Watching 8 bit heroes Anamanaguchi on NBC’s Late Night With Jimmy Fallon yesterday, it hit us just how far bleepity-bloop sounds have come in mainstream culture. Everyone from Ke$ha to Crystal Castles make popular songs that boast sounds that wouldn’t feel out of place in a Nintendo game. So what does underground dance do? Throws it right back at pop. On new Numbers’ signee Sophie’s single, “Bipp,” a woman (not Sophie, who is actually a guy) sings in a helium sugar voice that wouldn’t feel out of place on happy hardcore track from 1992. But instead of grating, it’s somehow ingratiating — it’s hard candy, providing the sugar rush AND tart danger no garden variety EDM track can provide. Listen above.

“Hello, you motherfucker,” a pleasant British child greets you on DJ Koze’s new FACT mix, as Dutch producer Child of Lov’s “Call Me Up” swells up from underneath, luscious R&B from another dimension. So begins the Kompakt legend’s hour long excursion into his favorite deep cuts of the year, sharing both a fine personal soundtrack and a decent primer in browsing electronica’s gentler side this year. We enjoy the interlaced banter from voice-simulated disc jockeys — the uncanny valley effect is alive and kicking in Koze’s world. Tracklist below; download or stream on Soundcloud.

Tracklist:
Child Of Lov – ‘Call Me Up’
Jono McCleery – ‘Painted Blue’
Sohn – ‘The Wheel’
Enja – ‘To Go Beyond’ (Dntel Edit)
Harry Belafonte – ‘Mo Marry’
DJ Koze – ‘Don’t Lose My Mind’
Bibio – ‘You’
Dürerstuben – ‘Freiherr In Der Wall’
Recondite – ‘Felicity’
Dj Koze – ‘Nioces Wölkchen’
JaKönigJa – ‘Be Kind To Be The Shape’
Herbert – ‘You Saw It All’ (DJ Koze Remix)
Matt Karmil -’Reverse Peephole’
Westbam- ‘You Need The Drugs’
Christian Löffler – ‘Eisberg (Hemal)’
Bibio – ‘You Won´t Remember’

Going back to her Arular sounding roots, M.I.A., the goddess of sonic freedom brings it all full circle and “darkens up a bit,” in her new release “Bring The Noize”. “If I didn’t get it out right now, I would’ve definitely exploded,” she said in an interview with BBC Radio 1 earlier today. “Bring the Noize” is merely the pin M.I.A.’s pulled from the Matangi grenade that’s set to explode later this year. Listen above! #bang #bang

There’s been tons of disruptive video projections — broadcast in real-time across the globe — but no official first video for Kanye West’s new album, Yeezus. But severing conventions is what keeps West compelling, and he’s made it obvious he isn’t going to be marketing this ambitious, angst-fueled album through typical promotional means. Now that the exclusive listening parties are over, the Kimye female scion has been born, and the album is officially out, the rapper launches a splashy buzz video/commercial for Yeezus. Originally projected on the walls of Los Angeles’ Milk Studios, it is now streamable. The clip is a mocking tribute to American Psycho and features Keeping Up With The Kardashians sidekick Scott Disick in the Christian Bale role, and with fellow Kardashian social fixture Jonathan Cheban playing Jared Leto. In true West fashion, there’s two ways to experience this satire: the hitching of reality TV fame crawlers to West’s star is incredibly repellent but also perversely satisfying, given the gory outcome of the clip. West is pointing fingers at everyone, most of all himself.

How does Drake really feel about starting from the bottom, and now being here?

“You constantly ask yourself: Will I ever be able to excite people the way I did when the Internet was going crazy, back when you first felt like you had a piece of Drake that no one else had, and you wanted to share it with your friends? Is there an album or song we can make now that’s good enough to get people that excited again? I ain’t gonna lie: I want to be the one you listen to this summer.”

Drake by Mario Sorrenti for GQ July 2013 via  GQ

We wish he was our uncle IRL. Jay Z is the coolest around, and in conjunction he’s releasing a new album on July 4th Magna Carta Holy Grail. The commercial was produced by Samsung, who reportedly signed Jay-Z to a $20 million deal in early June. The New York Post‘s Page Six quoted a source on June 4 who spoke of the artist’s desire to create a “new music-streaming service to promote his acts and music on mobile devices.”  And that’s exactly what the 43-year-old rapper has done. MagnaCartaHolyGrail.com, a website providing further details on Jay-Z’s latest project. The album, described by the rapper as “revolutionary” on the Magna Carta Holy Grail site, will be given away for free on July 4 to the first 1 million users who claim the offer on theSamsung Galaxy S III smartphone, the Galaxy S4 smartphone, or the Galaxy Note II tablet. The Wall Street Journal reported that Samsung paid $5 million to offset the costs of the 1 million albums being released for free – $5 for each album download.

via csmonitor

French techno artist and DJ Gesaffelstein has teamed up with director Fleur & Manu for the new visual of his track “Pursuit”. The video is visually very strong and dark in a way. Entirely filmed in a factory, the composition, details and overall setting is great. The French producer has also worked with Daft Punk on Kanye’s new Yeezus album and seems to be going from strengths to strengths currently.

Among The Weeknd’s most insidious charms is his knack for purloining hooks from a bleak, goth-tinged alternative lineage — Siouxsie & The Banshees, Beach House, and others — and twisting them into future soul ear candy. A new song, “You Belong To The World,” which he performed live at Toronto’s Mod Club, incorporates the hair-raising drum riff from one of the most daunting songs in recent years, Portishead’s “Machine Gun.” Interestingly, it more closely resembles the sped-up, nearly gabba-esque riff the band used live than the recorded version on 2008′s Third.

It’s hard to hear the details here, but with a sonic spine that distinctive, the rest of the musical body doesn’t have to do much work to stand out. We’re looking forward to seeing where The Weeknd’s appropriation takes him, and his corner of mutant R&B, next.

It seems that long-running shadow players These New Puritans are finally on the brink of achieving broad scale acclaim. With their third album, Field of Reeds, even the likes of Pitchfork — initially skeptical towards the UK act’s genre-dwarfing ambitions — are coming to terms with how pivotal TNPS’ work truly is. If you’re in search of inspiring audio material this weekend, we highly suggest checking out Field of Reeds (intriguingly, a complementary but totally distinct sonic cousin of Boards of Canada’s new one, Tomorrow’s Harvest). While the rest of the world obsesses over Kanye West’s Yeezus leak, consider listening to the band who likely inspired that record with their excellent, brutal Hidden album of three years ago. On their latest, TNPS ditch the declarations of war for something like deeply meditative, extraterrestrial avant-jazz — a direction they winked towards in the past but fully embrace to its most transportive capacities here. An album to inspire everyone to take their weirdest dreams a step even further. Listen above.

How do we feel about Yeezus and the whole new Kayne movement? Personally, I don’t think too much about things I genuinely enjoy, even if I don’t properly know how — like dancing at a Kanye show, and this song, off his highly anticipated new album coming soon. Here’s a track that has some catchy-rap-poetical parts, well, as poetic as a song about holding your liquor can be, I guess. #weekendplaylist