The Glitch Mob’s innovative head-nod side has come back with a vengeance in their new mixtape, a genius companion piece that redefines Drink The Sea’s moodscapes brilliantly. It does so by pairing the album’s instrumentals and beats with a cappella vocals and grooves from the likes of Lil Wayne, M.I.A., Nas, Jay-Z, Daft Punk, Dr. Dre, Mobb Deep, Freddie Gibbs, Young Jeezy, Busta Rhymes and more.

It’s clear Big Boi is getting hip-hop back on the good foot with his next-level summer jams.

“The Best of Times” is a surprising, fantastic song, both a high water mark for both hip-hop and for Sage Francis as an artist.

In between the lull of winter and the full-bore of summer, some music to help you decombobulate.

Murs has been the face of West Coast independent hip-hop since he released his first single back in 1993. On April 3rd, he hosts the fifth edition of Paid Dues, the acclaimed one-day festival he founded to celebrate the best of independent rap past and present.

“Supergroup”: that bitter taste in your mouth right now is a conditioned response to all those forced collaborations that consistently came up short (The Super, Super, Blues Band wasn’t all that super, Farm Aid). Gayngs is that, and exactly not that. Long song label to the stars Jagjaguwar instantly snatched them up, betting that the [...]

“Somebody say party here!” A vocal sample commanding as such was the first thing the crowd heard last night as Groove Armada took to the stage at Hollywood’s Henry Fonda Music Box Theater, and they didn’t need much encouragement in this area.

It seems like just last week that a new viral sensation was born: Die Antwoord. A couple totally mysterious, compelling YouTube videos appeared and Die Antwoord was, to quote the group’s MC Ninja from their “Zef Side” track, “all up in the Interweb, worldwide!” Three days ago, no less a tastemaker than Pitchfork founder Ryan Schreiber declared on his twitter that Die Antwoord “just made 2010 official.”

José James just might be the male Sade. Like her, this soulful crooner uses his smokily seductive voice to effortlessly fold himself into the listener’s consciousness. But while this young, New York-based singer starts with jazzy soul as his root force—his haunting vocals recall everyone from Billie Holiday and Chet Baker to Bill Withers—he’s smart enough to know that his smoothness will stand out best when placed against edgier textures.

Classic Albums Revisited: DEVO And The Pixies Take Los Angeles Lightning struck twice this past week in Los Angeles, when two of rock’s most boundary-shattering bands performed an entire classic album from their career on two consecutive nights.

Worldwide DJ, radio personality, sportswide fanatic, tastemaker of groove Gilles Peterson sure seems to do it all ! Now add “book author” to that list. Along with co-compiler Stuart Baker, Peterson is responsible for Freedom, Rhythm & Sound – Revolutionary Jazz Original Cover Art 1965-83, a hardcover tome that collects many of the greatest, truly visionary examples of album art during one of the most revolutionary moments in recent history.

The XX marked the spot last night at Shepherds Bush Empire in London. I was truly excited about seeing them open up for the glamourous Florence & The Machine. This was the first time I purposely went to a gig to solely catch the supporting act instead of the headliner.

Manu Chao has always been an iconoclast, from his inclusive, multilingual blend of punk and world sounds to his tireless quest for spreading his ethos of justice and understanding via music-as-protest. But when we heard about his new project – recording an album with a bunch of psychiatric patients – we were understandably intrigued….

Not many bands name themselves after an obscure mathematical method used to score cricket. Then again, not many bands are like The Duckworth Lewis Method! The Duckworth Lewis Method is a deliciously twee pop band whose primary distinction is… all their songs are odes to the game of cricket.

Increasingly desperate record companies are presently in the midst of a search for a “new MGMT” – and as ludicrous as that mission may be, they might have found it in Amazing Baby. Like all cool bands trafficking in the area of neo-psychedelic-electronic-shoegaze-folk-whatever…

Dirty Projectors have it all: the akimbo folk soul of Jeff Buckley, iconoclastic pop deconstruction a la Panda Bear, irresistibly ethereal, strange harmonies recalling School of Seven Bells, surprisingly effective ethnic cops evoking their Ivy League peers in Vampire Weekend – and contender for possibly album of 2009 in the band’s latest release, Bitte Orca.

Kings of “math rock”, Mars Volta continues to register on the scale of most classic rock outfits with their inimitable point of view and delivery. With Octahedron they stretch out and replace their prog rock jams with some acoustic ballads

The remix of Animal Collective’s “Summertime Clothes” by Stones Throw’s resident L.A. boogiemonster Dam-Funk is the damn funkiest, weirdest, summeriest, catchiest track we’ve heard in a minute…

It’s a ‘Cold Fact’ that seeing an artist you loved as a child, can be a rather hit or miss affair and up until about half way in this past Saturday’s return of Rodriguez to the London stage, it was um rather surreal and a bit shaky. But thankfully, since my memories of the man’s music remain strong and deep from the scaree grim days of South Africa, I was optimistic.

It’s heartwarming that London continues to give love and respect to the Classic and timeless artists that roll through. This past Wednesday was no exception when Ethiopian legend Mulatu Astatke, performing together with The Heliocentrics, was ecstatically celebrated by a capacity crowd at Koko. The diverse mix of musos, new converts and London based Ethiopian allowed for a whole lot of shaking and quivering goin’ on as Mulatu effortlessly strutted his Ethiopiques magic together with the dynamic Heliocentrics crew.