Category Archives: Of

EP of the Week – Burial’s Truant & Rough Sleeper Joint

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Burial is one of those artists that finds you at a certain point in your listening history and shakes up your worldview. The ethereal, melancholy beats, haunting melodies and astonishing compositions first showed up in 2006, when his debut album off Hyperdub records completely shook up what 2-step, future garage & dubstep could sound like. The sounds just weren’t comparable to what others were sounding like at the time. A personal favorite of mine, Archangel off of his second album released in 2007 is a track that everyone needs to hear before they die:

However, this post isn’t about Burial’s previous (mind-blowing) work. Burial released a two single EP this week, to the glee and adulation of anyone who listens to UK garage, chillstep or downtempo. Whenever Burial puts something out, it gets swarmed immediately. People might’ve been disappointed that it was only a 2 track EP, but the two tracks total over 25min of sound. This is a treat in time for the holidays, almost perfectly timed to totally fuck with everyone’s “Best of 2012” lists. Truant continues the storied tradition of Burial tracks approximating a stylized walk through the rain wearing a hoodie. This quiet backbeat melts into the frayed vocals and silky samples. As always, the production value is through the roof. The track, 11:45 in length, feels like the first half of an EP, especially with the oscillating beats, the melodic progressions and the continued focus on inducing dreamlike states.

Rough Sleeper definitely breaks past that melodic quiet chillstep and pushes some more uptempo beats and jarring sounds into your awareness. Nothing abrasive, buzz-sawy or brosteppy, but there is a strength behind the bluesy & ethereal track that Truant just didn’t have. It provides an excellent compliment to the previous feel. Almost a wake up call from a dream. The speed kicks up, and while still scratchy and ethereal, there’s a groove to them that you can really get into, especially if you’re into where he’s going with it.

I mean, there’s really not that much that needs to or even should be said about the work. This is one of the artists that changed a sound a lot of us take for granted now, doing what he does best. I’ve gotta say I like the long-form track format, as it makes it a lot easier to get in deep with a track, and not have to keep switching up basslines 10 times in 5 minutes.  Great stuff, but, of course, it couldn’t have been anything else.

 

 

Mix of the Week – November Psy by Theta Waves

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This week, I was delighted that a very old friend of mine who DJs under the moniker Theta Waves has started mixing again. A friend who was in the theme camp I stayed at when I made it out to Burning Man in 2006, he’s been a source of quality ever since. Psychedelic trance is definitely a very finicky beast when it comes to mixing, producing and of course just simply keeping the dance floor happy. The plethora of sub-genres, high standards of the listeners, and the general clusterfuck that comes with any psy-trance party of a decent size means that it’s difficult to keep things straight, especially when the best parties have music that changes not just per DJ, but per hour.

Theta Waves brings us some great early morning progressive psy. This focus on beats, progressions, trancey chords and a distinct lack of eery, scary samples separates it from the psy you’d hear before midnight or when the DJ is attempting to scare tripping people off the dance floor. This not only enhances sober listenability, but also makes it more generally enjoyable for people who don’t have a good handle on what a psy-trance party may actually be like. Accessibility is big in dance music, especially stuff that never even approaches radio play.

One highlight on the mix that I particularly enjoyed was the seventh track mixed into the set, called “Crack Case” by Reactant.

This track is a personal favorite, as I definitely will applaud any use of poorly-conceived anti-drug marketing in EDM. This track in particular samples the after-school special from the mid-90’s, featuring Alf, Bugs Bunny, Winnie the Pooh, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and a whole host of other cartoon characters. They all combine forces to keep kids off of drugs, weed and crack specifically. While the entire idea of Michaelangelo telling kids not to get high is bafflingly hilarious, the track maintains a driving beat along with the humor of it all. It’s important to ensure kids make the right decisions, and if they’re not taking their social cues from cartoon characters, then their parents have clearly failed.

All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable mix that won’t scare away anyone who’s not too familiar with the genre, and will definitely stoke the “Damn it’s been a while since I went to a psy-trance” party sensibilities in anyone who knows what they’re listening to. Put it in your face.

Mix of the Week – Seven Lions

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I would like to say that I’ve been able to listen to dozens of mixes and tunes in the last few weeks, but since a young fella from New Jersey dropped a mix of his favorite Seven Lions tracks, it has been on exceptionally heavy rotation. Seven Lions is probably one of the most unique sounding musical acts I have heard in years. The brain behind it, Jeff Montalvo, started as a drummer and, after going to his first rave in 2007, immediately began percolating on how his sound would change. Seven Lions first break out hit, a remix of “You Got To Go” by Above & Beyond, was a stunning success, sitting at #2 (under Skrillex of course) for weeks on the Beatport charts. The track features prominently in the mix, sliding into your awareness at 4:40ish in, giving you a healthy dose of trancey dub.

I want to emphasize that Trance + Dubstep isn’t a combination I’ve ever heard before, anywhere. There are only a handful of domestic artists that are producing trance non-ironically these days. To ask one of them to also be competent when it comes to the wobble that the kids are listening to these days seems almost selfish. But, Seven Lions proves capable in both of these domains. His remixes of “Still With Me” (by Tritonal featuring the wonderful vocal stylings of Cristina Soto) & “On My Way to Heaven” (another transcendent tune by Above & Beyond) add a layer of massive & ethereal beats and chords to already insanely popular tracks. At about 15:45 into the mix, one of Seven Lions’ signature breakdowns explodes into your mind, producing this absurdly good beat pushing you to get off your ass and move.

It is so bizarre to feel the “must dance” feeling one gets from uplifting trance in the middle of a dubstep breakdown. I could yammer on for paragraphs about how each track was chosen carefully, the transitions are fluid and the emotion/energy is maintained throughout, but that would be you reading and not listening to it. So get over to Synovia Futurism‘s page, put the mix into your ears and then go whore yourself out to make sure you’ve got the money to buy Seven Lions’ EP here. I certainly did.

This is Terry Gotham, see you on the dance floor.

EP of the Week – Altered States by Minnesota

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https://i0.wp.com/i1.sndcdn.com/artworks-000034770472-un1aae-original.jpgTo The Floor starts out with heavy synth work giving an already gangsta-sounding sample an even harder, west-coast edge. 45 seconds in, this triumphant, sunny bass hits, adding to the modded vocals an even more interesting spin. The track is everything an Usher track aspires to be, especially when the really danceable beat ninety seconds in hit and sticks around for just long enough for you to find a deep groove. To The Floor seems to be an instant mixable hit for a number of different genres/set styles. It’s a strong leading track for the EP and definitely allows Minnesota to introduce himself and his signature sound.

Yoga Pants starts off with another LA-infused beat to bang in your car while (ostensibly) ridin’ dirty (the lack of g is important for some reason). The production value is impressive, and connects vaguely of EdiT. Not for any bad reason, but there’s a distinct nerdcore vibe that Minnesota brings to some of his work that makes me wonder if he’d ever been to an MC Frontalot, Y2Kracker or Glitch Mob show. And to emphasize, I like those artists, and have paid to see them all. I like what I hear, and this track combines a calm understanding of West Coast Hip Hop sounds and some clever usage of bass & kick drum. The vocal is used only when needed, and the final rhythms/chords after 3:30 are massive and triumphant, besides being most welcome.

Tokyo is my second favorite track on the EP. The continuing tradition of melding slick vocal samples and some chilled out bassy beats takes on an almost chiptuney vibe on this offering. There’s a sparkle to the tune that reminds me very strongly of Mega Man music, which, again, is nothing but the highest compliment. The addition of excellent bass & vocal samples of Snoop Dogg to this ethereal chippy track is something I didn’t know I wanted out of the Mega Man games I played for the NES more than a decade ago. Four minutes in, the West Coast bass comes back in and gives the chiptuney sparkle some muscle to really give the sound a little punch before it fades out.

Many more people think they can rhyme over a bassline than actually can these days. Zion I can. Float allows the very hip hop friendly beats that Minnesota drops to feature some excellent vocal work by his partner on their recently completed Shadow Boxing tour (that I reported on a while back). This very well made match takes the camera off of the beats and lets Minnesota’s work compliment the good flow & lyrical choices that Zion I makes, which, is hard to come by these days, especially if you’re getting your rap from the radio or some chucklehead rhyming over a drum & bass DJ.\

I’m not really sure how else to emphasize how much I like Indian Summer. Any single usage of anything remotely connected to Chrono Trigger (the SNES RPG masterpiece for those of us that don’t have “Video Game Nerd” stamped on their foreheads), whether it’s a sample, a game mechanic, the characters, or  the music make something a thousand times better in my mind. The soundtrack to this game was absolutely breathtaking, and the track that was chosen is the theme of the tragic sorceress you meet super late in the game in the Kingdom of Magic (OMG SPOILERS!), Schala. This is my favorite track off the EP, but let’s be real, this would’ve been my favorite track if the four previous tracks drove me to work in the morning. The production value on the sounds, bass, kick drums and ambient sounds is fantastic, and IT JUST KEEPS HAVING CHRONO TRIGGER IN IT. I’d say more about it, but then you’d be reading this and not pressing the button the soundcloud widget below this paragraph. Which you should do. Right now.

Earworm of the Month – “Not Giving In” ft. John Newman & Alex Clare

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What can I say about this tune? That it’s been my theme song for the last month?  That it’s one of the best drum & bass-infused tracks I’ve heard in a long time? Or that the video communicates not only the knowledge of the roots of Drum & Bass (namely Hip Hop), but also speaks to an even deeper understanding of why hip hop was created, as a way for urban youth to rise up out of the streets through dedication of mind and body.

“Not Giving In” features a 10 year old breakdancing prodigy from Manilla, where the video is shot. This guy, whoever he is, is going to have a long and sick-ass career busting moves, getting paid to run around LA and generally being a ridiculous b-boy. The video traces the story of him and his older brother, who wanders into the world of gangs, drugs and violence on the streets of the Filipino capital city. I usually don’t have a lot of faith that music videos and the songs they’re shot to go with have anything to do with each other, especially these days. And when it is done, it’s portrayed as some epic “story-song” narrative that’s disrupting the music world by existing.

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