DJ Shadow – The Mountain Will Fall
DJ Shadow has announced his new LP The Mountain Will Fall, the influential producer’s first full-length album since 2011’s The Less You Know, the Better. Shadow also unveiled the album’s cascading opener and title track on Beats 1 Friday. The Mountain Will Fall is due out June 24th; fans who pre-order the album will receive an instant download of “The Mountain Will Fall.”
The Mountain Will Fall guests include Run the Jewels, Nils Frahm, Matthew Halsall, his Nite School Klik associate G Jones, his Liquid Amber imprint signee Bleep Bloop and more. For his latest album, in addition to his pioneering work with sampling, Shadow focused on original composition and experimentation with instruments ranging from synthesizers, horns and woodwinds.
Read the rest of this article at RollingStone
Sunni (Colón) – Way You Talk About Me
California singer/songwriter Sunni Colón shares a new self-produced cut by the name of “Way You Talk About Me”. The offering is perfectly subdued and soothing in a post-Maxwell fashion. We recently posted the unique singer’s “California Diamond” track which was much more hazy. “Way You Talk About Me” is upbeat and has an addictive pace that forces you to move your feet a little and bop your head. Take a listen to the the latest from Sunni Colón below. We’re excited for this guy’s future in music.
Read the rest of this article at Rehab
Tom Redwood – I’ve Fallen For You
Tom Redwood is an artist bringing some feeling back into the electronic world. Debuting on Sony Music this month, this first original single sees the Swedish newcomer hit the ground running with a delicately woven first from his studio vaults. Pairing emotive lyrical content with a blissfully dialed back canvas of smooth electronica hallmarks, ‘I’ve Fallen For You’ sets a solid precedent for electronic music that favours evocation of the senses over mindless impact. If ever you needed evidence that there is still room for the softer electronic landscape to find permanence in the wider market, look no further than Tom Redwood’s standout first single.
Read the rest of this article at Dancing Astronaut
Tunji Ige – Bring Yo Friends ( Prod. Tunji Ige + Addtl Prod. Noah Breakfast)
Tunji Ige’s Missed Calls drops tomorrow, but the Philly rapper let loose of one more preview of his sophomore project this afternoon. Produced by Tunji and co-produced by Noah Breakfast, “Bring Yo Friends” layers pitch-shifted vocals over feathery synths for the kind of laid back hip-hop track we love hearing this time of year. Turn the bass up and drive around the neighborhood to this one.
Read the rest of this article at Pigeons and Planes
Kanye West – Bound 2 (Aire Atlantica Flip)
From the very beginning of the “Bound 2” flip there is a sense of familiarity as the soulful “OoOoOoOoOo” greets you. Soon enough, the drums enter and ride along an entirely new pattern that subtly reminisces on the original one, casually reminding you of summer weather and diving head first into the waves of a warm tropical ocean. In the minutes that follow, the original chorus continues to drive the track forward, crowd favorite “Uh huh, honey” is chopped up and pitched, and even a few of Kanye’s verses make an appearance – addictive elements that will have you starting the track over before you reach the end.
Read the rest of this article at Nest HQ
News
An Oral History Of Kanye West’s ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’
L.A. Reid (former CEO, Def Jam Records): Kanye West is no stranger to controversy. One time, he interrupted Mike Myers to tell a secret to President [George W.] Bush, and another time, he committed the Great Awards Show Crime. His fearlessness in the face of potential outrage is actually one of my favorite things about him, but he took it a step too far when he invented the worst possible phrase to yell in a church.
Mike Dean (producer, songwriter): It’s 2008, and Kanye calls me on the phone to say he’s thought of a wonderful new phrase to scream in a church. It turned out that it was actually the worst possible thing someone could scream in a church, but he didn’t seem to realize that.
L.A. Reid: I begged Kanye to keep it to himself, but he still interrupted the national anthem during all five games of that year’s World Series to announce it. I thought his career was over.
Kanye West (rapper, producer): One day, I will be dead and old, and even then, I will still consider the invention of the phrase “God doesn’t eat food; he just drinks a lot of water” my greatest achievement. It is the best thing you can scream in a church because it is not a lie.
Pusha T (rapper): Kanye is a genius, but his opinions about God’s eating habits are just awful. Of course, it almost derailed his career back in ’08. Everybody knows that God eats mostly medicine, and that’s why he’s been able to live for so long.
Read the rest of the story at Clickhole
By Being Sincere, Parquet Courts Made Their Best Album Yet
The opening track on Parquet Court’s new album, Human Performance, is a nervous rumination on domesticity and the never-ending struggle to keep things in order. It sneaks in ignored, it stacks up around, it comes through the window, it comes through the floor, warns frontman Andrew Savage before issuing a command: Dust is everywhere—sweep.
The song is a fitting metaphor for modern life: the nagging persistence of clutter, the exhaustion inherent in trying to make order out of an always-encroaching chaos. For the past six years, the Brooklyn band Parquet Courts has methodically mined similar themes, fine-tuning their own peculiar vein of slack-rock as a means of pushing back against anxiety, romantic disaffection, and all manner of urban malaise. Across four full-length albums and two excellently weird EPs, the band has not only proven themselves to be critical darlings, but have seemingly tapped into the mindset of many a contemporary twentysomething—that of a well-intentioned fuck up who is smart enough to know better but still can’t help making a mess.
Read the rest of the story at The Fader
How “One Dance” Reveals Drake’s Global Ambitions
About two-thirds of the way through his set on last year’s Jungle tour, Drake diverted from his hits to run through a quick cover of Sizzla’s “Just One Of Those Days (Dry Cry).” It’s one of the reggae artist’s most popular songs—Rihanna knows—and, by now, a staple of the genre. When “Dry Cry” came out in the early 2000s it would get played at every party in Toronto; like clockwork, just before the lights came up, the DJ would run the bouncy slowjam. Couples would magnetize, singles would line the walls, swaying on the downbeat, lighters up. It was a club staple at a time when Drake was still living in Toronto, listening to local radio, and partying in local spots, so even though his patois might make you cringe, his nostalgia was on brand.
For decades now, after passing a certain threshold of success most major U.S. pop stars go bilingual, tapping into the commercial power of Spanish-language markets at home and abroad. *NSYNCand Backstreet Boys reworked major singles, Beyonce put out an entire EP called Irremplazable, even Drake tried his hand at the Spanish-language single: In 2014, he and Romeo Santos made a play for each other’s markets with the collaborative track, “Odio.”Drake’s at the 10-year point in his career, but he still hasn’t landed a solo #1 single like Rihanna or Bey. And now the pervasiveness of a song, or an artist’s popularity, is no longer geofenced and language is becoming less and less of a barrier too. What songs like the percolating, UK funky-indebted “One Dance” and Popcaan-assisted dancehall banger “Controlla,” indicate is Drake’s understanding of major music markets around the world that are ripe for the picking. These are places where English might be the dominant language, but American pop or rap isn’t the coolest—or the most urgent—form.
Read the rest of the story at The Fader
