The Cool, the Buff, the Dark and the One With Glasses

Buff1 and members of CYNE

Another one of my favorite acts, Queens, New York emcee Cool Calm Pete, dropped a new sort-of single earlier this week. It’s a laid-back dedication to Summertime indiscretions with the fairer sex set to a soulfully dilatory trot of a beat a catchy vocal sample called “Gitty Up Baby” and is available as a free download from Definitive Jux’s DJRX Pharmacy. Hopefully a “leak” of this nature translates into a sophomore full-length from Pete arriving some time in the very near future.

Buff1 ‘There’s Only One’Speaking of sophomore LP’s, previous Blogarhythms featuree Buff1 released his this week. Titled There’s Only One, it carries on from whence the Ann Arbor, Michigan native left off on his debut last Summer and should please fans of Slum Village, Little Brother, Common and Lupe Fiasco. Still carrying the torch for the “Detroit Hip-Hop sound,” Buff spits an amalgam of that raw shit, personal introspection and socio-political observations in a rapid-fire nasal rasp reminiscent of a less hyperbolic, less punchline-reliant Ras Kass over soulful, electronica-tinged beats anchored by staggered, often quantization-eschewing, drum programming, claps and dashboard-vibrating basslines.

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Short Piers and Space Travelers

Late of the Pier and They Came From the Stars, I Saw Them

Last week one of my absolute favorite bands in the world — Athens, Georgia-based Indie-Pop sextet of Montreal — released “Id Engager,” the first single from their forthcoming ninth full-length album Skeletal Lamping. That album, which doesn’t hit stores until October 7th, is one of, if not the most anticipated release of the year for me, so finally getting a taste of it was sort of a relief for me, since I know it’s almost here.

In of Montreal’s absence I’ve been keeping company with bands who demonstrate a similar fondness for freaky psychedelia, Pop melodies, eccentric songwriting, glammy glimmer, proggy pomp, funky basslines, soulful strutting, Disco beats and synthesizers of every brand. Brooklyn-based twosome MGMT for example has been a regular companion of mine, in large part due to their spinning-under-the-mirror-ball-ballad “Electric Feel,” and it’s extra-crispy Electro-fied remix courtesy of Justice, which remains one of my favorite tunes of the year in either version.

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San Juan’s Gone Funky, San Juan’s Gone Soul

Bronx River Parkway

Okay, so it’s been a while since I featured some crunchy Funk vinyl in my Records at Random Fridays. And with the way I’ve been feeling towards my records lately it might be a while until I do again. But that doesn’t mean I’ve been neglecting my need to get funky. It’s just that I’ve been doing so via more up-to-date sources of late.

Bronx River Parkway ‘San Sebastian 152′Last week I dedicated a chunk of my Urban Alternatives podcast to contemporary Funk, spinning tracks from previous Blogarhythms featurees Baby Charles, Kylie Auldist and a few others I’ve yet to shed light on. One such tune by an as-yet unfeatured band was “La Valla,” from San Sebastian 152, the new album by Bronx River Parkway, a funky Latin Soul orchestra that lists 19 names under “personnel” on their website. A handful of those names, notably El Michaels and Quincy Bright, are mainstays of numerous projects released by the Williamsburg, Brooklyn-based Truth & Soul Records label, the imprint responsible for releasing the band’s music.

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Mixtapes I Don’t Hate: 100dBs and DJ Mekalek

100dBs and DJ Mekalek

Yeah, it’s another one. And no, when I started this “Mixtapes I Don’t Hate” shit I never thought it would become this regular of a feature. But the sheer profuseness of original, diverse “mixtape” projects hitting the scene seems to me like a fantastic indicator of just how healthy Hip-Hop is as an artform. And seeing Hip-Hop so vibrant makes me feel good about the genre, better in fact that I’ve felt about it in a long-long while.

Brooklyn-based DJ and producer 100dBs, who’s made a handful of previous appearances here has been a big part of that. His 2007 LP The Adventures of the One Hand Bandit and the Slum Computer Wizard with emcee Ryan O’Neil was one of the best albums of the year and an easy addition to my list of favorite Hip-Hop records of the last decade. His Aphex Twin mashup project and a Shawn Bell verdict protest mix earlier this year weren’t half bad either.

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Records Reissues at Random Vol. 62 - Young Marble Giants Colossal Youth

Young Marble Giants

A couple weekends ago I dumped a bunch of albums on my best friend and housemate m. Cody’s iPod. A lot of them were records I recommended that she wanted to give a whirl. But a few of them were requests, mostly records she owned on tape or CD, some of which had been lost or stolen over the years.

NirvanaPerhaps she noticed how I’ve been reliving my misguided youth by loading up my Zune with digitally encoded versions of many of the Hip-Hop tapes I collected as a kid and wanted to get in on the action? I dunno… But among the requests were three Rock albums released during the same time period (the late 1980’s and early 1990’s) as most of my favorite Rap releases; Nirvana’s Bleach, Nevermind and In Utero.

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