Fader

Every week resident FADER selector Eddie STATS runs through dancehall riddims and other artifacts from the ghetto archipelago.

Right now is when all the “Pussy Good riddim” jokes I’ve been making the last two weeks come back on me. “Hardcore” may not be quite equal to “Pussy Good” in directness, but don’t let the understated double entendre throw you off—this shit is pure lyrical raunch. The first time I listened to it a week or two ago, I filed it pretty quickly under S for "soca" and "slackness." But then the other day the instrumental came through my headphones while I was looking for something else in Serato (digital serendipity part II) and I was like, What just happened? Sometimes you got to hear things out of context to really get them, and the more I listened to the straight riddim mix thinking it was some mysterious house track I’d accidentally downloaded, the more brilliant nuances jumped out at me: the subs booming in a ragga-soca march, the afro-latin triangle lick, the bhangra-ish strings, the “Break 4 Love” 808 claps and synth washes. more...

We've actually been waiting for this to free itself ever since we saw the "making of" video above. "Big Screen" is a perfect example of Kanye production that succeeds with or without an actual chorus. GLC himself should still be riding high off his I Ain't Even On Yet mixtape, but this song kind of sounds like someone would feel after actually getting on. Maybe that's why we get sad when it ends? Songs like "Big Screen" (along with videos like this) are why we can't wait for Gangsta L. Crisis' impending debut Love, Life & Loyalty.


Download: GLC f. Kanye West, "Big Screen"

About a million years ago, Mad Decent announced they were teaming with Paper Route Recordz to release a mixtape of remixes and new material. Since that announcement, we've listened to samplers, select remixes from the mixtape and streams of the entire thing. Now it's finally here and ready for download. For the price of a glass of water ($0.00) you can grab the whole thing, OR you can drop a whopping five bucks and get the tape in high quality with a bunch of bonus tracks. Our advice: bring your lunch tomorrow and spend five or six dollars on the mixtape.

Download: PRGz, Fear and Loathing in Huntsvegas

Several weeks ago—pre-Obama, pre-Rahm, pre-(potentially)Hillary, pre-Change.gov—RCRD LBL debuted a stream of Mos Def's new single, and, at the time, it did nothing to alleviate our anxiety over the politrickery going down around this country. In fact, we found ourselves spewing all kinds of wacky conspiracy theories that day, probably in no small part inspired by Mos. But now that we've settled ourselves a little bit, this song has taken on a new purpose: It's our new theme song for complaining specifically about New York's budget deficit! YAY!


Download: Mos Def, "Life in Marvelous Times" (via RCRD LBL)

Just when we were quelling our excitement over the news that former FADER coverstar Pete Doherty is recording his new solo album with Blur's Graham Coxon comes news that Pete Doherty has purchased new uniforms for his local football club the Queen's Head Rangers for £500. The uniforms will have a picture of Doherty's face on them, and he is also rumored to fancy a position on the team, most likely as leading scorer (bah-dum-bum). Doherty's made his love for First Division middlers Queen's Park Rangers well known over the years and hopes the new uniforms and his face will inspire the pub team to success. His face inspires us to quit smoking, drinking and going to jail, but we're Americans. After the jump, two videos: the first of Pete scoring in a celebrity match last year before stealing an injured fans chips, and the second of Pete in the studio with Coxon. Pete Doherty's solo album is due next summer. more...

Illa J's Yancey Boys is a low key affair featuring previously unreleased beats from his older brother, the late J Dilla. Most of the beats come from '95-'98, when The Pharcyde released the Dilla-produced Labcabincalifornia, which also happens to be our favorite Dilla era. Illa J is not going to blow anyone away with lyrically lyrical tongue twisters, but he has put together a fond memory of his brother while imbuing it with his own sense of individuality. FADER Number 58—aka the issue with Kanye West and No Age on the covers—will be on stands next week, and Illa J is part of its stellar Gen F lineup. Until that issue hits newsstands and the internet, listen to "Strugglin'" from Yancey Boys, which is available right now.


Download:Illa J, "Strugglin'"

According to their (her?) MySpace, The Golden Filter is hanging out with a lot of people whose music we enjoy, including Hercules and Love Affair, Erol Alkan, Cut Copy and Late of the Pier. Alternately, because they are so mysterious, the band could actually not be spending any time with those people and have no real friends at all. Either way, we like "Moonlight Fantasy," an italo disco influenced track accented by dubby handclaps and that old disco violin. The Golden Filter are currently making the rounds in London with pretty much all the dudes we mentioned above, so if you're over there, catch them/her live and let us if they/she are/is secretly famous.


Download:The Golden Filter, "Moonlight Fantasy"(via Discobelle)

In the spirit of keeping it all the way live (Lakeside!), Beyonce never seemed all that cool with sharing the spotlight, and you can probably imagine how Sasha Fierce feels. Accordingly, Nicki Minaj had to hijack B's "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)" and put two verses on it that sound like Sasha's dancing looks. Besides rapping in patois as well as some derivative of an English accent (a Slick Rick impersonation perhaps?), she tells some dude who passed up the chance to propose, "Sucks for you." We can believe that.


Download: Beyonce f. Nicki Minaj, "Single Ladies (Remix)"

Each Tuesday, FADER editor Matthew Schnipper highlights an underappreciated recent release he thinks we need to know about. This week it's Babytalk's "Chance" 12-inch. Listen to the tracks from the record on his label's MySpace, buy the music ($2.97!) there and read Schnipper's thoughts on the record after the jump. more...

Maybe it makes us lazy or maybe it makes us shrewd reporters, but all we had to do was wait an hour to debunk the rumors that James Murphy was retiring LCD Soundsystem. NME reports that Murphy has already written eight songs for LCD's next album. So maybe LCD just won't include Al Doyle, dubious source of the break-up? This is like The Hills with poorly shaven white dudes!

About eleven minutes into Gang Gang Dance's set at the El Rey Theatre on Saturday, some guy next to us asked if all the bands that played that night were trying to out-weird each other. Between Lucky Dragons walking around banging a cymbal after hiding behind red velvet curtains for their whole set and Marnie Stern showing everyone that, yes, women can shred and have epic breakdowns, we should have known that Gang Gang would bring something unexpected. We, however, were definitely not expecting a twelve minute intro. After that, the band played without a break, Lizzie Bougatsos' vocals piercing the spastic yet lush haze of instrumentation, bugging everyone out. We didn't know whether to move our feet or raise our hands while speaking in tongues. It was definitely a glorious experience, too much for some audience members: a few of them left occasionally to smoke cigarettes and talk about how much of a trip it all was. We found the above video of the band playing "Egowar" from the show to give you an idea.

Ever since they played our CMJ space a couple years ago, a couple of us FADER editors have been secretly, minorly obsessed with the intelligent jam stylings of Austin, Texas' White Denim. The band's new album Exposion is available for purchase now and has just been given a pretty good review on Pitchfork by FADER contributor David Bevan, though we would've liked to see a little more enthusiasm over there, Bevo. Exposion is AT LEAST a 7.9.

When the band came through New York City, we decided to test out our other obsession, Green Screen, with them in our conference room. That decision almost got us fired, evicted and strung up by our blogsticles, but it was worth it as we now have a video of White Denim playing "Migration Wind," off their new album, surrounded by manatees, dolphins and fish of many beautiful varieties. Enjoy it, spread it around and let us know who and where you'd like to see in the next Green Screen adventure on FADER TV.

Every Tuesday, FADER deputy editor Eric Ducker gets on instant messenger and "discusses" a subject that's been on his mind with another member of our staff or a special guest. After the jump, read his condensed (and emoticon-free) conversation with editorial assistant Felipe Delerme about Busta Rhymes' "Arab Money," the new single produced by Ron Browz that you can listen to here. Delerme wrote a Gen F on Browz in the upcoming FADER #58 and has been thinking a lot about Harlem recently. more...

TheFADER.com is proud to present an exclusive full album stream of Day by Day, Femi Kuti's first solo album in seven years and first for Downtown Records' new imprint Mercer Street. The album is out in stores today, but we've been listening to it very heavily since we first got in the mail and strongly encourage you to go spend the money to own it. Femi's father Fela, of course, has been cited endlessly over the last year or so by artists in and out of the pages of The FADER, but this is obviously the most direct successor if you want uncut Afrobeat. Femi's moved away from the American hip hop collaborations on his last album Fight to Win, this time sticking mostly with his own 17-piece band Positive Force, which makes Day by Day sound less "global" than Nigerian and, honestly, his best since 1998's Shoki, Shoki.

Femi will also be bringing his live show to the States early next year starting January 7th in Boston, so check the dates after the jump along with a short documentary of the making of Day by Day.

Femi Kuti - Day By Day
(Out 11/18, Mercer Street Records)

more...

On first viewing, we were surprised Young Jeezy didn't go with "My President" as a follow up to "Vacation" instead of this to seize the moment, but then realized—Obama or no Obama—this planet is still absolutely out of control. So it makes a lot of sense that "Crazy World," featuring Jeezy driving a Go-Kart amidst a planned riot, is the choice he made. Meanwhile, the once again active We Eat so Many Shrimp has some insights on what Jeezy means to rap in 2008 and beyond. Is this the return of smart rap blogs?

SuperBesties Jay and Chris Martin spent hours on the phone together planning which army jackets to wear in their new video for the remix to "Lost."* The song and video will be available on next week's release of Coldplay's 8-song Prospekt's March EP.

*Imaginated

We did not find this. We did not leak it. Magic gave it to us. The spirit world gave it to us. Gorillas joined hands and breathed clouds into our hard drives, and it sounds even better in our headphones than it has at any other time in any other form. Enjoy while you can and prepare to purchase Animal Collective's new album Merriweather Post Pavilion in January.


Download: Animal Collective, "Brothersport"

Join The FADER's newest weekly columnist, A-Trak, who will be sharing with us the life and times of a superstar DJ and globetrotting gentleman. His column is called Around the World until he tells us otherwise.

Part VII: mtvU Woodies, Chromeo, more Kavinsky, Erol Alkan, BBC's Essential Mix, Fake Blood more...

...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead were responsible for many, many drunken air drum sessions before they released So Divided and then nothing. Now they're back, slightly less bombastic and nodding heavily at mid-'90s rock (and also Canadian alt-rock sensation Edwin). Our Edwin comparison is a little unfortunate, but considering the drums on "Bells of Creation" sound like planets colliding we're willing to pretend we never thought of it [Ed. you're fired]. "Bells of Creation" is from the Festival Thyme EP, and you can download it for one week only at RCRD LBL.


Download: ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, "Bells of Creation"