Pardon me while I hum a little hymn for Beatport; my affection for it borders on religious fervor. Of all the places an electro nerd could channel her (probably clinical) obsession with beats and bass, this site battles only Boomkat for the title of Most Consistently Rad. Obscure one-offs from Ibiza producers? There. The dubstep remix of a disco-inspired track released digitally and with little fanfare? There. Martin Gore’s top 10 techno, house and minimal tracks? Fucking there and shining strange light on his work with Depeche Mode. Seriously, this shit is like Factsheet Five—and anyone who’s ever had a mailbox brimming with photocopied Clikatat Ikatowi interviews remembers what a thrill that was.

Which is to say: I might be skirting a problem here. Combine my Beatport passion with daily jaunts through label websites, Myspace and a whole host of blogs, and suddenly I’ve amassed so many artist tracks, remixes and DJ sets, I barely know what to do with them. Except—oh wait!—hoist them on you. Once a month. Starting now. Is this comprehensive? No. Guaranteed to be totally obscure? Not a chance. Sometimes my radar is so crammed with comparatively huge releases, I can’t get past it. But at the very least, I can share a tiny sliver of the stuff that keeps me stoked all month, the releases over which I spend a good portion of my time silently freaking out. Here’s hoping you’ll love some of them, too.

Welcome to January…

Gui Boratto – Azzurra [Kompakt]

Another single from the Brazilian producer’s 2009 full-length Take My Breath Away, but lest you think it’s just a rehash and some remixes, consider this: “Azzurra” is totally reimagined (it’s actually titled It’s Not The Same Version) and packaged with two brand new tracks. And since I’m a sucker for sick bass, even more of a sucker for an ascending melody and even more of a sucker for synths slipping in and out of tune, new jam “The Glam” is like the best thing I’ve ever heard.

But don’t dismiss “Telecaster” (especially if you know/love Boratto’s debut Chromophobia) and definitely don’t dismiss his track on ADA’s Lovestoned Remixed EP. This guy’s a total genius, and I’m counting the minutes until I see him in San Francisco. You know…in September. It’s a lot of minutes.

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Telefon Tel Aviv – Immolate Yourself Remixes [Bpitch Control]

If these remixes mark a new dawn for Telefon Tel Aviv—Joshua Eustis is officially going solo after last year’s death of TTA other half Charles Cooper—it’s looking bright as fuck. Though Eustis obviously didn’t have a hand in the actual recreation, he did manage to curate a flawless bunch of producers: Sascha Funke, Ben Klock, Thomas Muller, the usual BPitch suspects. But then you’ve got this subtle disco take from lesser known Berlin producer (and Vice Germany music reviewer) Miss Fitz, and it’s like out-of-nowhere catchy. Move over Ellen Allien—Miss Fitz is fighting for your place in my heart. (JK EA!)

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Follow Мишка on Twitter!

For all of you haven’t yet found us on Twitter, or just those of you out there who still are all “Twitter?? Huh?”, we wanted to direct your attention and extend an invitation to follow our Twitter account.

Why would you want to follow us on Twitter? Well for one we send out special discount codes just to our Twitter followers. But we also run contests on there, tweet various musings (or ramblings) from Greg, Mikhail and/or Ease and all of our Bloglin updates go right to our twitter stream! So why wouldn’t you be following us? Get on it!

Fucked Up – Couple Tracks (2010) [Matador] // Grade: A+

Fucked Up is a difficult band to argue. Don’t love the music? Okay, fine (I mean…weird, but fine) but who’s capable of truly hating a band who A) sports weird/rad aliases like Pink Eyes and 10,000 Marbles, B) played live on MTV Canada to crowd that totally effed the studio, then got themselves invited back and did the same thing to a bathroom, C) has this strange manager/fifth Beatle situation with a guy no one knows much about, including his real name, and D) turned hardcore punk on its head by making a record that not only shouted the genre’s ethos from the mountaintop but also happened to sound very little like any hardcore ever recorded.

Oh, and then they won a Polaris Music Prize for that record. Just, you know, by the way.

And even if you don’t consider The Chemistry of Common Life to be among the best records ever made, it’s still super-easy to find something to love about the Toronto sextet; their output has been so prolific and visionary, you’ll almost certainly stumble across three songs you can’t live without. “Stumble across”, of course, being the operative phrase—until now, tracking down most of Fucked Up’s single releases required infinite hours, serious connections and tons of eBay luck.

So thank god for Couple Tracks: 25 singles, b-sides and rarities spanning from 2002 to 2009, gathered onto two discs called “The Hard Stuff” and “The Fun Stuff”. There’s the explosive first single and Spanish Civil War-influenced “No Parasan”; the strangely peppy, unreleased demo “Carried Out To Sea”; the b-side cover of Another Sunny Day’s “Anorak City”; a manic alternate version of last year’s “No Epiphany”; even the hysterically awesome holiday jam “David Christmas”. And though Matador considers the collection a sort of pseudo-companion to the band’s first singles album (2004’s Epic In Minutes), it still barely scratches the surface—Fucked Up’s recording history encompasses so many releases in so little time, it’ll take way more than three discs to cover it all.

But Couple Tracks isn’t some milquetoast rarity geekfest. Sure, it’s a collection you sink into and study, liner notes in hand, but the enjoyment is far more primal than intellectual: the joy of hearing a band develop from their raucous, fuck-you punk roots into something visionary and sharply unique. Not that they’ve lost any of their buzzing, neon energy and political irreverence in the process—Pink Eyes still screams bloody murder, Fucked Up is still fucked up—but they’ve certainly grown into themselves in a way lots of hardcore bands never had the chance to explore. But then, Fucked Up has never been just another hardcore band—a fact that even their earliest, most elemental songs suggest. Get this now and put it on repeat; these discs are an amazing capsule look at a band so deserving of the acclaim and clearly destined for even bigger, even better, even more.

Fuel TV just did a quick interview with the amazing and talented Elmer Presslee. Elmer has been on the Bloglin before for his astonishing Monster Stroller and he’s also the man who created the eyeball inside the gigantic Lamour Supreme Simon Skull that is at 350 Broadway.

Wait, did Hitler quote me at the 1:44 mark? Did the Nazi’s just get Prolly’d?

I ran out of free time so now I only blog about things that don’t involve me leaving my house. I wrote about favorite my records yesterday and I wrote about my Star Wars shit last week. Now I’m going writing about my favorite T-shirts.

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10) Megadeth “I Kill… For Thrills” Hooded T-Shirt

This is one of the most amazing metal tees I’ve ever seen. Not only does it feature Vic Rattlehead as a scuba-diver on the front with the slogan “I Kill… For Thrills”, there’s a photograph of him on the back with an audacious claim as to the technical superiority of the band.

Dave Mustaine’s a humorless asshole and that’s why I like him. I like the band because they’re like a meaner Metallica with only one member that anyone knows by name. Best of all is that this shirt has a hood. How many hooded t-shirts have you seen in your life? This is probably the only one. I want to design a hooded T-shirt.

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9) Cambodian Tin Tin shirt

The Vidiot went to Cambodia for a month and he brought me back this amazing T-shirt. Tintin is a much bigger deal in Europe and Asia than he ever was in America and bootleg Tintin merchandise abounds in both continents.

Here is a close-up pf the chest hit. “Danger! Mines!” Some weird characters, Cambodia. Hmmm, I wonder how successful that Spielberg Tin Tin movie’s going to be?

That’s Tin Tin and Captain Haddock on the back of he shirt. They’re in the forests of Cambodia finding piles of human skulls and looking horrified, a warning sign about landmines is nearby. I love Tin Tin and wish this comic adventure through Cambodia actually existed.

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8) Handmade Devo T-shirt

I got this for five dollars off of eBay. It was made by some guy when he was still a teenager back in the eighties. He used the heat press equipment at his dad’s sporting goods store and cut and applied all of the decals himself. Originally the Devo face on the front had a forked tongue but I wore it once and the tongue came off so I will never make the mistake of actually wearing this tee ever again!

The sleeves were cut into a jagged zig zag and he also did something really cool with the collar that involved splitting it down the seem and applying stars to the inner part. This is one of my favorite and most awesome eBay finds ever. I still can’t believe that the tongue fell off.

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7) Sample For Unproduced Мишка Sweater

I know this isn’t a T-shirt but I love it nonetheless and I drew the illustrations for it. It breaks my heart that this is the only one of these sweaters in existence. This is based on the first drawing I ever did for Мишка and Mikhail & Brian assembled the elements into this awesome sweater.

The drawing was overly complicated and even after being simplified some on the computer it still got way distorted from my original illustration. But you know what? I like this distorted version on the sweater better. The reason that this never came out was because My Pal The Crook is a cheapskate. Please write letters and comments until this sweater gets made. Until then I am the owner of the only one that exists.

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6) Michael Barron’s Mom’s Sweatshirt

Michael Barron was my best friend when I was a little kid. He was the only kid who was skinnier, paler and nerdier than I was. When I was in high school I stole this out of his mother’s car and wore it around school a lot. We didn’t speak too much after high school but I did leave bizarre comments on his livejournal until he finally banned me.

After that I left bizarre comments on his girlfriend’s livejournal. Then I sent him an email telling him I was gay and that I considered him my true love and wanted him to come spend the weekend with me. He responded by telling me that he was certain I was lying but that everyone had always suspected I was gay. That was a few years ago. I still have this sweatshirt anyway.

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Overkill - Ironbound (2010) [Nuclear Blast] // Grade: B

Fucking finally, a thrash band playing unapologetic thrash! Dark Lord of the Underworld save me from the screamoretard onslaught.  These dudes are definitely still doing what they’ve been doing pretty much non-fucking-stop since ’84, they just sound a little (ok, a lot) older and more grizzled.  Shit, I’m pretty sure Bobby Blitz had a fucking stroke a few years ago.  You think those screamo pussies’d still be doing anything ‘cept half-face crying for someone to change their depends after that shit? I think not.

For those who don’t know, Overkill was basically the NYC Thrash scene’s house band (besides actually being the house band at L’amour’s) since the 80s. And Iron Bound is reminding me of exactly why that was. Good headbanging riffs, solid thrash parts, gnarly vox, the whole fucking shebang! I wouldn’t say there’s anything particularly new, out of the norm, or overly special but it defnitely makes for a good weekday, midday work listen.

Long and short of this (and many other Overkill albums) is that it’s super straight ahead thrash, nothing over the top, nothing as influential or intense as some of the big 4′s shit, but Overkill always delivers.  If you’re looking for the next “Reign in Blood” this definitely ain’t it.  If you’re looking to find out where a generation of Neo-Thrashers draws there riffs from, throw this shit on.

Highlights include “Bring me the Night” and the drunkalong on “Give a Little.” ” Head and Heart” takes it in a little darker heavier direction as well.  Honestly, I can’t say I had a single moment where I wanted to turn the album off.  Pretty good for thrash damnit.

Shy Child – Disconnected

Kasabian – Vlad the Impaler

Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Skeletons

Front Line Assembly – Body Count

AC/DC - Shoot to Thrill

…you snap out of it and realize that this is—in fact!—a reputable source.

From the team that is still trying to bring you a bona fide Higgs particle comes the new and unproved (yes! pun!) Unhiggs, which is both ‘theoretically consistent’ and

…can do many things that the Higgs does. For example, both the particle and the continuum possess a non-zero vacuum expectation value, which can “break electroweak symmetry” and “unitarize WW scattering” – abilities that are important for giving other particles mass, which is a fundamental role of the Higgs. In addition, the scientists found that the Unhiggs can do something that the Higgs cannot: provide a solution to the so-called little hierarchy problem.

Now that that’s settled. Sit back and bask in the fact that you are nothing, we are nobody, and we’re hurtling through nothing at the speed of everything.

Thanks to Galactic Drifter for the tweet.