‘All Nite’ by Rustie

Warp Records has a knack for pulling out great UK beatmakers. By slowly introducing them into the scene, they end up becoming another part of the sonic collage that the record label releases. Rustie, a recent addition to Warp and a Glasgow native, is about to drop his first full length on the label in the next month called Glass Swords. His style of UK bass melds the mechanism of Detroit techno with the boogie funk of the 80′s. Synths are abused and drum machines hammered into a precision, creating this sort of bombastic funky drum beat.

His first single All Nite is a perfect example of his craft. You can hear the dub plates, an 80′s booty bass line, a gratuitous synthesizer and Kanye’s chimpmunk-esque samples. This is an awesome blend of pop styles. It’s a track that should be turned way up as it builds into melding melodies. A bass line with a sick, flat low end flows against a pulsing synth melody that is just so sweet and gratifying. Add a techno break down and a sick melodic turn at the end and it is a real banger. To me, it’s something you wish a recently departed king of pop could really cut loose over. It’s so smooth and easy to enjoy that I feel guilty of loving something too fast. Don’t you love when that happens?

If this is any indicator, Rustie’s debut, Glass Swords, might be one of the most anticipated records of the year. I can’t wait.

Alec

Fun With Transparency

Rarely do we get to talk about the buildings in music videos, and while these chatty facades may not be celebrated works of architecture, it is exciting to see these sturdy buildings up to the role of playing an urban-scaled lite brite. The buildings animated in this music video are all in Oslo, their synchronized patterns of light and dark achieved through computer trickery. Directed by Andre Chocron for the band Cold Mailman, the video pushes the transparency of modern structures into a kind of a performance. If you speak norsk, you will understand this interview with Andre, or you can just listen to it like I did, trying to glean what’s going on from facial expressions, gestures and the random english words.

Alex

50 Great Voices

Growing up away from the West Coast, I always associated public radio with classical music, Car Talk and Saturday mornings in the wood-clad mini-van with my family. Even today, the public radio station in my hometown broadcasts music programming composed completely of classical music. So it was a surprise to me and my ears when I first heard KCRW while living in L.A.  ”This is… public radio?” It was! Listening to Mornings Become Eclectic meant hearing new music and consistently discovering various artists and songs, all the while re-discovering public radio.

This year, NPR is producing 50 Great Voices: a series featuring well-known and niche-known artists with one thing in common: a panel of experts agreed they should be included in the series 50 Great Voices.  There are some familiar-sounding pipes in the shows aired thus far, as well as folks I’m not familiar with at all. Last week, the series featured one of my favorite voices: Bjork. And not only did I learn how to pronounce her name correctly, but also how Thom Yorke reacted the first time he heard her sing. (I haven’t cried listening to any of the voices unfamiliar to me  just yet, but the series is barely half-way over.)

Hear something you haven’t before.

Alex.

#musicmonday

I haven’t done a #musicmonday in a while because I haven’t been listening to a whole lot of new stuff, but I thought I’d throw out a new one cuz’ I’ve got a couple things to speak about.

First up is the new album from The Books titled The Way Out which continues on their alleatoric journey, combining found sound samples and combining them with guitar and cello to make amazing music. I’ve listened to the album a few times so far and though they may not be striking brand new ground it’s still an amazing album.

After that I wanted to point out how amazing Fischerspooner’s first album #1 was. I hadn’t listened to it in a while, like 5 years, so I thought I’d put it on and sure enough it was quite the gem. I used to drive around my hometown of Roseville listening to it non-stop and I will always think of that, but honestly the album still stands up as a classic. If you haven’t heard it recently give it another listen for old times sake.

As usual feel free to suggest new music and links are extra appreciated.

Bobby

#musicmonday

This week’s #musicmonday looks quite a lot like last week’s but with a few minor changes in position. What I thought was kind of interesting was the sheer amount of music I listened to. By adding just the top 8 bands I listened to you get 446 songs. If we assume that an average album has 12 songs on it that means I listened to roughly 37 albums in a week, and that’s not including anything that didn’t make it into the top 8. It actually kind of surprises me to see that a person only listened to like 20 songs in a week, I think I’d go crazy. I have a need to listen to music constantly, whether I’m writing this blog post or I’m traveling on the bus.

I mentioned Seabear last week and I need to mention them again this week, you must check out their new album We Built a Fire. It’s a beautiful record with perfect vocals and both upbeat songs and mellow melodies. After that was Ratatat and their new album LP4 which comes out next Tuesday. I’ve talked to a few people about the album and while it might not be anything new and groundbreaking for the guys it’s still an amazing album. They’ve really continued to sort of explore this niche they’ve carved out for themselves and it’s never sounded better.

Be sure to check out the rest of these artists as well if you’re looking for new music, it’s a pretty diverse week. And if you’d like to add me on Last.fm you can click here.

Bobby