Lucky Jim

Well, anyone who's pretty nerdy about their electronic music will have already heard this, but I'm going to put it up for all the normal people.  A new Jamie XX track and it's not half bad.  At first I felt like a lot of the layers sat a bit uneasily with each other but now that I've heard it a few times I think it all seems to fit together quite nicely.  A nice, woozy tune this one.  It's easy to hate on someone as successful as Jamie XX, and I do think his moniker is a bit crap, but the tunes are all OK really.

Floating on NPR

 

Happy that spring is finally here in DC but I've been laid-low by a combination of hay fever and some sort of illness.  Hard to tell one from the other, but I do know that my head feels verrrryyy heavy, and everything aches.  Not nice, but NPR's got a couple of first listens up that I'm enjoying in my sickly state.  First up, an album by West Coast producer Teebs.  Found this to be really mellow music while I sat in my office and tried to will the pain away (and also read the paper).  Click here to see if it's still on NPR.

Next, a new East Coast rap group that I'm listening to right now.  It'll take a more in-depth listen for me to really decide how I feel about this but the fact that King Krule is on the album is a plus point.  Check out Ratking here.  They're on XL Recordings.  That makes sense.

While I'm at it, I may as well drop in something about a new mix up at Fact by Damon Albarn.  First mix I've ever heard by him and I must say I found it rather pleasant.  Not sure about the Tupac track but other than that, nice.  Can't embed so go here.

Look what I found!

That's right, some Dauwd for your listening pleasure.  I'm sure I wrote about him before, but I couldn't find anything when I searched.  Oh well, came across this today a bit randomly and it is excellent!  I love the main  keyboard line.  Dauwd's definitely grown as an artist in the year or so since I first heard his music -- this track just sounds more mature, more put together, than his earlier material.  I'm glad  he's still around and doing well, and I'd love to hear an album if this is any indication of where it could go.  Dauwd was born in the US, grew up in Wales, and his real name is Dauwd al-Hilali.  Oh, and he's put out at least one EP on Michigan dance label, Ghostly.  Peak your interest?



Also, here's a video on a pretty obscure UK dance scene.  It's short but  interesting.  When  I say obscure,  I mean to most of our readership -- UK Garage reached the heights of the top 40, and inspired the Streets!  That's when I heard about it, but it had a much longer history before that.  UKG followed what is basically the rise-and-fall template of just about every dance music type, from early acid to dubstep, so watch the video to get an idea of how a scene comes to be, peaks, and  then fades away (before the inevitable nostalgia).  There'll be a larger TV series starting next month in the UK -- it's already on my to-download list.

Boy George Ahoy!

Here's a book Boy George may have once owned.  Or written.

In other words, a small Boy George update.  Not even that really, but a link to an interview I've just read over at Details mag.  This interview reminded me why I like Boy George, and why I enjoyed his autobiography -- it's cos he's funny!  I've you've not read his book, Take It Like a Man, it's well worth a read, especially if you have a passing interest in the late 70's/early 80's UK.  I'm talking squats!  No, not this kind.  

Spring is in the Air?

It doesn't feel like it around here, it's bloody freezing!  But perhaps this ditty will put you in a springy mood, as it did me.  It's by Francois and the Atlas Mountains, an Anglo-French outfit based in Bristol, UK, and it's off their upcoming fourth album.  C'est tres bon!  Sadly my French is limited to those three words, so I've no idea what the song is about.

Straight outta Norwich

Just heard this thanks to the Guardian.  Recently I've been a bit jaded about throwback-sounding dance music, but I quite like the samples used in this track by Context, a Norwich-born rapper who I know next to nothing about -- but if you like the tune you can easily do your own research.  There's a very Mike Skinner-y remix by Mike Skinner out there too.



Also heard some nice dancey stuff from Appleblim, thanks to XLR8R, which I've been meaning to put up. Doesn't have the chunky feel of the Context track but I appreciate the smoothness myself.  You can hear a full stream of the new EP below:

going in deep

For quite a while now the '90's sound' has been back. You can hear it all over in the house and techno tunes that have been coming out for a few years now. And now apparently deep house is back as well.

Here's the thing though. Some of us, like me, never stopped listening to that stuff. I've always listened to deep house and 90's house. I mean, always. My brain loves that time period. So even though its 2014 I've been listening to that stuff since middle school, so for me, and I assume many others, that sound never went away. Thus its kind of funny to see people say that those sounds are 'back' coz in my opinion, they never actually went away.

And now that more people think those sounds are cool again, maybe they realized those sounds were damn good all along. Which is why I never stopped listening to tunes from those eras, because they are great. And to be honest, I don't think those sounds, that 'deep house' sound or that '90's sound' ever went away actually. Maybe its just that people are realizing how crap the other stuff is that they've been listening to (ahem Skrillex, D Guetta, C Harris, Deadmau5, etc...) and now they're getting back to the good stuff.  :-P Is America about to wake up from its "EDM" obsession and throw down a much-delayed a deep house revolution?

Here's a mix by my friend Jay that's got a lot of those recent deep tunes, with some classics thrown in.

And here's a tune by Georgie Porgie whom I've blogged about before. I think this one really showcases that 90's feel. It almost sounds like it could've come out 10+ years ago. To me "Thinking of You" just goes to show that these sounds never really went away. There's always been producers hammering these tunes out, now they're just more popular again and aren't as underground anymore, perhaps.

Anyway I could be wrong on all of this of course. This is just my 2pence.