kidd widd

Damn, 2013 has been a great year for music so far!  So much good music has come out in the last 2 months I haven’t been able to keep up on the blog.  Below are my favorite new releases. I’ve been listening to these albums non-stop.  If you’re looking for some new tunes I highly recommend each of these records, good shit.

Deerhunter – Monomania

Flaming Lips – The Terror

James Blake – Overgrown

Kurt Vile – Walkin On a Pretty Daze

Rhye – Woman

Justin Timberlake – The 20/20 Experience

I’m going to regress back to an angsty crazy teenager on May 8th.  I got tickets to see Tyler, the Creator and Earl Sweatshirt at the Knitting Factory! If you don’t know Odd Future by now then you probably don’t listen to music.  The collective of musicians, artists, sketch comedians, photographers, designers, and skaters have achieved an amazing level of commercial success doing their own thing.  Tyler, the group’s ring leader, just released his third album, Wolf.  It is his most refined and accessible album yet.  You wouldn’t guess it from the hilarious album cover but the tracks on Wolf are mostly introspective and confessional but fun nonetheless.  As with all the music Tyler makes in Odd Future, the beats and production are fantastic.  Overall, Wolf is really a good album.  I can’t wait to see Tyler and Earl’s antics on stage next month!

Tyler, the Creator – Wolf    

Snoop Lion aka Snoop Dogg is releasing a new album, a reggae album, it’s called Reincarnated and comes out April 26th.  Snoop claims to have gone through a spiritual transformation, whether it’s real or just a gimmick who knows but its cool to see someone who came from a world of violence (he was acquitted of murder) using his fame to spread a message of non-violence.

I’m really excited for the album especially since it’s being produced by Diplo (Major Lazer). Diplo is a very talented genre melding tastemaker and this song is a perfect example of that. Millions will hear this song without realizing they are listening to a sample from a relatively obscure (and very good) band called Beirut.  The sample used for No Guns Allowed comes from the song Nantes, which on the album is introduced by a short instrumental called “A Call to Arms.”  I’m sure the connection is not coincidental.  Check out the sampled track below.

Vampire Weekend will be releasing its 3rd studio album, titled Modern Vampires of the City, later this spring.  The album drops May 6th but you can listen to the first two singles now.  I really like what Lindsay Zoladz had to say about Vampire Weekend over at Pitchfork -

“Vampire Weekend feel, uncannily, unstuck in time. If they were a movie they’d be the kind where it doesn’t occur to you until an hour in to ask yourself whether it’s set in the present day or the past; if they were four feet tall you could probably have an entire conversation without being sure if you were talking to a precocious child or an unusually small adult…They are either the youngest grandfathers or the oldest little brothers that modern genealogy allows.”

- I couldn’t agree more.  Check out the videos for “Step” and “Diane Young” below.

I went home this week to visit my family.  My brother (DJ AkbAr) also came home for a few days.  Here’s a little mix we cooked up while we were together.  Enjoy.

“Stop, let me get a good look at it
Ooh so thick, now I know why they call it a fatty”

Last week I got the new album by Thom Yorke led supergroup Atoms for Peace on vinyl.  The album is called AMOK and it is awesome!  First let me say that the artwork and packaging are incredible.  The triple gatefold debossed and foil stamped artwork looks and feels amazing.  The album is pressed on dead quiet 180gm vinyl and cut at 45rpm for the highest fidelity possible.  This has to be one of the best sounding records I own.  The album itself is fantastic.  Atoms for Peace have managed to take the often times stale digital sound of electronica and make it organic and palpable.  The upbeat yet groovy and texture filled songs of AMOK are so addictive.  I can’t help but spin this record again and again.

Atoms for Peace – AMOK

Bonus - Check out the equally amazing video for Ingenue below!

This week Beach House released a short film with live performances of 4 songs from their critically acclaimed 2012 album Bloom.  All I can say is wow!  All 4 performance are set in El Paso Texas and focus on the landscape, seemingly starting at dusk and ending at dawn.  This film is so good and so beautifully shot.  I’ve never seen “music videos” with visuals as cinematic as this.  Forever Still is breathtaking.

1. Wild
2. The Hours
3. Wishes
4. Irene

This video makes me happy!

James Blake has announced the follow up to his eponymous debut.  His new album Overgrown will be released April 8th on Republic Records.  Retrograde, the first single from Overgrown, premiered today on BBC Radio 1.  I can’t stop listening to this song.  It is nothing short of amazing.  Blake’s new album is (for me) the most anticipated album of the new year.  Check out the radio rip of Retrograde + an interview with James Blake about the single below.

Update: Download a higher quality non-radio rip of the single here.

Desaparecidos seem to be gearing up towards a full length release, at least I really hope so because Conor Oberst doesn’t appear to be holding back.  Head over to RollingStone to listen to two new Desaparecidos songs, Anonymous and The Left is Right.

Can’t live today off that minimum wage unless you sleep on the factory floor
If there is anything great left in this sorry state it was built on the backs of the poor
So we buy and we sell for your corporate cartel and we vote when the contestant sings
A mind-control mix for our obedience, strong sleep-aids and hard energy drinks
Cause Freedom is not free
Neither is apathy