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Janelle Monáe: The ArchAndroid
Janelle Monáe's The ArchAndroid immediately dazzles you with its ambition. It's a 70-minute, 18-track epic comprising two suites, each beginning with an overture, telling a futuristic story starring a messianic android. It's not even the beginning of the saga-- the first sequence was her debut EP, Metropolis: The Chase Suite . The songs zip gleefully from genre to genre, mostly grounded in R&B and funk, but spinning out into rap, pastoral British folk, psychedelic rock, disco, cabaret, cinematic scores, and whatever else strikes her fancy. It's about as bold as mainstream music gets, marrying the world-building possibilities of the concept album to the big tent genre-mutating pop of Michael Jackson and Prince in their prime.
Janelle Monáe - The ArchAndroid [2010] VBR V0 (download torrent)
(Problems with magnets links are fixed by upgrading your torrent client !) Janelle Monáe - The ArchAndroid (2010) VBR V0 Janelle Monae - The ArchAndroid (2010) VBR V0 Tracklist: 1 - Suite II Overture 2 - Dance or Die (feat. Saul Williams) 3 - Faster 4 - Locked Inside 5 - Sir Greendown 6 - Cold War 7 - Tightrope (feat. Big Boi) 8 - Neon Gumbo 9 - Oh, Maker 10 - Come Alive (The War of the Roses) 11 - Mushrooms & Roses 12 - Suite III Overture 13 - Neon Valley Street 14 - Make the Bus (feat. of Montreal) 15 - Wondaland 16 - 57821 (feat. Deep Cotton) 17 - Say You'll Go 18 - BaBopByeYa
Beach Fossils: Beach Fossils
If you've followed indie's trade winds over the past year and a half, you can probably predict what a Brooklyn band called Beach Fossils sounds like to a staggeringly accurate degree. In this case, please set aside the prejudices: Beach Fossils aren't merely trying to evoke the feeling of sand between your toes, and even if you think you've mentally checked out of anything summery and lo-fi, this is a wonderful record. Dustin Payseur's Captured Tracks band claims influence from improvisational jazz, classical music, and Stereolab, and his songwriting owes more to loop-based composition than garage-bound woodshedding. From the functionality of the song titles on down, Beach Fossils has purpose and economy.Back when the Deprecation Guild self-released their 2007 debut, In Her Gentle Jaws , they were best known for spiking their shimmering morsels of dream-pop with pixelated Famicom flourishes, a distinctive yet potentially distracting gimmick that the then-duo seamlessly enfolded into their sound. One Pains of Being Pure at Heart later-- the Slumberland sensation that features Guild frontman Kurt Feldman on drums, and utilizes Guild guitarist Christoph Hochheim on tour-- and the band that was around before POBPAH even formed is now better known for their membership in that group. The surprising success of the Guild's day job isn't the only thing that's changed between then and now. For one, the Guild is now a trio, with Christoph's twin brother Anton joining on drums. Also, instead of going the self-production route (as they did with Jaws ), the new album was recorded with Telefon Tel Aviv's Joshua Eustis.
The Depreciation Guild: Spirit Youth
While you might know Kurt Feldman and Christoph Hochheim best for their work in The Pains of Being Pure At Heart, they are also members of the dream-pop trio The Depreciation Guild. In fact, they founded the band almost two years prior to the Pains’ formation. Now that you know this, let’s talk about The Depreciation Guild’s forthcoming second LP. Available in your standard formats, as well as limited vinyl edition, starting May 18th through Kanine Records, Spirit Youth will look to embody the band’s “very own blend of 8-bit beats, clanging chords, and heady hook.” It will also contain disembodied voices and distorted guitars.
The Depreciation Guild - Spirit Youth - Demonoid
James Blake: CMYK EP
CMYK is only the third release from London electronic producer James Blake, who is only 21-- and the reason I keep saying "only" is because I get a little dumb thinking about how much ground he's covered in so few steps. His style is already recognizable: progressions of thick soul and jazz chords (a product of years of piano lessons), pitched-down and mangled vocals (often his own), and mid-tempo beats that balance synthesized sub-bass with handclaps, snaps, and other humanizing soundlets. But each of his releases-- last year's "Air & Lack Thereof" / "Sparing the Horses" single, February's The Bells Sketch EP, and now, CMYK EP-- also sounds like its own project, filled with private rules and concepts.
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion: Now I Got Worry
Given the congenial pose he strikes with his current rockabilly outfit Heavy Trash, it's hard to remember a time when Jon Spencer was the most polarizing figure in American indie-rock. Sure, Vampire Weekend may catch message-board flak over the socio-economic disparities between their privileged upbringings and the impoverished African musicians who've inspired them, but they've never been labeled a minstrel act or, worse, racist-- tags that dogged Spencer and his band, the Blues Explosion, through their mid-1990s heyday. Really, Spencer adopted black musical tropes and affectations-- be it the hysterical hoots and hollers of Little Richard or the self-referential shout-outs of Flavor Flav-- no more flagrantly than Elvis or Mick Jagger or Captain Beefheart before him. But amid the time's otherwise sexless indie-rock culture, Spencer's speed-freak lover-man act made him a godsend to some and an easy target to others.
Following techno music is a little like following the stock market or playing fantasy baseball: There's a major emphasis on what or who's hot at any given moment. Fans sniff out gems, report on hot streaks, predict hot streaks. Just like anything based on speculating, things can change quickly; there are market forces at work. More so than most of her peers, Ellen Allien is in control of her own stock. She's a career artist-- in addition to her music, she runs Bpitch Control and a fashion label-- and her moves are large and purposeful. This has occasionally led to releases that felt calculated-- 2008's Sool was her "minimal" album-- but in sum have made Allien worth tracking through a career, not just through a particularly creative stretch.
Ellen Allien: Dust