Aloe Blacc’s Truth + Soul-produced album, Good Things, is set to drop sometime in September. Judging by this Velvet Underground cover (available as part of a heavyweight 7-inch) and the song we offered last month, Blacc is bound to become Mayer Hawthorne’s successor in the throwback soul department of Stones Throw.
And hey, if you like what you’re hearing, he also has the following tour dates on tap:
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Photo: Jen Maler
Judging by the fact that their server crashed a couple times in the past week, some of you must know about the exclusive xx mix available from our friends at The Pop Manifesto right now along with features on Neon Indian, Smith Westerns and Pantha Du Prince. Carefully compiled for the lovers in the audience by singer/multi-instrumentalist Romy Madley Croft, it features slow jams from Chromatics (“I’m On Fire”), Massive Attack (“Protection”) and 13 other smooth operators. (UPDATE: TPM’s down again, so we’ve posted Romy’s mix for your streaming/downloading pleasure below. Just be sure to tip your server on the way out by reading the actual issue, as we consider The Pop Manifesto one of the few ‘digital magazines’ worth reading…outside of self-titled, of course.)
In semi-related news, the trio’s main producer, Jamie Smith, unveiled his contribution to a Colette comp last month. The limited CD pressing is pretty pricey, though, so we’ve taken the luxury of uploading the MP3 version below. As you can probably tell from the tracklisting, it’s got some of the past year’s strongest electronic singles on lock, from Darkstar’s “Aidy’s Girl Is a Computer” to that Joy Orbison jam “Hyph Mngo.”
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Fact mix 156 – Kode 9:
1. Soundman & Don Lloyde with Elizabeth Troy – Greater Love
2. Lemon D – Manhatten Melody
3. Dope Style – You Must Think First
4. Nut Nut – Special Dedication
5. Undercover Agent – Oh Gosh
6. DJ SS – MA2 remix
7. 12-10 Series Mk 1 – All that Jazz
8. L Double featuring Bassman – Da Base too Dark
9. Urban Jungle – Back in the Daze
10. Sacred – Kall the Kops
11. Fusion Forum – Vintage Keys
12. Maldini – Def Roll
13. Bad Influence feat. DJ Rush Puppie – Time & Time
Kode9’s entry in !K7’s ongoing DJ-KICKS series will be available on June 22 and can be pre-ordered
So we managed to sneak into Grouper’s rare Brooklyn gig on Friday night and still aren’t sure what we witnessed over the course of her main 60-minute set. (She also presented a new tape collage piece.) To be honest, the entire thing looked/sounded incredibly creepy, as if one of The Shining’s redrum-happy twins suddenly learned how to sculpt dronescapes and acoustic something-or-others from an ancient keyboard and several effects pedals. It didn’t help that the room was humid as hell—literally—with Issue Project Room’s single, solitary fan getting switched off in the middle of the first ’song’ because it was interfering with Liz Harris’ signal.
Now, when we say it didn’t help, self-titled doesn’t mean to suggest that Grouper was godfawful. She was actually quite great in an Enya’s Selected Ambient Works sort of way. In fact, the only thing that suffered during her spectral tone paintings was our ability to process what was going on—to figure out what was live and what was looped through the storm clouds ahead.
Anyway, if you missed the whole thing, we’ve got a special treat after the jump: Grouper’s entire performance from ATP NY last fall. Captured beautifully by WFMU, it features four extended tracks. Oh, and the photo (grabbed from _J on Flickr) on the left is from a Berlin appearance in 2009. Unfortunately, the Issue Project Room show was impossible to shoot without breaking its fragile spell.
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The ever-thoughtful man behind Memory Tapes, Dayve Hawk, shared yet another one of his remixes this morning: an arcade cabinet workout for Boy 8-bit’s Still Killing EP. Released yesterday through Diplo’s Mad Decent label, it features the following tracks:
1. Bulbs Burn Out (Obi Blanche Remix)
2. Cricket Scores (Boy 8-bit Remix)
3. Cricket Scores (Memory Tapes Remix)
4. Suspense Is Killing Me (Ghost House Remix)
5. Suspense Is Killing Me (Philipe de Boyer Remix)
Check out Hawk’s contribution after the jump…
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Here’s some good news for anyone who digs Parisian dance music but hates Ed Banger’s drill sergeant approach to electro: Bot’Ox, one of the city’s true secret weapons, finally have their first full-length ready for a late summer release. In the meantime, the pedal-pushing duo have a new single on tap for Benjamin Boguet’s (see also: Cosmo Vitelli) I’m a Cliché label. Due out June 7, Overdrive features three remixes, including the following cruise control cut from Morgan Geist of Metro Area. Pair it with a black coffee on this particular Monday morning, and you’ll almost forget how late you stayed up reading Lost message boards last night.
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The co-founders of Italians Do It Better, Mike Simonetti and Johnny Jewel
Mike Simonetti of Italians Do It Better infamy dropped his first mix in forever on Dazed Digital yesterday, inviting listeners to try and name the tracks on his Twitter. We’re about halfway through and don’t recognize a damn thing yet, but hey, maybe you’re a bigger record nerd than we thought you were. Find out after the jump, as we share the MP3 version Simonetti uploaded to Mediafire early this morning.
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[Photo by B+]
One of the first things we noticed about HBO’s new How To Make It In America show wasn’t its connection to Entourage (executive producers like Marky Mark) or the relative absurdity of Luis Guzman’s Rasta Monsta line. It was Aloe Blacc’s theme song, a slice of throwback soul that pretty much sums up an typical day at self-titled’s scrappy little office. It also suggests that the underground hip-hop vet may have a second life as ‘the next Sharon Jones’ when his Truth & Soul-produced Good Things LP drops later this year.
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Ganglians singer Ryan Grubbs = obviously cooler than you...and us
Photo by Turkishomework
Abrupt outro aside, the following Ganglians demo is a promising sun-stroked teaser for their next LP. That’d be the one they plan on recording after a lengthy European tour that starts in Brighton and includes the following dates (skip past ‘em for a stay in “My House”):
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