Raver' - likely to blow the bloody doors of your room / house / building)
Peaches (new material where she's gone all soft in the centre)
Grace Jones (Given a very alluring dubstep makeover)
Dusty Kid (Melodic techno producer takes a trip through the Pyrenees and picks up a renegade Spanish folk band along the way)
Sound good? Of course it does. Add into the equation some delightful banter, ALL-NEW beds, shout-outs and love to the listeners and much more music than just that mentioned above and you're well away. The best hour of music you're likely to hear for....the hour it's on at the very least. Do it, you know it makes sense. Listen live at Smoke Radio's homepage, HERE and be sure to get on the shoutbox during the show. You have until this evening to prepare yourself for the party onslaught...
Major Lazer is the new project from Dave Taylor and Thomas Wesley Pentz, AKA dance music demi-gods Switch and Diplo. To say that they've got the hype machine buzzing is something of an understatement. All loosely in the genre of dancehall (with some more dancey and world influences), they've been working with people including Elephant Man, Mr Vegas, Amanda Blank, Crookers, Turbulence, Ms. Thing and Vybz Kartel. On friday evening the UK's very own Annie Mac had the worldwide exclusive play of the first single Drop The Line.
Drop The Line features Mr Lexx (dancehall legend) and Sanitgold (still continuing with her very unnecessary name change) on vocals, and a 'surf rock ragga thingamajig' instrumental, in the words of Diplo himself. What this means in slightly more detailed terms is that they've taken Dick Dale's Misirlou, probably the most famous surf guitar song ever, chopped and screwed it to a fragment of it's original form, then raped it with some devastating dance hall beats and sounds of vibrating mobile phones. I'd never claim to be very knowledgable about dancehall, beyond really enjoying the handful of tracks I'm familiar with, but this is the kind of stuff I can get very excited about. With it's slick production, clever sampling and the presence of Santigold on vocals it's likely to be bothering dancefloors worldwide this summer.
Diplo's giving the track away for free (along with accapella and insturmental versions for all you bedroom DJS) over at the essential Mad Decent blog HERE, so make sure you head on over to collect it for yourself. Major Lazer are touring their live show internationally this summer, including to Bestival where I'll be in the front row dutty windin' like the best of them. If footage of their recent show at SXSW is anything to go by (check that HERE), it's going to be quite a spectacle.
One thing to remember troops, GUNS DON'T KILL PEOPLE, LAZERS DO!
Blissed out balearic dubstep? That's a new one in the world of ridiculous crossover sub-genres. But it's arrived, in the form of a remix from Deadmau5' (pronounced Deadmouse, pictured above) forthcoming EP. I Remember, in it's original format, is a cheesy commercial electro-house track with a breathy female vocal, sounds like it's from 2001 and is destined to appear on 'Best Summer Dance Anthems' compilations until the end of time.
However, throw Caspa into the mix and the track becomes an altogether different proposal. Retaining the summery feel, melodic backing and an acceptable snippet of the vocal, Caspa then chucks in some restrained dubstep beats and a whole load of warped bass in his traditional style. It's still very poppy, but will win over discerning dance music listeners as well as those just starting to get their heads around dubstep as a genre. What with the Skream remix of La Roux's In For The Kill getting several daytime plays on Radio 1 it seems we could be on the cusp of dubstep's explosion into the mainstream. And like it or not it's remixes like this that will lead the way.
When it comes to launching a new artist, remixes can often be key in gaining exposure. Working on the principal that a well-known remixer will get you exposure across more than just your traditional platforms (gigging / interviews / radio play within your genre), many new indie bands are keen to pursue this route. The Temper Trap, who hail from sunny Melbourne, are one such act. They're a fairly straightforward prospect, with a slightly electronic touch and sound that owes a little to U2 (in a good way) as well as 80's new-wave dancey beats. That's not to detract from these boys talents of course, as the music they're making is very good, with lovely catchy melodies and soaring vocals.
So it is they've roped in the talents of Herve and Mistabishi to run riot with their first major release, The Science Of Fear. Herve (AKA The Count of The Count and Sinden fame) starts his remix off with a fuzzy, distorted and rewound homage to the original, then brings in a little vocal before a huge drop into some sickening dubstep flavours. That gives way to a breakdown with a little more vocal and some trancey synths, before bringing back the bass, in bassline house form. The dubstep beats return (minus most of the bass) towards the end of the track to leave quite a subdued flavour as it fades. Throw in a few gun-cock sounds for good measure and quite frankly, you're well away. Probably not big and not clever, but brilliant nonetheless. No doubt this will get rinsed by ol' favourite Annie Mac in her sets which are currently straddling the line between dubstep and electro very nicely.
The second remix comes from Hospital Records' current wunder-kid Mistabshi. Having just dropped one of the best drum & bass albums of recent times (and best tracks ever in the form of the insane Printer Jam), things are looking good for him. His remix manages to keep the original vocal in tact, keeps the same melancholy feel to the song whilst simultaneously turning it into a melodic D&B monster. Quite how he has managed this I do not know. The beats owe a certain debt to old school jungle and he also layers on some lovely reverb-ey twinkly piano chords. Beautiful and banging, in equal measures.
Check out The Temper Trap on Myspace HERE, download the amazing Mistabishi for absolutely nowt over at London Elektricity's blog HERE and watch a very clever video for their track My Sun below.
As I write to you, it seems like my prayers have finally been answered. Amanda Blank, one of my favourite artists of all time, is back with new material! Blank, a close cohort of Baltimore electro hip-hop collective Spank Rock, is famed for her incredibly fast rapping abilities and filthy mouth. And might I add, she's utterly amazing.
Amanda rose to fame off the back of her Spank Rock ties, principally her album-stealing verse on their track Bump, which was without a doubt my favourite song of 2006. Since then she's been releasing sporadic material as well as guesting on a number of tracks and remixes. The best of these since the aformentioned Bump was Diplo's excellent remix of Santogold's I'm A Lady. One of the highlights of 2008, it saw Blank spitting the first verse and chorus of LL Cool J's I Need Love over a more electronic version of Santogold's subdued weepy number. She's also appeared on tracks by Britney, Pase Rock, N.A.S.A and Plastic Little.
Following the news that Blank's album I Love You (originally due last summer and postponed for mysterious reasons) is finally going to be released on the 14th of July, we've been given the long awaited gift of some new material. Might Like You Better contains everything people love about Amanda. Saucy lyrics delivered with panache, bad-ass electro beats and a wicked bassline. The track's been produced by Spank Rock's XXXChange which explains much of the excellent, crisp and tidy production.
Even better, it's free! Download it from the essential RCRDLBL site HERE. In case you're unfamiliar with the site, RCRDLBL hosts hundreds of officially endorsed free MP3's as well as information about new and independent artists. This is all in the name of finding some equality in the murky legality surrounding music sharing on the web, whilst also aiming to promote the sales of the artists it features. Watch a video for the amazing Santogold remix below, as well as a live performance of the timeless Bump. All of that should wet your appetite nicely for the album, which I for one, can barely contain my excitement about. Amanda Blank, I love you.
