Exile deserves every ounce of renown he receives. The LA native is an MPC maestro, a producer, a rapper, and now a Nas collaborator. But first he was Aleksander Manfredi, who  started with a pre-fame Aloe Blacc in rap duo Emanon, recording several singles, cassettes and the 2005 album The Waiting Room. Production for Mobb […]

It’s rare that you randomly stumble upon something on Soundcloud that truly grabs your interest, but New York native and Washington Heights resident Frankie P’s recent release “Hazy Nights In The Heights” did just that. A self-proclaimed “instrumental journey through the mind of Frankie P,” the album is produced with maturity, incorporating live instrumentation and […]

As a child, Stephen Bruner, a.k.a. Thundercat, experienced a similar upbringing to most 80’s babies. He dug cartoons, video games and music — “kid stuff” as Dave Chappelle once put it. Those hobbies become obsessions as his adolescence extended. In any other family, they might have incited a Ritalin prescription. Thankfully, Thundercat grew up amongst […]

For Los Angeles readers, DJ Revolution hardly needs an introduction. During his 13 year stint manning the decks for Sway and King Tech on 92.3 The Beat’s Wake Up Show, he became a household name for households glued to The Box.  These days, he’s busy producing music for radio and TV, and deploying his formidable […]

The long hours and more rigorous aspects of recording can easily strip away the experimentation and purity behind the ostensibly enjoyable process. Drummer Tim Walsh realized this early on in his post-collegiate career, opting to build his own studio in his hometown of Bridgeport, Connecticut in 2009, where he later invited bassist Dan Edinberg and […]

After playing “Think of You” about seventy consecutive times, I emailed Jeff at what must have been 2:30 in the morning and breathlessly praised them a little longer than I should have. He received an equally long-winded rave in his box when I found out that Bleached principals Jennifer and Jessica Clavin– formerly of Mika […]

Image via Ben Liebenberg/Corbis Few rappers are as enigmatic as Del the Funky Homosapien. The Richmond, California spitter has never been shy about flashing his back-handed brilliance, even if he’s always seemed a half-step away from tying it all together into a classic album – the Dan the Automator/ Kid Koala collab Deltron 3030 and […]

It’s not wholly surprising that when the UK’s Kaiser Chiefs announced they were attempting to reinvent distribution the news was greeted with more than a little cynicism. The Leeds group’s tactic of allowing fans to compile their own albums from tracks uploaded to the band’s website seemed to some a gimmicky conceit, perhaps half-designed to […]

Up until recently, 22 year-old Will Wiesenfeld had spent most of his life in Chatsworth and Woodland Hills, suburban communities about 30 minutes outside of Los Angeles, where he recorded music under the monikers Geotic and [Post-Foetus]. Classically trained on the piano since age 4, he grew weary of the limits of classical music and […]

Alex Piveysky steadily blogs here. The rest of the time, he answers to the bat symbol. Without hearing a single note, the album cover hooked me. It called out, like…uh, the bat signal. One of those moments when you know that you’ll love the album strictly off artwork. I was right too. Cue the platitudes […]