Like the third season of Game of Thrones, the mashup scene is very much over. But unlike the many beloved characters that George RR Martin ruthlessly kills off, The White Panda still remains. And they’re back with a new album, featuring this awesome chop up of Rihanna’s “Diamonds” and the Game of Thrones theme. And you thought the Chvrches cover was cool…

Get Weird

Okay, so I’m going to be completely honest. This post may or may not have been inspired by the fact that the band is called Us Baby Bear Bones. They’d have to go out of their way to be distinctly bad for me to NOT post this. That said, they sound similar to Au Revoir Simone but with a little more teeth. Atmospheric and just the right amount of melancholy for Sunday night listening.

Also, they’re called Us Baby Bear Bones. Did I mention that yet?

Chance marvels at his discovery of the uniboob

In a world where Chicago has one of the highest violent crime rates in the country, and turds like Chief Keef are at the top of the city’s rap game, it’s refreshing to hear someone like Chance the Rapper step to the mic. Teaming up with Nosaj Thing (one of my favorite producers, check him out), he brings some realness on this jam – a hidden track of his mixtape Acid Rap. Just don’t call it conscious rap, this is some good kid, m.A.A.d. City shit.

Nosaj Thing x Chance the Rapper “Songs From Scratch” from Yours Truly on Vimeo.

Not your average buzz band

The buzz band cycle has changed in the last few years with the widespread use of digital distribution. Now a band can pick up a lot of attention long before releasing an album, and it’s always a toss up whether or not a finished product will live up to the promise. With the release of CHVRCHES’ last single, “Gun” I think we can all agree that this band is the real deal. Let’s hope we can get one or two more of these before their debut LP in September.

These keep leaving me at a loss for words, just listen below:

Music comes to our lives in different ways, whether we seek it out or by happenstance, and whether or not it stays and how we view it is determined by even more immeasurable variables still. Sitting on this flight back from New York City to San Francisco I think about the last few days and how I’ll remember this legendary trip, the complete details of which will only be shared by a select few.

I had come back to the city to DJ a wedding of two friends who were getting married on the Brooklyn waterfront with an absolutely gorgeous view of Manhattan. The wedding party and guests were seated to a selection of Mark Mothersbaugh instrumentals from Wes Anderson movies and the bride walked out to “Penelope’s Theme” by Nathan Jones – adorable and cute in all the ways you can’t get from a Chris Brown song.

After a short but moving ceremony, the newlyweds kissed triumphantly as The Kinks’ “Strangers” came on in celebration and they walked back down the aisle as husband and wife. It was, quite honestly, very touching and perfect for the occasion. But what really hit me was shortly afterwards, as the sun came down behind the massive city skyscrapers and the guests milled about waiting for dinner, I threw on “Sweet Disposition” by Temper Trap and in that moment something clicked in a way I hadn’t felt before about an already pretty epic song.

It’s an anti-thesis to everything that a wedding symbolizes (eternity, forever, commitment), but instead a celebration of just that one sweet moment. That brief period in time where things come together and it’s just… perfect. “Sweet Disposition” is a powerful song without any sort of context but that one moment, on that one dark evening in Brooklyn under the promising lights of Manhattan it entered into the realm of one of the Great Ones.

A dream, a laugh, a kiss, a cry, our rights, our wrongs.. a moment of love

Oh, you….

Well folks, I don’t want to get too long winded on this one. There are few things more exciting than when one of your favorite artists remixes another, scaled infinitely when it turns out absolutely perfect. Chrvches remixing MS MR, to me, falls under that categorization. And if either artist is one you haven’t heard yet, this is surely your vehicle to doing so.

HOT DAMN THIS REMIX IS AMAZING. Just had to get that out of my system.

Purity Ring live at The Independent 2013- San Francisco, CA

You know who Purity Ring is. We don’t have to do that whole song and dance. Their debut album Shrines was one of our favorite albums of 2013 and just a few months ago they released this surprisingly (well, not so surprisingly) INCREDIBLE cover of Soulja Boy’s “Grammy.” Typically when the whole indie-band-covers-rapper thing goes down it’s very tongue in cheek, but in this case we have a laughably ironic track turned into something vulnerable and pretty. The cover has received so much traction that it makes regular appearances at live shows and fits in seamlessly with their repertoire.

“Is that a fly in my beer?”

Music is, by its nature, derivative and often times it’s easy to ascribe influences to a particular artist. Alt-J was a band last year that seemed to skirt any kind of label, even though some didn’t think they were as groundbreaking as promised (I disagree, but whateva). SPEAK is a band from Austin, Texas that comes to deliver on the promise of innovation and a fresh sound – having told the major label scene to kick rocks and do things their own way. What happened next is a track that goes all the places you didn’t expect it to go, and works in all the ways you didn’t think it could.

If that sounds like some seriously pretentious hipster bullshit I’m not even going to argue with you there, I get it. But even on your 3rd or 4th listen to “Peaks” will leave you happily scratching your head, wondering where on earth this came from. This is a band to pay attention to.

Oh, and according to Pigeons & Planes (who broke the track), they’ve got a video game coming alongside the album this summer? Art rock, indeed.

“Ugh, god, not another press photo”

The Australians wanted to get in on the “sounds like Fleetwood Mac” party after the early success of Haim and now we have this brilliant new tune from The Preatures. In all fairness, they’ve had music on their Soundcloud account for over a year and when you hit the “sounds like Fleetwood Mac” nail as squarely on the head as they have, it cannot be denied. It may be a while before we get a full LP or an American tour date but you can get connected on their Facebook page.

Thanks to Neon Gold for the find.

Someone didn’t hear about that whole No Doubt thing

Young Wonder is an electronic duo from Ireland who might instantly draw comparisons to Purity Ring. While they already have an interesting collection of productions under their belt through 2012′s eponymous release, with “Time” it sounds like they’ve hit their songwriting stride. Guest vocals from fellow Irish producer Sacred Animals provide a settling balance to Rachel Koeman’s sharp cries before giving way to lush synth patterns and pleasantly surprising delays.

There’s always that beautiful moment when experimental production stops becoming experimental and a gorgeous product emerges from the lab work. This is one of those moments.

Whatever these two are doing, they’re doing it right

After posting some indie tracks on the lighter end of the spectrum I feel like we’ve earned a banger post here. And holy shit do we ever have a banger. Trap beat duo TNGHT, the rising collaboration of Lunice and Hudson Mohawke and recent Kanye West BFFs, have dropped an absolute bomb here with “Acrylics.” The kind that lures you with a smooth complexity and then DROPS THE FUCKING WORLD ON YOUR FACE LIKE OH MY GOD. And while it’s hard to sell a sound like that through writing (considering the same principle is used to describe just about any heavy hitting “EDM” track), the track will speak for itself.

Seriously, oh. my. god… Thizz faaaaaace. This is some nasty shit!

How can a band look so sad, when their music sounds so glad?

Normally if you were to describe a song with the terms “catchy as hell” and “whistling” I’d start running for the hills but NONONO is Swedish so yeah duh, they get a pass. And holy shit, is “Pumping Blood” infectious, airy and impossibly uplifting. They’re Swedish, they make great pop music – honestly we just need to start leaving it at that for these kinds of artists. Enjoy having this on repeat for the rest of the day.

Max Frost gets his motif on

As much as this artist goes against my wish to see the “white guys making soul music” trend go away, this track from new Austin-based artist Max Frost is an absolute gem of a single. Drawing strong comparisons to Gnarls Barkley (not entirely unwarranted), “White Lies” is a hand-clapping finger wag against a shady former lover. Though, you may get too caught up in dancing along to notice.

Don’t stop get it, get it

File this one under “rap music for white people” but you won’t hear me complaining. Off his just released Phases mixtape, “Sideways” by Skizzy Mars marries indie nightclub-worthy electro pop fuzz with proper dork rap and a catchy, affirming hook. It feels more anthemic with each passing listen.

Cosmo Sheldrake is not fucking around

A long time ago my uncle was giving me shit for listening to artists that had an electronic edge to them, that I needed to spend more time with real instruments. This was a person whose musical taste guided me growing up, and it always kind of stuck with me that somehow electronic music was “easier” than the alternative. While obviously I learned that is not the case, the conversation immediately came to mind as I heard this song from London-based producer and musician Cosmo Sheldrake.

Aside from having an infinitely badass name (it just has to be his real name, right?), he’s a multi-talented instrumentalist who played jazz and classical piano since the age of 4 and regularly performs with a host of other instruments. Just see the image above. Armed with those tools and very basic looping equipment he crafts organic, soulful beats that sound almost natural. Could this music have been created without any electronic assistance? Maybe. Would it have been inspired without it? Probably not.

Check out a live video of this incredibly talented musician below. Just.. wow. That’s an unacceptable way to close a blog post but what else can you say?

Moody as you wanna be

So, I have this tremendous Spotify playlist going called Waveforms and Galactic Unicorn Dust featuring all the best experimental electronica artists like Nosaj Thing, Gold Panda, Shlohmo, etc and let me just say it’s an utter shame that Vienna-based producer Sohn isn’t on the platform yet to be included on that list. Little is known about this guy (as is often the case) but his delicately textured production and fitting vocals make for extremely pleasant listening. “The Wheel” is a breakout waiting to happen, not to mention he does a phenomenal remix of the Banks song I posted a few weeks back.

Trill-oncé

This isn’t the best time for new music popping up as most the industry is in a SXSW hangover, but Queen Bey clearly gave no fucks when she dropped this massive track yesterday. It isn’t clear if this is a 2-single mix or the whole track but what cannot be denied is this is the trillest we’ve heard her yet. Maybe all the recent Baauer madness led her to get trap nasty – but she’s from Texas and the South had a stranglehold on trap before white producers ever got their hands on it so I’m not going to place my bets on that just yet. Either way, hot damn. Bow down, bitches!

Wait, he’s not even remotely fat

We’re going coast to coast with this one – Oakland’s Kool A.D. (of Das Racist fame) and NYC’s Despot meet in the middle to support Houston’s Fat Tony on this buzzy party jam that the white folks are going to love. Part of that due to an early shoutout to the white folks on the track and several show performances at SXSW this week. Yes, we’re totally into that kind of shit.

Fat Tony plans to release a new album on June 11th for Young One Records, the Brooklyn-based label that’s home to Bay Area duo Main Attrakionz. That’s a lot of hometown representing right there so I guess it’s like what Rakim said, it’s not where you from it’s where you at.

Run da traaaap

Baauer’s “Harlem Shake” brought trap music into the mainstream which is, for fans of the genre, a blessing and a curse. While the hottest new club genre has the potential to reach a wider audience – the Harlem Shake blowup may have been so strong that it risks alienating other artists in the scene. Yeah, we even produced a Harlem Shake video at my video game studio (that’s me in the Splinter Cell costume). My strongest apologies for being a part of the problem.

But there’s nothing that gets asses shaking (excuse me, twerking) on the dance floor like some sick ass trap beats. One of the my favorite producers in the game are LOUDPVCK, a NY and LA based duo that bust out absolute butt assaults over and over. A particular favorite is this trap remix of Ree$e’s MDMA inspired track “Molly.” Throw this in rotation at your next party and just see what happens. Trust me.

Soul power

Over the last year we’ve seen an extremely dynamic foundational shift in R&B as it converges on electronica in a way that hip hop has only comparatively flirted with. Brooklyn producer Arthur Ashin, known as Autre Ne Veut, has taken up the flag alongside contemporaries like Frank Ocean, Miguel and The Weeknd – moving from lo-fi experimental productions to full fledged R&B songwriting.

Loosely translated as “I Want No Other,” Autre Ne Veut’s latest album Anxiety channels wrenching, complicated emotions of disappointment and self-destruction through beautifully-layered yet dissonant electronic production, delivered in spectacular dramatic fashion. Luckily for those of us in San Francisco, we can catch him at The Independent on Monday, March 11th with openers Majical Cloudz and Bago.