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NPR films Blake’s recent Washington, DC concert.

On May 12, the UK troubadour performed a 90-minute concert at DC’s famed 9:30 Club. The entire show was recorded (in HD) by NPR, and you can watch it below. Blake treats the crowd to songs from his self-titled debut, this year’s Overgrown, and older favorites like ‘CMYK’.

Blake just finished his most recent tour of North America, and he will return later this year. Read our review of Overgrown, an album that FACT

You know how when lots of good things are happening to you all at once, you start to feel like it’s only a matter of time before you get hit by a train or something? That’s kind of how I feel right now. Not helping my sense of impending doom is the too-good-to-be-true news that Ernest Greene, aka Washed Out, is releasing a new album, Paracosm out August 13 via Sub Pop.

If the trailer is any indication of what the album’s going to be like, we’re looking at something straight-up paradisiacal. Chillwave without the chill, if you will. Though excellent and hypnotizing, most of 2011′s Within And Without made me feel like I was stuck in a perpetual shower of mist, due in part to the fact that the video for A Dedication plays like a documentary about doing laundry during a thunderstorm. Paracosm promises to be more expansive and experimental than Greene’s previous work, because he’s apparently using 50 different instruments on this album. That’s a lot, right? Someone ask Sufjan Stevens if that’s a lot. Also maybe ask Sufjan if I should start praying about this whole getting hit by a train thing. Take a look at the trailer for Paracosm, below.

The post Washed Out Releases Trailer for New Album, Paracosm appeared first on CMJ.

Fast-rising producer Ryan Hemsworth keeps the peal to the medal this afternoon with the release of Still Awake. The seven-track EP contains all new productions from the Canadian native, including the whimsical track “Perfectly”. Stream/download below.

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Hemsworth will be on the road all summer, with appearances scheduled at Forecastle Festival, Pitchfork Music Festival, and Hopscotch Music Festival, among many other festivals.

When Earl Sweatshirt invited weed-rap superstar Mac Miller to the stage at Low End Theory to perform a new song a few months ago, the combination seemed weird as fuck. But Miller gets better and more interesting all the time, and a recent FADER cover story revealed that he and Earl are actually really good friends. And today, we get to hear the studio version of “Guild,” the song they performed together. After the staggering “Chum” and the goofy Odd Future group effort “Whoa,” it’s the third complete song we’ve heard from Earl’s rabidly anticipated forthcoming album Doris, which still has no release date.

“Guild” is a clinic in blunted rappity-rap, with Earl and Mac, their voices distorted and pitched down, going in over a twinkling and low-key beat. And I wouldn’t have guessed this would ever happen, but Mac kind of beats Earl on this song? He’s at Myrtle Beach in a purple fleece in hotel lobbies playing Für Elise? He’s at a prop shot in Montauk throwing tomahawks at civilians? I mean, he does really well. Listen to the track at FADER.

Do believe the Hype.

As if out of nowhere, one half of Hype Williams (along with Dean Blunt) Inga Copeland today dropped the Higher Powers mixtape. The tape is dated from 2012, but while ‘Faith’ and ‘BMW’ did indeed surface last year, the other tracks are at least new to us.

It’s brief at a mere twenty minutes, but Copeland has packed Higher Powers with the kind of fuzzy, off-world goodness that has made Hype Williams so crucial in the last few years. Her collaboration with Scratcha DVA ‘A World In Danger III’ is a highlight, bringing the tape to a close with a skeletal ragga riddim and Copeland’s disembodied lullaby vocals.

Where are you, Fiona Apple? After a banner 2012, the singer-songwriter recently cancelled her only scheduled appearance for 2013, at Barcelona’s Primavera Sound festival; she also torpedoed a slew of South American tour dates late last year with no signs of rescheduling on the horizon.

Of course, we shouldn’t be surprised — disappearance is part and parcel of Apple’s career trajectory. Apple says she rarely ventures outside her Los Angeles home, except when visiting the L.A. club Largo, where she occasionally hops on stage with pal and resident performer Jon Brion. She doesn’t drive and claims there is no one she speaks to on a daily basis. She’s released only four albums in 17 years — 2012′s The Idler Wheel was her first in seven years; it was another six years between the prior one, Extraordinary Machine, and its predecessor, her second effort, When the Pawn …. She’s that especially rare public figure in the digital age — one who still cultivates an air of mystery and distance.

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by Andrew Sacher

Laurel Halo at Glasslands - 5/7/13 (via Impose)

Earlier this month (5/7), Brooklyn venue Glasslands hosted a great multi-genre bill as part of the Red Bull Music Academy NYC residency with sets from rappers Mykki Blanco and Le1f, arty electronic music from Laurel Halo, Crazy Bitch In A Cave, and Papercutz, and DJ sets from Venus X and Spank DJs. Did you go to that show? If so, how was it?

Red Bull Music Academy just posted a video of Mykki Blanco performing "Feeling Special" and Le1f performing "Wut" to their Youtube channel, and you can watch both videos below. You can also stream Venus X's set over at RBMA Radio.

"Feeling Special" appears on Mykki Blanco's new EP, Betty Rubble: The Initiation, which came out this week (5/21) via UNO. If you liked Mykki's debut mixtape, Cosmic Angel: The Illuminati Prince/ss, you'll likely be a fan of the new EP too. You can stream it in full at Pitchfork and listen to two of its tracks below.

Le1f also recently made a video for "Spa Day" off his Fly Zone mixtape. That video, and all other streams and videos below...

Continue reading "Mykki Blanco released a new EP, played Glasslands w/ Le1f, Laurel Halo & others (videos & EP stream)" at brooklynvegan

Rockists grudgingly admit a love for Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter. The Parisian duo paved a path for electronic dance music, once the bane of a traditional rockist’s oevure—and I use that lightly. Remember, while disco may be the snotty polyester-clad teenager in the history of popular music, rock is the grumpy father who fails to recognize that there was different, interesting music before him and that there will continue to be exciting new music after him. While in the ’70s “death to disco” was the honor cry of said rock ‘n’ roll set, Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories—a disco record through and through, right down to its falsettos, semiquavers and generous inclusion of disco guitar legend and Chic founder Nile Rodgers—is the most-buzzed album of the year from critics and fans alike. Hell, in a truly bizarre indicator of their universal appeal, even the Wall Street Journal published a lifestyle piece on the once D.I.Y. art of making a Daft Punk helmet.

As such, Random Access Memories opens with the upbeat “Give Life Back To Music,” an apt title for the introduction into to the band’s new turn and a soft open for anyone looking to relive the thumping glory of “One More Time” or “Da Funk.” And it’s a strong track, but still just a taste of what’s an hour or so down the guest-star laden road. The af...

With the video for Starlight Girls’ noise-pop track “7×3,” we learn that the best way to prep for battle is to take a big bite out of a tomato. Dressed in matching throwback dresses and plastic pearls, two girls take to a Brooklyn roof to sword fight while the Xiu Xiu-produced track plays. I won’t tell you how it ends, but my money was on the girl with the red tomato. Gotta get that lycopene from red fruits and vegetables, guys. Check out the video below.

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Both rappers are in fine form on the slowed-and-throwed track.

The studio version of ‘Guild’, a song that premiered earlier this year, has surfaced. Over a downcast beat punctuated by iPhone sound effects, Pittsburgh weed rapper Mac Miller and Odd Future’s most promising talent trade verses that are pitch-shifted beyond recognition.

Miller does his best impression of Earl’s stream-of-consciousness while Earl opts for a battle-ready rap that sounds more like something Tyler would drop. Stream the song below, via Pitchfork. Still no word on when Earl’s debut LP Doris will see release.