WHAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTT

Bape just got a lot of props for like the next decade.

Marubeni Infotec

The two coolest things you can do with your computer these days is to make it Steampunk, or to make it wooden. However, while Steampunk mods look awesome and industrial, they don't always really look comfortable to use. I mean, take this mouse for example:



Yeah alright so that looks awesome and I want it badly, but the track wheel can't be fun to use at all.

Wooden stuff, however, doesn't have this problem. It just looks awesome, and fits right too. I mean, just look at this keyboard.



That is much. It's made by some japanese company called Marubeni Infotec, and they've got a bunch of other wooden stuff made as well. You can check it out at gizmodo, where I stole all this stuff from.

M.I.A. - Arular

If you haven't gotten this album yet, DO IT NOW. It's nine bucks plus shipping. That's fucking ridiculous.

Seriously, this is some primogranderolaye grime stuff.

Krudmart

BOOTIE>>Best of Bootie 2006

MASHUPS
take two good songs, put them together and BAM, GOOD MUSIC!
Well, no not exactly. There are tons of terrible mashups out there that are too jumbled and chaotic because people do exactly what I just described.
However there are tons of good ones as well, which are fantastic for party dances and club dances.

Bootie is a big mashup party that's thrown in several cities across America, Paris, and also in Second Life (not so rad). This year (as well as last year) They've released a "Best of" CD for all their favorite mashups they've heard and played this year. I've already gone through the whole thing and it is filled with some major tracks. Of course there are a few that you'll probably want to skip through (like the Beyonce v Dave Matthew's track) but the majority of the CD is filled with quality mashups. The "Oh What a Night" and Jay-Z track has to be one of my favorites from this CD.

But anyway yes. The entire CD is free up on their site, but you gotta sign up for some music site thing in order to download it. I'll post that link, but I'll also update this post again later with a rapidshare link or something so you don't have to go through the trouble of registering. Just don't say I haven't done anything for you.

Bootie

UPDATE:
SendSpace

GAH

I love the French electro scene. A lot of people love the French electro scene. I feel like a dick head when I say "French electro scene", but god dammit, its good. We all know the artists that contribute, and we all have something we like about them. The shitty thing is, when something becomes popular, someone else is going to want in on the action. It was only a matter of time until someone ripped of the electro sound, and it appears to be the very Kanye West who was whining about loosing the MTV Music Video Award to Justice last year. The footage of him performing his new track at the Hiro Ballroom in NYC says it all.



Sampling is cool, and remixing is cool too, but Goldigger was annoying, you are too, Kanye.

Levi's Disco Jeans

Fragment is fucking fantastic. First they come out with the polka-dotted AF1s, and now this; jewel studded Levis.







Yeah sure I guess the jewels wouldn't really appeal to you if you didn't like to feel pretty, but you have to admit that putting them on the zipper is pretty boss. And the lightning pocket detail is great too.

These jeans come in different colors too, but the turquoise is the newest, and I think it beats ruby.

YO, Tracks

Yo, been a while since I posted on here gonna try to get back into it a bit. Recently I've found some good stuff, so here's a couple tracks I thought were real good.

First I found this new track from the upcoming Aesop Rock CD and its phat. The beat is great and his rhyming is consistently good and interesting. The track is called "None Shall Pass" and can be downloaded here.

Next is a new track from Interpol. They're one of my favourite bands and this track does not disappoint, continuing pretty much where their last album, Antics, left off. The song is called "The Heinrich Maneuver" and can be streamed here.

Lastly, Scott Herren (better known as Prefuse 73) is working on a new Savath and Savalas album as well as producing beats for a Japanese MC called Twigy, a track from each of these projects can be found here. Both are cool songs, but each is very different from the other. The Twigy track sounds closer to prefuse stuff while the Savath and Savalas track is a mellow acoustic Spanish song with some added electronics.

Besides these tracks I have been listening to a few very good albums lately that I must recommend. Here they are:

Arctic Monkeys - Favorite Worst Nightmare

A Tribe Called Quest - Peoples Instinctive Travels And The Paths Of Rhythm.

Ted Leo & The Pharmacists - Shake The Streets

Out.

Surface 2 Air

Surface 2 Air is a French brand that makes some pretty kickass stuff. They aren't easy to find in 'Murrika but if you've got the inside scoop, you can find em. Also, they're real expensive. I tried on a leather trench coat by them once. It was pretty cool (except these two little rings on the back, that was annoying but I guess I could have dealt with them) but it was $500. BAD

Anyway
They came out with a pair of slip-ons that are way too rude, but also way too pricey.




HOT
SPICY
A HUNDRED AND THIRTY DOLLARS
tooooo muuuuuch for meeeeee

I'll probably end up getting some all white vans and trying this out on my own.

Matthew Dear - Asa Breed / Audion - Noiser/Fred's Bells

Well, it's finally here. Four years after his stunning full length debut "Leave Luck to Heaven" (translation of Nintendo from Japanese, apparently) and fantastic EP "Backstroke" comes "Asa Breed". If "Leave Luck to Heaven" got Matthew noticed outside of the techno scene, then this will cement his place as someone who isn't just a microhouse producer, but someone who can make a damn good pop/alternative album.

Gone are the heavy 4/4 kick drums, oscillating sawtooth synths and early-90s-Detroit nostalgia of his most recent and active alias Audion. Gone are the precise drum patterns and cut up vocals a la Akufen of Jabberjaw. Gone are his...well, minusy sounds of his False alias on Minus and Plus 8. Here, Matthew goes back to his Texan roots and makes an album full of soul and feeling.

"Asa Breed" is not a microhouse album. Of course, it's got Matthew's signature feel to it, and, being one of the true superstars of microhouse, it has many microhouse elements. But pretty much all of the tracks hover around the 3 minute mark. It's clear that Matthew is focusing on a more traditional song structure here, rather than, say "Mouth to Mouth". And, in fact, some of the songs play out like a pop song, with a verse and a chorus. Case in point, the exceptional first single "Deserter", the most heartfelt song he or any microhouse producer has ever made. Any comparisons to Ian Curtis here would certainly be on the mark, as Matthew's baritone voice, for me, at least, steals the show throughout the album. Of course, his falsetto is strewn throughout, but on many songs he sings as if he were the frontman of a band.

Which is not all that unreasonable. Matthew will be going on tour soon not as a DJ, but as the frontman of a three man band, with live drums and guitar and all. All this is very apparent on the second half of "Asa Breed" which contains a huge focus on acoustic guitar and instrumentation. Closer "Vine to Vine" is not a new version of "Mouth to Mouth" as I had hoped ("Mund zu Mund" was not Matthew's best effort to date), but rather a song full of acoustic guitar, Dear's falsetto throughout, and Dear referencing the "heat of the Texas sun". Thats not to say it's not a danceable album, rather the first half is fairly dancy, with "Shy", "Neighbors" and "Don and Sherri" probably being the most uptempo cuts.

This is an album for everyone, not just fans of microhouse. It is certainly the polar opposite of his new (coming out in two weeks) Audion single, "Noiser/Fred's Bells", which keeps the high quality of "Mouth to Mouth" going strong. "Noiser" is, well, a noisy as hell track, full of blaring synths and killer kick drums. "Fred's Bells" is the better and less noisy cut, something that I assume would be frightening at Berghain at 3 on a Sunday afternoon. It's spacial with little vocal cuts throughout and a killer kick drum pattern.

It's certainly going to be Matthew Dear's year, as if he has't catapulted to stardom already. Both releases will prove his importance to techno as a whole, but it is his LP that will really cement his status as microhouse's most important producer.

Asa Breed is out June 5 on CD, 2x12" and digital through Ghostly International. Noiser/Fred's Bells is out May 22 on 12" and digital through Spectral Sound.

Check here for clips of Asa Breed and here for clips of Noiser/Fred's Bells.