Maja S.K. Ratkje “Cyborgic” front cover

The Last Record Company is a new project from Norwegian record label Rune Grammofon. As if Rune Kristofferson wasn’t uncompromising enough with the high standards he set with Rune Grammofon, TLRC definitely takes it a step further. Each TLRC release is vinyl only limited to 500 hand-numbered copies housed in a thick gatefold sleeve with a 16-page art booklet. Like Rune Grammofon’s relationship with Kim Hiorthøy TLRC only works with one designer, former Grandpeople member Magnus Voll Mathiassen new studio MVM*. The design guidelines for TLRC are even more strict—there is no information anywhere on the sleeve or vinyl and the art has no direct correlation to the music. Ultimately it is about a sound object co-habitating with an art object. The first three releases have all come from the RG family and though it is a record label “designed to die” so far its future looks bright.

Ultralyd “Rendition” front cover

Stian Westerhus “Galore” interior spread

*Yes, I agree that an MVM/MVA collaboration should probably happen. Possible titles: AMMMVV; MMVVMA; MVMMVA.

Low End Theory is a weekly party in LA bringing “psychedelic, glitch, avant-rap, IDM and dubstep” or that wonky beat science that LA’s been pumping out for a minute now and the resident DJ’s are no less than Gaslamp Killer, Daddy Kev, Nobody and motherf**king D-Styles (of Beat Junkies/Invisible Skratch Piklz fame).

They’ve been doing a monthly podcast since March of this year and they’re pure fire. Mixes from Gaslamp Killer, Mary Anne Hobbs, Dibia$e, Daddy Kev, SAMIYAM and more. The D-Styles mix on Episode #4 is worthy of multiple listens, for sure. First, I love it when these 90’s turntablist guys start repping dubstep—the results are always exciting when you hear that deep wobbly bass with scratching or more “pure” hip-hop references (see the Scratch Perverts mix for the Solid Steel show here where UK dubstep meets “Rock The Bells”. Insert evil grin here.). Furthermore, D-Styles is all over the place with Bad Brains’ “Ignition” showing up and some Lil Dap thrown in the mix. Nosaj Thing shares the other half of the mix and brings that signature dublab/ethereal beat magik.

All the podcasts are here or you can subscribe at iTunes.

Get it at: Insound | iTunes | Lala | Amazon

I’ve been afraid to re-visit a lot of the hip-hop records that I chewed my teeth on in the late 80’s and early 90’s for fear of disappointment. In 2003, I was at a Savers and found a bin full of classic tapes that I rocked endlessley growing up. I grabbed Leaders of the New School’s “A Future Without a Past”, “91 Til Infinity” by Souls of Mischief and MC Lyte’s “Eyes On This”. LONS and Souls were some of the most influential records on me circa ’91/92, so I listened to them exactly… once. I doubt I even made it all the way through, it was borderline intolerable. My love affair with so-called “Golden Age” hip-hop was officially over. But, MC Lyte’s “Eyes On This” was so much better than I ever remembered. The Audio Two production was absolutely on point and I listened to that tape every time I drove around for weeks.

Lala audio player after the jump.

I’d been thinking about “Ride The Rhythm” Chill Rob G’s one and only classic album from 1990 for years but never looked for it out of fear that it wouldn’t been as good as I wanted to remember it as. But, a couple years ago Jel had that single with Wise Intelligent (Poor Righteous Teachers) and Wise spit a whole Chill Rob verse and I knew I had to find “Ride The Rhythm” once again. I went to Fifth Element after work and sure enough they had a copy. Brought it home and, man, so much better than I could have imagined. Mark The 45 King’s production is a highlight of the late 80’s. While not on the next-level s**t of The Bomb Squad it was may more complex than the standards of 1989. The title track is a tightly-layered beast. And Chill Rob G is just a king. Authoritative, charismatic, conscious without the bulls**t baggage that would become standard for 90’s, he’s easily on par with Chuck D, KRS-ONE, BDK, Rakim, et al. Actually he’s better than most of the guys.

The record bangs the whole way through, even the kind of bulls**t dance songs are listenable and are more than made up for by tracks like “Future Shock”, “Let The Words Flow” or “Let Me Show You”. After this record, Rob G more or less disappeared. He showed up some random UK stuff around 1998 (I think) but was more or less out of the picture. Apparently, he’s re-surfaced since the last time I searched him out because he’s got a MySpace with new songs.*

* Most of which is passable jut not amazing. “RedE or Not” sounds like Jaz-O/early Jay-Z, while “Blackfeet” and “N****s Draw Heat” sound like, get this—Company Flow. The latter rocking over a “8 Steps To Perfection”-like beat.

Subscribers: Can’t see the player? Click here.

Get it at: Amazon | Dischord (vinyl only)

I don’t know if it’s just the Fall in Minneapolis—the schizophrenic back and forth between blue sky/sunny day and oppressive gray, but I’ve been listening to Kerosene 454’s “At Zero” non-stop for days now. Originally released in 1998 on the sadly-defunct Slowdime label, “At Zero” was the State College by way of DC band’s 3rd and final LP.

K454 were together from 1992–1998 and were a workhouse of a band, releasing 3 7″s on Art Monk Construction before dropping their debut LP “Situation at Hand” in 1995. I’d seen them once or twice by then and was impressed but never copped any of their records (I think I may have hated their name…) but I did get “Situation”. It was one of those records where whenever I listened to I’d think “Why don’t I listen to this record all the time?” and then not pick it up again for four months. Which is a way of saying it was good but not great.

In 1996, things changed though. I had gone to see Bluetip in Providence and K454 were opening. Bluetip’s “Dischord No. 101” had just dropped and was amazing so I was making the 45 minute trek from Newport to Providence to see them. But, Kerosene opened and they destroyed. They were tight, noisy, the drums were astounding and they ended the set with a classic one-riff guitar rock jam* (this would turn out to be “Injection” from the brand new ”Came by to Kill Me” target=”_blank” LP on Slowdime). They became one of my favorite bands that night. (An aside, I listened to “Came By…” last night for the first time in maybe 9 years and A) the whole things is burnt into my skull, and B) it f**king bangs.)

A year or two later, Kerosene came through Providence with Bluetip again. This time with a new sound, more open, more melodic and simpler. While they still ended the set with “Injection”, they also had another extended one-riff banger. I thought they were bringing early material back into their set but it turned out to be songs from the new album “At Zero”. I think they opened the set with “Anti-Magnet” and the one-riffer was “Pay Attention”. While “Came By…” is the breakthrough record and maybe even a masterpiece, “At Zero” is one of my favorite records of all time. Its like the driving, dense force of all their work reached its apex on “Came By To Kill Me” and now it was time to work out some new ideas. “At Zero” is more rhythmic and repetitive and the guitars now have space in and between them. In general, I suppose its more listenable. “Came By…” is still a post-hardcore kind of record and requires a certain headspace, but I can pop in “At Zero” and it will cheer me up.

Thinking about my Converge post from last week and how they’ve pushed past the dip to stay productive for 17 years, it really makes me wonder what Kerosene could have done if they had stayed together. If you think about the amazing progression of a band like Fugazi over its 20 year life-span or even Unwound’s development from 1991–2001, things get so interesting. Imagine if “At Zero” was only the beginning.

I did just find out that K454’s Erik Denno (guitar/vocals) and Darren Zentek (drums, also of Channels and Glendale) are in the band Report Suspicious Activity (who may or may not still be together) with Vic Bondi (!) and J. Robbins (!). I’ll be checking ’em out tomorrow. Denno and Zentek were also in Oswego who released one record on De Soto.

There are no downloads for “At Zero” on the web at this time , legal or otherwise(besides sketchy Russian .15 per song sites). Built On A Weak Spot has a couple of mp3’s from each LP here.

Download “Came By To Kill Me” (via Panzan). Note: This record is out of print and there are no mp3 stores that stock it. So chill.

* It is the opinion of this blog that to be a legendary rock band a least one one-riff extended jam is required, preferably per album. Some examples: Born Against “Well Fed Fuck”, Hoover “Electrolux”, The Monorchid “Bitch Test”, Drive Like Jehu “O Pencil Sharp”, etc.

This is an amazing British documentary (circa 1992) about the making of The Beatles ground-breaking “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” LP, the first album from the studio years. Most of the interview is with the George Martin the quote-unquote “fifth Beatle” and to watch him break down the mixing and recording is just fantastic. This also helped cement my theory that Ringo was actually the coolest guy in The Beatles. No s**t. Now you have something to do on your lunch break today.

Get the remastered Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band CD on Amazon.

Get it at: Insound | iTunes | Lala | Amazon | Deathwish Inc

In 1994, Converge released their first full-length LP “Halo In A Haystack”. I remember regarding it as a masterpiece at the time—it was intensely complicated seeming to run through every genre of hardcore that existed at the time but putting their own  unique stamp on things. For the rest of the 90’s Converge would continue on a path of musical exploration. By 2001, they emerged with “Jane Doe” an absolute monster of a recording. Since then, they’ve released an album every two years or so and trimmed the fat each time. I now look at Converge’s 1990’s output as something similiar to The Beatles “Hamburg years”, the extended period of experimentation and learning required to become masters of their craft.

With “Axe To Fall” Converge continue to show their mastery of a fast, tight and original hardcore. Where as early Converge consisted of 5 minute opus’ with endless left-turns, a contemporary Converge song is 2 minutes long with two parts. The last 15 years of songwriting have resulted in those two parts being f**king amazing. “Cruel Bloom” proves they haven’t lost that fear of genre hopping either and “Wretched World” supplies that 7-minute opus that we all still need.

At first, I was gonna say that I didn’t know how I missed this. Then I remembered that I was preparing to have a baby and wasn’t as focussed on Dipset, err, ex-Dipset as I should be. Anyway, this is the first time Cam’s hooked up with DJ Drama for a Gangsta Grillz tape and its pretty heavy. Cam’s debuts his new crew The UN on Boss of All Bosses and it seems solid. He’s clearly found a new Juelz Santana in the form of Vado whose style falls somewhere between awesome-old-spazzy-juelz and new-boring-slow-rapping-juelz and he sounds perfect on these mostly dark mid-tempo beats. The only thing I’m wondering is where the hell is PENZ who was the highlight of Cam’s Public Enemy #1 mixtape two years ago? (via 2 Dope Boyz)

Tracklisting and download link after the jump.

01. Intro
02. Pop Off (Feat. Vado)
03. Drama (Feat. Vado)
04. La Bomba (Feat. Vado)
05. Rick Flair (Feat. Vado)
06. Hustle (Feat. Rick Ross & Vado)
07. Get It (Feat. Ma$e & Vado)
08. Can ‘t Say Goodbye (Feat. Vado)
09. Skit
10. Land Of The Dealers (Feat. Vado)
11. Fed Story (Vado Solo)
12. We In This Thing (Feat. Yung La & Vado)
13. Blow My High (Feat. Vado & Darnell)
14. Skit
15. Different Cloth (Feat. Vado)
16. Professional (Feat. Byrd Lady & Vado)
17. Ride Wit Me (Feat. Vado)
18. The Baddest (Feat. Vado & Darnell)
19. Skit
20. Lenox Ave (Feat. Vado & 40 Cal)
21. Arab Music (Feat. Vado & Byrd Lady)
22. Skit
23. Soul Plane (Feat. Vado)
24. Stop (Charlie Clips Solo)

Download (Mega Upload)

Glade Festival 2009, Broken Note, Overkill stage (by ali wade)

UK production duo Broken Note are behind some of the heaviest dubstep around. While much of the scene seems to moving in a more of melodic Burial-type direction, the Note have gotten nastier and darker. They’re about to drop their first full-length CD “Terminal Static” on Ad Noiseam featuring everything they’ve done to date, and as such Rob got an ill mix from them for Electronic Explorations. Highly recommended.

Check it out: http://electronicexplorations.org/the-show/086-broken-note/

Tracklist after the jump:

[01] – Broken Note – Let Em Hang – [Ad Noiseam]
[02] – Broken Note – Dubversion [Hecq Remix] – [Ad Noiseam]
[03] – Kick Drum – Felix The House Cat [Proper Tingz Remix]
[04] – Bassist & Triage – Allways [Broken Note Redit]
[05] – Broken Note Vs MachineCode (Current Value and Dean Rodell) – Untitled [DUB]
[06] – Broken Note – Mask Of Gas – [Ad Noiseam]
[07] – Broken Note – Retox feat B-Real & Mobb Deep [DUB]
[08] – Cursor Miner – LanderRemix [Broken Note Fukup]
[09] – Broken Note – Channel Zero
[10] – Broken Note – Meltdown – [Ad Noiseam]
[11] – Broken Note – Pyrotek [Cooh Remix]
[12] – Machinecode – Recoded
[13] – SPL – Distance

Broken Note MySpace for news/mixes: http://www.myspace.com/brokennoteuk