I gotta admit this was an impulse postage. In that I really didn’t take the time to see if it was even worth posting. But when you have Pretty Lights + Talib Kweli in the same sentence, it’s pretty much on auto post.
On the up & down side, Pretty Lights sticks to that electro-funk hip-hop he’s personified so well. And even though I’m not sure how long lasting ‘Around the Block’ will be, it’s only the first single off PL’s new album, A Color Map of the Sun, so all it needs to last is ’til the release (that being July).
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D.veloped went up and remixed Norman Greenbaum’s classic of rock classics, ‘Spirit in the Sky,’ with a Pretty Lights like, electro-funk sound. It’s a well polished electro tribute and The Hendrix & Stones sampling is a nice touch. Good step in the right direction, D.veloped.
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First few listens of ‘XIX’ and those Angela McCluskey vocals are the only thing I wanna talk about. Yet like so many other distinct vocalists, they’re so hard to put into words. What I will say is that Paper Diamond & Christian Rich matched her sound right with one cosmically-rich beat. Plus that future soul theme doesn’t hurt, love me some skewed up vocals.
One thing I am questioning is how much Angela’s voice feels drowned out at times. But to its credit, it can be done well, and actually has been specifically with Paper Diamond. But who knows for now, it’s hard if not impossible to fully digest a song in less than 24 hours.
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This SOHN beat is a bit out there, but that’s what we love best. It’s got a very crisp sound to it and put together with these indie-sedating vocals, ‘The Wheel’ is one electro-indie seduction. My one issue with it goes back to the beat. The sample of the sticks get to be too repetitive and just doesn’t have enough variance. Still, some very good qualities to it, namely those vocals.
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Bobby C has been the go to guy for my Ghetto Funk needs lately and now the label has released a quad-banger of his for all of us. The Bobby C Sound TV EP is comprised mostly of rap & reggae funksters signed with that BCST carefree, lazer funk sound. If we only had more Ghetto Funk like Bobby on our radios this wouldn’t be such an underground gem. Spread it wide, people.
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JNL done electro-funk right. I keep on coming across tracks of his that spin catchy and yet I still haven’t gotten to posting any of them. The one thing I did finding missing were solid vocals, but his latest collab with Atlaas set that straight. So sit back and listen to two pounds of funk that have some serious breaks, but first something to get you warmed up, something much smoother.
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I’m up at 3am and I just gotta post this Timberlake remix. WhiteNoize is so fucking on point with this beat for Suit & Tie. It gets rid of that terribly repetitive JT chorus and pops it off electro-nice. And really made me realize that I actually do like Timberlake & Jay-Z’s vocal contributions, it’s just that beat that needed work. Good work, WhiteNoize.
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Cry Wolf, quite honestly, shocked the hell out of me with their cover of David Banner’s ‘Play’. It’s dirty, and I never knew how dirty Banner likes to get until Cry Wolf spelled it out quite clearly.
Now the Cry Wolf duo is up to nogood on their cover of Rihanna’s ‘Please Don’t Stop the Music’ with vocals provided by Maigan Kennedy. It’s dark as hell and I bet that’s how Rihanna would’ve originally wanted it (popstar problems).
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Mashups, like remixes, redefine the original and Bronze Whale is helping redefine what Alex Clare, Elliphant & Little Dragon sound like. These aren’t just some of the best vocals right now laid on electro music, but careful placement of each individual track. I can’t say I like what the two did with Yukimi Nagano’s voice of Little Dragon, but they did reinterpret Clare & Elliphant with electro precision. In fact, I didn’t even realize that the two mashups were made up the same two guys at first. It was a nice surprise though I must say.
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Bruno Mars is among the many mainstream musicians with so much talent in that voice of theirs and yet don’t seem to be hanging out with the right crowd of producers. Thankfully, my reliance on the remix community has paid off once again, this time Whyel goes electro-house on the Mars man. I can’t say I like the house solos that appear a few times throughout the ‘When I Was Your Man’ remix, but now that I figured out Whyel use to go by YoungLife, it makes a lot more sense. He’s done a few good house remixes.
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