Showing posts with label soundcloud. Show all posts
Showing posts with label soundcloud. Show all posts

Friday, 22 November 2013

Doggystyle: Snoop's 20th Anniversary Mixtape


November 23rd marks the 20th Anniversary of Snoop Dogg’s highly-acclaimed Doggystyle and in honor of this date, Snoop has created a really cool mixtape of the tracks sampled on Doggystyle featuring commentary from the man himself. All I can say is it's AWESOME! Tune in below.

Wednesday, 8 February 2012

Evian Christ


To my surprise I stumbled upon Evian Christ on an NME weekly round-up of top tracks, don't ask me why I was on the NME site but I didn't realise they were promoting such fresh music these days? I guess now that they've exhausted all topics on the Libertines and The Strokes they're branching out, but I wonder how Evian Christ, real name Joshua Leary, would feel about being placed on a list including Lana Del Rey and Skrillex.

The 22 year old London-based producer has recently signed to Tri Angle records and released his mixtape through Soundcloud, which you can download for free. Leary's productions come on like Ambien-induced hallucinations of melting Dali-esque landscapes dreamt to a soundtrack of West-Coast rap while sampling obscure Portland-based ambient artist, and one-time Xiu Xu collaborator, Grouper. This is without a doubt the best thing I have heard so far this year, and I am excited to see where it goes. Check out the full mixtape, Kings and Them, here:


Monday, 23 January 2012

Album Review: Always - Xiu Xiu


I've followed Xiu Xiu for a long time now and they still remain one of my favourite acts. While I do feel that they have settled into a slightly predictable format since Women As Lovers, their output is still of a high quality and stands enough apart from any current artists I can think of to maintain their position as a unique and consistently interesting entity. It seems arbitrary of me to review their work, simply put I fucking love Xiu Xiu, but for the sake of promoting their album and maybe helping them gain some new fans here are some slightly more comprehensive thoughts I have upon listening to their upcoming LP titled Always:

Akin to Fabulous Muscles Always mixes aggressive experiments in noise with quiet and ominous soundscapes and whispered vocals. Born To Suffer will probably go down as one of their best songs, Black Drum Machine is the most downbeat closer they've had since Ian Curtis Wishlist and I Love Abortion beats Support Our Troops OH! for most discomfort-inducing Xiu Xiu moment. Lead single Hi kicks things off with an anthem for dysfunction and from beginning to end there is not a single moment wasted across this album; Jamie Stewart packs so many ideas and sounds into every bar of music that you'll either be totally enthralled or immediately daunted.

If you like music that's challenging then you will probably love this, it's more ballsy and far less accessible than previous album Dear God I Hate Myself, but that's not to say that there aren't great melodies and songs here. Honeysuckle has one of the sweetest sounding male/vocal exchanges that Jamie's ever employed, and on The Oldness his voice rides atop a lush piano and synth arrangement that peaks beautifully.Always showcases Xiu Xiu as one of the most arresting and brave acts around, harkening strongly to their earlier work but exhibiting a continually evolving grasp of complex production and arrangement that keeps their sound fresh and relevant. Always is out March 6th. Check out lead single Hi on Soundcloud:

  Hi by Xiu Xiu