YouTube mash-up artist Andy Rehfeldt releases some 'fartstep'

You Tube mash-up master Andy Rehfeldt recently resurfaced with a brand new creation. And it stinks. Or at least it sounds like it does. Loaded with fart sounds and spastic dance moves, Rehfeldt’s new video features the aptly named L.A. DJ The Gaslamp Killer (performing in a few hours at hip-hop club staple Low End Theory) and sees Rehfeldt sending the loud and clear message that not even dubstep (or in this case, “fartstep”) escapes his cross hairs.

Lifting some recent concert footage from one of Gaslamp Killer's recent shows in Denver, Rehfeldt’s video mash-up splices the DJ’s hair-swinging, bone-jolting live performance with a barrage of all supposedly natural flatulence created, recorded and, yes, remixed by Rehfeldt himself.  

The video was originally unveiled Jan. 19, tacking on over 8,000 views in three days before being removed Jan. 21. The clip has since been reposted by fans just in time for Low End Theory’s packed weekly romp of hip-hop and bass at the Airliner in Lincoln Heights. Watch it soon, as who knows how long it will last. It's times like these where we're thankful for the absence of Smell-o-Vision.

Jonti & Jonwayne drop track ahead of Low End Theory appearance

South African-by-way-of-Australia transplant Jonti has done a good job dispelling the notion of Los Angeles being a tough town to crack. In only a few months, the Stones Throw-signed recent L.A. resident has collaborated with Hodgy Beats of Odd Future, lined up gigs at the Low End Theory (Wednesday), Futura (Friday), the Stones Throw anniversary party (Dec. 22) and dropped a new collaboration with the prolific and precocious Jonwayne (who is in the middle of hosting a month-long residency at Low End Theory).

The track "Uh Oh" is brief but battle-tested, which bodes well for future collaborations between the pair. Earlier this year, Jonti's very strong debut, "Twirligig," summoned left-field lounge psychedelia full of tropical colors and baroque arrangements. Splitting the difference between Madlib and Panda Bear, it radiated with disorienting loops, hazy vocals and phosphorescent beats.

On Tuesday, Stones Throw also announced the official signing of a New York-based ex-law student-turned-rapid-fire-MC, Homeboy Sandman. When Pop & Hiss profiled him last year, it hailed Sandman's "relationship with meter, space and modality that alternately recalls a free-jazz-man, his hero Black Thought and the avant-rap stylings of West Coast legends Freestyle Fellowship."

His latest cut, "NY Nights," finds him stepping into the Stones Throw aesthetic in full stride, a jazz-cracked and dust-covered slice of speed rap, with Sandman balacing the beat's nostalgic feel with the desire to tackle uncharted vocal rhythms in each bar.

Download:
MP3: Jonti + Jonwayne -- 'Uh Oh'

MP3: Homeboy Sandman -- 'NY Nights'

ALSO:

Jonwayne fires off new track from Alpha Pup debut

Homeboy Sandman on the enduring importance of rhyme

Jonwayne drops mixtape with Flying Lotus & Samiyam beats

-- Jeff Weiss

Premiere: Australian ambient beatmakers Seekae drop 'Sir'

American ears often unintentionally miss the music emanating from Australia. Sure, there's Cut Copy, Tame Impala, Wolfmother and the Avalaches, but barring an encyclopedic knowledge of Oz, the average citizen of the United States could probably only invoke AC/DC.

So it's not surprising that you've probably never heard of Sydney's Seekae. The strain of imported electronic music that typically makes waves stateside is of the eminently danceable variety, usually pushed by a large label like Modular or V2. The perfect example is Cut Copy, whose disco rhythms are struck by a four to the four pulse that Giorgio Moroder might envy. Of course, there are smaller outfits like Pivot, who record for the renowned electric label, Warp Records. And Stones Throw recently signed the swirling electronics-animated Jonti.

Indeed, Jonti recently shouted out Seekae as among his favorite acts in a piece for Impose Magazine, describing his experiences in the nascent Aussie beat scene as such: "every time I would feel like there was no chance my brand of beat-based music would ever have a chance in Australia, I would usually bump into one of [Seekae] in random spots and they would encourage me to go down that path which I've always appreciated. They've released 2 albums. The first album The Sound of Trees Falling on People is a classic and I still listen to it all the time -- almost always when travelling! They just released another album called '+Dome' and it's also a brilliantly vivid experience. But you gotta see them live, really really amazing live!"

Indeed, the trio sell out shows all across Australia, but have failed to make much of a dent in the United States so far. That should change with the release of their new record ("+Dome"), plus their first local appearance at the Low End Theory on Oct. 26. And while Seekae's music might be anomalous in their homeland, it definitely fits at home among the digital chaos in abundance at the Low End and in England.

Indeed, the group shares a stylistic kinship with the likes of Shlohmo and Mount Kimbie, as artists clearly inspired by dubstep and beat music, but who take things into more organic dimensions, with guitar pedals, loops and ambient washes of sound. In fact, Seekae half-jokingly describe themselves as "ghetto ambient."

I'm not sure what Australian ghettos look like, but I imagine they lack the brute concrete trappings of the American iteration. And though Seekae can get ambient, there's nothing ghetto about their music. Their brand of electronic is Arcadian, full of gentle glitches and ethereal atmosphere -- like the sort of thing you'd play at an Arbor Day celebration. That said, it should work fine in the first flushes of fall.

Today, Pop & Hiss is premiering "Sir." It ought to command suitable respect. 

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The Eagle Rock Festival is set to soar

Download: (Pop & Hiss Premiere)
MP3:Seekae-"Sir"

--Jeff Weiss

Photo: Seekae. Credit: Seekae's Facebook page.

Jonwayne drops mixtape featuring Flying Lotus and Samiyam beats

“What’s a man supposed to say in the age of post-discovery?” Jonwayne, he of the bazooka baritone, blares on “Bus Stops,” one of the highlights of his new mixtape, “I Don’t Care.”

“Wise men are only shutting up, so let’s get ignorant,” he concludes. It’s his version of “he who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.” Indeed, “I Don’t Care” is a barbaric roar from the 21-year-old producer and rapper.

Part intricate internal rhyme brag raps and part introspective bloodletting, it heralds the La Habra native’s official arrival as a rapper, after ripping mikes at the Low End Theory and dropping guest spots sporadically. Earlier this year, Wayne conjured up “Bowser” for Alpha Pup, a record that Daddy Kev, the label’s honcho, hailed as his favorite release of the year.

That record consolidated the eight-bit beats of Wayne’s older stylings -- the new material is evidence of his rapid evolution. Along the way, he’s assembled a steadily growing fan base that has been waiting on the long-promised full length rap record, one rumored to be dropping soon on Stones Throw.

See such tracks as “Outsider’s Asylum,” where he bludgeons a Dibiase beat that sounds as if it were made to score a horror flick on Tattooine. He sounds almost as snarling as the M.O.P. samples that set it off. A descendent of the Revolutionary War Gen. "Mad Anthony" Wayne, Jonwayne channels his ancestry, claiming that “me and D are evil/like Stephen King’s people/trying to reach the peak of the steeple/without reaching for the needle.”

On “Experiment 17,” he and Blqbrd demolish a smoke-riddled jazz beat like a lost Lootpack record. It’s rap music for those raised on Madvillain, Edan’s “Beauty and the Beat” and with a little of the gleeful barbarianism of R.A. the Rugged Man.

Assembling beats from Low End Theory heavy hitters (Flying Lotus, Samiyam and Wayne himself), the rapper-producer incinerates everything from down-tempo jazz-inflected trip-hop to the Space Age suffocation of street bass.

On “Story One,” he paints a portrait of the artist as loner, loving video games and despising school, getting beaten by bullies five years older and refusing to snitch for fear of even more savage retribution. “Story Two” finds him painting a hallucinatory story of falling through floors and grabbing mikes. It’s rap at its most disorienting and damaging. Raw and visceral music that demonstrates exactly how much he cares.

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In Rotation: Flash Bang Grenada's '10 Haters'

The Jagged Low End rap of Blu's 'NoYork!'

Download
ZIP: Jonwayne -- 'I Don't Care'

 -- Jeff Weiss

Matthewdavid and Jonwayne to hit Long Beach for Dublab gig

Despite being relatively close to L.A.'s percolating beat scene, the crates and laptops of Dublab DJs seldom seem to plant a flag on Long Beach soil in official fashion. That's about to change Saturday as the L.A. collective/radio station heads to Open, a boutique bookstore in the LBC for a daylong lineup of local bands and DJs from the collective featuring Brainfeeder artist Matthewdavid and Alpha Pup's La Habra-based young gun Jonwayne.

Presented by Long Beach event promoters Robots and Angels, the gig is a fundraiser to feed Dublab's nonprofit organization from 2 to 10 p.m. The $7 suggested donation at the door gets you a taste of sonic worlds colliding — from artsy and affectionate Long Beach bands like Feed the Feeble and Miniature Houses to boom bap beats and beard-scratching ambient rhythms of Matthewdavid and Jonwayne (whose mixtape "I Don't Care" just dropped yesterday). 

ALSO:

M.O.P. meets Morrissey: BLKHRTS mash-out at Low End Theory

Ambient beat producer Matthewdavid's 'Outmind' tells the story of his Los Angeles experience

Jonwayne fires off track from Alpha Pup debut, 'Bowser,' connects Low End Theory with Super Mario Bros.

— Nate Jackson

Photo: Jonwayne. Credit: Courtesy of Jonwayne

 

 

 

M.O.P. meets Morrissey: BLKHRTS mash-out at Low End Theory

Denver's BLKHRTS describe themselves as M.O.P. meets Morrissey. A strong claim, but the union of the Mash Out Posse and Mr. Meat Is Murder does make for something noteworthy. Imagine the gladioluses  that fans would drop at Morrissey's feet, only now getting bashed by lead pipes of M.O.P. Picture a trio of vowel-averse velociraptors rapping as if the phrase "he who makes a beast of himself, gets rid of the pain being a man" was tattoed on their foreheads.

Member King Foe described them as "a breath that you take the moment after the bungee cord is extended to its fullest extent jumping into the Grand Canyon." The words and beats hit like shrapnel, with samples from "Eraserhead," Matthew Dear and Joy Division's first incarnation, Warsaw.

They merge the crowbar rap of Brownsville with a disjointed post-Def Jux aesthetic. Their voices sound as if they’ve been slit with scythes. Denver doesn't have a subway, but somehow their songs rattle with the shuddering velocity of a train car going off the rails and killing dozens. It is rap as hard-core punk music that never forgets it's hip-hop.

Topic include sex, drugs, money and death, nightmares, demons and hearts pumping like the fury of angry slaves. At a time when the rap world is monomaniacally fixated on the throne, BLKHRTS play like a poisonous agent assassinating the tired tropes of fancy watches, foreign cars and esoteric concerns. After all, their debut EP, this year's "BLK S BTFL," examines a subtext similar to that of Jay-Z and Kanye's recent would-be opus: racial strife, temptation and gods and men. It's rap by mad villains, rawer than the fish that richer rappers feast on. Underground not because of a willfully obtuse aesthetic, but for its sense of subversion. 

Tonight, BLKHRTS play the Low End Theory -- the ideal outlet for their helter-skelter assault. I asked BLKHRT Yonnas what their plans were for the rest of the year. He wrote a mini-essay, which might be a little overwhelming, but will give readers a sense of the man's work ethic. Below the jump, his answer and an MP3 from one of most exhilarating and asphyxiating groups extant. 

'In Rotation: Samiyam, 'Sam Baker's Album' [MP3]

In the mid-'90s, the Sony Playstation launched "Twisted Metal," a demolition derby video game that easily convinced teenage stoners to fork over $50 to launch a fusillade of weapons ranging from ballistic projectiles, machine guns and nuclear weapons.

"Sam Baker's Album," the latest release from local Brainfeeder affiliate Samiyam, feels something like the last incarnation of the video game -- it takes '90s boom-bap and the dusted floorboard rattle of producer J Dilla at his most metallic, and welds them into a series of warped shapes worthy of M.C. Escher. There are no M.C.s within; this is instrumental hip-hop at its apex, a genre that has seen a peculiar but welcomed critical revival this year, following a decade-plus of being perpetually dogged.

The influence of Dilla obviously runs rampant throughout, but deeper listening reveals the buried clues. The shouts of M.O.P. and the bloodbath raps of Mobb Deep. Even the sound of cats meowing. It feels like a sweltering California chronic-fueled reimagination of classic '90s New York hip-hop. Tar-caked drums and lingering claustrophobia. Song titles like "Escape," "Bricks" and "Pressure." The auditory equivalent of getting mugged in the middle of paradise.

Download: Samiyam-"Cushion" MP3

Of all the Low End Theory regulars, Samiyam's DJ sets most consistently skew toward hardcore rap, with kufi-smacking rappers like Roc Marciano and Danny Brown knocking skulls alongside the latest sounds barrelling out of London (after all, Sam was invited to contribute to the prestigious and real thorough "Hyperdub 5" compilation).

Despite its traditionalist veneer, "Sam Baker's Album" is quietly subversive. It abandons the retro boom bap conservatism that often accompanies many underground rap releases, and replaces it with a chromatic futurism. Odd shapes, sharp corners, and strong weaponry.

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Baths Comes Clean

--Jeff Weiss

Ford & Lopatin's synthesizer Games-manship

A few months ago, I had lunch with Kevin Moo, the founder of Low End Theory, to talk about some upcoming sets at his club night. He seemed especially excited about a few expermental and decidedly unbeat-heavy acts coming through; in summing up their sonic ethic, he admitted, "It's kind of been all about the high end lately." 

We stopped and laughed at the accidental oxymoron, but for one of the artists he was referring to, producer Daniel Lopatin, it kind of rings true. His solo project Oneohtrix Point Never is an exercise in putting ambient reins on vicious white noise, but his new Brooklyn-based duo Ford & Lopatin (with collaborator Joel Ford) does something arguably more difficult on its debut album, "Channel Pressure" -- a truly imaginative take on '80s synth nostalgia with a knowing wink to soft-rock fromage.

The duo used to record under the un-Google-able moniker Games, and the old name was apt -- this is music with a sense of humor about itself and its source material.  The supremely hokey animated video for "World of Regret" makes that clear, but they mangle and rebuild their reference points with so much skill that it all feels singular to them. "Emergency Room" riffs on Gary Numan's bass-heavy bleats, but pairs it with sweeter vocals and a restlessness with samples that proves they know exactly what they're up to; "Too Much MIDI (Please Forgive Me)" has, in fact, the correct amount of MIDI programming to hit the same sweet spot of sun-damaged computer funk as their fellow travellers Nite Jewel, and the joke of its title never overwhelms the vibe or the precision of the arrangements.

The duo play a release party for "Channel Pressure" at the Echoplex tonight (bolstered by a solid undercard of Telepathe and Sun Araw). Those fearing a surplus of MIDI might want to steer clear, but for the rest of us, it might be a useful reminder that music can be funny and seriously capable at the same time.

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A sonic rewind

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-- August Brown  

Young Montana comes to California, Low End Theory tonight

Young Montana isn't from Montana. He's not a rapper either, which sets him apart from Yung Texas, Yung Mississippi and Yung Florida (who I now know is getting money).

Instead, Jon Pritchard hails from Coventry, England, where he was just another anonymous teenage bedroom producer until the influential BBC1 radio host Mary Anne Hobbs declared him the best unsigned artist of 2010. Almost immediately, Alpha Pup boss Daddy Kev swooped in and offered the precocious Montana a deal, thus annointing him with cosigns from two of bass music's most influential names.

Not bad for a 20-year-old who blazes his own sampledelic vernacular, with the shorthand embedded in his source material. Examine his mix for BTS Radio to see the constitution: rap group Diggin' in the Crates and other '90s boom-bap, Low End Theorists such as Shlohmo, plus Busta Rhymes and Scottish beat producer Hudson Mohawke.

There is the usual worship of the 8-bit world and J Dilla's three-track soul. Montana builds a baroque architecture of stray chords, chopped vocals and vaguely familiar groove. Underneath the dance party of "Sacre Cool” looms the graveyard moan of Skip James’ “Devil Got My Woman.” His “F.F.F.F” splinters the Fleet Foxes’ “Mykonos,” taking the most well-formed elements (a gorgeous guitar lick and the Foxes’ forest monk vocals) and transplanting them into a entirely new climate.

Last month's "Limerence" marks one of the strongest beat music debuts this year, and Montana makes his first American appearance tonight at the Low End Theory; he plays alongside Kode9, who is to dubstep what Puff Daddy is to the remix (except, uh, totally different). Get there early.

--Jeff Weiss

Photo: Young Montana. Credit: Young Montana Facebook page

Download:
MP3: Young Montana -- "Sacre Cool"
MP3: Solar Bears -- "Dream Valley" (Young Montana Rework)

Ambient beat producer Matthewdavid's 'Outmind' tells the story of his Los Angeles experience

 
It was a balmy spring afternoon and the day’s woozy effect seemed magnified within the cozy, white, hillside backhouse in Highland Park. Through an open window, sunlight and breeze streamed into the home recording studio of Matthew McQueen, a.k.a. Matthewdavid, who at 26 has amassed a laundry-list of extant titles: artist, engineer, label head, local promoter, radio host/DJ, digital content manager and, in his words, “interstellar cross-collaborator.”

The multi-tasking is a lot to keep up with -- not least of all for him -- but the most common thread running through his various occupations is clearly visible in the rented space he shares with his girlfriend, visual artist Jesselisa Moretti. In fact, it almost qualifies as a third resident. His collection of cassette tapes seems to have the run of the place. There are easily a thousand of them -- stacked neatly on shelves, piled haphazardly in corners, or loose on the mauve carpet.

“I love the sound,” said McQueen, taking a break from finalizing the cassette-sourced DJ mix he’d made that morning for website Altered Zones, the experimental music offshoot of Pitchfork Media. “The crunchiness, the warbling, the swelling. That undulating sonic quality that happens when you have an old tape that’s gone bad. You can’t find it anywhere else.”