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One privileged friend, upon hearing of Montreal's Skeletal Lamping a week or so I before I could, likened the experience to "listening to a nervous breakdown". A week or so later, I completely agreed - there were moments amid the wanton, hysterical genre-bending, though, when the psychosis settled into sane(r) grooves. One such moment came with "Gallery Piece", which finds de facto leader Kevin Barnes listing all the ways he'd like to get to know you. "I want to be your love, I'd like to slap your face," he intones, longingly, "I want to kiss your friends, I want to crash your car". Saner, I said - at least before Mintel Rose gets hold of it and drags it up into the lunatic climes where the rest of Skeletal Lamping feels most comfortable.
You know when Beck went through that funked-out post-hip hop jazz phase around the time of Odelay- even recruiting jazz guitarist Charlie Haden to record with him? The Meanest Man Contest remix of this electronic track by Cars and Trains track sounds similarly inspired - like an almost rusted, backyard jazz party that you have to keep lo-fi so the neighbors won't yell at you. The beat has got a delayed Afrika Bambaataa groove while various guitars, whistles, chimes, and guitar cymbals ebb and flow like they're 10-leagues-under-the-sea.
Sounds Like: Beck, Cars and Trains, DJ Shadow, Bookashade
The guys in Ninjasonik will probably meet a lot of "Art School Girls" tonight during their show at Brooklyn's Pratt Institute, so I guess they're pretty stoked. The raunchy Brooklyn club-rap collective have been destroying stages and basements and lofts and roofs all around New York City, mostly in Brooklyn, cutting out their own gully, tight-pants-wearing niche of fans amongst the Todd P set. They've shared the stage with basically any band that's played the Market Hotel or The Bodega and also just put out their first self-titled EP on Chief Records this summer, where these tracks originate. "Art School Girls" is the group at their poppiest, a sweaty, punky party song that sounds a lot like their very good friends in The DeathSet, while the rap remix of their single "Tight Pants" proves these kids will probably secede Spank rock in the fun, offensive rap club-rap game. You decide.
Toronto's Don Cash is one of those dudes with a laptop and ace production chops who make unclassifiably great electronic tracks. We've written about him before, but now dude is going to be dropping his new album Freshy Fresh in January and kindly sent over two jawns from the record. "Take It To The Top" floats atop a groove that lies halfway between cosmic disco and neo-funk, Cash doing his best Jamie Lidell impression on top, while "In Berlin" surprisingly sounds nothing like minimal or deep house; it's a buzzy, warm tune that gets a little bit German in Cash's krautrock vocal tone. Both are perfect for you Friday nighters.
Over two albums of unbridled rhythmic genius, Chicago's Mahjongg have become the percussive weirdos of their city's post-rock lineage, masters of Afro-beat poly-rhythms and Latin hand drum fills that sound like mating insects on No-Doze. Earlier this year the band put out their first album for K Records called Kontpab and just got back from a pretty extensive tour of Europe, but somewhere amidst all that shred found some time to put out a seven-inch through K called "Free Grooverider," one of their more artificial sounding tunes with thin electronic beat blasts under some thin vocoder. On the flip is a remix of the tune from Selector Dub Narcotic aka K label boss Calvin Johnson aka Beat Happening guy aka Olympia's indie rock Jesus, who does a good dub job by removing some things, adding a lot of echo, and just generally making the track sound weirder. Both sides are below.
Not to be confused with our grizzly Canadian bros in Ladyhawk, New Zealand native Ladyhawke with an "e" makes hooky electronic pop music that sounds like Bow Wow Wow if they'd worked with Max Martin, a sound that looks to the eighties charts for inspiration but still fits comfortably amidst the Paris-London-Melbourne axis of modern electro. Her self-titled debut album, already available in Australia and Europe, just came out in the States on Tuesday, and our good friends at Modular have hooked us up with a remix of her single "My Delirium" from producer Fan Death to bump. Moving away the quicker, Knight Rider rock of the original, Mr. Death keeps things at half-time with some sluggish keyboards and padded drum samples, a slower electro reworking that still kills because the fantastic chorus hook has been left untouched.
Sounds like: Cyndi Lauper, Janet Jackson, Pat Benatar
In keeping with our tour of Exclusives-ville this week, we've the distinct honor of hooking you up with a hidden track from Cut Off Your Hands' knockout EP Happy As Can Be. Running more on a full tank of 50s lilt than the skyward, U2-like pop anthems that keep lots of the New Zealand post-punkers' EP running, "Iron Sleep" is as its title might suggest: dreamy.
Sounds Like: The Smiths, The Strokes, Orange Juice
This was arguably T.I.'s breakthrough single; the song that finally blasted his name outside of the Atlanta. I always found that astounding, because David Banner's synth line here, the one that crescendos up like a broken circus jingle, is one of the most annoying hooks I have ever heard in a rap song. Banner has a knack for irritable productions, his song "La La" was one of the only unlistenable tracks on The Carter III, but for some reason this works, likely because T.I. can do verbal cartwheels around it. I have to give Banner credit, though, he rocks out with his MPC like rock dudes mime with guitars in their videos. Unsurprisingly, that video trend never took off.
Perhaps now is not the best time to be named Broker/Dealer, but Ryan Fitzgerald and Ryan Bishop are making the best of it. After a four year hiatus during which Fitzgerald played guitar on Polyphonic Spree albums, B/D regrouped their financially-themed production duo to release "Soft Sell" on Spectral Sound. The EP also features remixes from legendary German producer Thomas Fehlmann, who toughens up and dubs out the pair's smooth techno pop sound. His grainy, pumping beats anchor the track as ethereal pad melodies flow in and out of focus. It's just the kind of track you'd want to hear instead of looking at your stock portfolio -- a bit out of this world.
NYC multi-instrumentalist Skew was featured in this space back in January, but it wasn't until earlier this month that dude released his self-titled debut album, a collection of crackly electronic instrumentals that bite from pop, rock, ambient, and dance music equally. We're offering up three tracks from that album today along with an exclusive remix of "Can I Get More Of Everything In The Monitors" from Brooklyn's Shakeyface, who raves things up a bit with wobbly basslinesynths and frenetic programming. Side note: Skew is listed as "emotronic" on MySpace. It's astounding that NewsCorp gets down with the micro-genres.
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