“I Know That You Hate Me” comes from The Taste debut LP, Popularity. One of our favorite discoveries as of late, this guy/gal duo from Munich offer a little something for most any music aficionado. It’s experimental, it’s pop, it’s avant-garde, it’s garage… it’s just damn GOOD! Get into it!
The Taste – I Know That You Hate MeInfo / Popularity LP FREE Download
rating: 8.3
The lost footage from Halfway to Nowhere’s 2004 Summer Tour found! Lindsay, why’d you never call? That shit’s so mean. P.S. Song is still fire. Zagatya!
Theophilus London – Oops! (Tweet Cover) (Prod. Hudson Mohawke)Rating: 8.3
Denver artist Forever Kid flips the Metric track. This rad mix features some pretty top shelf melodic inversions and beat switches. Emily Haines, yes, we accept, we will marry your voice.
Metric – Front Row (Forever Kid Remix)
One of the best pure pop songs ever. I once heard some UK music journalist speaking at the height of “Return of the Mack’s” popularity put the song on the same level of “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” in terms of its lyrical content and pop songwriting quality. And I remember thinking, wow, that’s really kind of over the top/ridiculous and then being like, actually yeah, he’s sort of right. 1996.
Mark Morrison – Return of the Mack
The Radio 1 mainstays mix-up the Crystal Fighters jam.
Crystal Fighters – In the Summer (Brookes Brothers Remix)
xxxy is a rising DJ in the Manchester scene. “Ordinary Things” is his best track to date. Influenced by dub reggae, garage, and deep records, xxxy’s sound is something truly gorgeous and superb. Sample “Ordinary Things” below.
xxxy – Ordinary ThingsRating: 8.2
Earlier this week L.A. four piece Chief dropped “The Minute I Saw It” as their new single. We’re impressed. The classic West Coast harmonies tinged with melancholy, remind us maybe more of Neil Young than The Beach Boys. Laidback guitar leads float in the mix framing singer Michael Fujikawa’s badass tenor. And oh yes, the melodies. “The Minute I Saw It” goes melodic line for melodic line with any of 2010’s best. Check the song and vid below.
Chief – The Minute I Saw ItRating: 8.5
When two b3sci favs link up in collaboration, you know its on. So b3sci fam, call up Donkey Kong, Charlie Brown, and gather round the Cleveland Browns cause it’s ON! It’s on, man. It’s on. Turn it on.
Blue Daisy x TOKiMONSTA – USDRating: 8.0
Complete with a chugging acoustic, far off strings, and an easy recorded style, you’d almost expect We Are Trees singer James Nee to drop the first few bars of “Dear Chan Marshall” in Portuguese. The song has that sort of vaguely bossa, distant notion of Brazil feel to it. Yes, there’s also a Grizzly Bear-like quality here too. It does sort of sound like those Grizzly blokes. Though, We Are Trees, at least on this tune, come off as more immediate, more visceral. Whereas the Bear guys operate in some sort folk song Thermosphere, Nee and the Trees evoke feelings closer to ground; but still operating in some sort of efferscent layer of the near ether, still in the air, still floating. “Dear Chan Marshall” is the third of four tracks on We Are Trees debut LP Boyfriend. You can stream the EP here on the group’s bandcamp. Check it out.
We Are Trees – Dear Chan MarshallRating: 8.5
Is it grime? Is it dubstep? Is it post-dubstep? Is it funky? Is it Burial? Don’t ask us to decide nor really care. But Fantastic Mr. Fox’s Evelyn EP boasts (or maybe hushes out) some of the smoothest tones of 2010. “Over” is our choice track from a strong 4-song EP. There are vague R&B and soul influences that serve to warm and simmer the mix, breathe into it, and serve as rudiments, support for the caterwauls of space jam synths and pitched up drum pops.
Fantastic Mr Fox – OverRating: 8
OMG! The xx beatmaker goes in on the Adele song of the year candidate. So legit. CDQ soon.
Adele – Rolling in the Deep (Jamie Xx Remix) (Radio Rip) via Keshia BeeAdele Purchase / Info
Jamie Xx Purchase / Info
rating: 8.4
Christina Aguilera has arguably the best pipes in the business. Nary the (at least memorable) rap feature she’s done up to this point in her career. But wow what a turn, she sounds phenomenal here on the hook for “Castle Walls”. T.I. too sounds pretty phenomenal, rhyming here over what amounts to the best or at least most commercial hip hop radio friendly track so far from No Mercy. Christina, girl, get at us. We want to write you songs. We’ve got ideas. Tons of ‘em. We’re talking Album of the Year type shit. It’d be awesome! Call us!
T.I. – Castle Walls (Feat. Christina Aguilera)Rating: 8.2
