The BBC's Zane Lowe just gave a first airing of a remix of Florence + The Machine's new single Shake It Out by Toronto R'n'B producer The Weeknd. The original's wide-eyed optimism is replaced with a certain anxiety and the remixer's charateristic murky, nocturnal quality, which fans of the Weeknd's album House of Balloons will recognise immediately. Check out the radio rip below.
Toronto group The Weeknd have generated a lot of hype with their free mixtape 'House of Balloons' which charts the tricky waters between Burial's nocturnal atmospheres and a sinister kind of R. Kelly sleaze but the results are compelling.
The Roots have teamed up with John Legend to release 'Wake Up', an album of soulful covers from the 60s and 70s, including one of my all time favourite funk-soul tracks, 'Hard Times' by Baby Huey. The Roots are one of the tightest bands around and here they manage to rework the track with even more tension and urgency than the original.
Glasser is the alias of LA-based Cameron Mesirow and her laptop copy of GarageBand. Her debut album Ring is out tomorrow and is generating lots of attention for its' rich, multi-textural sound and the dramatic atmospheres she creates. At times stark and gothic, tribal and elemental, comparisons to School of Seven Bells, Telepathe and Homogenic-era Bjork are deserved if insufficient.
If you've been enjoying the feel-good, lo-fi sounds of Neon Indian or Memory Tapes or even The Avalanches (any sign of a comeback, lads?) then you'll surely dig this. Javelin tick all the right boxes for success in 2010. Obsessive record diggers? Tick. Signed to a cool label? Tick. Collage-style artwork? Tick. From Brooklyn? Tick. They're currently supporting Yeasayer on their UK tour and finally get round to dropping their debut album No Mas on the 20th of April.
Most people should be familiar with his name by now, but Deadmau5 has been creating a bit of a stir in the dance music world over the last year or so. He's already had one very solid minimal electronic album, but I can only really recommend it to those who are into their instrumental dance music - if you like Booka Shade, you'll love it.
This song was officially released last week, but has had a lot of airplay on Radio 1 in the UK since Pete Tong showcased it first back in July. The track is called 'Ghosts 'n' Stuff' and features Pendulum frontman Rob Swire on vocals. You can really hear massive improvements in Deadmau5's production skills on this track, which no doubt means there is much more work to come from him. I wasn't aware that Mr. Swire was such an accomplished singer - do I detect the use of auto-tune? T-Pain and Cher would be proud...
Check out Deadmau5's slick website here. Buy his music here.
Deadmau5 ft Rob Swire - Ghosts 'n' Stuff [Click on link and follow download insturctions]
So the blog has been lying idle for longer than I dare admit but it's back! The long, wet days of this summer have given me ample time for the vast amount of new music 2009 has given us so far. One act that I've had my eye on recently is Sweden's Miike Snow. I was introduced to the gleeful, marching electro-pop of their single 'Animal' a couple of month's back. This was followed about 8 weeks ago by the release of their debut, self-titled album which is an exciting, if patchy, affair.
Cut Copy are a band from Melbourne, Australia that i've been into for a few years. Their last album 'Bright Like Neon Love' was a mix of shimmering electro, house and indie with bitter-sweet vocals from frontman Dan Whitford that really deserved a wider audience.
It's Ri-Ra's 14th birthday this week and they've got Tim Goldsworthy and Tim Sweeney flying in from New York for the celebrations on friday night. Goldsworthy has popped up in lots of places over the years. He was drummer in U.N.K.L.E., co-founded the Mo' Wax label, was in LCD Soundsystem with James Murphy and now together they are DFA, a much sought-after production team and record label. He has also produced albums for The Rapture, David Holmes and Cut Copy. 
Late Of the Pier are a band from Nottingham that have been turning one or two heads over the last year. They've only released a handful of tracks but each one i've heard has been damn good. On the face of things the world probably doesn't need another UK indie band with a keyboard player making 'dance-rock' but Late Of The Pier have enough eclectic influences and tight production to stand well above chancers like the Klaxons or Shitdisco.
Anyone lucky enough to be at Whelan's in Dublin on the 13th of december is gonna get an ear full of the force of nature that is Gregg Gillis aka Girl Talk. Every picture i've seen makes his live shows look like the most fun place to be on planet earth. Just put 'girl talk' into google images and you'll see what i mean. Like a good house party just seconds before the police get there. Thanks to Nialler9 for the tip off as this gig had completely crept under my radar.
Some new material here from one of Ireland's finest acts. Jape has been on a steady rise since the slow-burning success of the blissful 'Floating' and it's great to see he's able to keep churning out interesting stuff. Jape has just polished off his second album and before it's ready for release he's giving us the 'Jape Is Grape' EP. It features 'Floating' and a handful of remixes (though not the excellent Prins Thomas mix) plus two new tracks so it's more of a prelude to the album than anything else.