Jim-E Stack – Moments Noticed
Los Angeles based producer Jim-E Stack is back today to share “Moments Noticed.” “Moments Noticed” was born at the closing of a relationship and features vocals by Charli XCX and additional production from Rostam. “Moments Noticed” comes off Jim-E Stack’s forthcoming release It’s Jim-ee, out August 4th. Speaking on the song, Jimmy notes,
“I made “Moments Noticed” at the end of a three-year relationship. My first legitimate relationship. I knew that breaking up was right but I was still crushed and completely heart-broken. I think making the song was a form of self-healing for me. Major chords. The open feeling and atmosphere of the song. I was trying to lift myself up a bit and take a positive outlook on it all, appreciating everything those three years together did for me and gave me.”
Read the rest of this article at Northern Transmissions
Trailer Trash Tracys – Siebenkas
London’s Trailer Trash Tracys are releasing their first album in five years as Althaea comes out August 11th on Double Six Records. Lead singer Susanne Aztoria’s vocals are dreamy and gorgeous, underpinned by delicate, shuffling beats and shimmering little bursts of bright sounds on their new single “Siebenkäs”. Meanwhile, the Latin percussion gives the tune its forward motion and makes this music stand way out from the rest of the dream pop pack.
Trailer Trash Tracys’ Jimmy Lee says of the video, “The narration for the video was supposed to be a rivalry between people who represent the moon, and people representing the ‘tiger’, which features prominently in Philippine folklore. The video, however, has parallel meanings. Not to give too much away, we kept the narrative loose. The moon in the video could metaphorically represent knowledge (represented by the illumination) or something more spiritual. In fact, I liked the idea of the moon falling to earth, and people passing it around like a toy.
“I was initially influenced by a scene in Woody Allen’s Sleeper film in which a group of hedonists enjoy a futuristic drug shaped like a ball. I wanted to echo some of the political issues surrounding the death penalty for drug users in the Philippines as well.
“The video was shot in various locations around Manila—a lake, a cave, rural roadsides and remote areas—and features various artists I befriended—the Hernandez Brothers, Nika Dizon, Keren Oo, Juluis Valledor, Cenon III and Mavs.”
Read the rest of this article at Pop Matters
Four Tet – Planet
Kieran Hebden, the dean of British dance music, has an academic fascination with texture and sensation. His tunes as Four Tet inspire deep thought as much as impulsive movement, and “Planet,” his latest release, is a perfectly calibrated dance track, rich with luscious instrumentation and luxuriously designed sound. The bright thumps of percussion, laser-beam synth lines, and sensuous loops of vocal are all so well-made and tactile, it almost sounds like Hebden is putting a microphone to a live recording, rather than crafting on a computer. Amid the bodacious drums and mesmerizing synths is a mysterious string instrument plucking away at psychedelic arpeggios, which adds a more spiritual element.
Hebden, as of late, known to veer wildly from genre to genre, playing with jungle on one record and long-form ambient on the next. (His single before “Planet” was a new age-inspired song called “Two Thousand and Seventeen.”) It makes it hard to pin down Hebden when his music by nature is restless. But in songs like “Planet,” the wide scope of his interests comes into focus, and all his studious experimentation pays off when he offers up a gift whose pleasures are ready for the taking.
Read the rest of this article at Pitchfork
Mount Kimbie – Blue Train Lines (feat. King Krule)
Right before Mount Kimbie’s “Blue Train Lines” clatters to an abrupt halt, Archy Marshall, aka King Krule, rasps what passes for the song’s hook: “Yeah, I mighta seen it all.” But the song shows we haven’t yet seen the breadth of the London duo’s style. In keeping with with the previous singles from upcoming album Love What Survives—“Marilyn” with Micachu and “We Go Home Together” with James Blake—Kimbie’s latest single explores excitingly unsteady territory. On “Blue Train Lines,” the best of the three, they evoke the pulse of deep-level subway tracks and blood coursing through veins.
The connection between a pounding heart and the title image is right there in Marshall’s characteristically vivid, keenly observed, and grittily voiced lyrics, as he describes “another fuckin’ fight, a junkie in the queue.” But the link between railways and the human circulatory system is also evident in the music: Mount Kimbie continue to move past their more smoothly moody origins, including shrill feedback, groaning synths, and a locked-in motorik rhythm section. They’ve gone from so-called post-dubstep to something more like post-punk. Mount Kimbie have credited the “energy” Marshall brings to them, and where their previous pairing drew out his more murmuring, meditative side (“You Took Your Time,” from 2013’s Cold Spring Fault Less Youth), “Blue Train Lines” uses that energy to full advantage. At times, amid his sneering torrent of thickly accented argot, Marshall howls wordlessly. It feels like being alive and moving forward, which Mount Kimbie clearly are.
Read the rest of this article at Pitchfork
Sampha – ‘Plastic 100°C’
Sampha’s latest song entitled “Plastic C 100” is simply beautiful. It’s able to display all of Sampha’s strengths without ever becoming too overbearing. The song begins with a piano solo that sounds like it was ripped out of ’90s era R&B epics (yet it’s still original). After the solo, Sampha introduces a haunting piano riff that throughout the song changes based on the emotion heard within Sampha’s voice. Throughout “Plastic 100 C” we also find clever wordplay with killer lines like, “You touch down in the base of my fears. Houston ca…can…can you hear?” Dope.
Oh, and did I forget to mention that Sampha still has that million dollar voice? Pair an undeniable singer-songwriter with skills that could possibly be on a virtuosic level which is a rarity in 2016, and then on top of that, add in a song that weaves its chorus in between the three verses and you’ve got one of the strongest songs released this year. With Sampha’s latest offering it feels as if he’ll finally be able to be appreciated for more than just his appearances on rappers albums such as Ye (“Saint Pablo” from The Life of Pablo) and Drake (“Too Much” from NWTS)
Read the rest of this article at Baeble Music
