Taking it out of its original afrobeat context, Mopse places Femi Kuti‘s “You Better Ask Yourself” into a dubwise hip hop setting. His remix is structured around a prominent boom bap base, hypnotic horn stabs, and rhythmic bass. Kuti’s lyrics were clearly the star of the original, and the instrumentation there was pretty much a frame for his singing to be presented within. But the vocals in the French producer’s mix are part of a more egalitarian arrangement: they’re edited to be more clearly tied to the beat, and the compositional progression doesn’t wither in their presence. These lyrics refer to the “resource curse,” in which countries with abundant natural resources so often fail to prevail economically. (For a recent and extreme example of this curse, take the bloodshed caused by the discovery of diamonds in Zimbabwe.) The further expansion of resource exploration into the developing world makes the question increasingly urgent.

Kuti held a remix contest for “Ask Yourself” last year, but this Mopse mix didn’t get any recognition. (The winning remix was very good, though.) He was, however, recently one of the six winners of the Tremor remix contest we mentioned a while back. That remix – a smokey headnodder with some healthy melodic goodness – is due to be released in the next couple months. (Photo of Mopse by Sebastien Pons.)

Triumphant, ravey synths soar with melodic intricacies over a half step beat and warm basslines on “Olive,” produced by a 17-year-old Staten Islander named Deadstock Mind. Dude may be a youngblood, but he knows his club music history and he’s definitely built up some production skills since he started five years ago, as evidenced by this here joint. “Olive” was apparently inspired by a track from the ’90s by a group with the same name, and the synths are a recreation from that tune (fixed). The first and second half of this song are pretty similar, and we’re more partial to the second part. There’s no waiting for the build up, the melody is longer, the quick high-hats stay present throughout (keeping the pace up), and the modulating synth from the intro is integrated with the rest of the elements. This was supposed to be included on our NYght Out mix, but he wanted to clean it up first. Well worth the wait. Peep Deadstock’s Tumblr blog to see what he’s diggin’ right now. (Art installation by Duvier Del Dago via i am.)

Bangin’ new augmented light sculpture by Grosse8 and Lichtfront. Projectors shed light onto this wooden sculpture, making it come alive with color. Set to a nasty beat by Jon Hopkins, who we will keep our eye on from now on. (via Core77).

The sounds of manufacturing equipment used for percussion, growling bass lines and warning sirens present “Llantera” as a menacing and pounding environment, while the Mexican horns and accordions add a local context. Its big, obese sounds lumber about with a midtempo swagger while keeping a driving, persistent rhythm. And the horns, accordions and synths are also quite urgent, even militant at points. This song is planned for Clorofila‘s upcoming solo full length debut. The Mexican producer is one-quarter of the Nortec Collective, which was founded as a way to blend Norteño and Tambora music – which are indigenous to the North of Mexico – with electronic music. (Photo by Me Bob and Surly.)

Take a nice Busy Signal acapella, flip it on the soca tip, add some dub basslines and BOOM, you got Roma Soca! Italian producer Ion the Last Don grabs this “Picante” track, hypes it up and makes it even sillier, all while keeping it deeper than your average soca riddim with the unusual addition of a touch of bass weight. It clocks in at a short two minutes, but stays switching it up duing that short span. (Side note – for those tracks that simply repeat themselves rather than keeping it brief, you can choose where to automatically start and stop a song on iTunes. Just right-click/control-click the song, click Get Info, and go into the options tab.) Ion is a soca fiend and has a huge collection of mixtapes on his MySpace. Peep his Facebook to keep up with his riddims. (Photo by Inharris.)

Next week, deep sub diver Scuba drops his depth charged new album, Triangulation. Dude is always someone to watch, so we definitely kept the release on our radar. With this LP, the Hotflush label boss seems to be trying to break away from the reputation he’s garnered for combining techno and dubstep, as a good number of these tracks explore old school electronic sound palettes. But there’s a reason he built up the techstep rep – because he’s so good at it. A bulk of the songs stick to this effective combination of techy polyrhythms, thorough syncopation and dubbed out soundscapes.

The man kills it best when focusing on rhythm and drums, and “Lights Out” is the prime example of that on Triangulation. It’s got a rich percussive palette, and is dimensional in the sense that there’s deep lows, broad slides, close highs and a lot going on in between. Another track that stands out is “You Got Me,” which is featured below and was already released on Scuba’s recent mix CD Sub:Stance. It delivers on his usual driving beat and hypnotic elements, but also offers up a nice organ loop layered over a matching bass pattern which is accented by a variety of mysterious bleeding touches. And even though it’s quite sparse compositionally, “Latch” is also a bright point, due to its cool, smokey environment and fuzzy, dense bubbles.

To hear Scuba himself discuss where he’s at musically these days, Laurent Fintoni has a good Q&A with him on Spannered. (Photo by Timo Stammberger.)

Floating dust glistens in the glow of scratchy funk as the needle glides along this Mexican Institute Of Sound downbeat remix. Lo-fi accordions rock alongside analog basslines and woody planks add a bit extra to the drum-kit beat, which basically keeps an energetic loop throughout, although it throws in some switch ups here and there. A dark piano and some turntablism take over for the somber ending. This was apparently dude’s first remix, with an assist from the man himself, Toy Selectah. Generation Bass, which can’t seem to get enough of the Institute, got to this before us. (Photo by Richard Gin.)

This is a big, drum oriented dubstep track that stays dark while avoiding any semblance of wobble or fist-smack drum hits. It’s hard and driven with a few layers of percussion and a couple simple loops each using different sounds. Atmospheric howls and rudeboy samples keep it haunted. Similar to other tracks in this vein (like those by Jack Sparrow or RSD), the melodic loops are on the computer rock tip. While we would probably take a different sonic route on that point, we’re certainly not complaining. Monky – who very recently shortened his name from Monkey – represents Cardiff, the capital of Wales. To show love for the scene, he recently put together a megamix for his boys at Chrome Kids of all Welsh bass, which was aired on BBC 1Xtra. It’s a hectic ensemble of over 25 songs covered in 20 minutes. Monky has also been a resident at a local bass party over there called Neuropol since it’s early days. If you’re diggin’ this track, also peep “Drivin’ Handjob” and “Never Knew“. (Photo by CarlaandMike.)

A moody hip hop cut like this sounds like it could have come straight out the late ’90s underground. But 20-year-old producer Bagir wouldn’t even have been ten by that point. His smokey beat on “Babylonian Nights” is comprised of a jazzy instrumentation flipped on the mysterious tip, all surreal and dangerous. Meanwhile, Toronto’s Sense I matches that with a picturesque, streetlamp-lit tale full of dense rhymes, a smooth voice and a chill delivery. If dudes like this were in the spotlight more often, maybe backpacking would never have become a dirty word.

The song is part of an unfinished album from 2007. We have no idea why it remains unreleased, but now it’s free for y’all! Bagir, who resides in Virginia and has played the djembe since he was a kid, was featured on our last mixtape and you can be sure to hear more diverse styles from him around here in the future. (Photo by Patrick Boury.)