Electronic music has got to be the spice of life, I mean take any songs you hear today, on the radio, internet, or via schizophrenic transmissions, they all have elements of electro. But now that everything else sounds like techno, lets make techno sound like everything else.
Hailing from Brighton, UK, Evil Nine, are what I imagine the future of electro to be. With a list of influences so long I couldn't even fathom reading them all Evil Nine are doing the opposite of all the reverse engineering happening in all todays popular music. I must admit it seems like there's nothing they can't incorporate into their songs, from disco/dance beats to top notch hip hop then back to Daft Punk-esque vocals with guitars too heavy to be in a dance production. This is music so smart even my parents like it. So strap on those shiny shoes and do what you normally do when no one is looking... dance is what I meant.
You know that feeling when you hear a song and can't remember who its by? Good chance its by The Qemists, a three piece drum and bass, electro, dubstep, rock, grime band. I spent most of yesterday replaying their two albums recognizing almost every song and realizing although I had heard a lot of them a quick search of my itunes revealed nothing. I'm not sure what it is about Brighton it might as well be todays feature band producing factory. UK based and running with a record label from Montreal, Canada, Ninjatune. Their two albums, are chock full of everything you could every ask for so head on down to grab them and watch the video that encouraged me to do some digging.
There's something about today that has really put me into a great mood and when I'm happy it means hip hop. Its a regret of mine that I don't get to post as much hip hop as I would like, and there is a lot of great new songs coming out everyday, not to mention classic mixtapes and other releases you may have missed. So today for you we have a great album by Na Palm, two albums by Wretch 32 as well as a song that hasn't yet been released... tune in.
Na Palm, or Craig Steven Palm if you work better with names, is a Chicago born rapper. For a long time I've been frustrated about hip hop artists pulling electronic music into their songs, especially mainstream artists trying to appeal to a wider range of listeners... nothing ruins dubstep for me like Britney Spears. I think the main reason it annoyed me was because no one had managed to do it properly, enter Na Palm. Classified as Electronic Hip Hop, his album Dirty Girls Like Dirty Beats is an amazing example of his success and a narration of the road to it. Head on over to Datpiff to download it for free.
One of the most overlooked acts this year so far is Wretch 32, but not for long. His new album Traktor is due out in January and is forecasted to make quite the splash in the industry. Over the past few years Wretch has collaborated with many amazing UK hip hop artists, most notable for me being Professor Green. Although overlooked his previous two releases are absolutely amazing. Wretch does an amazing job mixing grime and hip hop, and has been called "Metaphor Man" by other artists. Pick up his two albums below and watch the vid for a sneak peek of his new album.
As I write this, I am sitting here in MrFlawedLogic's "office" and I while this is as good a place as any to write today's post, I'm finding it a lot more difficult. Perhaps that is just because of the added pressure of having him sitting beside me. Then again, it may just be because I'm tired and my brain is full of le français that I've been looking at all day.
I would like to start off by apologizing for not posting last week. I got a little too busy and just never found the time. I was going to post the following day, but the same thing happened and here we are a week later. I may leave a little "gift" for you at the end as my way of making it up to you.
City and Colour. Dallas Green. He was first introduced to me by MrFlawedLogic quite some time ago. Since then I have slowly been acquiring more and more of his music, and I absolutely love it. He has five albums out as of this year, and I think that at least three of them are well worth a listen to.
To outline one, Bring Me Your Love is at the top of my list. It is also my most listened to. It's the album I go to when I'm thinking "Life sucks, I'm sad and hate everything" (which makes sense since he has said he's never going to write a happy song...).
His newest album, Little Hell, is something that I am still deciding on. The lyrics are good as usual, but some of the songs turn away from his usual simplicity in instrumentation and seem a lot more busy. That being said, I think I'll like them with a few more plays.
For the complete albums, head on over to Pop To Core. (Password: pop-to-core.blogspot.com)
As promised, here is my gift to you. A close friend of mine recently just left for central Asia. Just before he left, we were on Skype, and he sent me this link to his friend's Bandcamp site. The day I listened to it I thought it was pretty amazing. I still think it's good, but it doesn't suit my current mood nearly as well. Anyways here it is, check it out and make your own decision. Jeff Ens is worth your time and money if you want to buy the album (and that's coming from a cheap stickler like me...).
So first off, today has been a day without any inspiration when it comes to posting. Well until I remembered one of my oldest sources, montages. I was skipping around Youtube and stumbled across a great montage called Spirit|Inglorious. Although I'm not really into the whole online gaming scene anymore, I still recognize the ability of Youtube editors to find these amazing auditory treasures so without further ado, Red and 55 Escape.
First off let me say I rarely like Christian rock bands, for a couple reasons we won't get into here, but hearing RED without knowing their history blew my mind. A four piece rock band from Tennessee, Red blasts outside their genre label and with their new album, have created something amazing.
From what I understand this may be their heaviest album yet, which might also be why I'm so impressed by it. This is an eleven track album full with the kind of alt rock you would expect on the top of the charts. Although this isn't exactly the metal we usually feature its still an amazing album for those of us who appreciate the milder side of hardcore.
This is where the Wednesday is redeemed. 55 Escape is a five piece metal band from Trondheim, Norway. Its not everyday that you stumble onto a band with as much talent as is shown here, so read on and grab their newest album.
When it comes to metal bands, they seem to be stuck in their roots, not so with 55 Escape. The intro song starts softly with actual singing, yes you read that right, singing, not screaming. Before you get too comfortable a choir jumps in and strings pull the song into a more traditional sense of metal with heavy riffs and rage full screaming. This album is the energy of the day, and done so well so it surprised even me, strap in and hold on.
Here we are again, another amazing Toxic Tuesday if I do say so myself. Although I myself am a little damaged, I was greeted by women bearing sympathy and cereal, so today's post will continue as scheduled. So strap on those shiny shoes and get your bass faces ready.
More young talent, thats what I like to see. I've been following Cyberoptics on Youtube for quite some time and many of his tracks rank up in the most imaginative dubstep I have up my proverbial sleeve. Dropping his first hit track, Geisha, back in May 2010 at the age of 19, Alex Epps, stormed the scene climbing to the number one spot on Beatport and staying in the top 5 for over a month. Battling giants such as Doctor P and Borgore is no small accomplishment, but continuing to drop tracks that hit just as hard is nothing short of amazing.
The Tie Fighter EP is a four track blend of all that dubstep has to offer. One thing that I love about Cyberoptics is the creativity of each track, every song has its own carefully decided theme. Starting off smooth, straight up to the drop, from then on you'd better hang on.
I thought I'd hit you with a little something different, we don't usually drift far from dubstep on the Toxic Tuesday posts. Qeue Darren Styles, one of the biggest names in dance music, working his way through the electronic music scene since 1992.
This massive album is almost 30 tracks long branching across all that elecronica has to offer. I don't think the general genre classification is truthful. Hardstyle only works for about a third of the tracks. I for one was completely confused when I was greeted by soft guitar and vocals, making some tracks sound more like pop than anything. Then the mood gets switched causing the tempo to blast up to speed, and the bass gets lowered, before that stereotypical hardstyle beat drops and its tough not to dance around the house all day. So download both sides of this monster of an album and treat yourself to the best, cause I think we all deserve it.
Its been a very long time since our first Metalstep Monday. But great music like this isn't found everyday. Deathstep and hardcore dubstep are like diamonds, a combination of everything awesome, let to sit under pressure until it creates something completely mind blowing, and thats what we have for you again today.
Commissioner, A.K.A Mitch Lucker, is a genius, that much is certain. What is still unsure is, what is Commissioner? Apparently all this musical mayhem started when Mitch remixed songs by Suicide Silence, then Mitch and fellow artist Big Chocolate got together and created one hell of a monster.
This may be the heaviest weapon I have in my musical arsenal, Commissioner is a biohazard folks. This music will break you and laugh while doing it, definitely not safe for work or the faint of heart. As soon as you hit play you'll be assaulted with low growling guitars, screeching vocals, and dubstep that would be dirty even without the metal. Download it if you dare.
Terrorhate, is the other half of todays crunchy puzzle. George Flett, is one talented son of a bitch, thats a good place to start.
Where as Commissioner concentrated more on accentuating the death metal so liberally dabbed across his music, Terrorhate likes to dip his metal in dubstep. Can't say I blame him. Its almost a shame to have to put both artists under the label of deathstep, but there are so many other possibly genres to classify them as. This is the choice if you prefer more dubstep than death metal, but be warned, this isn't the tame dub we'll be featuring tomorrow. This classes up there with the angriest dubstep I have, so lets hope you don't need to be nice to anyone today.
A week or so ago I was biking on a trail not far from my house, and aside from the usual high school class graffiti I noticed a small tag on a bridge abutment, slightly below a crude drawing of a breast and almost fully concealed by weeds. I snatched my dads camera and let my natural curiosity lead me. "She Said Save Me", these words when in close proximity to statements about who shagged who and how big some idiot's member is, were strangely haunting. A couple days ago when I got the pictures sent to me I let my curiosity take control again, typing the phrase into Google, I got nothing interesting, but on Facebook it was a whole other story. It turns out that it was the band name of a local artist, completely obscure, I mean if you want his tracks head on over to Facebook, or Reverbnation, cause not even will you find these gems on Youtube.
Theres something completely down to earth about folk music, its so... well for lack of better words, true, true to form. The vocals have to be the focal point here, as this genre focuses more on the absence of instruments and the poetry of the lyrics. Every song is a story told from the heart, played gently with an acoustic guitar for rhythm and feeding of nothing more than the life experiences of a man with a six string. She Said Save Me, is a perfect example of folk music, and the discovery of an artist of this caliber in what might as well be my home town is beyond luck. Before now the only local bands I had heard tended to drift more towards death metal, and really thats just a drone of heavy riffs, blast beats and pig squeals, made worse by the fact that the members are beyond amateur. That doesn't merit any emotions other than rage and hatred, where as the tracks from his two EPs, Emerson and Holly Golightly, encourage you to think, to love, to feel, and I can't believe any other music could make today what it is.
*Update: I was in fact mistaken when I said Joe's music could not be found on Youtube, actually there's quite a lot of it there from many different users... I'll need to spend more time digging in the future. Also if you want to get to know a bit more about this artist check his modest interview with Absolute Punk here.
