Shuffle | Mark Pritchard

Shuffle | Mark Pritchard "Ghosts"

by Joshua P. Ferguson

It's been sometime now since the indigenous juke and footwork sounds of the Windy City have navigated their way from the streets of Chicago's south side, growing ever richer as a new army of disparate producers find rich and diverse new uses for the breakneck rhythms. The Second City sound has found itself right at home in the UK, where it's been marrying nicely with bass, jungle, and even techno thanks to labels like Hyperdub and Planet Mu, whose actually become a global sounding board for the genre's hometown talent, most recently—and notably—RP Boo. No surprise then, to find that the always-forward-thinking Warp Records is also flirting with the sound, the latest example being "Ghosts," the new single from the many-monickered producer extraordinaire Mark Pritchard (a.k.a. Troubleman, Global Communications, Harmonic 313, and Africa Hitech, just to name a few of our favorites).

"Ghosts" is certainly not Pritchard's first foray into footwork, but its been a measly eight hours since we were turned on to the track, and its already becoming our favorite. Sparing in a deep techno sort of a way, Pritchard's footwork treads lightly here. A slightly tweaked and single-worded sample won't let us forget the track's name as trademark juke handclaps and a padded beat take flight. Glowing organ chords give only a moment's notice before the undulating, funk grit melody enters the fray. But its all a calm before the storm. Stuttering echoes of "Ghosts" fall like a string of 100 dominoes as send up to the track's second refrain, a tipping point of machine-gun snare, 808 clicks, hollow toms, and that Detroit techno funk Pritchard has managed to work in amongst all the rest. As we put it this morning when raving about the track, this could be the producer's 2013 answer to "Wind It Up". It is from our perspective anyway.

BONUS DJ MIX | Mark Pritchard 30 min 'Ghosts' mix for Kode9/RinseFM 

If you're loving "Ghosts" as much as we are, press play on this promo mix to hear Pritchard rip it up across jungle, footwork, IDM, and deep bass. Not-so-comprehensive tracklisting below:

Tracklisting (sort of)

1 - (0:00) - Intro - Babylon 
2 - (0:41) - Nine Samurai - Kode 9 & The Spaceape - Mark Pritchard 160 Version. 
3 - (3:23) - Shot Fe Bust - Poison Chang - Marvellous Cain Rmx 
4 - (4:29) - Soundboy Fuck Off - Mark Pritchard - Warp 
5 - (6:23) - Fresh on the moon - Dj Rashad x Moondoctor x FreshtillDef 
6 - (8:11) - Muthafuckin bass - Dj Rashad - Test1 
7 - (9:23) - Next level - Deejay Curt 
8 - (10:23) - Your Computer is infected - ((((Traxman, DJ Fred)))) 
9 - (12:47) - The Jackin Zone - Risque Rythum Team - Mark Pritchard 160 Version Test1 
10 - (13:32) - Riding high - Faze O - Mark Pritchard 160 Version Test1 
11 - (14:20) - ? Test 1- Mark Pritchard 
12 - (16:44) - Ghosts - Mark Pritchard - Warp 
13 - (20:25) - ? Test 1 - Mark Pritchard 
14 - (23:32) - Y'all Ain't Ready - Jay Dee - Mark Pritchard 160 Version Test1 
15 - (25:33) - ? 160 Version Test1 - Mark Pritchard 
16 - (27:11) - Outro - The Sun - Koreless - MP Reedit

Shuffle | Dawn of Midi + CFCF + Brian Irving

Shuffle | New Sounds from Our Inbox

By Joshua P. Ferguson

Dawn of Midi "Nix" —Thirsty Ear

Maybe it's not fair to say that Brookln-based trio Dawn of Midi is taking a cue from Brandt Brauer Frick, but the two group's certainly operate from the same space; using classically trained and jazz-minded backgrounds to recreate the subtle intricacies and deep, evolving textures of techno live. "Nix," the first sounds to appear from Dawn of Midi's sophomore release Dysnomia, is a finely crafted case in point, weaving frantic freestyle double bass and delicate drumming under the dominant and infectiously hypnotic piano. The middle stanza of "Nix" might leave you thinking the record is skipping if you're not listening closely

DOWNLOAD: Dawn of Midi "Nix" | 320 mp3

CFCF "Camera" — Paper Bag

Maintaining the breathy beauty that won us over on last year's Exercises EP, Montreal sound composer CFCF returns on the eve of his next EP, Music for Objects, with "Camera." A daydream of layered saxophones, slinking baselines, and the sunshine tones that have come to characterize his aesthetic, "Camera"  has more of an abstract pop feel than the meditative and mellow dance beats that made up Exercises, but it's no less of an admirable progression in his style. 

DOWNLOAD: CFCF "Camera" | WAV

Brian Irving "Eyes Wide" — Radiant Things Music

Switching our sound palette slightly, we move to the somewhat curious electronic psych track "Eyes Wide," if nothing else than because it's composed by Brian Irving (nee Brater) the man behind prolific underground hip-hop label Rawkus Records. He's come a long way since his days bringing Mos Def and Talib Kweli to our unsuspecting ears. These days, he's gone the indie-electronic route, garnering comparisons to Tame Impala, for his throwback, computerized trippiness. 

DOWNLOAD: Brian Irving "Eyes Wide" | 320 mp3

Album Review + Download | After Dark 2

Various

After Dark 2

Italians Do It Better

 i•tal•o \ i-tal-õ \ adj + cos•mic \ käz-mik \ adj + dis•co \ dis-kō \ n

DOWNLOAD: Various After Dark 2 | 320 mp3s

Since my days in the mid-2000s slinging vinyl for Groove Distribution as a buyer and sales rep there, I have been obsessed with this label. Seductive, mysterious, ahead of and simultaneously trapped in time, Italians Do It Better played a central role in dramatic shifting the music that I listen to and the music I play. Label owner, DJ, and all around nice guy, Mike Simonetti—I  had the pleasure of deejaying with him once—and musical centerpiece Johnny Jewel helped cement my lasting love of Italo, indie dance, Drive, and labels that deliver a full-sensory package of sights and sounds. Five years after releasing the compilation that first introduced me to the label, After Dark, Italians Do It Better is back with a second installment, one that shows again, just how far its sound can go and how much it's also remained in place.

The main revelation that comes with the 15 tracks on After Dark 2 is the distinctive consistency. Where volume one saw more fluctuation from its featured acts, her we meet an unflappable united front of drum machines, cozy chord progressions, echo chamber guitar riffing, arpeggios, and breathy vocals from star power singers like Ida No, Ruth Radelet, and Megan Louis. It also comes at a time when post-Drive soundtrack buzz and (yet another) disco resurgence courtesy of Daft Punk and renewed activity from Giorgio Moroder have helped propel Italians Do It Better's trademark midtempo grooves more into the mainstream than ever before. Simonetti, Jewel, and company are firing on all cylinders and the stars have aligned to make the potential impact that much greater.

A few of the central features here, tracks like Glass Candy's "Warm in Winter" and Chromatics' "Cherry," have been out for a while, but their inclusion here helps lure in listeners to lesser-known acts like faithful Italo-disco re-creators Mirage and Appaloosa, the former nearly stealing the entire show with the searing synths and pulsing rhythms of epic nine-minute meditation "Let's Kiss." If you thought Daft Punk was the only act around breathing life into robotics, think again. The brooding atmosphere established here continues with Jewel-side-project Symmetry. "Heart of Darkness" could have been lifted from a Fellini movie score about a motherboard in danger of crashing.  

Of course, the marquee acts that fans have come to equate with Italians Do it Better, the Jewel-fueled trifecta of Chromatics, Glass Candy, and Desire, are well represented also. Desire, known for inspiring sparkling memes the world-wide-web over with "Under Your Spell," returns with the equally dreamy pop confection "Tears from Heaven," sure to resonate with more than one heartbroken teenage girl moping in her room and waiting for the phone to ring. Ida No and Glass Candy also glisten as sharply as a mirrorball beam. The stand out "Beautiful Object" is a slumbering giant of synth chatter, punchy piano chords, horn blasts, fuzz bass, and Ida's singular disco wail, while the aforementioned "Warm in Winter." is possibly the collection's most upbeat entry. Don't let the name fool you, it's all summer sun.

Italians Do it Better has created a distinct world for itself. Here, the close-knit family of overlapping band members and collective tastemakers has handcrafted a wondrous pastiche of sounds, scenes, and styles, heavily influenced by the '80s and '90s and the new wave, punk, and the late-era Italo and disco that came with those decades that is still somehow a sound all its own. Dreamy dance music with songwriting that eschews the unfiltered, candy-coated ecstasy of popular dance floors, After Dark offers listeners a glimpse into a musical underworld of dim street lights, back alleys, and secret passwords, one that's as enticing as it is dangerous, and one that lives up to its name.

— Joshua P. Ferguson

Interview Exclusive | Benoit & Sergio

Interview Exclusive | Benoit & Sergio

by Joshua P. Ferguson

Rising to popularity for their colorful songwriting and lyrical storytelling of clubland love affairs and propulsive live sets, D.C. duo Benoit & Sergio quickly cemented its place in the contemporary underground dance lexicon as a pair producers who knows its way around making music as fit for the dance floor as it is on a legitimate, well-written artist album. Not content to dwell on any one style, the music of Benoit Simon and Benjamin Myers—or Sergio, if you will—displays a keen and equal opportunity love affair for minimal techno, lush disco, epic club tracks, and electronic pop. Sometimes taken on one at a time, or often combined, the results have led to chart toppers like the pleasingly progressive "Everybody" and pop-house gem  "Principles" for DFA—the latter of which landed as Dialogue's No. 1 track of 2011—and more recently the moody deep house of "Bridge So Far" on Hot Creations and last year's never-too-late-for-summer jam "New Ships" on Visionquest.

As care free and quick to fits of giggles as their music implies, Sergio and Myers spoke with Dialogue Inc earlier this year for XLR8R's Trainwreck series, and stuck around after telling us about hilariously disastrous tour debut in Russia involving bad weather, empty dance floors, and an oddly placed swing, to share more about the pair's past lives as ordinary civilians, how they craft their songs, and if any of their ex-girlfriends are pissed about they're appearances on more than one Benoit & Sergio song. Here's what the two had to say.

So from what we've read, your career as Benoit & Sergio is a far cry from your former lives. 

Benjamin Myers: In the D.C. studio you can actually see the campus where I taught school from the window, up the hill a bit. I’m looking at it, and it just seems like that was lifetimes ago. At the time, I was teaching high school kids. I was coaching baseball and teaching literature. I would drive down the hill everyday after school and Benoit and I would just work on music. Benoit was doing a start-up, so he was at home everyday just waiting to do studio work. That was our second job, really, was the studio. We would basically work all day at our normal jobs and then work all night on music. Then we just caught a few lucky breaks with some of those tracks.

What was the initial common ground you guys bonded over? 

Benoit Simon: At first it was minimal, I didn’t know minimal so much. Ben introduced me to that and we were trying to do those sounds at the beginning for sure. 

BM: When we first started, I was into the Perlon sound, so Benoit and I sort of messed around with that, but very quickly we just started doing our thing. The funny thing was, we just started doing vocals within a month or so, not even knowing we really could do them—I’m still not sure that we can do them—and that really changed everything. It just became more about our music than anything else.

One of the best and unique qualities about you guys are the lyrics, these stories you tell and these characters—the girl on the couch, and whatnot. Where does that come from?

BM: I feel like if we’re going to use words, they might as well tell a story. There needs to be some hook to the words, the same way there’s a hook to the music. Part of the hook to the words, is a story or some sort of narrative to the words. I think that’s where the narrative comes in, it comes in sort of naturally. The album is full on, straight-up lyrics. The stuff we’ve done so far is simplified and dance-y because you can’t really tell these long stories on a dance track. The stuff now is much more lyrical for the album.

Do you guys have past girlfriends somewhere fuming because you’ve been writing songs about them? 

BM: You know, yes. There’s one girl that likes that I did that. It’s a good line, I’m never going to say anything bad really.

Can you tell us more about the writing process in general on your recent singles like “Bridge So Far” and the “New Ships” EP? 

BS: To me, where I recognize ourselves is in the diversity of sound between the tracks. We have these deeper tracks, then the more nudisco, deep groove, then the orchestral, weird, epic, heroic tracks like “New Ships.” Sound wise, I think the studio dictates a little bit. To be honest, I don’t know how we want to define ourselves, I know why we sound like that from a technical standpoint, but we have a diversity of things that are always at play. 

BM: For me, I wanted at least the “New Ships” EP to be up and happy, and have this bouncy quality. I think we accomplished that. I love that up, good sound, whereas “Bridge So Far” has more melancholy to it. They’re just moods. It’s like the seasons, “Bridge So Far” was started in the fall, but the others were more spring and summer jams.

Do you guys have defined roles as to how you divvy up composing and producing in the studio?  

BS: If we’re not on the road, it’s usually just a big jamming session. We jam for hours, select the loops, and then the voice comes in, then we fine-tune the sound. 

BM: Yeah, the best tracks we’ve done and the ones we’re the happiest with, we just hit record and jam. We might start with a kick drum and then go for a couple of hours.

How’s the album coming? I know there’s some anticipation for it.

BS: We split the year between D.C. and Berlin, but we’re taking some time off [in D.C.] right now to work on it. 

BM: It’s super hard to work on music when you’re touring. Hopefully we’ll have it done by the summer. Fall would be ideal for getting it out this year. But you know how those album’s go. “This year” really means a year and a half, but we’re inching towards it every day. 

Having recently celebrated your two-year live anniversary, what has it been like finding yourself a part of this interlocking global scene with labels like Crosstown Rebels, Visionquest, and Wolf + Lamb?  

BM: We knew Wolf + Lamb and all the Visionquest guys before, and it’s nice that before we had a little bit of success we knew them, because then it’s a true friend sort of thing. But since then, we’ve met a lot of amazing people—from fans to producers to promoters—and that’s inspiring. 

Now that you’re able to reflect on your awkward second live show to now, are you feeling like you’ve made the right career shift? 

BM: We feel that way, but at the same time there’s always that feeling that any show could be that show. That might be a good thing to never get too comfortable.

Shuffle | Phoenix + Slugabed + Haim

Shuffle | New Sounds from Our Inbox 

by Joshua P. Ferguson

Phoenix "Trying to Be Cool" (Breakbot remix) — Atlantic

Although Phoenix's latest LP, Bankrupt, has arrived with considerably less fanfare than its predecessor, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, the record really as you'd expect it to be coming from these Parisian talents. They may have stuck too close to the formula that's made them festival headliners, but hey, if you look to the line-ups of this summer's festivals, they're still headlining AND sharing the stage with Windy City crooner king R.Kelly while they're at it, so that counts for a lot. Here, album cut "Trying to Be Cool"—which is available as stems for open remixing on the band's soundcloud page—gets a straight-forward and user-friendly remix from fellow Frenchman Breakbot. Bouncy, silky smooth, and soaked with the boogie feel that has become Breakbot's trademark, this one's for sunny DJ sets that involve patios, cool beers, and as little clothing as possible—at least that's what the song's title would lead us to believe.

DOWNLOAD: Phoenix "Trying to Be Cool" (Breakbot remix) | 320 mp3

Haim "Falling" (Leonard Friend remix) — Polydor

This folksy-pop trio of sisters from sunny CA has had no trouble raising its profile in the past 6 months. It's really not that difficult to fathom, seeing how they've landed opening slots for everyone from Ke$ha to Mumford & Sons. It's nice to hear Haim get treated to something a little different though, namely a shimmering synth-driven '90s R&B style remix from Leonard Friend, a Los Angeleno transplant who fancies himself exactly that, a musician who's influences are as much D'Angelo as they are Phil Collins.

DOWNLOAD: Haim "Falling" (Leonard Friend remix) | 320 mp3

Slugabed "This is a Warning" — Activia Benz

Moving away from the pop realm, but no less fit for summer, London bass producer Slugabed has dropped a freebie for the eclectic British party label Activia Benz. Rocking the tropical vibe in all the right ways: steel drum, sparkling chords, and a loose reggae-style appeal, "This is a Warning" is ripe for sweaty dancefloor application. And it's not alone, the five-track "This is a Warning" EP was recently given up for free download via Activia Benz's bandcamp site.

DOWNLOAD: Slugabed "This is a Warning" | 320 mp3s (via Bandcamp)

DJ Mix | John Tejada for Halocyan Records

DJ Mix | John Tejada

Promo Mix for LA's Halocyan Records

"You Must Understand History to Create the Future."

Given all the talk about Daft Punk this week, and how their album, if nothing else, flies in the face of everything trendy in popular contemporary dance music, I was particularly attracted to the above quote from the bio of the fledgling LA-based imprint Halocyan Records. It is an underlying sentiment in everything that Daft Punk does, and certainly a central takeaway from Random Access Memories. In it's current context, it is also a respectable way for Dimitri Fergadis, Halocyan's owner, to say 'this is who we are, this is what we do.' 

Another way for Fergadis—an electronic musician who also runs the Phthalo label—to do that is to cultivate an artists roster that boasts names like Appleblim, FaltyDL, Girl Unit, Legowelt, Max Cooper, Raudive, Scuba, XXXY, our friend and fellow Chicagoan Chrissy Murderbot, and deep-tech minimalist John Tejada, who's turned out a brief-but-potent promo DJ mix showcasing the label's sounds.

Clocking in at under 15 minutes, Tejada's mix is a study in potent efficiency, delivering the deep throwback acid of Legowelt's remix for Murderbot's "Friendship," the raucous bass-driven broken beats of Paul Woolford's "Pursuit," and XXXY's nod to retro breaks and 2-step on "Bash," before wrapping up with the dub prowess ASC displays with "Sonic Assault." The mix says as much about the label's depth as it does about Tejada's. It also underscores the mantra we singled out earlier: how each of the artists that Fergadis has chosen to join his stable knows just as much about where they are coming from as where they are going. We look forward to hearing more of how this plays out in the coming months.

—Joshua P. Ferguson

DOWNLOAD: John Tejada Halocyan Promo Mix | 320 mp3

Shuffle | Jon Hopkins | Immunity (The Creators Project) + mp3

Jon Hopkins + The Creators Project

"Immunity"

It doesn't officially hit stands until June 4, and already Jon Hopkins' Immunity is shaping up to be a contender for one of the top albums of 2013. You'll see it on our charts anyway. As a send up to the release, a beautiful amalgamation of shoegaze techno, digital fog, blissful static rhythms, and downbeat excursions, Hopkins has teamed with Vice's always reliable Creators Project, art director Craig Ward, and biochemist Linden Gledhill--yes, you read that correctly--to pair the odd, picturesque, and quite fitting time-lapse footage of  crystal growth and chemical reactions with Hopkins latest compositions. Naturally, the results only add to the beauty of the music on display.

As Ward put it in a recent press release, "Jon's music is organic and flowing, yet with a hard and rhythmic electronic edge. The idea of delving down to explore chemical interactions under a microscope felt like the perfect solve to create the album imagery and our video."

-- Joshua P. Ferguson

The results:

And to sweeten the deal slightly, grab Nosaj Thing's recent remix of the lead single from Immunity, "Open Eye Signal:"

DOWNLOAD: Jon Hopkins "Open Eye Signal" (Nosaj Thing remix) | 320 mp3