Music For Our Future

/ David James / 1 Comment

So apparently to help promote the prequel series to Battlestar Galactica, Syfy channel has worked with Pitchfork and XLR8R to curate a far-better-than-it-has-any-right-to-be compilation “inspired” by the new show, Caprica.  Rather than toss together a random selection of indie pop hits aimed at moving units, those responsible have created an ostensibly futuristic sounding mixture of left-field beat excursions, austere psychedelia, and blissed out ambience – and released Music For Our Future completely FREE of charge.

That’s right, this sublime collection is just a click away.  The best part is that the selection is of such uniformly high quality, containing several tracks unavailable elsewhere, that it would easily warrant a purchase price if they so chose.  Thankfully, their commercial impetus for appearing generous is a freewheeling invitation for those of us more into music than television to indulge in something we don’t get every day: an official mixtape that’s not only surprisingly eclectic and deep, but coherent and fluid unlike all but the best of film soundtracks.

Basically comprised of several key satellites orbiting the modern avant electronic landscape with a foot or two firmly in more well known indie territory, this playlist promises to release listeners from the shackles of gravity and set them adrift somewhere outside the oort cloud without a tether in sight.  Sliding through warm drones, cold glitch, crushing dub, rapid space grooves and minimal-everything, we’re right on the cusp of anything conceivably fitting for this particular title.

The tracklisting:

1. Lusine – Gravity

2. Atlas Sound – Walkabout

3. Hudson Mohawke – FUSE

4. White Rainbow – Raw Shanks a Million

5. King Midas Sound – Outta Space (Slow Version)

6. Low Limit – Turf Day

7. Willits and Sakamoto – Toward Water

8. The Field – I Have the Moon, You Have the Internet (Gold Panda Remix)

9. Tyondai Braxton – Uffe’s Woodshop

10. Untold – Luna

11. Nice Nice – See Waves

12. Richard Devine – Matvec Interior (feat. Otto Von Schirach)

13. Peter Kirn – Anaxagoras

[once again, this is completely FREE.  so grab it and enjoy]

Grackle – Desert Acid

/ David James / 1 Comment

Grackle was a complete mystery to me only a few weeks ago.  Named after a small black bird I see often around the neighborhood, the name dared me to indulge, inflaming my curiosity.  This turned out to be a far-more-than-worthy gamble, as William Burnett (aka Grackle) brings a shitload of personality, energy, and hardened swagger to a corner of the electronic music world often lacking in all of the above.

Ostensibly a moody space disco number, the title track evokes everything from laser-pocked 80’s sci-fi soundtracks to smokey funk bangers, its rhythm deftly negotiating an absolute stampede of bass, yet never once feels any older than Right Now.  It’s the score to nighttime escapades in the Grand Canyon on a clear night, possibly in some future dystopia where the desolate  home of the Roadrunner is the only solace from the onslaught of modern living.  The set-opening Musiccargo remix feels like a primal dance around and through a brush fire, a stomping, clattering frenzy let loose when the crisp air first hits and the wild starts to take over.  A 4/4 motorik pulse glides the momentum on rails straight into the main feature before you’re even aware of what’s happening.  Afterward, the sparkling skyward view beckons and we’re flat on our backs, feeling the draw of space and the sounds of satellites.  The Sombrero Galaxy version draws out the meditative (and frankly psychedelic) aspects of the track, riding through hot aquatic swells bathed in that surface-of-Venus skyline in Blade Runner.  Twinkling synth stabs illuminate romantically pleading horn waves, sending shivers up the spine while the martial lockstep percussion wanders off towards a hazy oasis.  We’re gently brought back to earth the the tune of splashing water and distant laughter.  Finally rounding up this drum-tight selection is an original titled We Are It, feeling like a mysteriously shrouded cousin of some of Gothenburg’s finest club crushers.  All buzzing seaside guitars and breathy vocals, snaking their way through wavering key lines and plinking drum taps, it’s 4am, long after the beach party died down.  So Grackle leaves us by the salvation of water, after all.  Starting out in the middle of the night in the middle of the desert (with possibly a satchel of peyote buttons) has been redefined into something not only desirable, but vital.  If you grew up in the same era as I did (reading this, you probably did) – expect to have all your deep pleasure centers massaged over these 23 minutes.  Take this trip and call me in the morning.

[grab this EP at boomkat, junodownload, or on 12″ from kompakt]

Do You Realize??

/ David James / 3 Comments

This is for you.  Yeah, you.  I love you.

Dam-Funk – Mirrors

/ David James / 4 Comments

Dam-Funk, as readers well know, dropped one of the absolute hottest albums this year with the massive Toeachizown.  He’s already my personal choice for biggest surprise of 2009, and his debut is looking at best of the year status.  Here’s the inspiringly trippy video for infectious first single, Mirrors.

Lynch-esque employment of light and shadow!  Dreamy visuals!  Laser glowing keytar action!  Yes!

[album is on sale at stones throw in either 2CD or 5LP format – peep the gorgeous artwork]

ROVO – Nuou

/ David James / Leave a comment

ROVO lay down incremental evolutions on the same sound, album after album, consistently for over a decade now.  With most bands, this would be a bad thing.  Fortunately, this particular sound is a jaw dropping transcendent bliss hurricane, perpetually bestowing its myriad gifts upon the listener, play after play.  Their latest full length proves the rule again.

Basically, take the spaced out sun worshipping tribal krautrock jams of latter day Boredoms, divide it by Miles Davis‘ brilliant, hard rocking Pangaea-era band, multiply the result with judicious electronic manipulation and add exquisite electric violin fireworks.  Now you’ve got a tiny kernel of an idea about how this sounds.

Already a favorite here at Optimistic Underground (see Pyramid and Mon posts), I won’t mince words reiterating how I feel about the band itself.  Instead, I’ll break down what makes this album particularly eargasmic.  For starters, the band seems to have discovered a more laconic sense of beauty and space; these five tracks radiate a confident, nearly relaxed sense of purpose and design.  No longer boiling directly into frenzied storms to get the point across, they craft this piece with a jeweler’s touch using gentler elements like hushed marimbas in album centerpiece Melodia, allowing the dueling percussionists to convey a soft-spoken interplay in leiu of the usual kung fu assault.  Of course, this wouldn’t be ROVO without those warp-speed eruptions, the moments when everything locks into place, time and space folding into some utopian extradimensional conveyance – these are simply delivered with a measure of of grace and patience befitting an outfit knocking out their eight consecutive masterpiece.

The thing with this music is, you simply have to hear it to believe it, much less know exactly what it’s like.  No amount of superlative descriptors in the world can prepare you for the absolutely addictive nature contained within.  Nothing can truly describe the hypnotic fever-dream euphoria.  Just listen, and get familiar.  You can thank me later.

And seriously, watch this psychedelic preview / live footage hybrid.

[get your hands on this god-level magnificence at hmv japan or yesasia.com]

Jay Electronica’s Eternal Sunshine

/ David James / 6 Comments

I took Eternal Sunshine and I looped it.
No drums no hook just new shit.

Jay Electronica is, in my humble view, the most promising MC out there today. Although having no official albums under his belt, the bootleg collection What the Fuck is a Jay Electronica?! has been making the rounds for a year now and waking heads up across the land. Today I realized that I’d been keeping this hot treasure to myself and needed to share the love.

This song is what grabbed my attention first, being a fan of the titular film (and its dreamlike score, courtesy of Jon Brion) and always keeping my ears open for exciting new talent; suffice to say I was hooked. There’s nothing I can say that would persuade a listener more than the music itself, so have a listen.

With beats driven by the likes of Madlib and J Dilla, the songs released so far are not only deeply satisfying rhyme and rhythm excursions, but point the way to an incredibly successful career. I can’t wait for the day this man is known more for his incisive talent than simply as the husband of Erykah Badu – and that spot on the calendar is quickly approaching.

Give his What the Fuck collection a try.

[and keep your eyes and ears out for anything this guy drops, official or not. check his twitter for info.]

Dr. Strangeloop

/ David James / Leave a comment

Are We Lost Mammals of an Approaching Transcendental Epoch?

I think so.

Evidence:  A single 18 minute post-rock-esque collage of beats, spacey atmospherics, feedback skronk, beat loops, synth swells, and percussion galore; this piece has the arc of a massive Artistic Statement album, played in double time with enough dips, curveballs, and trap doors to lock interest in a firm grasp and obliterate all sense of time passing.

Primarily a visual artist, Dr. Strangeloop (seriously, check his vimeo page now) met Brainfeeder head honcho Flying Lotus in art school, where the two became fast friends, smoking and playing atari while working on film and music.  Currently VJ-ing Brainfeeder events and working on new music, this is his first release, created about a year ago.  He has this to say about the track:

“I made it about a year ago, and it is probably the strangest thing I’ve ever shepherded into this world. It is one track, 18 minutes long, very lo-fi, and I picture it as some sort of narrative about the Singularity, mystical states, and the evolution of man. It is more post-rock influenced than the stuff I’m working on now, and is divided into three idiosyncratic movements.“

So that pretty much sums it up.  This video gives a good taste.

[pick this dream shard up at boomkat or through brainfeeder itself]