The asian-american electronic juggernaut known as the Far East Movement is back for another go around. This time recruiting the M.I.A. endorsed & Baltimore raised Rye Rye to the sing the hook on this track off their next album (dropping next year). FEM has carved out a nice little formula of synths, bass, chopped up catchy hook that you can’t get out of your head. If I was a betting man, rappers are going to stop hopping on this track to add verses with the quickness. When the album drops, it will feature RedOne, David Guetta, Bangladesh, wil.i.am, The Stereotypes.

Oh, and if Oprah can dance to Black Eyed Peas, watch her jam to this.

Jonwayne owes just as much to Koji Kondo as he does to the beat scene and not just for his surface level video game references. “King” is built on top of classic Nintendo boss level gloom. But not the boss fight itself — “King” summons the ominous tones of the dungeon/level that precedes the final showdown. Anyone who has played Ocarina of Time knows what I’m talking about. “King” will appear on The Death of Andrew EP, which drops October 25.

via Prefix

Jamie XX last blew our minds back in February when he teamed up with Gil Scott-Heron. He’s been busy since then putting out an Essential Mix with BBC’s Radio 1 (posted below) and dropping one of the best mixes I’ve heard in a while for FACT magazine. It’s 32 minutes of awesome that fits into pretty much anything I do in my daily routine so I highly suggest you fit it into yours. Jamie XX starts off this mix with crazy ominous bass that probably scares my neighbor and progressively picks up until he starts getting dirty with his beats around the 14:00 mark and then it just turns into a straight up dance party towards the end.

Check out both mixes here:
Jamie xx Essential Mix

FACT Mix 282 – Jamie xx

PLUS, you can download the FACT mix for free here.

I’m glad there are people other than me who appreciate the good vibes of “1 Thing” by Amerie. Octo Octa liked it enough to sample it. So did Q-Tip.

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Download: Octo Octa – I’m Trying

via altered zones

This is my reward for following James Zoo on SoundCloud after I listened to his awesome mix with Paul White in April. Named for a Hermeto Pascoal LP, “Slaves Mass” is a nigh unclassifiable almighty banger. James told me that it will appear on a forthcoming EP. Beats, son.

I remember watching youtubes of last years Fool’s Gold Labor Day party with Yelawolf rocking the hell out of his set, well this year I will probably doing the same with shaky cell cam videos of Juicy J & Danny Brown rocking. Danny Brown’s live set impressed me so much at SXSW, that I became a believer, dude is just great on stage. Of course, you can’t forget the rest of the Fool’s Gold fam including, A-Trak, Dave1, Araabmuzik (mpc vibez!!) and Nick Catchdubs who are sure to have gems to drop. If you are in NYC, I can’t think of a better way to spend your Labor Day, ok now close the Safari window and go get in line.

Fool’s Gold Day Off

Juicy J
Danny Brown
Just Blaze
Brothers Macklovitch (A-Trak & Dave1)
Araabmuzik
Cubic Zirconia
Party Supplies
Nick Catchdubs
+ Special Guests
 

 
City Winery Backyard
155 Varick St
(Entrance on Spring btwn Hudson & Varick)
2-8pm / All ages

The Hood Internet take Foster the People’s jam Pumped Up Kicks (I mentioned it briefly a few weeks back) and slow it down into an equally awesome counterpart. This was an official remix by the duo so Hollywood Holt’s verse was crafted specifically for this. It’s a nice fresh take on this song and I appreciate that it slows it down instead of speeding it up like the other remixes out there that just ruin what was already a good thing. Check it out:

This single has been floating around for only a few weeks now and remixes are already flooding Soundcloud. Personally, I think Calvin Harris has made a single that doesn’t need someone else tampering with it. It has an updated feel from his previous work but still ultimately sounds like a Calvin Harris piece. I love it, there’s nothing else to say.

The third and final day of Pitchfork Music Festival marked the end to an overwhelmingly exhausting weekend. Sunday happened to be the first day that sold out when tickets first went on sale a few months ago so needless to say it was packed. The crowd was relatively lethargic as everyone was huddled in the shade trying to get away from the oppressive heat (whine, whine, whine, bitch, bitch, bitch… whatever it was hot). I’ll go easy on the first half of the artists for the day and blame the level of boring on the heat. Two early acts I was excited to see were How to Dress Well and OFWGKTA. Especially OFWGKTA, expecting them to bring this out of the world performance due to all the hype they’ve gotten in the last year, I was disappointed with their set but even that kind of grew into just not giving a shit. How to Dress Well didn’t fare much better and frankly they just didn’t sound good. Their drummer had about half a drum set with the floor toms and bass drum turned on their sides sitting flat on the stage, it sounded terrible. Watching them set up you could feel the anticipation in the crowd as they had an orchestral accompaniment to the band. Unfortunately they didn’t seem to do much with that either.

Luckily, Shabazz Palaces kicked off a streak of acts that fell on the opposite end of the spectrum. If you haven’t heard, Shabazz Palaces is a duo that consists of electronic beats with live drums over the top paired with live vocals. They sounded awesome and were worth waiting around to hear their entire set. They have an almost new world sound but they don’t seem as if they’re trying too hard, they sound utterly sincere. Baths followed Shabazz Palaces with a surprisingly energetic performance from an artist who was performing behind a table. His energy got the crowd moving and was the perfect precursor to Toro y Moi. Toro y Moi were by far one of the best sounding on Sunday. They mainly played songs off of Underneath the Pine, which is a personal favorite of mine. Although Chaz Bundick is reluctant to have Toro y Moi be labeled as chillwave, their chillwave….esque sound set the perfect ambiance for a hot Sunday afternoon.

As I shared some shade and some beers with a friend while waiting for Deerhunter I was able to people watch and ended up sitting two feet away from Andrea Estrella from Twin Sister (as they had played the Blue Stage earlier in the day). We lost track of time, enjoying not being baked by the sun, and ended up having to try and hurry our way through the gigantic crowd waiting for Deerhunter. It took us 13 minutes to make it from one side of the stage to the other, what?! To give you  an idea, in a normal crowd that walk would take me three minutes tops, it was crazy. Deerhunter was worth the elbowing though, they played a great set while squinting into the sun. Cut Copy was the last act of the day on the Red Stage and although people have been h8n on their latest album Zonoscope, I thought they sounded great. Unfortunately it seemed like every press person at Pitchfork had jammed themselves into the photo pit so I was only able to see them if I turned myself horizontal and stood all the way up on my toes (looks like yoga’s been paying off). They played crowd favorites from In Ghost Colours which sound just as good as they did when the album came out all the way back in 2008.

TV on the Radio headlined the last day of Pitchfork and they didn’t disappoint. Unfortunately, I suck and my camera died as I was literally headed into the photo pit. I probably won’t stop kicking myself for that one for a while. I was so glad that they played songs off of Return to Cookie Mountain and Dear Science because those are my personal favorites. Nine Types of Light, which dropped in April of this year, has gotten so much attention (and it is good) but c’mon, Dear Science is ear meltingly awesome. Although they sounded fantastic, my feet could not have been more relieved when their set was finished because it meant that I could sleep forever (probably why you’re reading this review a week late…).

On a related note, check out the rest of the festival pics on ML’s Flickr! Click meeeeeee

It’s offically summer. You know how I know? Nope, it has nothing to do with the heat that people are bitching about on twitter. It is because Arthur King’s annual Summer Mix is here. I almost didn’t want to post this so all you aggregating savage blogs don’t get a sniff, but this man deserves more shine. I’ve been following the guys work since I stumbled his Pop Sh*t mix about 5 years ago. Arthur is a maestro of seamless transitions, remixes, and edits of jams that go hand in hand like Kells and underage girl.

So check out the first 25 minutes of his Summer 2011 mix NOW:

The kicker? If you like what you hear, you will have to buy it. from France.

Sidebar: That guy Knobbz is probably downloading this off the strength of the .gif mixtape cover alone.

If you like what you hear, I’ve procured some personal favorite jams from Arthur’s soundcloud, after the break. Stay tuned, I’m going to try to share the older Summer Mixes soon.

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