Villalobos Radio Promo

Villalobos - Clip from Fabric 21st July 2007 [mp3]

Lots of people have been waiting for Villalobos to drop his Fabric mix. How it's finally out there it's causing a fair bit of trouble. Is it boring or just difficult to comprehend?

I'm gonna give it a few more weeks to worm its way into my brain before passing judgement, but by way of a slightly easier to digest piece of Villalobos' work, I've posted the Fabric promo above. It's a clip from 21st July show he played, which by all accounts was a good night. The excerpt just gives a glimpse of his mix-mastery so give it a go, and keep plugging away at the Fabric mix until it unravels.

Little Dragon

Late night vibes from Yukimi Nagano's new band Little Dragon



Little Dragon - Twice [mp3] (Little Dragon)

After hearing an inventive little live set on Gilles Peterson's Worldwide show, I've been getting into the deep, late-night vibes of Little Dragon. The band features the vocal talents of sometime Koop collaborator Yukimi Nagano backed by a tight selection of piano, percussion and electronics. Yukimi's vocals flit between a lulling Dani Siciliano, confident Roisin Murphy and a slight softer version of Ms Winehouse, while the tunes revolve around a deep-jazzy sound, somewhat akin to Jazzanova. The production's solid, but not overly staid, keeping things a little more liquid than the usual Nu-Jazz thang. Beautifully chilled and highly recommended.

If you like, don't forget to buy. You can get it duuurrhm free from 7 Digital.

Anger is a Gift

Prancehall on the 1s and 2s...

Jammer vs Britney - Toxic [mp3] (Anger is a Gift)

I made Prancehall angry on the internet once. We were discussing his sometime magazine employer over on a popular music geek forum and things got like totally moody, internet style. I'd like to think that incident added a little something to this record, but truthfully he probably forgot about that when he reached the dizzy heights of the Guardian's top ten "rap blogs."

As for the music, there's a fair record bag's worth of exclusive content, probably by way of the fact he seems to bump into Grime MCs at every turn of his daily life. Refreshing to hear a mixtape that's actually mixed too. There's obviously been some consideration for the composition and it pays off. Certainly up there with Plastician's Rinse FM CD from the other year.

There's a nice run down of the mix and the full 'tape is available to download free from Prancehall.com

Passion is Not Fashion

First Field Day and now a 'Classics' CD. Bugged Out must be money-makin'



Classics is 3 CDs deep and full of techno, electro and nu-ravey bits. There's a bit of a booklet in there too, with flyer artwork and a useful little chronological run down of the tunes and what's special about them. The commentary is a little sensationalist, but there's obviously passion in there somewhere.

For me its quite an ear-opener to hear all the electroclash book-ended by 1990s techno and later minimal/nu-rave. Being a relative youngster its a part of house music that passed me by. Fischerspooner and the like seemed pretty ridiculous to me at the time but they obviously have their place in this club's history (and Emerge is a stupidly good track).

2003's Wasp by Kiki and Silversurfer caught me off guard today. It's a slow burner but builds to a nice synthy stab. The remainder of the tracklist features Claude von Stroke, Digitalism, Tiga, Wink, Freeform Five, Nathan Fake, Chemical Brothers and a ton more... Check out the Bugged Out! website for more innit...

Kiki & The Silversurfer - Wasp [mp3] (Bugged Out! Classics)

Grime Mega-Post

... Been months since I did a Grime post, (or any post), so here's a few bits I've been enjoying over the last cupple months.

Stryder dropped his album the other week. Well actually this week, but most people seem to have had it for time. Of course my copy's fully legit and I recommend you guys cop it from Itunes (or if you don't like being ripped off by DRM, elsewhere). For the release he did a live set with Fuda Guy on Logan's Kissss show which I've upped. Nice-icle. Check the vidz and of course dun' know the myspace - Myspace/Youtube.

I clocked that Nigerian MC Afrikan Boy passed his A-Levels yesterday. Hopefully when he's got student loan and the money from MIA's album he won't have to rob from Lidl and Asda... Can't believe no-one's posted this on the Hype Machine yet, so here it is for a limited time only.

Afrikan Boy - One Day I Went to Lidl [mp3]

Lee Brasco's been moving too. He did this tune ages ago produced by JME, which sounds like a kid on Ribena playing a SNES with one of those cheap auto-fire controllers. Lower End posted it a while back but I can't stop playing it so here it is again for a limited time!

Lee Brasco - Computer Girls [mp3]

'sall for now.

Late of the Pier

Yeah I'm late on these guys...

We caught Late of the Pier down at the wonderful Field Day festival in London-town the other weekend. They played a bit of a blinder, full of energy, bare chests, Peter Crouch dancing and a bonus witch wondering the stage. On record they're obviously lacking at least 3 of these qualities, but the music stands up pretty well. Still early days for these lads so it'll be interesting to see how they develop their sound in the future. I'm so late on this that its on plenty of blogs already. Check them via Hype Machine.

Big-up JonesMonster on Flickr 4 the pixxx.

Electroma

Sebastien Tellier - Universe [mp3] (Electroma)



I saw Sebastian Tellier live in a support slot for Air when I was a wee secondary school student. The tour was around The Virgin Suicides album and to be honest the whole gig was a little disappointing for me, being a 15 year old who just wanted to hear the bigguns off of Moon Safari.

Sebastien Tellier was a bit of a curio though, performing with world-renowned Theremin (apparently an instrument, not a prescription drug) player Pamelia Kurstin. Their set involved some wailing while strange sounds were being emitted from odd instruments and, most memorably, a woman in red collapsing at the final note.

Looking back on it the whole ordeal was pretty Lychian in style. Apt then, to some extent, that this Sebastien Tellier track Universe was used on the closing scene of Daft Punk's new picture Electroma. Without a doubt it accompanies the most powerful scene in the flick, and as the closing piece lingers on in your mind together with the strong images. So two days after seeing the movie I'm posting it up here.

Don't spoil it for yourself by watching the end scene via utube. Check it out at the cinema or on DVD.