Posts in Music

I’ve tried to stop thinking about this video for months but I can’t, its got to be the most epic thing on the internet arguably speaking, I mean orange sharks, hockey goalie masks, and Kraft mac ‘n’ cheese…. < sigh > tooo much!

Shigeto comes back with a mini LP that touches on the more organic instruments that he feels natural working with. There’s beautiful Rhodes work along with flutters of good feelings with a pouncing beat, a must have.

CFCF floored me with this one, there is not enough music with grand piano and synth arpeggios dueling for your attention to the point they both end up molding together and completely pleasing your ears.

I’ve been a big fan of Sean Byrd for years, I still have his demo from 10 years ago somewhere stored away, his new work drew me in like never before, this is IDM at its best state when hazy emotional tones meet puttering heavy kicks, really beautiful.

Came across Grain Mountain on soundcloud randomly, felt like a nice release after digging thru over 100 tracks of nothing from all over the place. It definitely will appeal to the Balam Acab lovers.

Teeel’s new blog I Heart Synths hosts a nice collection of vintage and modern synth paraphernalia. The latest post even features some shots from my own studio.

I Heart Synths

This should be a treat for the blog readers that love Mux Mool who remixed Tycho’s From Home. We have the full album stream below of his follow up to his debut LP Skulltaste. I’d head over and pick up the limited to 100 white vinyl at the Ghostly Store.

Warp Records’ Clark comes with a beautiful ballad named Com Touch, pretty much a synth journey that bubbles and grows into a classic for all the early lovers of IDM.

RxGibbs puts together a high gliding dreambeat piece for those who would want a gentle version of early Kompakt ala MFA.

The new Memoryhouse tracks keep coming which means the LP isn’t far from release date, the production is far from buried or lo-fi and much more glossy, I can see this becoming big this duo.

I did a rework of one of my favorite Warm Ghost tracks, plus testing out the new HTML5 on Soundcloud player below, looks pretty amazing.

@edroste ( Ed Droste of Grizzly Bear )

@comtruise ( Com Truise )

@teendaze ( Teen Daze )

Instagram has sort of become a way of life on tour, almost anything beautiful or funny we see outside the tour van we yell out “take the shot!”. Since i’ve jumped on Instagram i’ve looked for musicians that post on there since soo many get to travel, here’s just a few that I follow that I post about that make it in our ISO50 playlists.

@peakinglights ( Peaking Lights )
@mattmondanile ( Real Estate / Ducktails )
@benjamincurtis ( School Of Seven Bells / Secret Machines )
@dam_funk ( DaM FunK )
@nosajthing (Nosaj Thing)
@muxmool ( Mux Mool )
@sunglitters ( Sun Glitters )
@geejairmo ( Prefuse 73 )
@starslingeruk ( Star Slinger )
@poolside ( Poolside )
@foxesinfiction ( Foxes In Fiction )
@bisradio ( Tim Sweeney of DFA )
@willits ( Christopher Willits )
@ryanpitchfork ( Ryan @ Pitchfork )
@laurenflax ( Creep )
@__shigeto ( Shigeto )
@studioirisarri ( Rafael Anton Irisarri / The Sight Below )
@j_gossett ( 1/2 of Beacon )
@tm_iii ( 1/2 of Beacon )

@iso50 ( Tycho )
@nitemoves ( Rory O’Connor – Tycho’s Drummer / Com Truise )
@zryder ( Zac Brown – Tycho’s Bassist / Dusty Brown )
@heathered_pearls ( Jakub )

Todd “are you kidding me!??” Terje literally just sits down and makes hits for this blog I swear, I know I post a lot of his tracks but its worth it, I mean listen to that! If it was 2001 i’d add a music player to this blog and this song would just automatically play right when you loaded the site. #synthmansion < holds a crystal in the air after song is over, head down, takes a knee >

Jonny from The Drums collabing with Matthew Dear makes soo much sense after you hear this song slowly merging with its own end. I haven’t heard a male duo this good in “electronic” in years.

Teen Daze goes French Disco on us, straight forward and high energy with a swirling synth line which will give you vertigo, he pretty much made something that could have come out on Roule in 1998.

Machinedrum rekindling and refreshing classic sounds that I invite with open arms, its like he dropped Detroit into the UK and stomped it into a pulp and gargled it and spit it at all the half ass house thats been made after minimal house died.

Trust me on this one, this Tanlines track is worth your time. They started where they left off with a hooky melodic caribbean pop touch, once the track fills out you can’t deny its better than all that Vampire Weekend bullshit.

I’m on a Keep Shelly In Athens roll and that means hunting down even guest appearances. The new Solar Bears single has KSIA front and center on a 70s drenched swirling am-gold jam that could be one of the best songs either groups have done.

I’ve only heard one other Dirty Three song intentionally, it was with Cat Power and I don’t even listen to Cat Power but all I remember was being speechless after and I don’t like songs with singing. This new cut is amazing, reminds me of Broken Social Scene and The Books just playing together freely.

I’m sure some of you will be surprised with the sound of the new Bullion, its definitely a lot less hip hop and more like if Osborne or Luke Vibert did a song with Washed Out.

Symmetry just put out a 35+ track album that will completely fulfill your post Drive(the Ryan Gosling movie) music needs, I grabbed Over The Edge because it had that confident bad guy feel, that walking tempo that will catch up to you no matter how fast you run, I love the stripped down break in the center too.

18 Carat Affair makes my brain and ears sigh, this interlude takes me back, I can’t believe the world will never graced with this kind of music for the public again, makes me dislike the worlds aesthetics right now soo much.

My friend Miguel turned me onto Maya Jane Coles, I guess I missed the boat, this dub is amazing, reminds me of what I thought Border Community might have matured into.

Poliça bothers me a bit, you named yourself the Polish word for The Police and you took the dub route like The Police… *sigh* sooooo whats going on creatively here? this project needs some formal tweaks because the music is soo promising and doesn’t need gimmicks.

The common misconception about 4/4 material mainly house and techno is that its waaaaay too repetitive, my reply to that is usually “oh really? i’m sorry, sooo you just listen to John Cage and experimental chamber music that doesn’t repeat one same note?”. If I share a 7 minute to 12 minute song to someone that doesn’t DJ there will be blank stares, that won’t change probably if you only listen to the radio.

Most of the long songs are made that long are that way because you’ll have time to mix them together, mostly a DJ tool for good DJs. Usually these producers are also DJs and have been for a long time so during song writing they prepare tracks that way. The actual meat and potatoes of these kind of songs usually last shorter than a pop song on the radio, its that opportunity to play it with another song together is why these tracks are that way….or there is just a great journey/sequence within the building up to something hypnotic to dance too.