Video: Wyclef Jean f. Mavado, “Hold On”

It’s been a rough 2010 for Wyclef so far: first and most obvious, he’s had to deal with the actual tragedy of his home country’s devastation, and then, he’s had to defend against accusations that his non-profit organization to aid said home country is not on the up and up. We don’t know enough about Yéle to tell you what to do or not do, but we can tell you to keep giving to whatever organization you trust to spend your donations to Haiti properly. Most of the world will inevitably move on to some other priority, but the need will remain. It would be good to see more collaborations like this one to keep the light on conditions not just in Haiti right now but everywhere at all times. Natural disasters should not be the only time we pay attention. So yeah, give to Haiti, but don’t let that be the end of your engagement.

Video: The Embassy, “C’est La Vie, C’est Embassy”

This, the latest from the godfathers of Gothenberg pop, is soft and slight, but more importantly really makes us want to find a sweet lady for Ian Brown, the stout little greenthumbed divorcée who lives in a small village in Scotland and is the subject of the video. If you are watching this and your mom/aunt/grandma is looking for a boo, please let us know. (via Discobelle)

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Video: Spike Jonze “I’m Here” Trailer

We’ve kind of known about this since Absolut asked us to create the Visionary Podcast series, but even so, seeing the end result is undeniably awesome because just five minutes ago we were wondering how we could actually become our laptops so that tweeting and blogging and Facebooking every single minute of ours lives would literally become an involuntary action like blinking or breathing, leaving us tons of time to make out with other laptops and such. Spike, as always, is one step ahead of us. If you happen to be in Sundance right now, you can see the full 30-minute I’m Here short film, presented by Absolut, today.

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Stream the First Leak from Daft Punk’s Tron Legacy Soundtrack

NERD BONER ALERT: Titled “Fragile” according to Daft Punk fansite Daftworld, this is what we’ve been waiting to hear for the nearly two years since finding out about the duo’s collaboration with Tron Legacy directory Joseph Kosinski. MTV caught up with Kosinski, who not only talks about his first meeting with Daft Punk at a familiar diner in Los Angeles but spills the beans on all kinds of Tron info like the 3-D technology, IMAX, plans for sequels and, of course, Jeff Bridges. Listen to “Fragile” below and stay tuned for confirmation because the world has been fooled before.


(via The Playlist)

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4Hero’s Kings of Drum & Bass Old Skool Mix

BBE’s Kings of series has long been a reliable double-disc excavation of some of the world’s most legendary producers. From DJ Premier to David Rodigan to Carl Craig, the guest selectors have dumped their brains, crates and hard drives onto the table and culled their favorites into crazy mixes. The series returns with Kings of Drum & Bass—timely because we’ve been calling for a DnB revival for years—split between 4Hero and DJ Marky and spanning everything from soulful and atmospheric to lobotomizing drill n bass. You can check the full tracklist after the jump and buy it on February 16th, but before that we got this mix of classics created by 4Hero to promote the album. It’s been a problem all day. Back in high school, we learned how to dance to this stuff: you flail your arms and legs to every snare hit. Super good workout and it looks awesome and attracts hot babes like you wouldn’t believe. We suggest you practice not in the privacy of your bedroom but at a club where the hot babes are. They’ll be on you like flies on poo.

Download: 4Hero’s Kings of Drum & Bass Old Skool Mix

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Wu-Tang vs The Beatles: Enter The Magical Mystery Chamber

We know we know, but this is actually pretty decent. It won’t induce the same media frenzy as The Grey Album but that probably shouldn’t have caused that media frenzy in the first place, just sayin. Some fellow named Tom Caruana took Wu-cappelas from various group and solo albums and put them over new productions made vaguely from Beatles samples and Beatles covers samples and some shit that couldn’t possibly be Beatles samples but must be. Thankfully, his pilfering of Liverpool’s finest is barely recognizable, except for Ghost’s “Mighty Healthy” which is now Pretty Toney rapping directly over Paul’s singing (kind of awesome) and dirty skank. If anything, Caruana holds pretty true to RZA and co.’s original mood, if not making Shaolin sound a whole helluva lot more awesome than it actually is.

UPDATE: If you don’t know who The Beatles are, here are some helpful charts.

Download: Wu-Tang vs The Beatles: Enter The Magical Mystery Chamber

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Stream: Gorillaz f. Bobby Womack & Mos Def, “Stylo”

Damon Albarn has a formula for the first tastes of Gorillaz albums: Whether it’s the self-titled debut’s “Clint Eastwood” or Demon Dayz’s “Dirty Harry”, you can rely on a heavy mid-tempo break, a lofty disembodied vocal and a left field rap verse. “Stylo,” from the upcoming Plastic Beach (Capitol, March 9) is no different on the surface, but there are some notable shifts in both style and substance. First, the beat is not anywhere near the sunny trip-hop vibes of its predecessors, built instead on a motorik bass and metronomic and cold snare. There is no sun here. So when the legitimately legendary Bobby Womack wails on the chorus, it’s almost shocking, not because it’s weird but because it sounds so much like an awesome relic from an unrealized ’80s apocalypse, like Womack has been trapped in a nuclear shelter since So Many Rivers came out and now he’s pissed. Mos Def’s verse gets a little buried at the end, but by that point it doesn’t really matter, the interplay between Albarn’s disaffected whisper and Womack’s powerful howl too awesome to even worry about what else is going on. Hopefully the rest of the album is this dark and weird. Check the cover and enticing tracklist after the jump and stay tuned for what will obviously be a ridiculous video.



Gorillaz f. Bobby Womack & Mos Def, “Stylo”

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Miike Snow, “Silvia (Sinden Remix)” MP3

Last year, Sinden and his sometime production partner the Count quietly (at least in the US) made one of the best songs of the year in “Mega,” the video for which you can watch in our recent interview with Sinden himself. We played that song pretty much every time someone asked us to play music in public last year, so we’re obviously psyched to have something new from Sinden to play in 2010. The original “Silvia” (video after the jump) was a little soft batch for our tastes, but this remix barely resembles it, taking only the name and launching it into UK funky house cyberspace with a final minute that is going to get the softer parts of our bodies jiggling something terrible over the next few months. And then they will become firm and no more jiggle. Aaaaaand pause. For real though, this one is not nearly as obvious as “Mega” but will be just as major in the club. To find out, go see Sinden guest at New York’s Trouble & Bass on February 10th.



Download: Miike Snow, “Silvia (Sinden Remix)”

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Chemical Brothers’ New Mix Hints at Drug-Friendly New Album

Waaaaayyyy back in FADER #11, we met up with the Chemical Brothers for some record shopping in New York City, where they bought some old disco 12-inches and subsequently unleashed Come With Us, which had a few disco-ish songs on it, but hardly reflected their purchases on the whole. Which leaves us wondering what Tom Rowlands is telling us with this recent “late night psychtronic mix,” posted to the duo’s just opened Twitter. It’s definitely less Rave Town 2010 than Oh Man I Went To Rave Town Last Night And Just Want Drink Tea For Awhile, so maybe the new Chemical Brothers album will be an ambient departure for the guys who were way ahead of the latest club resurgence. After all, their favorite records of 2009 were the ones we listened to while recovering from late nights not living them.

Download: Chemical Brothers Late Night Psychotronic Mix

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Judging Coachella 2010 by the Font Sizes on its Poster

There aren’t many music festivals that we anticipate with as much flashback hangover enthusiasm as Coachella. Every year we wait for the day that they announce the lineup and usually we’re like YEAH DEPECHE MODE YEAH DAFT PUNK YEAH ALL THOSE OTHER BANDS because that’s how they design the poster—headliners in gigantic typeface with all other artists presumably listed in order of cultural impact and reflected into your brain via descending font size. Usually it’s fine. But this year we almost had to break out a magnifying glass to see that some of our favorite bands will indeed be there, and we are neither blind nor old nor Sherlock Holmes. Girls, Yeasayer, Beach House, the Big Pink, Little Boots and the legendary Gil Scott-Heron get reduced to fine print while Muse’s font is literally taller than some of our friends. We’re not totally against Muse or anything but Thom Yorke is on the same poster and in a smaller font. That’s like saying Hey dudes, leather is sweet but CHECK OUT PLEATHER NOW THAT SHIT IS LUXURIOUS. Or something like that. Also, we just now noticed Grace Jones is going to be at Coachella because she is being pushed under the enormous and furious typographical paws of Grizzly bear by She & Him. That is just disrespectful. We can’t imagine anyone who values the skin on his/her face is going to actually show Grace Jones this poster, but maybe they thought she was a DJ/chillwave band with a funny name like Joy Orbison or Truman Peyote and made an honest mistake. Who knows! Regardless, we’re still excited, just like any other year and have created a hasty, font-democratized Photoshop version of the poster after the jump. See you guys there.

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