South Africa is Burning: Holy Spoeks

otomori — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 20:53:12 +0000

Spoek Mathambo

To call Spoek Mathambo colorful is an understatement, Mathombo’s a bag of skittles in a world full of marshmallows! If you haven’t heard about South Africa’s hottest MC cum designer cum DJ, you’d better recognize.

In South Africa’s Electro scene, you can’t so much as nod your head without catching sight or sound of Spoek Mathambo, the Sowetan Prince of Pop.

Mathombo has a hand in just about every hot electro group coming out of South Africa. He’s one half of the 80s rap party machine Playdoe, the dirty, sexy, cool-as-f*ck MC driving Sweat.X‘s electro mayhem and on top of that, also collaborating with Richard III in their funky Moleke Mbembe project.

I first heard Spoek on Sweat.X’s amazing “Cuckoo” Mini-Mixtape from early 2007, his rhymes, swagger and wit blew me away. I mean, you can listen about some dread-locked cartoon rapping about “Ladycops” or instead follow Spoek as he goes from “Soweto to the Mall to the Louvre” and commenting on everything from “Bulimic bitches wasting my money” to “Jewish Princesses” while hanging out backstage at his favorite designer’s runway show.

Spoek is the poster child of (to use his term) the Afrofuturists, a diverse group who defy definition and categorization (so forgive me for doing exactly that) – a new brand of Africans whose identities and influences go beyond race, social background and geographical borders and incorporate everything from Alexander McQueen, to raunchy ’90s rap and all that dirty, blippy electro you kids are so fond of.

Welcome to the Afrofuture.

[MP3]

Check out Spoek’s HIVIP DEZEMBA LIAZONZ MIX for a taste of what he’s doing and hit up his myspace for more music and tour dates with Sweat.X.

Also, check out Kaos Blanc’s interview with Moleke Mbembe (Spoek and Richard III’s project) that I liberally plagiarized.

South Africa’s Got Talent (Part 1).

otomori — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 20:53:19 +0000

Photo credit to Xander Ferreira aka Gazelle

Red Bull Music Academy had a little showcase in South Africa earlier this month, which brought out some of South Africa’s finest DJ’s, Producers and noisemakers to play shows, network and learn.

So it seems like a very good time to hype South Africa.

South Africa’s totally leading their own electro renaissance, acts like Sweat. X, Playdoe and Gazelle have attracted a lot of attention overseas, popping up on Big Stereo and attracting remixes/remix requests from Toxic Avenger, Purple Crush and Hydroz.

Odds are, you know a South African band/group (that’s not f’ing Seether) and if you don’t, by the end of next week, I’d have introduced you to some of South Africa’s finest.

Until then, feed your eyeballs and ears this amazing sh*t from Playdoe.

Have a good weekend.

Juice

p.s. Flashmen winners announced on Montah.

Gotta Love Dem Flashmen (Take II)

otomori — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 20:06:53 +0000

The Flashmen contest is technically over but we didn’t get the full onslaught of voicemails we’d have liked, so we’ve decided to do two things, extend the contest ’til Friday and lead by example.

The first is immediately in effect, the second is linked below and is St. Juice’s Flashmen Love Voicemail contribution. Hopefully this will spur off some of you anonymous people afraid to send something in.

love dem flashmen – St Juice

To leave us a voicemail call 646-402-5694 and hit extension 71793.

Don’t forget what you’re playing for.

MPM

p.s. Thanks to Jared over at Crush Central for giving us some love.

Gotta Love Dem Flashmen (Album Giveaway)

otomori — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:10:59 +0000

photo credit to ddephoto

Our good friends Flashmen have an excellent track out on the Crushed Records sampler that came out today. “Little Wildkat” is a sordid three-minutes of passionate vocals courtesy of Daniel E. over splashy synths and thunka-thunka bass, most def. guaranteed to overclock your local party!

MPM loves Flashmen and Crushed records so much that we’re giving away a copy of the sampler to the MPM reader who can prove they have the most love for Flashmen.

Call our voicemail drop at 646-402-5694 ext. 71793 and leave us a message communicating your intense Flashmen love.

The most creative entry judged by MPM writers wins a giftcard for the entire Crushed Records album sampler at Amazon.

The competition will run until next Tuesday 14 July.

Apart from Flashmen, there are 8 other golden tunes on the sampler from the likes of Purple Crush and Mike Genius.

So get creative, sing us a song, tell us a story about your first time with Flashmen, do a nasty rap, leave a poem. Anything.

We’re waiting…

Why don’t you head over to Flashmen central for ideas and free mp3′s?

MPM.

Weekend Mixtape (If it ain’t 8bit…)

otomori — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:00:55 +0000

Made this for Lori over at Get In The Van (from last week)

It’s a bunch of songs by St. Juice leaning more to the 8bit side of things. “8bit” is music made using gameboys, or any retro computer and video game hardware.

The mixtape is more “fake”-bit, it’s made using some of Tweakbench’s software instruments (VSTs) that emulate the sound of those wonderfully, shitty, evocative machines, so no real gameboys were harmed in the making of this mixtape…

Enjoy, this one clocks in at just over 12 minutes.

1212 by St. Juice.

Tracklist + More fake/8bit links

Intro
Girls on The Internet – St Juice
Michael Meets His Match – St Juice
Justine Beats the Odds – St Juice feat. Alex Minnette
Shine Again Reprise – St. Juice
Perfect Eye – St. Juice

Bonus:

Best 8bit on the internet:

Nullsleep (label head/artist on 8bitpeoples)

Depreciation Guild

Coova and Bud Melvin (you’d be amazed how good bango and gameboys sound together)

Anything on 8bitpeoples

Anything on micromusic.net‘s top 100.

Best fakebit party machines on the internet:

Crystal Castles

Partyshank

You Love Her Coz She’s Dead

What’s Your Favorite Musician(‘s used glass dildo) worth to you?

otomori — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 10:40:03 +0000

True Fanzzz!

Tell me, if you had $$$ and unrestricted access to your favorite artist, what would you claim? Bjork’s bath water? Thom Yorke’s Baby Teeth? Trent Reznor’s ego? Phil Spector’s wigs?

How about Amanda Palmer (from the Dresden Dolls)’ dildo?

To paraphrase Palmer, “F*ck my label…wah wah wah…Artists rights…blah blah blah…web 2.0 yadda yadda yadda”.

Earlier this week, the twitternets were all aglow after Amanda Palmer (of the Dresden Dolls) made $19,000 from her fans in only ten hours proving, she says, that artists can break from their labels.

The real hero who emerges through all this is Liz B, who bought Amanda Palmer’s (autographed?) glass dildo for $560…

The internet seems to have brought musicians and fans together in a truly glorious way. Long live web2.0!

Read the full story here or here.

I pose the question to you again. If you had $$$ and unrestricted access to your favorite musician, what would you claim? Please reply in the comment section.

“skanky no” to “sexy pro” in 30 mins

otomori — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 11:08:54 +0000

Lori Samsel’s exercise video “Get in the Van” is the best thing I’ve heard of in a long time. Imagine Jane Fonda doing leg raises. Now imagine her doing them in time to cracked-out, blipped-out electro blaring out of a gameboy-shaped boombox. Now imagine her in outer space, on a pirate ship, under the sea and all over the universe!

Intriguing, isn’t it?

Check out the trailer, prepare your eyeballs for artfully-done, green-screen madness and a cast of colorful puppet characters. Prepare your ears for lo-fi, yet undeniably dancable music from the likes of Twilight Electric, an artist on the awesome 8BitPeoples netlabel, Desert Planet, Lori herself and many more awesome Chiptune artists. Finally, prepare to Puyo Puyo your way through the best half hour of your life! (not counting the time you downloaded Dj mHo’s Seduction mixtape and listened to it twice back-to-back)

The video can be purchased at Lori’s website or at micromusic.net, if you’re looking for a fun way to whip that dip into shape or simply curious about the wonderful world of Chiptunes!

Twilight Electric’s most recent release can be downloaded from the 8BitPeoples website for FREE!!! ( along with 99 other albums from talented chiptune artist, including one from Kitsune/Blog House favorite David Sugar)

Synthpop can’t be stopped

electropopwhore — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 21:38:57 +0000

La Roux, The red haired one, the red headed girl with a wacky hairdo but whatever nicknames you’ve got for her it seems like she’s blowin’ up this year. My first encounter with La Roux was on the Kitsune Compilation 6 with the song “Quicksand” which quickly became one of my favorites from that album. After continuously playing the Kitsune comp I moved onto bigger and better things and almost forgot about La Roux until I heard remixes from The Twelves, Lifelike, and Foamo. This prompted me to delve farther into the biography of La Roux and take a gander and some more of her singles. Ladies and gents, it appears that she’ll be releasing her debut album on June 29th of this year!

I’ve added a couple links so you can get a taste of this yummy brit electropop.

La Roux – In For the Kill (The Twelves remix)

La Roux – Quicksand

La Roux – Bulletproof (Foamo Dubstep remix)

I call your Kavinsky and raise you a La Roux!

Please Bear With Us.

otomori — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 09:20:41 +0000

Gloomy bear vs. hosting company.

My Pleasure Miss and Gloomy Bear wanted to apologize for any broken links on the site, our mp3 host seemingly went out of business over the weekend!

But don’t blame them, don’t blame us either.

If you have to blame someone, “Blame It on the Boogie” in 320kbs courtesy of drop.io (for the time being).

“Blame It on The Boogie” – Jackson 5

MPM

Children + Boney M = 100% Italodisco Banger?!!!

otomori — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 08:18:32 +0000

(Click for Video)

What happens when you unleash Boney M on a bunch of cute kids?

Pure Electro Magic.

I recently picked up a CD of Italodisco hits in the bargain bin section of the internet and my favorite song by far is “Happy Song” by Baby’s Gang. This song was a number one hit in Europe twice! The first time in 1983 for Baby’s Gang in their native Italy, the second time as a cover by Boney M the following year.

Information on Baby’s Gang is scant on the internet, sources say they were on Memory Records, a minorly succesful Italo-disco label. But if Italodisco means nothing to you, think of Baby’s Gang as:

(Justice’s D.A.N.C.E. – Michael Jackson) x (Outrunners + Kavinsky + Muscles)

Which should equal EPIC in anyone’s book.

A truly happy song for the weekend.

Here is the “Extended Dancefloor Version” in 320 for you DJ’s/mp3 hustlers, I guarantee it will bring the heat at your local party.

Baby’s Gang – Happy Song

Bonus Sh*t:

More Baby’s Gang mp3 goodies at discoworkout and 20JazzFunkGreats.