Dubnobasswithmyheadman, Second Toughest In The Infants, Beaucoup Fish. Three groundbreaking electronic music albums, all created by the same group and released in the same decade. Impossible to top, right? Not if you’re Underworld. Karl Hyde and Rick Smith have been making music together since 1979, but you could argue that the material they’ve released over the last five years has been some of their best. Barking marks the first time the band has collaborated on album tracks with artists outside of the core group, and the results are astounding. Personal favorites include “Bird 1″ (with Dubfire from Deep Dish), “Scribble” (with High Contrast, which you can download below) and “Diamond Jigsaw” (with Paul van Dyk). (Click here for a tracklist and full collaborator credits.) The ebullient and always poetic Karl Hyde took some time out of a recent vacation to rap with me about the new record and his own artistic journeys this year.

Barking comes out September 13 on Om Records/Cooking Vinyl, and can be purchased in a multitude of formats via Underworld Live. They’ll be playing one show in the US before the end of the year – Hard Haunted Mansion in LA on October 31 — but you can always hear their Crude webcasts online.

MP3: Underworld - Scribble (6:58)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Read the rest of this entry »

“The amount of complexity and work that went into it is really not apparent in the record, but it’s there.”

Read the rest of this entry »

An acclaimed ethno-musicologist and multi-instrumentalist, Lloyd Miller has championed freeform Oriental and Middle Eastern jazz motifs since the late ’50s, even landing his own TV show in Tehran under the name Kurosh Ali Khan. Seriously, the cat has more international drivers licenses than some bands have albums. In his hands, even the simplest piano phrase can be transformed into a psychedelic outernational meditation. For this project, Miller hooked up with UK jazz collective The Heliocentrics, whose Inspiration Information collab with Mulatu Astatke was one of last year’s best releases. As you’ll read in the interview below, Miller is ultra opinionated about the state of modern music, which is good ’cause there’s a lot of beulshat out there.

The self-titled album from Lloyd Miller and the Heliocentrics will be available August 3 on Strut, which, I might add, is a kick-ass record label. You can purchase a CD, vinyl copy or digital download from Strut’s online store, or go the iTunes route here.

MP3: Lloyd Miller and the Heliocentrics - Electricone (3:42)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Read the rest of this entry »

“I worked way too hard and way too long to not be heard. I can’t express how much of my soul I put into this.”

Read the rest of this entry »

A while back, I had the pleasure of spending an entire afternoon with the dudes in HEALTH for a self-titled cover story. We drank beer, ate Mexican food, drank more beer, then bowled a few games right down the street from where I went to high school. A righteous time was had by all. (You can read about it here, if you like.) If there was one thing I learned about these guys, it’s that quality control is Job 1, and they won’t sign their name to anything they deem less than perfect. They also have Jedi powers when it comes to sniffing out the latest hot shit, which totally came out wrong but you know what I mean. It would then stand to reason that they’d have the utmost taste when handpicking tracks for their latest remix CD. (Which, of course, they did.)

DISCO2 is already on my Best of 2010 shortlist, and for good reason. With remixes by Javelin, Tobacco, Gold Panda, Pictureplane, and longtime friends Crystal Castles, DISCO2 is about as diverse a remix album as you can get, but it’s all painted with the same avant-garde brush that HEALTH wield so well. Sure-handed bowler and HEALTH guitarist Jupiter Keyes explains how it all went down, including a match-making session between the band, Trent Reznor, and famed mixer/producer Alan Moulder. Click through the jump to read more.

HEALTH’s DISCO2 will be available June 22 on Lovepump United. Pre-order the CD here or two LPs here. You can also pre-order the MP3s via iTunes.

MP3: HEALTH - Die Slow (3:12)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Read the rest of this entry »

Street fashion, movie soundtracks, hip-hop, Global Underground: Barcelona, Mo’ Wax. If you’ve wondering who the real James Lavelle is, the answer is all of the above. Which means that a sizable percentage of what he creates is invariably going to annoy/confuse both the people who are marginally aware of his career and those who’ve been following his every move for years. U.N.K.L.E., his longest standing project, has featured a string of different co-producers, which has invariably led to shifts within the DNA of each of the five albums. U.N.K.L.E.’s latest, Where Did The Night Fall, is built around a solid core of roughshod Brit rock, polished over here and there with glittery synths and tasteful programming. Employing a boatload of collaborators, something Lavelle has always managed to do successfully, actually gives the album more cohesion than you would think, and the assistance of Chris Goss and South’s Joel Cadbury gives a big boon to the songwriting. But enough from me. I’ll let James tell you the rest after the jump.

Where Did The Night Fall, is available on Lavelle’s own Surrender All label. You can purchase a digital download or deluxe copy from the band’s website, or purchase the tracks via iTunes.

MP3: UNKLE feat. the Black Angels - Natural Selection (4:12)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Read the rest of this entry »

I stand about 6′4″ when I’m not slouching, so I’m taller than most people I run into on the day to day. But when I get around people who are taller than I am, I’m not gonna lie. I get uneasy. Kenan Bell is taller than I am, so naturally I hooked up with him via email to find out about his new album, Until The Future, a batch of jams that’s liable to hook people “who know their Basquiat as well as their basketball.” As you’ll hear from “Brothers & Sisters,” Bell is liable to call you out with double-entendres backed by rock cadences, flowing with learned, insightful raps that have artists like John Frusciante and Maseo from De La showing up on Bell’s YouTube videos.  Check the interview after the jump, and thanks to Calethia Deconto for the photo.

Kenan Bell’s Until The Future is available on Sonata Contata. Purchase the album through iTunes or via the label’s online store.

MP3: Kenan Bell - Brothers And Sisters (3:32)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Read the rest of this entry »