Brolin - Flags

Dazed Digital premier the new Brolin mixtape, Flags.  In this new release, the occult Londoner continues his eccentric trajectory, following in the path of innovators like Ben Khan and Jai Paul, by pulling together disparate elements ranging from Electronica to Funk.  Where Brolin distinguishes himself, though, is in his fine-tune lyrics that often lift complexity out of simple turns of phrase as in his 2013 release, 'Portland'. 

Black Atlass - Blossom

One of my fav EP's over the last few years was made by a 17 year old canadian kid named Black Atlass.  He was signed to Fools Gold and it killed me that I didn't hear anything from him... until this week:

See the Montreal native who has found himself knee deep in the fashion world off one EP's brand new teaser for the Young Bloods EP (Feb 18th)

FKA TWIGS - Hide (video)

Yours Truly captured a rare, unique live performance from her and her band performing near some Mayan ruins after Young Turks’ New Years party in Mexico.

salon & cough - gold chain silver soul

salon & cough is hella weird.

I like this collab with Island too:

Actress - Our/Street Corp. (Videos)

Isaiah Rashad - "Soliloquy"

See the video for "Soliloquy" above and a few of the tracks that stood out to me after a first listen to the project.

Four Tet - 1234567890qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnm (DJ mix JAN 2014)

Sometimes man... ahh. Just take that. Go right ahead.

The game changes at 39:00

Carmack - stroke it, baby

You don't jus make an Aaliyah remix... it's 2014. But Carmack cant hear that. Ain't got no time. This is what he had to say about it: "the possibilities with this voice is endless. I've made like 3 edits with this song tonight. haha i miss aaliyah. to those who've been sending me messages of dissatisfaction, this: if for any reason you're unsatisfied, just unfollow. when you want, follow me again down the road."

E+E - The Light That You Gave Me To See You

Here is the Bolivian-born, LA-based artist E+E's mid-December release "The Light That You Gave Me To See You". 

Palimstry - Vapore

Palmistry is from South London and moves within the crowd of some of the most exciting musicians in contemporary music. He lived with Felicita for a while and "Catch" (the video of which is above) benefited from the help of Sophie.  Palimstry made his appearance producing Triad God's NXB.  Check out his interview with Selim Bulut, a staff writer at Dummy and the Fader. 

Holly Herndon - Chorus

Holly Herndon is the genius musician pursuing her Ph.D Stanford University's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics while also making popular experimental music. Chorus is the video from her newly released 12" Chorus/Single Voice. I've included the single below and her 2012 album, Movement, after the jump.

Mayer Hawthorne - Reach Out Richard (Mitzi Remix)

Shouldve put this up four days ago.

Free download

Fwdslxsh - 4 U

Off his forthcoming EP. Floetry sample I believe. // is in the Soulection camp like that.

Superpoze - Jaguar (EP)

People been sleepin on this one since sept 23... He's Parisian as fuck... which is pretty clean.

patten - Re-Edits vol 3

You can download the new patten edits below.

Edit 20 (Burial - Untrue edit)
Edit 18 (Siouxsie & the Banshees - Spellbound edit)
Edit 13 (FKA Twigs - Ultraviolet edit)
Edit 4 

Go yama - Intergalactic Hypochondriac

Spaceship trunk rattlin... Beastie Boys sample. Peep some more from Yama:

Low Tee - Don't Tell The Homies EP

No Fear of Pop is streaming Low Tee's debut EP Tell The Homies. 'Thuggin...Feels Good' appeared on Drip 133's soundcloud a while back and is still a favorite here.  The EP, a mix of vaporwave and retro R&B (Bone Thugs N Harmony samples abound), is only streaming for the next week. 

Benoît Pioulard - Hymnal Remixs LP

Next week, Lost Tribe Sound is releasing a double-disc remix album of Thomas Meluch's 2013 album, Hymnal LP. 

Neneh Cherry - Everything/Blank Project

The Swedish vocalist's new album, Blank Project, which is produced by Four Tet, will be released on February 25.  Hear the title track and the most recent release below as well as a remix by Ricardo Villalobos and Max Loderbauer.

patten - Drift

Warp announced that follow-up to patten's debut EP will be released on Februrary 24.  In advance, they released the video for 'Drift', a collaborative effort with Jane Eastlight.  The album is entitled Estoile Naiant which loosely translates to Swimming Star from Old French; although, Naiant has adapted to be used to denote a swimming fish in the art of heraldry.  I've included patten's first ep, Eolian Instate, below as well as the Warp Press release, which compares the album, among other things, to the labyrinths of Borges.

'ESTOILE NAIANT' sees him step out of the shadows and into full focus as a British producer of impending resonance. Where rare forces like Martin Hannett, Sade, Rammelzee, Kevin Shields, Arthur Russell, Tricky, Kim Gordon, Leigh Bowery, Kim Deal, Jim O'Rourke, Grace Jones, Björk, and Steve Reich have melded and fused an immersion in the avant garde with a sympathy for the everyday language of the radio, the club, the boombox and the walkman. patten speaks in a musical language that makes these distinctions seem fully permeable once again. This clarity of approach and distinctive melodic and rhythmic sensibility sees a psychedelically-tinged pop characteristic shine through his unique forward-thinking sonics.
The ongoing visual collaborations with artist Jane Eastlight further express this generous, outward-reaching, and satisfyingly mind-altering approach, with sleeve artwork, videos and even apparel developing and extending the characteristics of the music into all avenues of contemporary culture. Soon to be found soundtracking full volume headphones, international catwalks, smoke filled basement venues, Parisian boutiques, art films and house parties alike, 'ESTOILE NAIANT' is a strangely wide-ranging work. Informed equally by Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges's evocative maze-like short stories, late nights at early FWD events, the open tunings of Sonic Youth's chiming guitars, or brand new research in cognitive science, patten's world is without boundaries or genre, and instead is one which has the lysergic experience of what it is to be a living breathing human, here, now, today at its core.

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Glasser - Shape (video)

Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra - Fuck Off Get Free We Pour Light on Everything

Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra is operating as a quartet in their most recent incarnation: violins intermixing with electric and bass guitar while Efrim Menuck's lyrics carry a distinctive punk ethos. Constellation Records, who is releasing the record, writes of the new album, which you can stream in its entirety above:

Fuck Off Get Free We Pour Light On Everything is the first definitive document of the band's newfound sound and style as a quintet. It’s also their first single LP-length work since the band’s debut record as a trio almost 15 years ago, and features road-tested pummeling rock-outs “Fuck Off Get Free (For The Island Of Montréal)”, “Take Away These Early Grave Blues” and “What We Loved Was Not Enough” alongside the previously unheard lullabyes/minuets “Little Ones Run” and “Rains Thru The Roof At Thee Grande Ballroom (For Capital Steez)” and the album centerpiece “Austerity Blues” with its closing lyric “Lord let my son live long enough to see that mountain torn down” sung in varying incarnations throughout the second half of this 14-minute epic. 

See a tracklist after the jump.

Lockah - If Loving U Is Wrong, I Don't Want To Be Wrong

As a follow-up to his 2013 release, Only Built 4 Neon Nites, and as a prologue to his 14th of April debut LP, Yahoo or the Highway, Lockah will release his If Loving U is Wrong, I Don't Want to Be Wrong EP on 17 February.  The EP will feature two tracks--'Ayyo Tricknology' and 'If Loving U Is Wrong, I Don't Want To Be Wrong'--with accompanying stripped-down reworks. The latter of these two releases has been made available on soundcloud through Donkey Pitch. If you haven't heard Lockah's 2013 release, I included it after the jump.

Biosexual - Sleigher

Biosexual, composed of Zachary Nelson, Jocelyn Noir of Alak, and Michael RJ Saalman (Saalman's remix of Alak's 'I Pop Love' was one of my highlighted tracks of 2013), has released the decadent video for the single, 'Sleigher', on Tinymixtapes. The Window Wants the Bedroom LP, included below, was released in late 2013 through Seattle's Debacle Records.

Ian Isiah - Private Party (produced by Sinjin Hawke)

'Private Party' is the stand-out track from Ian Isiah's The Love Champion, benefiting from the stellar production of Barcelona's Sinjin Hawke.  After the jump, see Sinjin Hawke's collaboration with Morri$ (who produced my favorite cut on Kelela's Cut 4 Me - 'Go All Night (Let It Burn)').

Diamond Black-Hearted Boy - How The West Was Won, Wanted: Dead or Alive

Chino Amobi has released a new project through his Diamond Black Hearted Boy moniker. While working with different source material than his 2013 Father, Protect Me, Amobi cultivates a similar style in a frenetic tour-de-force of collage.  Non-diegetic material is interlarded with lyrics that at points echo Bob Dylan (as on Wanted: Dead or Alive) in what is perhaps the cultivation of the Wild West conceit. At other points the melodramatic erupts into violence unexpectedly: an ol' time jazz swing, pleasant at the beginning, is warped into a plaintive screech; the sounds of war erupt from a western ballad. The album is certainly satirical, at points; however, there also is a sincere effort to express oneself in a historical context (time's passing as expressed through the crackle of vinyl) that is multifarious, both outside and inside one's culture, and often violent.  Here is what seems to be an accompanying poem that is the only description of the project:

a lone wolf
bane of the west
mean as hell
someone to ride the river with
these tales, told by the man himself.
with a lick and a promise,
he penned them in the bone orchard
then spun these tales onto magnetic tape.
that right there is the Simon pure.
callous like sunned hide,
he seen his fair share of steely eyed crooks and the shoot
ace high stories contained in this collection of tales
visceral textures
shoddy production
this nighthawk lays some flannel-mouth poetry over it all.
the big guns will want him in the hoosegow soon enough after hearing this.
he'll give you the west
but it could be anywhere I guess 

I've included a tracklist after jump.  Favorites include track three on side A, 'Weezies Kitchen' (7.27), and and track five on side A, 'Frank Ocean Approximately' (11.45).

The Great Beauty (La Grande Bellezza) (film)

Those Best of the year lists are tough... the ranking seems so arbitrary and you always forget things.  Unless you're diligent year round, there's always something you want to revise a few days later.  Last night I saw The Great Beauty (La Grande Bellezza)... and it was astonishing.  It may have topped every other film I've seen this year.  It had the extravagance of Wolf of Wall Street, the fervent acting performances of 12 Years a Slave... but I really have no reason to compare it to these films.  This was different.  I haven't seen a film this compelling since Holy Motors.

“To travel is very useful, it makes the imagination work, the rest is just delusion and pain. Our journey is entirely imaginary, which is its strength.”
The film opens to the quote from Celine’s Journey to the End of the Night, which might apply to cinema as well.  La Grande Bellezza is being called a response to Fellini's La Dolce Vita.  The audience is dragged through an intoxicating Roman adventure with Jep playing the wise, cynical tour guide.  Jep's claim to fame is a promising novel he wrote in his late twenties, yet he never wrote another... and outside of the occasional interview or small review he has lost sight of great beauty in his existence.  Jep is jaded, and admits early on that he lives a life of the senses and thrives off of the power he has gained as a socialite.  Sorrentino's film is one of great depth.  We meet Jep (Toni Servillo) as he begins to teeter off his thrill ride.  His cynicism abhorring, but simultaneously relatable.  I believe Sorrentino's film speaks to the stagnation of the western world.  The lost sight of civic duty and individual purpose... the degradation of the 21st century escapist's party... or a Jep puts it, "what might be defined as the whirl of the high life."  As fulfilling sensually as the film is with its' operatic theme, beautiful, vaulting camera moves & long zoom lenses in the well lit streets of Rome, Sorrentino hits you over the head hardest late in the film when Jep comes face to face with a comical clergy.  He is sickened by what he sees, in just the same way that he is contemptuous of Rome's artists, intellectuals and political players.  The comical becomes the profound over and over again in this flawless masterpiece.  The Great Beauty is a film depiction of the Berlusconi era Rome, where there is a need to hear from Jep's poignant perspective.  This is my pick, for best film of 2013.

Mr. Carmack - insomnity (again)

The homie Carmack does not sleep.

His recent body of work can be purchased Here. Stream one of the tracks after the jump.

Feral's Ssense Mix

Been a minute since a Ssense mix was this turnt.

Stream Feral's highly slept on 2013 EP, Haymaker, after the J.

LuckyMe Advent Releases: Hudson Mohawke and Lunice

 The Jacques Greene edit of Sampha's 'Can't Get Close' was the first track we shared from LuckyMe's advent song-a-day-download Christmas celebration.  Away for the holidays, I missed the releases from Lunice and Hudson Mohawke. I've included the complete playlist after the jump which includes each song for the twenty-five days of the advent season.

Kali Uchis - T.Y.W.I.G.

Above is the video (as I'd say it's more than a teaser) for a compilation of three tracks from the forthcoming Por Vida project (early 2014) from the Columbia-born, Virginia-based Kali Uchis. Below is her most recent soundcloud release T.Y.W.I.G.  And after the jump, you can watch her video of her 2013 release, 'What They Say'.

Gilligan Moss - Choreograph

Gilligan Moss's Choreograph was released back in October.  In this his second single of 2013, the Chicago beatsmith seems to be shifting through a variety of styles, trying each on for their fitness, before finding an odd harmony. 

Ashanti - Movies (Murlo refix)

Doc's Best of 2013

Noteworthy and Memorable Songs:

 Miscellaneous others included after the jump.

Videos:

Projects:

αtu - doubts

2 Nice's Best of 2013

Tracks:

Music Videos:

Projects:
Jessy Lanza - Pull My Hair Back
Kelela - CUT 4 ME
James Blake - Overgrown
King Krule - 6 Feet Beneath The Moon
FKA twigs - EP2
Ethel Wulf x Eric Dingus - Damare Shizukani
PARTYNEXTDOOR - PARTYNEXTDOOR
Drake - Nothing Was The Same
Burial - Street Halo EP

Movies:
2013's films explored two ideas: decadence (Gatzby, Wolf, American Hustle...) & bad luck (All is Lost, Gravity, 12 Years a Slave, Captian Phillips, A Hijacking).  This year saw mainstream American cinema come harder than it has in a long time.
12 Years a Slave- You're probably not ready for Solomon Northup's harrowing journey of abduction and consequent slavery.  You're probably just a little bit more ready than he was though.  This true story makes the audience process each new development about Northups new environment with him.  There's a visceral mounting dread that director Steve McQueen (Hunger, Shame) builds with long takes that helps supplement the viewers idea of the 12 years that pass in the world of the film.  Chiwetel Ejiofor (playing Northup) is a lock for best actor on the year, he blends anger, pain and bewilderment without uttering a word... and speaks with beautiful eloquence as the rare educated black trapped in his southern slave plantation.  Steve McQueen can be found here at the top of his game.  This may be the year's best.
Gravity- Alfonso Cuarón's exhausting space epic utilized similar technology to his friend James Cameron's Avatar to create this innovative feature.  Yet somehow, despite the awe striking space explosions and sightly views of a tiny earth, the film's lead performance by Sandra Bullock is the best of her career & moves the viewer.  The year's best action film had heart... and it set new standards for 3D cinema, a medium I have begun to believe in.  Oh and this one goes in the bad luck category.
A Hijacking- I quite liked Captain Phillips... but somehow it is a distant second to this steely, raw portrait of a Somali pirate hijacking.  Tobias Lindholm (R) writes and directs.  I'll keep it brief because you need to go out and see this... and you probably haven't yet.
Dallas Buyer's Club- It's hard to like Matthew McConaughey. As soon as I say that name a vicious montage of rom-coms start to beat you in the face like the fists that give him a next level ass beating in the first 15 minutes of the film.  And before you know it, the preening southern drawl... the womanizing cockiness... the ignorant homophobia... all play perfectly into the character that is: Ron Woodruff.  This limited budget, indie film by Jean-Marc Vallee (The Young Victoria) has been highly praised, but I'm certain it deserves even more.  Cinematographer Yves Belanger's composition is astounding in almost every shot, yet never detracts from the arc of the film.  A gaunt McConaughey, who lost nearly 40 pounds for his role, commands the screen as the accidental savior of gay men in the 80's. But Jared Leto makes his first appearance on the silver screen in four years and gives the best supporting performance of 2013.
The Act of Killing- It was a cool year for documentaries (Cutie & the Boxer, Stories We Tell were both fantastic)... but this one was unprecedented.  Director Joshua Oppenheimer traveled to Indonesia and got the killers from the 1960's genocide there to dramatically reenact their mass murders from the time.  Through this process they examine themselves in the most fascinating way.  These murders modeled themselves after gangsters they saw at the movies, and so when they are finally confronted by themselves on screen, it is a revelation for them... and doubly so for the viewer.
The Wolf of Wall Street- Scorsese just dropped a three hour pile of corrupt decadence in our lap and called it Wolf.  In the late 70's Scorsese found him self contemplating suicide next to a pile of cocaine when Robert De Niro called him up and convinced him to make Raging Bull with him.  My point is twofold: Scorsese knows about drugs and he puts his this on display... But more than that, Scorsese made his best films after this low moment.  Wolf feels like a sequel to Casino or something.  The montages of excess.  The horrifically hilarious moments bombard the viewer and instead of moralizing some easy message about capitalism, the film makes it's points in subtler ways (the moment on the subway with the DEA agent made my jaw drop)... and somehow I feel like a lot of people who watched this film missed the point.  People who left the theatre in droves idolizing Jordan Belfort have missed the point of this film.  It's a bit too long at three hours but... like Jordan, nobody in the audience wanted it to end.
Blue is the Warmest Color- Abdellatif Kechiche's first two films were political.  I'm convinced Blue is too but like Wolf the film make's its most profound points in subtle ways.  It's happy to leave you asking questions in the final scene... leaving whispers about a sequel.  Adele Exarchopoulos plays the lead role with the same first name.  Kechiche would film her when she was on her way to set, at meals and when she was relaxing between scenes... and with all the great moments he had, he decided during production to change the name of the character to her real name.  We spend so much time with her in these everyday moments that when we see the big moments in her life, the gravity of each is amplified.  Adele's blue-haired lesbian lover owns her character as well, played by Lea Seydoux.  This is the best foreign language film of the year, but it requires patience and focus.
American Hustle- David O'Russell (The Fighter, Silver Linings Playbook) grabs all of the best actors from his previous films (Jennifer Lawrence, Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, Amy Adams, Robert De Niro) and lets them loose.  A great deal of the dialogue in the film is improvised... to the degree where actors worried about the consequences of their ad-libs on the progressions of the film.  O'Russell's response?, "...I hate plots. I am all about characters, that's it." Bale's performance is remarkably nuanced and Jeremy Renner melts your heart as the politician who's duped into corruption.  The story itself is not half as compelling as the performances.  These are characters that make you listen.
Before Midnight- The sobering third installment to the most famous series of intelligent romance films leaves you without a sense of wonderment.  You get it.  This is the true story of middle aged love.  This isn't staying up all night conversing in Paris, red wine and poetry... This is hanging out all day conversing in Greece about divorce, saggy tits and infidelity... but still all wrapped in Richard Linklater (Waking Life, Dazed and Confused)'s insightful philosophical musings.  It's the same style with a major dose of realism.  The kind that makes you realize that the early two films were just real enough to trick someone into thinking a life of commitment is all sunshine.  As a viewer you're left to answer how fruitful the game of love really is... and how optimistic one really should be.
Her- Spike Jonze is one of my favorite directors and though this film is fantastic, I found myself disappointed.  It's corny!... but it also works?  It's nice to see Joaquin Pheonix smile and relax for a change.  Scarlett Johansen supports as the enthusiastic, sultry voiced OS1 that Pheonix finds himself falling in love with.  She shatters him when she admits she loves hundreds more.  Pheonix complains early in the film that he's worried he'll never experience a new feeling.  His OS is dealing with the opposite problem as the world's novelty turns into an exhausting feeling.  She too however longs terribly for personal connection and the beauty of this film lies right there.  Solar flares and bokeh are everywhere in this "perfect", near-future Los Angeles... yet Phoenix's character still fights melancholy to an Arcade Fire soundtrack.  I wanted to love this film, but I don't.
Honorable Mention: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, The Grandmaster, Prisoners
Didn't see: Snowpiercer, The Great Beauty, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Actress - Grey Over Blue (Video)

Here is the new video for Actress's 'Grey Over Blue'.  The single and accompanying video are meant as the precursors to Actress's forthcoming release, Ghettoville (which has leaked since the release of the video).  While such a claim is admittedly speculative, I'd venture to say there is a cogent link between urban/cultural decay and the musical loop here, perhaps hinting at some notion of a stagnant dialectic.  Also worth considering are the resonances 'Ghettoville' invokes with Leopoldville and Brazzaville.