Brasky.org is proud to present Bedroom Beats, the first installment of Florida Indoors, a free compilation series setting out to showcase creative electronic music around Florida. Our inaugural mix proudly serves up 19 tracks from artists living in or originating from Florida. Some of these tracks are being released for the first time. Headlining the compilation are nationally recognized artists Machinedrum (originally from Orlando area) and MillionYoung, Miami’s chillwave maven.
For the last 9 months we have been working with artists and labels with the aim of properly representing the beats scene around Florida. We organized the compilation into 3 “sides” that we hope conjure images and feelings tied to life in Florida:
Tracklist:
SIDE A (Morning of the Launch)
1. A Scissors – Approaching Sunlight
2. Chromatic Flights – Direct to Whatever
3. Shamantis – Sky Lotus Blossom
4. Dark Sea of Awareness – Surround
5. Diamond Man – Wafers
6. Alien House – Sifter/Water Moccasin
SIDE B (90 in December, 1993)
7. Machinedrum – 911
8. MillionYoung – Forerunner
9. Navigateur – River of Light
10. Sumsun – Wind Stone
11. Luminary Youth – Darjeeling Temptress
12. C85 – Love Takes Time
13. Panther God – Foliage (ft. Miranda Rae)
14. Off Balance Atlas – Blue (One for Joni)
SIDE C (Tropical Disturbance)
15. Kalx – Jack Richter
16. Sea Things – I’m Real
17. Xanadu Kudzu – The Part Where You Run Away
18. Young Egypt – Faraday Cage
19. MissingNo. – IDX
Here are some recent album covers–notice anything unusual?
Unless you have that rare recognition disorder that plagued Dudley from The Royal Tenenbaums, you have probably noticed a lot of similarity here. 45 degree angles, convergence to a vanishing point, natural horizons, collaging, natural images used as fills between lines, some color coincidence… Pick any two and you can find a remarkable amount of similarities (even the first and last – mostly dissimilar, but nearly identical dusk backgrounds).
Update – Carlos (aka Navigateur) found another one (my alarm is almost real at this point):
Double Rainbow?
Being the average American idiot, I assumed it all had to mean something. So I decided to investigate patterns between the album titles, putting on my best Da Vinci Code paranoia complex:
Painted Palms – Canopy EP (2011)
Tame Impala – Innerspeaker (2010)
Ladytron – White Elephant (2011)
Goose – Synrise (2011)
Hushpuppies – The Bipolar Drift (2011)
Datahowler – Live (DJ set) (2011) – reader submitted, 9-22
“Painted Palms” contains all the letters in “Tame Impala”. Also….
Also….
Shit.
I’m at a dead end. But like any unfounded belief, if we combine efforts and keep looking, we’ll find evidence of what we assumed to be true. So, help! I’d be interested to see if anyone can find more album artwork that seems to fit into this phenomenon.
Regardless of the absence of any substantial coincidences, there’s a VERY good chance that my observations correlate with the imminent enslavement or extermination of mankind.
Circuitree Records (Miami) is back with another compilation, this being the second volume in their 4-part Universus Series.
Universus Vol. II serves up some Florida talent alongside international producers Ak Kids, and yes, a collaboration between Warp alumni Luke Vibert and Jimmy Edgar. The compilation comes out on September 24th, but you can get some early sample action:
Universus Vol. II
CIRC025
Release Date: September 24th, 2011
Tracklist:
1. Sleepover – JP’s Glasso Remix
2. Panther God – Brokknee
3. RBTS WIN – Pom Pom Girls
4. Miranda Rae ft. Peripheral – White Noise
5. Ak Kids – Albino Egg
6. TFPP – I Want To Smoke Your Hair (Miracle Cat Rmx)
7. Luke Vibert / Jimmy Edgar – Disco (bonus track)
Friend-of-the-blog and future mixtape contributor Panther God joins (recently featured) Wake on the 3rd edition of Proximal Records’ “Beat Stew” series. The compilation, which includes West Coast heavy-hitters Matthewdavid (Brainfeeder) and Devonwho (All City), is being offered up for free download.
Fall Funk and Mr. Neuf are the Panther God and Wake tracks, respectively:
Sumsun is West Palm Beach’s Judson Rogers, who will be included with 17 other Florida musicians in Brasky’s upcoming compilation, Florida Indoors, Vol 1: Bedroom Beats, coming soon (booyeah!).
Here’s a peek at his new video for “Windstone”, a swirling sea of ambiance and rhythm (and a fine example of the Florida summertime vibe we set out to capture with Bedroom Beats)
As many of you know, Brasky hosted our first annual BRASKYCon meetup this past weekend. We chose the Postcard Inn on St. Pete Beach and reserved a handful of rooms for 2 nights. We had a total of 22 attendees if you don’t count the millions tuning in from around the world. Most were present when we held our award ceremony, featuring a bunch of semi-absurd awards and superlatives. The video below shows the impromptu “ceremony” in our cozy master suite on night #1:
The frames from the main slideshow aren’t visible in most cases, so we suggest you download the official powerpoint doc and follow along:
Again, this was just night #1. The remainder of our weekend was filled with summer sun gayness, spontaneous displays of braskiness, and late night excursions into the Gulf. We’ll definitely be doing this again next year, so start thinking about your excuses now.
Introducing TFPP, immediate front-runners for 2011′s Album Name of the Year.
Their new EP, Chill Crosby II: Rave to the Grave (released on Circuitree), is a 6-track collage of vocal-centric electronic grooves and dance hall miscellany. In their R&B moments they call to mind another famous electronic duo, the Junior Boys. Other tracks roll out semi-melodic rap verses in the avant garde style of Why? and Beck.
The influences of TFPP would appear to be vast and eclectic, creating a refreshingly unique EP that still demonstrates awareness of style trends in the world of lo-fi synth music. Support Florida music and give them a spin, starting with this hip-hop flavored heater, “I Love 80 BPM”:
You know that one show from last year that you hear your friends constantly recalling? The one you missed because you were trying to finish season 2 of (whatever)? Or maybe you missed it because Brasky.org wasn’t around to shout at you (“DUDE, GO. CHICKS.”). Well, as you probably guessed, I’m purporting next Wednesday’s lineup as one of those shows.
This was created on supercomputers running CS5
What we have here is an unlikely blend of 3 artists that are red-hot in their respective genres, creating what might be the most interesting lineup we’ve seen in Tampa in 2011.
Originally based in LA, this group of beatmakers are largely credited as the fathers of “glitch hop” (in the sense of the genre that most maintain lately, for better or for worse). The Glitch Mob’s on-stage performance calls to mind the lost hope of theatrical electronic shows once promised by the Chemical Brothers some time in the mid-90s. Individually, ediT, Boreta, and Ooah have each been generating visibility for solo work and other collabs, and for this reason it’s reasonable to believe this could be their last joint tour. Reminder: I’m not a journalist and I’m talking out of my ass. But seriously, you heard it here first.
Phantogram
We praised this duo so hard they probably have a restraining order on us. Their from-nowhere album, Eyelid Movies, is still a popular repeater on the Brasky jukebox. Fans of mellower indie stuff may enjoy some reprieve from the night’s onslaught of electronic laser battles, but don’t underestimate the horsepower Phantogram brings to their live sets.
Com Truise
This dude’s been blowing up the blog scene (…”blog scene”?) with retro futuristic beats that surf on big, polished synths. Com Truise’s tunes have an uncanny tendency to feel like the theme of some situation from the 1980s–not because of deliberate nostalgia tactics (e.g. using notorious presets from old hardware), but because it’s just the essence of his music. Listen to it; you’ll get what I mean.
Top to bottom, this in intriguing night in the making. If all goes as expected, your friends will be talking about this show around this time next year. By then Glitch Mob’s members will be busy with shitty reality TV shows, Phantogram will be on the Rolling Stone, and Com Truise will be discreetly photographed handing a spliff to Thom Yorke in a kitchy recording studio. And when that “remember when” discussion comes up, hopefully this time you’ll be able to say you were there, too, jackassing it up with PBR-amped utterances and an obnoxious catalog of camera phone pictures to prove you were cool in 2011.
Universus Vol. 1
CIRC014
Released: June 14th, 2011
Tracklist:
1. Misel Quitno – Im Halbhohen Gras (Caural Remix) – Download
2. Take – Generation Gap
3. Peripheral – Ratrace
4. Sun Room Generator – Abduction
Circuitree has handed us Caural’s track for free download (below). As the press kit aptly describes it, “this is one for the jazz heads and glitch hoppers alike”.
In a city where every coffee shop barista and/or free lancing twenty-something has started a psych/dream/pop “band”, Matt & Kim have been fixtures in the Brooklyn scene for years, winning over both music elitists and casual listeners. It’s hard not to like a duo that seems to have as much fun making and performing music as their fans have listening to it. In a time when sometimes hard-to-enjoy-live music dominates the playlists of indie-savvy listeners, Matt & Kim is the kind of show you go to because it will be fun and not just because the lure of the “scene”.
The Thermals
Much of the preceding also could be lauded on the Thermals. Traveling from Portland, the Thermals bring pop energy to punky tunes driven by the vitriolic cries of Hutch Harris. Hutch is truly one of my favorite vocalists over the last 5 years, finding the right blend of whim, anger, and well-chosen words to rage against religion, conservative America, and all that bullshit that serves to divide. Despite tackling a variety of heavy topics with genuine frustration, the Thermals ultimately take all of it with a grain (pillar?) of salt in favor of having fun, making them another great band to go see.
