Ghostly International just released a free instrumental hip hop EP by Brooklyn’s own Mux Mool called Viking Funeral. It’s a promo of his also recently released single, Lady Linda, which iteslf is a promo of Mool’s upcoming full length, Skulltaste. (Did we even get all that right?)

The track featured here, from the EP, is a good example of the disco downbeat popular with Brooklyn beatmakers like homeboy, Eliot Lipp and Machinedrum. It’s full glittering melodies, fuzzy bass and a doors of perception keyboard solo. With full bravado, the rhythm hits the beat at the very last possible chance.

But the star of them all is “Hog Knuckles“, the B side on the single, with its meticulously layered melodies and richness of composition. Stuttering, chopped and repurposed guitar melodies lay the foundation on top of a wonky, wavering beat of clacking percussion and hollowed out bass kicks. Synths uttering melodic nonsensical computer speak and crushed keyboards flesh the rest out. Overall, it gives the impression that the song was the last drops of music squeezed out of a pile of discarded, yet recently valuable hardware. That’s the one you gotta buy. “Lady Linda”’s sputnik satellite styles and latch clasping percussion are actually available for free at RCRDLBL. Also, in case you missed it, Mux Mool’s most recent Moongadget effort “NAFE” was pretty good, so cop that too. (Photo by Tuftsmania.)

We first heard this joint a few months back on a mix at Eddie STATS‘ blog, and have been drooling over it ever since. It’s a Sizzla refix, featuring a beat by Damon Alexander called the “String Dub Riddim”. Eventually, it’ll feature the vocals of Miss Cherry, but he just couldn’t wait to let people hear it, so he laced the Sizzla lyrics over it, and BOOM, here we are. Up for freeload! Together, Damon and Cherry are called De Tropix. Warp Records has offered them a deal, and they’re currently trying to negotiate the details. “Either way,” he says, “we’ll still be doing tunes, so whatever happens it’s all about the music.” You might remember the De Tropix “So Blessed” blend? Well that riddim is about to get mixed down with original lyrics by Cherry and Natalie Storm. (Image by Mickey Duzyj.)

Chip Chop drops a new EP on Tuesday called Launch Blank. This is lazer bass fueled boom bap that uses an almost entirely electronic and heavy sound palette. It’s like digital woodshop, where the deep whir of engines fill the space, buzzsaw bass slices chip boards to the perfect shape, and nail gun drum pads hold everything in place. A mist of glitchy sawdust hangs in the air. The textures of this album are likely to take on a larger than life presence in the club, but there’s enough layers, warmth and progressiveness to keep it interesting during headphone listening, too. We streamed the neck-breaking title track “Launch Blank” a while back when it was featured on the Motion Sickness mixtape. But their label, Run Riot Records, recently released it for free download as a promo, so here it is again. (The gold-toothed, cancerous HTML character featured on the cover fits the sound of the EP perfectly.)

Since we just mentioned Metabeats, we’ll use that as a nice segue into some jump tempo stylees. (It’s a smooth wrench thrown into the downbeat theme that’s we’ve been keeping around here pretty consistently as of late.) When Meta transforms into his alter-ego Chesus, he partners with Rodski (and Tony Blitz and J.D. Stroud, sorry) to become C.R.S.T., where they deliver steady club bangers. The UK Funky joint we’re posting here is called “Mighty” and it refuses to stay put. From the 2 minute to 4 minute mark alone, the beat changes up three times and new percussion, samples and polyrhythms are added every few bars. Dancefloors, we still love you. Artwork by Bodacious B via TheMovementsMoving.

It’s nice to hear an all original track with a Brooklyn rapper spitting over a subs-filled beat. Elucid collaborated with British producer Metabeats, AKA Chesus, to create this intergalactic joint called “Whirlwind Through Cities”. Elucid’s previously shown his affinity for bass music by spitting over the beats of Joker, Kode 9, 77Klash, and others on his mixtapes. Why reuse an acapella everybody’s heard countless times? Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but there’s such a large well of fresh vocal talent within our shores and we’d like to see more exposure for up and coming artists. (No disrespect to all the toasters out here - you know y’all keep killin’ it.) Emcess on the hip hop circuit seem to be more open to this type of collabo in other parts of the country. Like the West Coast, probably due to the whole Wonky thing. And presumably Atlanta, since the beats down there are more electronic oriented to begin with. Photo by Ian Fox.

Heinali’s diverse mix of self produced music, loosely tethered together by dubstep, is so deep it resides underground the lowest layers of the ocean. The variety of rhythms, eclectic percussive choices, and scope of instrumentation are evident in the ever changing stalagmite soundwave that floats by so swiftly. The warm basslines powering this trip ripple in the underwater river. An infusion of organic elements in the sound palette glows in the background with an otherworldliness. The second half of this mix is our favorite, but standout cuts are “Blame You”, “Spivanochka” and “Ghost of a Chance“. You can download most of this mix for free at his bandcamp page. He also composes contemporary classical music, and makes a blend of electronic and classical music called classitronic. (Photo by Ian Sewell).

Emancipator, who’s been featured from time to time on this blog over the last few years, has a new album dropping this Tuesday called Safe In The Steep Cliffs.

It’s a hazy panorama of bucolic dreamscapes traversed with lazy-day tempos. The most impressive part is the obvious care and attention paid to the percussion throughout every song. Emancipator offers a vast selection of richly layered drums. Not only are they dynamic and full of depth, but they’re substantive in composition with interesting meters, numerous polyrhythms and more. As for the melodic elements, he presents a looped style of live instrumentation, but rarely allows them to linger long enough to outstay their welcome.

Overall, the album is comprised of a folksy, organic sound palette, sparking visions of rolling plains and pine tree canopies. You might refer to it as heartland trip hop.

The effort is a well defined improvement over his first release, Soon It Will Be Cold Enough. That album shared many elements with Cliffs, such as its pace, foundation of instruments, and atmosphere. But it was hard to distinguish one song from another. Steep Cliffs solves this by adding a significant stock of new sounds and instruments to differentiate each track. Occasionally that means it slips into the loungey wing of downtempo and even touches on the fringes of smooth jazz. But on the whole, it serves to utilize more colors from the spectrum.

The beauty of much of this album comes in the details. With each listen, something new is there to be found within it’s subtle depths. But that may be missed by a lot of listeners, given its relaxed pace. It doesn’t demand the listener’s attention, allowing them to tune in whenever they feel like it. The tracks also sometimes break off into spacey ambiance where thoughts roam wild, breaking concentration on the details.

But those breakdowns are exemplary of why some of the tracks are so good. They are the valleys of a diverse landscape that also features rolling plains and steep cliffs.

You might have heard tracks off the album on some of our previous mixes. Title track “Safe In The Steep Cliffs” was on the Downbeat Treaty and “Ares” on Dourbeat (both of these tracks remain the CS picks of Steep Cliffs). He recently posted “Cliffs” for free download, so grab that below. Painting by Frederick Edwin Church.

DOWNLOAD

A collection of mostly unreleased and new bass music from New York. From dubstep and dub to boom bap and garage. This mix is not comprehensive, it’s more of a snapshot. There’s quite a few more artists we’re really feelin’ out here.

Nate Mars — “Horizon feat. Juakali” (unreleased)
Soroka — “Uncrushable” (unreleased)
Jahdan Blakkamoore — “The General (Ticklah RMX)” [buy it]
Goonda — “Fearless (KRTS RMX)” [buy it]
Radiohead — “I Might Be Wrong (Slouch RMX)”
Mike Slott — “Gardening” [buy it]
Nebulla + Chromatik — “Slowburn” [buy it]
Sepalcure — “Feeling That I Know So Well” (unreleased)
TK Wonder — “Nightwalker” [buy it]
Yellowtail — “Mongoose” [buy it]
Zack Hagan — “rm1x 8-99″ (unreleased)
Mikey Dubs — “Kerala”
Dave Sharma — “How To Move” (unreleased)
Incyde — “I Know” (unreleased)

Original cover photo by Yeshvir Daamineni.

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A woeful piano leads in full anticipation of the crushing industrial glitch that hammers down a foundation of beat on top of it. Then a slashing violin loop emerges, wailing for lost nature. In the cold space left, a more nuanced melody is introduced, evoking a better articulated loss, which quickly disappears within the frantic cold modern industry of the beat. But a stronger bass finds a voice to keep its spirit alive, providing a prop for the eventual reintroduction of eloquent melody. It gradually grows in courage, crescendoing into an urgent pace and tone, replacing the loop and it’s intensity. Ultimately, it becomes a parrot of itself, and the mad loop reemerges for the ending. Cop the rest of Olafur Arnald’s EP, Dyad 1909, at Erased Tapes. We also recommend “Vio vorum sma… (Dyad 1909 version)”, which is a piano solo. Painting by Carlos Tarrats. (And check our runner up choice for illustration.)

Eye candy. Starring a surreal sepia New York and a burning piano. By Jeff Desom. (via Caslon Projects)