Viewing Archive for June, 2010
New Chromeo single: “Don’t Turn The Lights On”
I have an older brother, his name is David and he has a band called Chromeo. You know this, right? I just need to make sure once in a while.
(Are you following them on twitter yet? They’re new in town.)
Chromeo have a new album just around the corner, and having witnessed the brick-by-brick assembly of that beast, I can’t wait for the world to hear it. Dave always sings me his songs before he records them. Somewhere on one of my old MiniDV tapes I have footage of him doing Momma’s Boy on the air-Wurli and air-bells when it was just in his head… I need to dig that up. But I digress. They recorded the new album at a studio just a few blocks from my apartment, so I’d go visit them every evening and was the go-to “how does this sound?” guy. I even tracked their vocals on one of the songs. But truthfully, the way they work is extremely self-contained. If they do reach out to someone on the outside, it’ll be some random saxophonist, which has happened a few times already.
Now it’s all done, and it is my pleasure to present to you: “Don’t Turn The Lights On”.
Buy it on iTunes! (That’s the US link but it’s also out in the UK.)
When Trizzy met Drizzy
For those of you who checked out Drake’s album you may have noticed I’m scratching on song #5, “Show Me A Good Time”. Here’s the story of how that came about.
You could think that there was some sort of Canadian connection, or even a Kanye connection for that matter. But there wasn’t. When So Far Gone came out last year and Drizzy’s buzz went through the roof of the stratosphere of the ceiling of the galaxy, I remember thinking “wow, this is interesting, this is the first time there’s a Canadian rapper that I know absolutely nothing about.” Canada, while being a huge country on the atlas, has a very small music biz. Having been active in it for over a decade, I can tell you that usually everyone knows everyone. But the truth is, I left Montreal 4 years ago and Drake is pretty young, so in my view he just came out of nowhere.
Nashiem Myrick interview on Grind Music radio
Nashiem’s first beat was “who Shot ya” from Sean Cane on Vimeo.
This is crazy. Nashiem! One of the most mysterious, silent, unseen heroes of hip hop production. This dude made so many classics in his heyday and we’ve never really heard him speak. Props to my mans Sean C. & LV for tracking him down. I know there are more clips from the interview coming and I can’t wait to see the rest.
Jugular June-July Top 10
1. Ramadanman – Work Them – Swamp
2. Kanye West – Power – Def Jam
3. Ratatat – Neckbrace – XL
4. Subskrpt – We’ll Be Fine – Dubsided
5. Flying Lotus – Do The Astral Plane – Warp
6. Greenmoney feat. Lady Chann – Political Hype – Fool’s Gold
7. Big Boi feat. Andre 3000 & Sleepy Brown – Lookin For Ya – Def Jam
8. Vado – Large On The Streets – N/A
9. Jesse Rose – You Know It – Made To Play
10. Donae’o – I’m Fly – N/A
Check older charts here.
Download the Heaps Decent song “Anywhere But Here”
Last fall I went to Australia and visited a juvenile jail with the Heaps Decent organization to encourage the kids to make music. You can read my full blog post about it here. We actually came up with a song that day, which I produced with them, and it’s just been released.
Here’s what the Heaps Decent blog had to say:
In September last year, A-Trak came to Australia with the Parklife tour. While he was here he joined Heaps Decent in Wagga Wagga, NSW where we took him to Riverina Juvenile Justice Centre for a day of music making with the young artists inside the centre.
Nina and Levins had spent the week beforehand running workshops at the centre, writing lyrics and practising flow and mic control. When A-Trak arrived at Shepherd’s Park, the school within Riverina Juvenile Justice Centre, everyone was ready to make something awesome.
‘Anywhere But Here’ is the product of our day spent recording with A-Trak. The four boys you can hear on the track wrote their own raps, as did MC Huz, a volunteer from Riverina Community College who joined us on the day. Some of the other boys played didgeridoo and made wild noises, which A-Trak sampled and used as the base for the beat.
While we are offering this for free and encourage you to spread the word by sharing the song, we please ask that you consider making a donation to Heaps Decent so that we can continue running great workshops like this one. Click here to make a donation, it’s really easy and we really appreciate any amount you can afford!
Grab the song below… and please make a donation!
Heaps Decent feat MC Huz & The Riverina Crew – Anywhere But Here (Produced by A-Trak) by Heaps Decent
Duck Sauce “aNYway” finally released in North America
People of North America! Some of you might not have noticed but technically Duck Sauce’s “aNYway” was never released in our fair continent, only in the rest of the world. Sometimes labels and contracts go through wormholes in the space-time continuum, it’s some advanced quantum physics. Anyway (aNYway), this week it was finally unleashed, courtesy of the good folks at Thrive Records / Island Def Jam.
Here’s where you can buy it:
iTunes USA / iTunes Canada / Amazon / Beatport
Furthermore, next week Fool’s Gold is releasing the long-awaited “Greatest Hits” vinyl-only EP, available at your local record shops and wherever quality wax is sold. It features “aNYway”, “You’re Nasty”, “The Motion” and “Grand Steppin”.
All this is leading up to the SUMMER release of the highly anticipated / bootlegged / youtubed / blogged follow-up, “Barbra Streisand”. Stay tuned for that release date… Oh and don’t worry, we’ve got some more new joints in the can for the fall.
In photos: Sasquatch
The day after Detroit Movement festival I hopped on a plane and headed to the gorge in Quincy, Washington to play Sasquatch festival. This is one of the most beautiful sites that I’ve ever performed on. Check this photos… first of the road from Seattle to Quincy and then of the festival itself.
In photos: Detroit Movement festival (DEMF)
I barely played any gigs in May. You could say I went into isolation for a few weeks… I’ve been putting together some new material for my summer tours which I’ll start revealing soon. After about 4 weeks in the batcave, I came out to play the Detroit Movement festival (formerly the DEMF). I was surprised to see the intensity of the raver costumes…
The Midwest does feel like another world sometimes. However I gotta say it really felt great to play live, test out some new tracks and feed off a crowd’s energy! My stage was right next to the waterfront and I played as the sun was setting. I took this pic right before I started spinning.
Here are some pics of my set courtesy of Dustin Downing and Nick Schrunk.
Late pass: I won a Beatport Award!
This news is a bit old but I wanted to make sure it got immortalized in the ol’ blog-a-roni.
The results are in from the 2010 Beatport Music Awards and my Yeah Yeah Yeahs remix won Best Indie Dance/Nu Disco Track! It’s always cool to be Nu-anything. Not only that but I’m also runner up for Best Indie Dance Artist (behind the homie Boys Noize). So to anyone who voted: thank you!!!!
If you didn’t vote and are feeling the itch to express yourself now, you could always vote for me in the America’s Best DJ awards! *wink wink* Either me or Pauly D.
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- The main ingredient yall. The main ingredient... yall.
- I'm headed to a place which I imagine to be like the X-Men compound.
- "A" http://t.co/7806YsoR
- The other day I found where echofon keeps drafts and tweets that didn't go through. It was like finding a pile of boogers.
- Pay, be a gentleman. RT @TotalSilence: @atrak first date..check comes..she wants to split it..what do you do?
