🐣 MR LITTLE JEANS — FORGETTER (CHE REMIX)

⌾ LISTEN TO MR LITTLE JEANS FORGETTER REMIX BY CHE ⌾ Mr Little Jeans' original 'Forgetter' inhabits a dark, swaying world entrenched in sub-bass, sometimes pillowed with sun dappled breeziness. But completely destructing this darkness, turning on the light, and transporting it from the gloomy forest of the original, Che hops on a remix of 'Forgetter'.

Now psychedelic, the track cuts a groove with suburban by-the-lake bass that pops and lingers and stumbles happily along; sparkling liquid guitars fall slow motion from one chord to the next with sloppy lustre; just part of the original vocals survive, simmered thin and garbled into each other.

It's a whole new plane of existence, one into which we're inducted and ejected from with cosmic tunnels of thick synth. Mystery and pyschedlia mix in the semi-idyll of Che's remix, propelled by the gentle thump of a beat, well away from the trap dilution and shaded inflections of the original 'Forgetter'

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• 🔔 There's actually a free download of Che's weed-soaked remix of 'Forgetter' by Mr Little Jeans, which is nice.
• 🔔 And you should check out Shuco by Che, an album he released with Astro Nautico last year. You can listen to it and everything else on Bandcamp.

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☟ Che Internet Presence ☟
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☟ Mr Little Jeans Internet Presence ☟
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🐣 SONNY — AGORAPHOBIA

The momentum in this one, the wintry movement the piles of snow beside the road zapping past the window as whatever vehicle passes by whatever. This kinetic morsel, this quest of sound, has been created by Danish musicmaker Sonny—and despite this sense of motion it's titled 'Agoraphobia'. But perhaps in all the jostling drums with the skittering cymbals and the tumbling tip-tapping snares, in the refraining bassline, the gradual crash of hi-hats, there is the tension of psyching oneself up to venture outside, the sweat and the empty indoor comfort; the snow flurries out the window.

And that coldness: huge robust piano chords crunch – later in the track moving between menace and triumph as the agoraphobe reaches trembling clammy hand to the door (03:45) – the glistening marimba sounds, the hi-pitch synth all snowflakes, the whirl of icicles in the cyclical build of the ending. The explosions throughout the song, and the contrast with the bass-and-drums simplicity otherwise, this is the indecision that is always the hypeman of fear, the enduring legacy of watching a wished for world unexplored from a window many times looked through.

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• 🔔 'Agoraphobia' is taken from Sonny's debut C.E. EP, which is out now on newly launched Copenhagen-based label Koldt Bord. You can purchase the EP here.

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🐣 TCTS — DO IT LIKE ME (ICY FEET) FEAT. SAGE THE GEMINI & KELIS (MELÉ REMIX)

TCTS's original 'Do It Again (Icy Feet)' is a brooding slice of funky house that features rapper Sage The Gemini and the lilting voice of Kelis aching in the almost taunting pseudo-hook "icy feet…"—but in this re-do the Manchester producer's track gets more than just a facelift: the cold synth syncopation and robust rigid beat, the dark aura, the digitised mechanical body of the track – as well as all its shuffling funk – gets new life injected into it, becoming a warm, organic, living-breathing track courtesy of Merseyside producer Melé. Snare rolls drop in and snake through lively rattlesome, carnivalesque percussion clatters between bars: it lives!

The serious slightly screwface nature of the TCTS track is, like a frown turned upside down, put on its head and has in this remix all but dissipated, with Melé adding a few cups of French touch-flavour impiousness, the bassline up-front and playful as it bounces through. Similarly the vocals get a slightly oddball treatment, warped and layered and twisted with atonal robotic pitch-shifting, taking the brazen almost cocky nature infused in the original vocals and making them less confrontational, more fun and trivial and leftfield as they repeat unrelenting, "I bet you can't do it like me…" Melé has birthed a yang to the yin concocted by TCTS, conceiving and delivering not just a light side, but a lighthearted side for his body-moving remix.

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• 🔔 'Do It Like Me (Icy Feet)' is available to download from various outlets now.

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☟ Melé Internet Presence ☟
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🐣 DUCK HOUSE — FLAW (CHRIS VERSAS 2K17 REMIX)

'Flaw' by Duck House. It's a nice song isn't it, a hazy portion of slo-house, a track like melting fog, like distilled summer feelings condensing on the inside of your mind. But then imagine this song faster and less melty and your conclusion will come closer to something like this wonderful remix from Hamburg musicmaker Chris Versas, a clear avenue of funky house, a cyclical trail that lets Duck House's original elements add to the summery veil hung over the legible pulse of this dance-destined reworking.

At once it's that bass, reminiscent of the original bassline, its syncopated rhythms, its rounded muted half-sharp flavour, running the show. From here the drums shuffle with pop-out swing replete with metallic hi-hat and tambourine jangle, offbeat handclap snare running along this etching this carving of rhythm. House, the glorious repetitions, the progressive feeling as different parts flow in and out—those sun-soaked vocals, the squeals of guitar, hovering clouds of ambient sound. And from around the 3-minute mark there is a crescendo of synth, a rising up whooshing and soaring into the sky, before the track settles back into its plain but poignant groove.

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• 🔔 You can find some more remixes by Chris Versas, as well as mixes, at his SoundCloud.

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📠
☟ Chris Versas Internet Presence ☟
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SOSLYLOVE – AGELESS

A good compilation is sometimes all you need to open up a previously unexplored section of the music world; Various Artists are my favourite kind of artist. These compilations are like portals to an incredible 'elsewhere' – like opening a Pandora's Box, except with less of the world's evils and more of the world's good music. And besides, if Pokémon has proven anything, it's that we love collectibles – the mystique of Various Artists compilations hits us like the heady whiff of Nintendo's motley crew of monsters.

That's not to reduce the ever-surprising V.A. down to a lower status – not at all. I love finding new things. And as such, this compilation (discovered thanks to LA producer Spazzkid) is a particularly special one. Now, talking about this whole thing – Amicus Curiae by fledgling collective/label Stratford CT. – would be ridiculous, so I'll start with the first track. It's by American producer sloslylove and it's called 'Ageless' and it's really nice.

Taking cues from sunset-imbued 80s balladic pop, the track is a smooth escape into warmth and nostalgia, led by a cracking marvel of a bassline. A huge cradle of slapbass, thick and soulful, holds within it dreamy fragments of saxophone that lap at the edges of your mind's fondest memories whilst beautiful washes of soft synth watercolour the scene with twilit skies. You're struck by the timelessness of the song, its atmosphere pummelled gently by epic-inspired reverbing drums, slow and steady. It is indeed ageless. A sound to be lost in – an aid for unwinding – yet filled with heady romance on the cusp between action and fantasy.

If you know what's good for you, and you wanna listen to some songs that have a similar vibe to this one, then please I do really urge you to check out Stratford CT.'s collection of curated tracks on Amicus Curae. You can also download it for free/name-your-price; definitely do this.

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BLUFRANK TR-808 & A BABE

It might just be me (but then again if ONE person does it then it's probably quite likely that another person or multiple people will also do the same thing) but I like a song title or artist name or whatever kind of thing that requires you to look further into what exactly it is. Being the innocent mind that I am, I had to google 'TR-808' – and what fun! It's short for The Roland TR-808 Rhythm Composer, "one of the first programmable drum machines" (thanks Wikipedia) and "TR" is an acronym of "Transistor Rhythm". There may be some of you out there thinking, "omg what stupid is this guy! HA ha!!" but to others who were wondering what BLUFRANK's song title meant, there you go.

Hang on, wait—what? Who's BLUFRANK? Don't worry. BLUFRANK is a producer from Cairo, Egypt, who makes mostly house (to use a very general and very useful term) music. The stuff about the TR-808 refers to this song, titled 'TR-808 & A Babe' – I can only imagine or guess that this was a fun time. It has to have been, surely? Sorry for being male.

The track is a minimalist escapade of house music, complete with ticking hi-hats claps and gloriously subbed-out kicks which give the track a juicy bedrock that shakes your very brain. Slightly atonal synth chords dip in and out of earshot as long-horizon glittering synth melodies soar across the landscape of the track. It's filled with a cheeky funk from 2:00 for around a minute, taking a different theme and running with it, changing back to that liquid-like flow for the final third. It's simplistic stuff but it works exceedingly well, combining bassy kicks more typical in hip hop or even juke with a future-facing house beat. The retro sounds of the synth is an obvious love for BLUFRANK, who is "inspired by the 60's, 70's, 80's, Cairo nightlife, love, dance-floors, bars, summertime, beaches" as they say on their Facebook page.

It's nice to hear a different take on dance music, one not ultra-minimalist nor wholly experimental nor completely stuck in the 80s. And something from Cairo! Which is fun, because I've never heard anything from Egypt. Oh, by the way, BLUFRANK has a load of other really nice songs on his SoundCloud – two very good ones are 'MID(s)' and the very sunny 'Never Ending Summer'. Bye!

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BACKBONE BLANK FIELD [FREE DOWNLOAD]

Taking cues from typically urban music like R&B, garage, bassline and even dubstep in the halftime swing of the beat, this is 'Blank Field' by Paris band Backbone. Having formed in August (the 15th, specifically) of 2012, Backbone is a five-piece band that mixes female and male vocals; organic, "real" sounds and synthetic, mechanical noises. They describe their sound as "feutré, absorbant, rythmé" - that's hushed, absorbing and rhythmic. Certainly there could have been a little bit of inspiration here from The xx, especially in the dual vocals, the sub-bass and the general atmospheric feeling of the songs. But that's not a bad thing at all.

'Blank Field' begins as a relatively quiet foray into a world of rich, low attack synth chords and drips of electronic percussion - in the background, samples of what sounds like a crowded room pan from left to right. Smooth columns of sub-bass gleam beneath the chords. Each vocal sounds unaffected, clear, pure even, with just the right amount of big room reverb tailing from each. The beat grows busier with hi-hat rolls and the addition of snapping snares; beautiful guitar licks like flecks of sunshine appear from the chill of the song for a lovely euphoric flavour.

By the end, that guitar lick sinks into the background, the volume on everything coming to a crescendo, a rising tide of synth and a violently bubbling collection of random synth bleeps, which is all we're left with at the end. The slow nature and smooth vocals of the song give it a sense of laid-back yet passionate R&B, a slow jam direct from Paris complete all the delicate trappings and trimmings of experimental electronic music. It's always nice to hear people doing something different and Backbone are no exception; their mix of electronic and live instruments supports their gentle yet intense sound as much as the flighty vocals do. Lovely stuff.

I don't think there are any releases as yet but their SoundCloud definitely hints towards an EP in 2014. It could be a long time, it could be a short time. But here's hoping that it will actually materialise. You can download this, and past songs, on their SoundCloud so deffo check it out ya.

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SNORLAX TO PROTECT & TO SERVE

Woweee, first post of November. Well, aside from my October MIX (yeah, it's still a thing)... But this - THIS - is my first real post. Even though it's the 3rd already. That's ok though. Don't worry about me - I've been half-busy or maybe 1/3-busy. In any case, I now have a notepad on which to write everything down on so I don't forget to feature it.

However, a notepad cannot galvanise a routine so much as to make it immune to just-released, really nice music. Distractions come in all shapes and sizes, and stumbling across stuff that I hadn't planned to write about, nor knew even existed, is one of the best distractions there is. Schedules are dropped and I focus my attention on this new thing.

This time, it's got quite an interesting backstory. Not that I know all the ins-and-outs but in essence: a compilation CD of "Various Artists" (I love that phrase) associated with various entities (weekly beatmakers & beatdroppers, TeamSupreme, label/radio show/collective Soulection, by-artists-for-artists label HW&W, collective M|O|D) created for the purpose of raising funds to help a fellow artist-in-trouble, one half of duo Penthouse Penthouse, who has apparently had some trouble with the police. Justice nique sa mere la dernier flic que j'ai vu avait plus de vice que le dealeur de ma rue is what I say to that.

In any case, one of the songs from that compilation, touchingly named Got Your Back Foundation Vol. 1, is by the equally well-named LA-based Snorlax (real name Cody Farwell) and is called 'To Protect & To Serve' and here it is.

With a slow intro, percussive synth noises and fidgeting clicks pervade the silence gradually - it's almost peaceful in a way, but there's certainly a sense of bigger and louder things to come. And they sure do arrive, those loud things. They arrive in the form of a thick wall of bass that encases your entire mind - it's an ear massage, a brain-clean, instant paralysis. Paralysis in the sense that, moreso things around you seem to stop completely whilst all you kinda wanna do is get up and WIGGLE.

The beat is a skiffly half-time ghetto house juke kinda operation; supported by frantic waves of syncopated synth chords, there's a whole feeling of urgency to the rhythms of this track, the kinda thing that makes your feet itch for a nice bit of dancing. Anyway, I've said that already basically. At the same time, there's a strange sense of chill - perhaps owing to the hanging-in-the-air nature of the beat's clap/snare, but maybe owing to the thick, fluid sounds of the synth, the sorta thing you just wanna drink or swim in. In any case, it's real nice.

You should for real check out Got Your Back Foundation Vol. 1 (released by TeamSupreme).

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MOSCOW CLUB BRADBURY EP

Wow. This couldn't get more 80s if it tried. But it's such a nice sound, such a summery one too - for me anyway - that I'm not surprised that moscow club (or möscow çlub) has chosen to adopt this style (they call it "nerdwave") for themselves. Indeed, this Japanese band have totally taken the spirit and vibe of pop music from that era and plonked it right here - obviously, in the 2010s we have much better recording facilities than they did 30 years ago. So you can make 80s music these days, but you can make it a hell of a lot better.

And I thought that this sound was shown best in moscow club's Bradbury EP released four months ago, which features two songs 'Farenheit 451' and 'and the Moon be still as bright'. These are both references to the work of Ray Bradbury, of whom the band must evidently be fans - the first song takes its title from Bradbury's novel of the same name and the second is the title of one of the later chapters of The Martian Chronicles, which in turn takes its name from a Byron poem:

So we'll go no more a-roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.

Lovely innit. Don't you love context? Although music from the heart is nice, music inspired by emotions towards everyday situations or perhaps not so everyday ones, it is still a nice little surprise when a band is inspired by literature or some other kind of non-music stimulus to create their stuff. It gives extra dimensions and links different pieces of art - through their musical reactions - in interesting ways. But enough theory.

'Farenheit 451' begins with an excerpt I can only guess is from a reading of the book itself. Then it kicks straight into life, a foot tapping bassline funking its way through and a wailing synth weaving on top of it. The vocals are really catchy - even though I don't know the lyrics, I have already found myself humming them. Why would anyone hum a bad song? Get me?

The second song, 'and the Moon be still as bright', is a more nocturnal affair, with ambient synths creeping along like liquid nitrogen across an old movie set. The bassline, as with the first song, is complex and funky, delivering the heart of the song in pure groove format. The band seem to be unable not to create a catchy tune, as everything about this one is just as catchy as the first. Vocals, synth melodies, ambient breakdowns - they're all perfect. And this one has handclaps, too. You have to be a mental human not to like this.

This indie band (indie in the full sense of the word and utterly DIY) actually have an album out at the moment called Station, for which they are also pressing their first vinyl LP, that you can listen to on their SoundCloud. Where to start? Just listen to all of it of you liked this. And all of their past stuff.

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MACGIBBON UTEE ONE

This is a lovely little song by new artist MacGibbon, released on LYWat Records. Called 'Utee One' it starts with some unintelligible samples of a bit of spoken word French. Combine this with a horde of stretching ambient noises that sound like some kind of floating machine sparking into life, and the inane, persistent blip that acts like a countdown till the perfectly crafted kick comes in, and you have an interesting start to a song.

A small break and it starts properly. A hovering, staccato synth comes in and out of focus as this sharp kick carries on thumping in time to a clean, meaty bassline. Slow electronic ambience at its best. The London-based MacGibbon may certainly be one to watch.

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Check out MacGibbon on SoundCloud (just one song, though more to come I'm sure)
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EGYPTIAN HIP HOP

I was going to go see these guys at Glastonbury, they were playing after Crystal Fighters at the West Oxylers stage in the Dance Field but for some reason or another I missed it.

This was on the Sunday when the sun was positively beating down on the festival, so to hear the funky Duran Duran meets Robert Smith at Club Tropicana rhythms of Egyptian Hip Hop song 'Moon Crooner' would've been perfect; the mud would've turned to sand before our very eyes, I'm sure:


The colours and weird haircuts of the video suggest that the 80s revivalist sentiment running through the music runs deeper. It sounds a little like Black Kids (remember them? "You are the girl...") with that funky bassline, which adds to the picnic-in-the-park synth popping in. There are also slices of Late Of The Pier in there, too, with that almost DIY, new-pop sound. The real phenomenon, though, is how singer Alex Hewett gets away sounding so much like Robert Smith. Surely there's some legality in sounding exactly like something else?

But then again, we can see it as one big homage. Their influences are "new wave/prog/pop circa 1979-1984", explaining the sound entirely. It's a fun sound, one I'm not sure for how long it'll stay interesting, but one that is piquing a lot of people's curiosity at the moment. Here's an interview with BBC Introducing... from early 2010 as EHH were about to embark on their first UK tour - all members at just 17 years old.

What's next from the Manc pop foursome? Who knows.

• Here's their Myspace for more music (I recommend 'Wild Human Child')
• And their regularly updated Facebook Page to get you interested

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