Mr.Incognito is pretty anonymous but has one of the best instrumental downtempo hip hop albums I've heard for ages. Bandcamp is the domain of this artist and the album "93 to Infinity" is just stacked with 90s samples and chilled synth washed beats. It's all late night stoner introspection and chill net graphics, while the opening track "1993" has a more 8bit vibe. Go download the album for free.
Finer Red by Shisa is a killer album that came out in March and I've kept meaning to blog about it for a while now. Shisa's sound has evolved a great deal from when I used to blog about the early releases and mixtapes back in late 2011. A fully rounded sound that plays around with future-house, chill down-tempo, ambient and juke sometimes all within one track. Intellectual progressive dance music for late night sessions.
The album is free to download from Bandcamp, go grab it now while you can.
Interesting experimental ambient downtempo sounds from an artist called Gone and an album called "The Circle Is Open But Never Broken". Quiet, beautiful and very textural this dark gothic soundscape reads like a film score to a forgotten 8mm art movie. All analogue in its execution there is more richness to this album than a lot of other artists of a similar ilk. There's also a lot of loose song writing and vocals permeating through, creating a fogged out mash of sounds.
Download "The Circle Is Open But Never Broken" for free from Bandcamp, and check out and download the other two similar and equally good albums called "The Darkling" and "Sins Of The Visitation"
Very late night ambient post RnB sounds from Nicodxmvs and an album called Humilty. This global quiet genre, minimal, spacial and slow as anything should really be acknowledged as new trip-hop, its got all the same elements I suppose, only slower, more considered, no dancing at all, barely even a tapping foot. Nicodxmvs sounds aren't exactly like The Weeknd or oFF but they are in the same ball park. Download from Bandcamp for free.
Spanish/Italian electro duo Skinny Reptile Youth make punk dance in the same vein as they stick the crushed up Crystal Castles cds, mainlined dark dance for cheap bedrooms and sticky nights.
They haven't even met except through the usual digital interfaces and are looking for money to meet and play in real life. (Arent we all.) Listen for a more than a few seconds and you'll discover these guys are better than you might think!
Download their EP for free from Bandcamp here.
As much as I would like to stop blogging With House, there keep being great releases and great new artists working with that sound, stuff too good to let slip by. French artist River Bones is just one such Witch House bothering genius. I'm a sucker for drone and bass, for slow apocalyptic beats and giant fuzz, before the Witchian sound it was Doom and drone artist that brought that to me but since 2010 it's usually Witch House with its beautiful gift of huge synth chords and slow rave celestial magic. Rive Bones has that to give and more. Subtle then brash, gentle then hard as. Epic and eternal with jittering pre-Trap beats and soaring saw-toothed synth melodies. Go download the ten track album called Icon from Bandcamp (Pay what you what or download for free)
KKING FELIXX is the new musical project from Ellah A. Thaun with a full length album called "49 hearts" released at the end of March this year. It's beautiful psychedelic folk songs are layered in drone and hypnotic effected vocals. It's bliss folk, lo-fi and laced with an authentic grungy beauty. This is something really really special. I urge you to go download it from the Bandcamp for free and listen to it in its entirety in a flower filled field somewhere with the one you love.
"Midsummer --
I walk about with my staff.
Old farmers spot me
And call me over for a drink.
We sit in the fields
using leaves for plates.
Pleasantly drunk and so happy
I drift off peacefully
Sprawled out on a paddy bank.
How can I possibly sleep
This moonlit evening?
Come, my friends,
Let’s sing and dance
All night long.
Stretched out,
Tipsy,
Under the vast sky:
Splendid dreams
Beneath the cherry blossoms.
Wild roses,
Plucked from fields
Full of croaking frogs:
Float them in your wine
And enjoy every minute!"
Download Sacred Flowers by Apollo Vermouth for free from Bandcamp.
I VII I IX is a great artist I've had bookmarked for a while now, they're from Oakland and make some really good music. Emerging from a glitchy electronic post-witch house style sound this is an artist with quality production skills able to really make some great soundscapes, beats and tunes in general. Dirty fuzzed and drifting but also with clear structure and a really open sound. Dark but pricked with mirror ball light. Download for free a whole heap of tracks from the Soundcloud or download last summers album D†W for free from Bandcamp.
Understated but rich and full of life this four track EP from Honeyslide is a slow grungeing garage shoe-gazer of melancholic beauty. Rolling from heavy and fuzzed out tracks like "I DO" to the delicate droning slo-mo's of "Drippin". It was available to buy as a cassette release but that's all sold out. No worries, just go download it from the bands Bandcamp page and pay what you want (or nothing). This band are killer go see them at Birthdays on the 10th April or Power Lunches on the 19th April.
Dark experimental ambient drone with industrial overtones... this is the new "Heads In Dust" album from Australia's Hollow Press. These guys always create amazing records so dont hestitate to download this one, free from the Wood And Wire Records Bandcamp.
DOWNLOAD DUX CONTENT'S NEW ALBUM "LIFESTYLE" - NEW FOR 2013. Download for free HERE. Some intense digital life soundtracks for the hard of feeling.
End Of The World 3 (Ancient Ones) by Curswords is some heavy, epic shit! Deep, low and grinding with some hard beats giant witchian synth dirges, it kicks along at a relentless rolling pace like a landslide in slow motion ripping through an Atlanta strip club. Blam! Download for free from Bandcamp now.
I like Horse Head and what's not to like, Californian, chill but not wavy, blissed out and alternative, psychedelic RnB vibes, smooth sampled crooning pearls of joy, very much in the same sonic area as another great Teams.
This reminds me of the best that was Chillwave in 2010, spilling out from sun drenched minds in places all over the States, although California was a bit of a hub. I planned to go on a "blog tour" that year, kind of like a DIY band tour but without the shows, just me turning up and blogging chillwave bands gigs and staying with them for a day or so. It would have been ace. Taking trains and buses everywhere as I never learnt how to drive, catching lifts from place to place, doing fuck all out on a beach somewhere, drinking mexican beers and chatting with newly formed bands about vintage synths.
You can download the last two Horse Head EPs for free from Bandcamp. Love Theme and The Green 1.
Also go check out the Soundcloud page for the latest tracks. And there are so many new tracks all the time.
Been meaning to blog some more xxyyxx, for a while the Bandcamp page has been bookmerked and then the Mishks bloglin goes and beets me to a "late to the party"post. Damn. Anyway check this artist out and believe or go home. Also the album also called xxyyxx is free to download if you so wish and you really should.
Psychic Rites by Psychic Rites. This record came out just before Xmas on the Aural Sects label and is fantastic and deserving of a bit more notice I think. It's brilliantly produced, dark, droning, electro synth pop from Japan, with great vocals and great song structures, I'm so used to this kind of thing being instrumental and formless that when it has proper songs and shape it just comes alive so well. Download the whole album for free from the always overly generous Aural Sects Bandcamp. (oh and it also reminds me at points, in some way, of Of Montreal.. somehow.)
The Hollow Press label has put out a great 32 track remix compilation which you can download for free from their Bandcamp. Check out their info about it:
"Friends of Hollow Press have contributed 32 incredible remixes on this free Bandcamp release. This compilation acts as a project from which artists can connect with other artists, and collaborate with creative minds from around the world.
Included with this download is a PDF which features website links (Soundcloud, Bandcamp, Facebook) to all of the artists featured on this collection. With these links you can find out more about them, purchase their music, or even contact them for a collaboration.
To everyone involved, I thank you immensely for your time and love."
Its a really good label with some awesome artists on its roster and this album is a great little endeavour. Definitely worth a listen.
Vagina Vangi were Russian a band that appeared around the same time as Witch House arose, they made some amazing tunes then disappeared off the radar a bit. Well if you want here are their two EPs from 2010 and 2011 - now up on Bandcamp. A mix of Witch House, Electro, Nu Metal and chart dubstep, very very epic sounding, and really good. They should be releasing a new record soon.
This is a split EP on the Chapel Yard label out of Yorkshire featuring the bands Paper Dollhouse and Raining Leaf. Atmospheric ambient drone and loose experimental noise. Quiet and beautiful at times and a good remedy from worrying you're not doing enough, stop, listen and envelope the sound. Download for free from Bandcamp.
Free trance and techno vibes, epic and incessant, a huge sound, blasting out into the future away from its Witch House roots, this is the new EP by Teehn Bwitches. Called Remain its available on Mexican net-label Maligna, you can download it for free or pay what you want. This is an a EP fully DJ-able, fully driving and up beat, still with buzzing synths, still with the giant, cavernous sound but faster, more vital, more alive than before.
