Earlier this month Stereogum revealed that Yeezy flew Justin Vernon to a Hawaii studio for a few days to collaborate on … something. Little did we know Kanye would invite Jay-Z, Rick Ross, and Nicki Minaj to the party. “Monster” is the second track from Watch The Throne, a five song collection announced today via @kanyewest. Listen.
Kanye West’s official “Power” remix has Jay-Z and Swizz Beatz, and takes a nice detour for the second half, when Jocelyn Brown’s “Love’s Gonna Get You” — her “I’ve got the power” line — becomes the dominant sample. Listen:
Cinema Red And Blue features members of Crystal Stilts and their British elders Comet Gain. The group’s releasing a self-titled album this fall on What’s Your Rupture?. It’s where you’ll find “Same Mistakes,” a poppy track that takes after the Comet Gain side of the family.
Shaking Through is a web series that pairs artists with cool producers and engineers, and gets them to record a track at Miner Street Recordings in Philadelphia. Danielson’s Daniel Smith has been curing the last few bands, and for the latest installment, he recorded with husband and wife duo Ben + Vesper, who are on his own label Sounds Familyre. A lot goes into the song — Ben’s brother Joshua Stamper did the arrangements, and you can hear (and see) the accordion, saxophone, and strings that guide the track. It’s got a twisting, accordion-prog feel to it:
Dense/deeply hypnotic Brooklyn-via-Obelrin beat-duo Blondes turn out Rihanna’s Billboard jam “Rude Boy,” dialing up the stutter and splicing in a sustained slice of Mariah Carey melisma on this, the most Bushwick roofparty friendly take on a Rihanna track you’re likely to hear all month. The cut comes from a five-song comp titled Autumn Feelings, available over at Merok. Grab the whole thing there, or the Blondes-on-Rihanna isolation drip here:
“Bang Pop,” an especially immediate track on Free Energy’s fairly instant Stuck On Nothin’, is more than worthy of the collection’s bubblegum cover art and its own back-to-school NSFW “Hot For Teacher” video. The mood shifts some via this especially laid back, echoed remix by Fool’s Gold’s Lewis Pesacov. It’ll appear on a split remix 7″ with Local Natives, but for now:
American black metal’s shifted radically over the past few years — in both mainstream perception/acceptance and via a more expansive set of underground aesthetics and a more diverse execution. Since the mid ’90s, NJ-based American Psycho fan and Judas Iscariot/Nachtmystium associate Neill Jameson, aka N. Imperial, aka N.I.L, aka Krieg, has been one of the scene’s most intelligently outspoken mainstays. (I’ve been working on this seemingly unending oral history of American black metal for the past few years — along with Bone Awl’s He Who Crushes Teeth, Jameson’s quotes are consistently the most intelligent and provocative. Dude should write a book.) He’s the creator of one of black metal/USBM’s most important documents, 2003’s The Black House, but a number of folks still seem to know Jameson best for his vocal work in the Isis + Leviathan + Minsk + The Atlas Moth + Nachtmystium black metal powerhouse Twilight. For those unfamiliar with Krieg’s more swarming, primitive sound, he’s releasing his sixth album The Isolationist this fall. It follows 2006’s Blue Miasma with a wallop. The almost 60-minute collection was recorded beautifully by Jameson’s Twilight bandmate Sanford Parker — its the deepest sounding Krieg record to date — and features guest spots from another Twilight cohort Wrest (Leviathan) on bass, guitarist Joseph Van Fossen (Noctuary), and drummer Chris Grigg (woe). As far as the tone, Jameson notes: “It is my ugliest and most personal child, going deep into the darkest places in my own history on earth. I’m a fucked up wreck, and this record shows that.” “Ugly,” but with plenty of gorgeous, mind-melting riffs. See for yourself via the bludgeoning, dynamic “All Paths To God.”
“Lover’s Start” is one of the first tracks we posted by How To Dress Well, aka the much whispered about project of Tom Krell. The barren Jamie Harley-directed video for the track isn’t as sexy as you might’ve expected, but it captures the feeling of the track with its hazy blue hues. (Also, the protagonist is ostensibly attempting to dress well.)
Things are lining up quite rightly for Cameron Mesirow. Her project Glasser got our attention as a GarageBand document with expansive promise. At our 2009 CMJ showcase, she turned up with fellow True Panther associates Tanlines as backing band; in the time since, she’s experimented with live setups, occasionally just a manned laptop (as at this summer’s MoMA PS1 WarmUp set), or with the backing band of Janka Nabay, as at her set last Friday at Glasslands. I caught both, and it was the Glasslands set that captured some of the more maximalist magic of Ring, her forthcoming debut LP, a reworking of older tracks and a slate of new ones with arrangements aided by producer Ariel Rechtshaid, alongside interstitial compositions and further production work by Fever Ray affiliates Van Rivers & The Subliminal Kid. “Home” showcases Glasser’s vocals at both their most crystalline and complimentary, and the album’s arrangements at some of their most viscerally moving, horns voices and drums stacked densely, swollen up then eased out. Nice and pretty. Take this, “Home”:
It’s been a long while since the Wrens offered their fans new sounds. In January 2009 they let us premiere “Marked Up” — and that was that. This new track “Crescent,” a demo for a song that’ll show up on the band’s followup to the Meadowlands, appears on Dear New Orleans, a 31-track New Orleans benefit compilation arriving on the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. I’ve only listened to it a couple of times, but it exudes an assured pulse and overall warmth that makes it feel like a familiar, well-worn classic.
