May
18

Flying Lotus, Infinity, and Astral Planes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y5vyAw5JYE Whether or not the accolades were deserved or not, the self-fulfilling nature of the Internet hype machine assured that Flying Lotus would be crowned the new king of dubstep, or wonky, or beat music, or whatever inane label journalists ascribed to him this month. I suspect one of the more underlying points of Cosmogramma… Continue reading »

May
18

Douglas Martin’s Dirty Shoes: The Girl-Group Grunge of Las Robertas

Douglas Martin once held auditions for a To-Wong Fu-style girl-punk band, but lost his gold bra and brunette wig before the first practice. Unlike some of my more clever peers, I don’t want to over-romanticize the concept of the “all-girl band,” but over the past two years, a great deal of the promising new punk-skewing… Continue reading »

May
17

Exponential Function: Gun Toting Mexicans and Diego Bernal

According to simple-minded caricature, San Antonio is a city best known for Tim Duncan, Pace Picante Sauce, and the Alamo (which according to my research gleaned from Pee Wee’s Big Adventure has neither bikes nor a basement). Though Austin and Dallas typically absorb the glare of the Texan music spotlight, Exponential Records, based in the… Continue reading »

May
17

The Beat Generation: Roc Marciano — He Rhymes, Y’all Boring

Such is the strength of this record that Zilla Rocca had to break his hiatus to write this column.  Marcberg, the debut album from Roc Marciano, feels like Tical. You’re transplanted into the room that spawned the album. Tical sounded like a hazy basement in Staten Island, blood-shot eyes, half empty 40 bottles filled with… Continue reading »

May
14

xx is coming: Jamie Smith from xx’s mix for Collette

I’ve tended to avoid waxing rhapsodic about English trio, the xx, because the Hype Machine is already arteriosclerotic with purple prose full of OMG’s and/or the phrase “noirish minimalism.” So let’s be real, they’re three precocious kids barely old enough to booze, who possess the rare trait of knowing the precise moment when to stop.… Continue reading »

May
14

Sach O: James Blake’s Chimera Music

21 year old London producer James Blake hasn’t been lacking for congratulatory press, what with his every single since “The Air & Lack Thereof” being hailed as a milestone in the field of DPEDMFL (Dubstep proper electronic dance music fans like). Indeed, only fellow rookie Joy Orbison ended up with more props last year –… Continue reading »

May
13

Here Comes the Sun Araw

The PotW squad initially had beef with Cameron “Sly” Stallones. It started from the “coincidence” that he shared an eerily similar moniker as the artist formerly known as Sach O. There were a couple threats to shave his mustache, several aborted missions to chain him to the Eagle Rock, Prometheus-style, and there was even a… Continue reading »

May
13

The Force to Leave You Stranded Like The Tribe of Shabazz

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMZKPaSF0GE Ishmael “Butterfly” Butler” once had the force to leave rappers stranded like the tribe of Shabazz, but instead like his nautical namesake, he got sucked into the whirlpool. For those too young to remember, Digable Planets crashed the rap world in ’93, part and parcel of the jazz-rap movement, one of hip-hop’s temporary panaceas… Continue reading »

May
13

Douglas Martin’s Dirty Shoes: The Epic Fight of “Warm Slime”

Being as though Thee Oh Sees, my personal favorite live band in the world, tour throughout the world on a very frequent basis, I have no idea how John Dwyer has enough time to write songs at such an alarmingly prolific rate. Does he write them on tour? Do I admire them as a live… Continue reading »

May
12

Frank and Beats: Ratatat’s Rush Job

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYpqE0_VpWA Aaron Frank did not name his column. The title stems from a certain editor’s penchant for bad puns and an affinity for both Frank and Dank and “There’s Something About Mary.” Ratatat may need a life coach. Not like I believe in life coaches per se, but there have been bad decisions of late.… Continue reading »

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