Stream: Autechre’s Album Oversteps
- story Claire Lobenfeld
Electro vets Autechre’s upcoming release Oversteps is furnished with dark bells and percussion that transforms from smooth into rugged over the course of one track. Parts of the album feel like the musical personification of a wormhole (the shortcut through space/time, not the dirt one). It sometimes sounds like it could soundtrack a secret underwater level of Donkey Kong Country for Super Nintendo that you never actually cared about making it to because you were too busy playing all the rollercoaster levels. Wait, is this album comfort music for people born since the mid-’80s?
Stream: Autechre Oversteps (via Resident Advisor)
Yelawolf Tonight at the FADER Bowl
- story Claire Lobenfeld
We just wanted to remind you that tonight, the fifth installment of our all-your-favorite-things-rolled-into-one party, FADER Bowl, will take place in Williamsburg’s colossal Brooklyn Bowl. ‘Bama’s boy wonder, Yelawolf, will be percolating on the mic while Baller’s Eve luminary DJ Dirrty hits the ones and twos behind him. Andrew Kuo and Jason Nocito will make it extra special with a warbled DJ set of songs all exclusively chopped and screwed. Not only is the event completely free, but it’s going to be so rad that you’ll forget that it’s only Monday.
Premiere: Liliput, “In a Mess” MP3
- story Claire Lobenfeld
Liliput was an all-girl punk band from Switzerland whose reign on tough, angular guitar-ridden jams lasted from 1978 to 1983. Think The Raincoats or The Slits (and if you don’t know these, throw Delta 5 onto the list and get familiar). Later this month, Kill Rock Stars will be releasing a compilation of two of their live shows, including one when the band was still called their original name, Kleenex—which is a tampon brand in Switzerland, not a facial tissue, like here in the U.S. There is an accompanying DVD that features six different performances from the band’s tenure. Check out our premiere of “In a Mess” and don’t be shocked when you spend the rest of your day dusting off your old 7-inches and re-acquainting yourself with your punk days.
Download: Liliput, “In a Mess”
Ryan Leslie Bookends Love
- story Claire Lobenfeld
- photo Annie Tritt (F55)
Over the weekend, three new Ryan Leslie tracks—possibly from his album to be released some time this year, Les Is More—popped up in the Usershare-iverse and we are psyched. If there’s anyone who can turn a bitter situation into something slick and twinkling, it’s this man. “Too Late” is possibly the most polite write off song we’ve ever heard and, although low-key, its smoothness and confidence could make it anthemic. He also hits the courting end of the amore spectrum with “When I Think About Luv” and “Here She Comes.” But what happens in between budding romance and the cold end? We beseech you, Ryan Leslie, to send out more joints to the World Wide Web, so that we can figure it out. (via Ill Roots)
Download: Ryan Leslie, “Too Late”
Download: Ryan Leslie, “When I Think About Luv”
Download: Ryan Leslie, “Here She Comes”
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posted on Mar 1, 2010 in MP3 / STREAMS
Freddie Gibbs, “Slammin’” MP3
- story Claire Lobenfeld
Only months ago, Freddie Gibbs gave us his The Labels Tryin’ to Kill Me tape, and, in spite of its colossal tracklist, it totally exacerbated our need for more. While we wait for his upcoming Str8 Killa No Filla, we’re working on drudging up the memory of life-before-Mediafire and reincorporating the patience we had then to wait for rappers to drop albums back into our lives. He’s given us another listen of what’s to come with “Slammin’” and it’s waging an internal war on us between signing up for Freddie Gibbs Google Alerts and just sitting back and listening to Stevie Wonder, like he does at the beginning of the song.
Download: Freddie Gibbs, “Slammin” (via Rap Radar)
New Erykah Badu Videos Feature Bill O’Reilly, Barack Obama and Four Lil Waynes!
- story Claire Lobenfeld
Our dreams are the mish-mash-of-pop-culture-dripping-colors-talking-to-sparkly-creatures kind (with the occasional rapper cameo) and Erykah Badu’s video (videos?) for “Jump Up in the Air and Stay There” takes our nocturnal discourse to the screen. We don’t know which version of the Erykahlidoscope is the actual clip, but it’s worth it to keep watching after the black and white one ends because the purple hued interpretation features images of Lil’ Wayne in a way that makes us even more relieved he won’t have to cut his dreads for the trip he’s about to take. They are streaming in tandem on her website erykahbadu.com.
Ludacris is Back, Again, For the First Time, Again
- story Claire Lobenfeld
If there’s anyone who is making us love our jobs today, it’s Ludacris. He appears on Shawty Lo’s “A-Town” which has the most visually stimulating version of the we’re-on-the-corner-then-we’re-at-the-club video we’ve seen in a long time. There’s also no denying that he’s got his work cut out for him keeping up with Nicki Minaj on “My Chick is Bad” from his concept album, Battle of the Sexes. We’re all about some smashing the patriarchy shit and always down for Nicki’s gender-specifications-are-irrelevant flow. If this is what’s going on in Atlanta, holler at us with the best place to get cheap plane tickets because we’re about to start walking there. On our way home, we’ll be sure to pick up one of the color-changing Free Gucci shirts Shawty Lo’s got on in his video, if we’re not too hungover from kicking it in the club with Goodie Mob where The-Dream makes it look like carrying a bottle of Nuvo is a job reserved for tough guys. We’re ready to throw our peace signs up (and A’s down) if it means we can hang.
Download: Ludacris f. Nicki Minaj, “My Chick Bad”
Video: Waka Flocka Flame f. Derez, Reeseman Kackalack, Slim Dunkin & Dae-Dae, “80s Baby”
- story Claire Lobenfeld
A few days after Gucci Mane-protégé Waka Flocka Flame’s mixtape Shoot Me or Salute Me dropped, he was unfortunately hit with two gunshots while at a car wash in Atlanta, so we’re glad to see him in this video surrounded by friends. Even though it looks like it was shot on someone’s camera phone, we still find the whole ordeal appealing. Who wouldn’t be down to empty out bottles of Patrón and revel in the fact that crunk still lives? We’d also like to note that Reeseman Kackalack using the simile “ghost like you was Patrick Swayze” is now totally meta.
Nipsey Hussle f. Iyaz, “Return of the Swag” MP3
- story Claire Lobenfeld
- photo Ross McDonnell
Maybe this track’s producer (and Sean Kingston’s guardian angel) J.R. Rotem has a time machine that we don’t know about that he uses to check out pop hits of decades past as a source of inspiration. And on his last trip to the ’90s, Mark Morrison’s endemic hit, “Return of the Mack” piqued his interest. When he returned to present day, he couldn’t just allow the track to remain solely in infrequent rotation on dance radio stations, so he reconstructed it into a bombast of baller bravado for L.A.’s Nipsey Hussle. On this SoCaled-out version, Nipsey is bringing swagger back. We’re not sure if “swag” has been gone long enough (or even at all?) for it to need to return, but maybe if we had our own time machine, we could reacquaint ourselves with our old slang lexicons and discover that “mack” was to the mid-90s as “swag” is 2010.
Download: Nipsey Hussle f. Iyaz, “Return of the Swag”
Kilamu, “Ta Ndjeff” MP3
- story Claire Lobenfeld
We have hardly retained any of the vocabulary we learned during the two semesters of college that we studied Portuguese. Trying to uncover word-relics from those classes while listening to Angolan star of kuduro music Kilamu’s Akwaaba-released A Minha Face comes unadvised. The beats are so beguiling, it is impossible to contemplate any lost language. Instead, we’re absorbing horns and drum loops and drafting a letter to every foreign language department suggesting they include this album in their Portuguese curriculum. We’d like to think that if Killamu were our professor, we’d have an A+ for our diction and grammar, as well as our adept dancefloor vernacular.
Download: Kilamu, “Ta Njeff”
