One of the best parts about having this blog is that people send me their music all of the time. While some of it ends up being pretty terrible, some of is just a different kind of genius.
An example of this type of genius is Alex Kresovich - he sent me an entire album of hip-hop remixed with the soundtrack from Goldeneye 64.
I used to be really into designing t-shirts. I’d spend a morning sketching the design then (lacking a scanner), I’d take a picture with a digital camera and edit the image in photo shop. Next, I’d print it out on thick paper, cut that into a stencil and paint it onto shirts with a roller brush. It was a pretty labor intensive process, and some of those designs never actually made it into shirt form.
Fortunately, my girl got one actually printed on a shirt for me after snagging the design off of an earlier post I wrote (that’s her sexy ass modeling it above).
Expect more t-shirt designs, both new and from the archives here soon on 199X.
The Girls Can Hears Us! (conveniently shorted as TGCHU) have the sort of self-aware hilarity that I like in my electropop-rap, and the catchy beats also make for pretty good gym music.
Now, just in time for summer, TGCHU are going to drop their debut album and all of the songs sound pretty good. Even better is that the boys are fans of giving some of their tracks away for free, and hooked me up with a couple for posting here.
To stay posted on when their album comes out, hit up TGCHU.com. Bide your time until then with a couple of other TGCHU tracks I’ve posted here and here.
Monarchy’s Black the Color of My Heart is probably one of the most beautiful songs that I’ve heard in the past while.
The lyrics are of the epic variety, but can still evoke a ton of feeling, and that drum sounds like a heartbeat throughout the song. Its the kind of stuff you can read sci-fi to on a cold day, dance to as you smile at your girl in the club or catch yourself trying to sing along to as you walk down the street.
They’ve definitely got a sound that’s like the best of The Golden Filter and Empire of the Sun: spacey and futuristic, but with enough warmth to remind you that you’re still human.
I don’t have a lot more information Monarchy, but The Golden Filter’s new album is available for order, and if you buy the CD or vinyl you have a chance of getting a personalized Polaroid photo from the band.
They might be one-note wonders with nothing more than a few well-received demo tracks to their name, but I’ve been digging Sleigh Bells. As Jane Bang has found (pictured on the shirt above from T.I.T.S clothing), they’re going to make for great remix fodder.
As I Tweeted earlier, this trailer for The Electro Wars (a documentary about electronic music) has me absolutely stoked about the state of music today. From the film’s decription:
“It seems that every other day a new remix is popping up on the blogosphere, how does this affect marketing for other independent artists? Do they welcome the remixes or oppose them? Is music overload possible? What will eventually happen when all these budding producers grab a hold of a Pro Tools tutorial and develop their own remixes week in and week out? Will the remix itself become obsolete? Will original tracks have to step up to the forefront rather than recede into the background? Themes of this nature are explored in the film.”
The trailer seems to answer most of these questions, and all the artists interviewed seem to agree that it doesn’t matter what category music is in anymore, and that it is all amazing and all in one stream, and that there is a place for everything.
I’ve always thought that songs about phones and texting were hilarious, and that’s why I loved Scotty Dynamo’s remix of the Gaga and Beyonce hit telephone before I’d even heard the original. Here’s some other phone-related musical mayhem to go along with it:
It has been a while since I last heard from NONEWYORK, and that’s why I was so excited when they sent me an email the other day with a couple of new tracks.
Born in Blood is a slower track from what I think they normally do. Its dark and full to the brim with dub and samples from Dexter.
Their refix of Rusko’s Cali Anthem is also a solid track, and the Tupac sample really cements the California feel. In fact, it even inspired me to add a California category to this blog.
The NONEWYORK boys are featured on Bay Area Bass Vol 1 and you can grab the whole thing here. They are also NONEWYORK_BASS on Twitter, and they’ve also got some mean bass on their MySpace page.
You can also find a couple of other tracks by them on 199X here and here.
The image above is from the The Descent, probably one of my favorite horror movies. Its full of blood and claustrophobic terror.
Oh man - I just finished reading Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination and it is intense. The book was written in 1956, but is decades ahead of its time and reads like an ultra-violent modern thriller. It keeps up a frantic pace for all 300 pages, and you’re never sure if you should be sympathizing with the main character and cheering him on in his quest for justice or hating him for the atrocities he commits.
If you get a chance, pick this book up. I mean, just look at the main characters in the book:
Gulliver “Gully” Foyle - the almost-unlikable protagonist. He survives months shipwrecked in deep space, has his face tattooed with tiger stripes and the word “Nomad” and spends the entire book on a murderous quest for revenge against those he feels have wronged him.
Sol Dagenham - The fast-talking head of an interstellar courier organization/private detective agency, a war-time accident left him so radioactive that he isn’t legally allowed to be in the same room as anyone for more than 30 minutes.
Olivia Presteign - Heiress to the Presteign fortune, albino and able to see only in the infrared spectrum. Gully’s hidden tattoos are visible to her, as are the warring ships in orbit around earth.
Jiz McQueen - The unfortunately-named beauty that helps Gully escape from a prison deep within the mountains of France, she seems more of a throw-away character
Robin Wednesbury - A broadcast-only telepath who promises to help Gully in his quest for revenge only so she can find out what happened to her own missing family.
Y’ang-Yeovil - Master of disguise, Asian stereotype and a big shot in the earth’s intelligence agency, he is tasked with putting a stop to Gully’s rampage.
Add to this zany cast of characters the fact that everyone in this future is able to teleport at will distances of about 15 kilometers (they call it “Jaunting”), and you’ve got one hell of a piece of science-fiction.
Try and not think too hard about it while you listen to Owl Vision’s Fields of Corpses - its a track as angry and intense as Gully Foyle. I don’t much about Die Antwoord, but I’m throwing another of their tracks up here because Ninja is at least as driven and tattooed as Gully.
