Stream: Just Blaze x Baauer - “HIGHER”

TNGHT’s self-titled EP was one highlight of last year’s ever-growing genre of Frankenstein, dance-floor, trap music: Gamera-sized beats that make you want to drink, smoke, freestyle and grind like you’re in Sodom or Gomorrah, not Williamsburg.

Baauer had a killer single and a few remixes in 2012 that explempified this to a tee, so it’s no shock producer-extrodinaire Just Blaze tapped him for an upcoming tour. Apparently, this is the first fruit of their collaboration… Here’s hoping it gets even better.

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Baauer - Harlem Shake
Baauer - Yaow!
Ryan Hemsworth - Slurring (Baauer Remix)

Today’s Best Song Ever - “Sailing” by The Sutherland Brothers

Digging up rare, awesome or obscure tracks…

Today it’s marching, stripped-down folk from of the Sutherland Brothers, an early ’70s British folk/rock duo. Rod Stewart recorded a cover of the track in 1975 and though it ended up being his biggest-selling single in the UK, the original is so, so, so much better.

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Sutherland Brothers - Sailing

Note: Originally published in April, 2011

Download: Jessie Ware - If You’re Never Gonna Move EP

Though I didn’t advertise it here, Jessie Ware’s Devotion was one of my favourite releases of last year, an album knotted with pop-diva, neo-R&B and London-dubstep allusions, pulled taut by one hell of a voice.

Ware released her If You’re Never Gonna Move EP earlier this week and—convenient for me—it’s a pure victory lap, packaging a slight rework of Devotion’s “110%” with two other album highlights, a Bobby Caldwell cover and a simmering Two Inch Punch remix…

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Jessie Ware - If You’re Never Gonna Move (Two Inch Punch Remix)
Jessie Ware - If You’re Never Gonna Move
Jessie Ware - Sweet Talk
Jessie Ware - Devotion
Jessie Ware - What You Won’t Do for Love

MP3: Wampire - “The Hearse”

“Brandon Flower’s preacher’s-warble meets bootleg instrumentals off Rod Stewart’s Blondes Have More Fun, with a dash of Danzig and the Cryptkeeper.”

That’s how I’d best describe “The Hearse,” the a-side of Wampire’s debut 45. Their band name’s incredulous, but the song’s pretty catchy. And kitschy. I dig it.

Can these wampires make it work for an entire album? We find out come May when they drop their debut, Curiosity. In the meantime, they’re touring with Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Foxygen, two bands who’ve already released pretty good records this year…

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Wampire - The Hearse

Lisztomania: The Best of 2012

How was your December? Mine was shit. Which helps explain why I’m as late as Pazz & Jop in posting my Top 50 Albums of 2012.

However overdue, this list is guaranteed to blow all the other lists you ever read about the year 2012 in music away…

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MP3: Junip - “Line of Fire”

I’ve had Junip’s latest on my hard-drive for all of half an hour and I’ve spun it through four times already—José González, you and your band make some solid freak folk.

“Line of Fire” is off the group’s forthcoming sophomore LP (self-titled, natch). As long as they pick up where Fields left off, I’m on board…

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Junip - Line of Fire
Junip - In Every Direction

MP3: David Bowie - “Where Are We Now?”

I’m not sure what any lowly, young writer can ad to the music criticism of David fucking Bowie, so… I won’t try.

I will say I’ve been playing this Lynchian epic since the Duke dropped it on iTunes a week ago and I still can’t wrap my ears around a 66-year-old, lounge-singing Bowie. Then, two and a half minutes in, everything clicks and I need to hit play again.

Also, that album art? Brilliant.

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David Bowie - Where Are We Now?

Stream: Ducktails - “The Flower Lane”

So Real Estate guitarist Matthew Mondanile has the fourth album of his Ducktails project due out early, early next year. Til now, the band’s been a solo, bedroom act, nothing but seams-showing, shambling, lo-fi, psychedelic-pop. The Flower Lane, however, is Mondanile’s first album proper, recorded in an actual studio, with actual musicians, which might help explain that keyboard-heavy AOR sound.

It’s not quite The Doldrums-lite, but there’s definitely some Ariel Pink coming thru the cracks…