The first time I heard of Justin Bieber was last summer in the morning before I went to work. I was living in New York, and because it took me almost an hour to get to work in New Jersey everyday, I woke up fairly early and watched some VH1 music video show. There was this little kid on TV with Usher standing next to him. I was confused to say the least, but I just left it at that.
Skip over the Bieber fever that has been 2010 thus far, and we arrive at this: a version of Bieber’s song “U Smile” digitally slowed down 800%.
As you could probably guess, you can’t make out a single lyric of the song. But what’s astounding is how well this song would fit alongside songs by artists like Stars of the Lid, Fennesz, or Gas. The track is thirty-five minutes long and plays like an incredibly crafted ambient or experimental micro-sounds record.
I have been listening to more pop music lately, and after hearing the original version of this song, I’ve gotta admit that there’s something to it. After all of my trying to ignore this kid, I guess it’s finally time to go grab the Bieber album…
Kid Sister throwin it down at the Mad Decent Block Party L.A.
Mad Decent, a Philidelphia-based record label headed by Diplo, has put on block parties in Philly for the past couple years, but 2010 is the first time that it’s taken the show on the road. This year they’re hitting up three more cities. So far they’ve hit Philly and New York, and next weeks they’ll be off to Chicago, but today the show descended on L.A.
When we got to the “Premier Events Center”, which was essentially a city block in the gentrified part of downtown a few seconds from skid row, not too much was going on. We wandered around a bit, sat on the curb and talked, and made our way to the stage once Maluca started her set. I’ve heard of Maluca before, but never listened to her music. I’d liken it to Buraka Som Sistema, but the fact that my knowledge of anything characterized as “experimental tropical punk, ghettotech and hip-house” is quite limited, that might be a cheap comparison. Anyways, her set was great. She had two dancers up on stage, which gave the show some personality and livened up what could have turned run-of-the-mill very quickly (not that her music isn’t intriguing, but one girl and a DJ on stage aren’t much to look at.)
Next up was Bosco Delrey, who played a solid mix of harsh guitars and electronic beats for a while. One thing that I noticed about his songs (at least in a live setting) was that they were fairly long. Most artists making this kind of music tend to stick to 2/3 minute jams without really developing the ideas behind their songs. Delrey played songs that were 5/6 minutes long and had some actual heft to them.
Theophilus London followed up Bosco Delrey, and while his indie brand of hip hop was pretty great, the fact that Kid Sister came up right after him sorta made him fade away. Kid Sis was the surprise guest of the evening and did a short set consisting of “Big ‘n Bad,” a new song that I didn’t recognize, and “Pro Nails.” It was short but sweet, and she brought all of the energy she usually does to the stage.
Paul Devro came up next, and we stayed to enjoy dancing to Major Lazer’s “Pon The Floor,” a remix of Big Boi’s “Shutterbug,” and some other electro songs I couldn’t quite place. Oh yeah, Andy Milonakis was on and off stage all day. Maybe it’s because of this. After that we got out things together and headed out. Now I’m off to a Hercules & Love Affair show!
Kid Sister throwin it down at the Mad Decent Block Party L.A.
M.I.A. (or someone who she’s heavily endorsing) has posted music videos on YouTube for nearly every song on her most recent LP, ///Y/ (read: Maya). More than anything else, these videos give everyone on the internet a semi-good quality version of every song to listen to. As you can judge pretty quickly from the Meds & Feds video above, there’s not too much depth to these.
So yeah, go ahead and (try to) enjoy the new album if you haven’t listened to it yet. My favorite songs are Steppin’ Up, XXXO, Born Free, Meds & Feds, and Space.
La Roux’s debut album is a perfect example of a sleeper hit. It was released over a year ago, but only recently did the song “Bulletproof” get any serious air play. It’s a perfectly-paced record, that puts singer Eleanor Kate Jackson’s voice on top of bouncy electropop beats.
Producer Skream makes the kind of dubstep that proves that the genre deserves some credence. His music seats itself in the fog of night dripping in reverb, and it stays far away from the strain of dubstep regurgitated over and over by producers like Rusko.
This new song from Skream is his second piece that involves La Roux, the first being a remix he did of the band’s first single: In For The Kill. Both songs are amazing, so take a listen.
Skream – Finally (feat. La Roux)
La Roux – In For The Kill (Skream’s Let’s Get Ravey Remix)
A Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo helmet to be exact. This video made my day, and I love that DIY projects like this exist.
I think that I heard, back around the time of the Alive 2007 tour, that the real helmets cost thousands of dollars to make. Check the link below for a more detailed explanation of how this was done.
The radio-rip of Robyn’s new and first single off of Body Talk Pt. 2 has been unleashed, and it just so happens to be the dance version of “Hang With Me.” I think this new version of the song sounds akin to Body Talk Pt. 1’s “Cry When You Get Older.” This second installment of what’s supposed to be a three part release will see the light of day on September 6th.
Body Talk Pt. 1 was released a little over a month ago. It’s the best pop release of the summer so far, and it featured the acoustic version of “Hang With Me.” I can’t wait to get my hands on parts 2 & 3.
Simply put, you start with a grid of boxes. The boxes are in either of two states: alive or dead. To play the game, you start by turning some boxes alive, and running these rules over and over:
A living cell with 0 or 1 neighbours dies, by underpopulation
A living cell with 4 or more neighbours dies, by overpopulation
A living cell with 2 or 3 neighbours survives
A dead cell with 3 or more neighbours becomes alive, by reproduction
I’m not sure why, but we learned about the Game of Life in one of my computer science classes a few semesters ago. I thought it was interesting at the time, but it (sort of) came in handy when I interned at Microsoft. Every year the company puts on “Puzzle Day” which is a program-wide competition between teams that are solving puzzles all day. One of the puzzles was just a wide grid with seemingly random boxes colored black. It came with some clue about “life”, and I figured that it was simply Conway’s Game. Little did I know that there were custom rules that we had to figure out to solve what the boxes revealed… Sadly, this wasn’t one of the puzzles we solved, but we came close, right?
While it doesn’t look like I’m going to get to any shows during my time up here in San Francisco (ok, the South Bay), I WILL start going to shows the very first day I come back down to LA.
The "old" Hercules & Love Affair lineup (featuring Antony Hegarty)
The first show I have tickets for right now is Hercules & Love Affair at the Echoplex. I seem to have great luck when it comes to interships ending and H&LA’s touring schedule. Last year I got to see them in New York my last weekend there, and this year I get to see them in LA on my drive back down from here up north. I’m pretty sure Andy Butler will have the same lineup with him in LA as he did in NY, even though this is considered the “new” lineup that’ll be featured on the album (I assume).
Hercules & Love Affair – Blind
The Chemical Brothers performing live
The second show I have lined up features YACHT and Chromeo opening for The Chemical Brothers at the Hollywood Bowl in late August. This show is bound to be incredible. I (and just about everyone else) consider The Chems to be one of the electronica greats*, and I’ve been dying to make it to one of their live shows after seeing them do a DJ set at Coachella last year. While I haven’t ever seen YACHT, their last album got great reviews. And it’s been a long three years since I’ve seen Chromeo at Steve Aoki’s one-off Neighborhood Fest, but their new material that’s been leaking sounds great.
The Chemical Brothers – Saturate
Chromeo – Don’t Turn The Lights On
The guys who dedicated an entire song to the oxford comma: Vampire Weekend
Finally, I’ll also be going to see Vampire Weekend, Beach House, and The Very Best at the Hollywood Bowl in September. I’ve seen Vampire Weekend three times now, and they bring it every time. I saw Beach House on a whim at Coachella a couple months ago, and while I thought they were great in the Mojave Tent, I’m sure I’ll enjoy them more now that I’ve gotten to know their material better. I haven’t ever seen The Very Best, but their mixtape and album were both given BNMs from Pitchfork. Now that I think about it, of every album released by all three of these artists, only Beach House’s first album didn’t receive the title. Damn.
Vampire Weekend – Walcot
Beach House – Walk In The Park
*My list of ‘electronica greats’ consists of The Chemical Brothers, The Prodigy, Basement Jaxx, Daft Punk, and Underworld
