Thundercat – The Golden Age of Apocalypse (2011) [Brainfeeder] // Grade: A

Flying Lotus and Thundercat make jazz music. The scales tell the whole story. This isn’t a bad thing, because jazz with a vitality that folks can appreciate — well it’s been a very very long time since that has happened in this country. Not since smooth jazz corrupted the world of music with it’s banal and vanilla lack in the 80s has contemporary jazz been this widely accepted in American pop culture. Like their contemporaries in other genres (Animal Collective, Jel, Madlib) Flying Lotus and Thundercat’s approach to music-making is decidedly marked by the studio itself — something not common in jazz save Teo Macero’s roll in Bitches Brew (I’m sure there are other examples, but I can’t think of any off of the top of my head). The Golden Age of Apocalypse has stronger roots in David Sancious, Bela Fleck, or Weather Report than it does in James Brown, Wu-Tang, or Kraftwerk. They’re using the tools that the kids are using these days, but they’re making tunes that the kids tend to shy away from.

While no less moving this music is much more conservative, being that it has strong ties to a markedly documented, and pedagogically resolute method of playing. And I think this distinction is a crucial one because these guys are moving in ways that aren’t synonymous with most other folks. They’re picking up a tradition that was set down a long time ago. As much as many hip hop folks may have made “jazzy” music over the years, it has never engaged the jazz canon, and run through its planes quite like this. Add to that the fact that they have picked up jazz precisely where it left off, and what they’re doing has a context that is well beyond the stream of new records slated for this fiscal quarter. Thundercat and Flying Lotus are influenced by jazz in a way that the majority of their contemporaries are not. It’s just a slight variation on what tons of other people are doing, but this particular distinction makes all the difference.

I struggle with records like this because I like repetition of phrases, and this record is all about motion, and flux. They take a very familiar impetus that is common amongst all of us making music today, but instead of merely delivering their jazz-styled take on current pop music Flying Lotus and Thundercat tie the contemporary impetus into one of this country’s oldest and richest musical traditions. A lot of people will use adjectives like swirling, and vibrating to talk about this music. But, I’d say it runs a very straight course, in fact if you know how to listen it moves in very predictable ways for the most part. That’s one of the things that defines jazz. It moves in a predictable, regimented fashion, but it does so with a distinct kind of perfectly tuned precision, and a kind of grace and style that is only born of playing jazz music. These guys are out on a wild fucking limb in the midst of an otherwise tame jungle of confusion. Good work dudes (especially the Scooby-sounding song, the anvils were clutch).

Bonus: I think it would be dope if these guys did a record with David Haynes.

Calling out to all the schlubby dudes and babes out there. For those of you who don’t care to experiment with illegal substances, or rarely choose to leave your apartment, The Others want to show you how the other half live. Thanks to the dub step duo’s latest music video, we’ve been granted the opportunity to peer through the eyes of a bona fide party gal, as she sets out on a blissed-out all-night odyssey. This trip ain’t for the faint of heart!

Our heroine in the “First Flight” clip drifts in and out of consciousness, traveling through various hip looking landscapes, before eventully landing back where she started. At times, it appears as though our girl might nod off at any moment, but it seems that ever-present pounding of The Other’s fatty synths keep her from hitting the mat. Along the way, the viewer is granted a particulary swurvy shot of one of our very own Мишка tees, just before we’re introduced to some eerie hooded figure running around in a gas mask.

While the clip for “First Flight” becomes a little unsettling at time, no harm ever comes to the video subject. She eventually wakes from her daze, and seems to have come away from the entire affair unscathed, with a new boxing glove and pair of ski goggles to boot. As that old adage goes, I suppose all’s well that end’s well.

This is it y’all. The savior from all that summertime sweating and fretting, NiKE7UP swoops down from his nest of finely shredded pop songs to drop some next-level electro on your head. The cooling, icy twinkles of the awesome audio manipulator’s newest mix will have you revisiting your celebrity crushes of the previous decade. NSYNC at half-speed and echoed into a trance-like bumping mantra of all that is good in the universe.

NiKE7UP represents for me everything I enjoy about dance music. His mixes are savvy, playful, and weird as can be, cultural disseminations packaged tightly in bubble wrap. With older material scattered across the net, although most of it is on his youtube and myspace, you’re bound to find some undiscovered goodies he’s done. This July mix is a murderer and that lowers my attention span and increases my serotonin as it spirals onward.

I can’t really dance at work, well I guess I could but I care what others think of me, so rolling around in my chair pretending I’m scooting into my desk over and over again is gonna have to do. ♡^_^♡

Never Say Die Madras Shirt ($88.00 $70.40)

Ozzy Osbourne left Black Sabbath and then came back to record the album Never Say Die. Then he left again. It’s ironic. He should have called the record “Never Say – Bye Guys, I’m on a Crazy Train now and I can no longer be bothered with people who don’t do everything I say!”

If you’re at a summer event that requires long sleeves so you can cover up your Juggalo tattoos when you visit your grandmother or parole officer then you’ll be glad to own this daffy rag. It’s made from a very light cotton that will breathe and also hide the horrors that are your arms. It’s available in Dust and Blue Haze.

Мишка
350 Broadway
Brooklyn, NY
718-388-1725
—
Мишка LA
1547 Echo Park Ave
Los Angeles, CA
213-536-4234

Fresh off his winning streak, Dirty Joe South recently made his way over to 350 Broadway with fellow Philly DJ, Gun$ Garcia. Repping a Based life in our new Based snapback, the swag present was immeasurable.

2011 has been a big year for both artists, with Joe releasing his Valentine’s Day mix, followed by his Winning mix, a collection of over thirty songs inspired by Charlie Sheen’s catchphrase, back in March, and Gun$ recently dropping her Amor Prohibido mixtape. Both artists have additionally been killing the performances of late.

Amor Prohibido by Gun$ Garcia

Couple weeks back Gun$ rocked the Hotel Chantelle right here in New York, and if you missed it, well, that really is a shame. Go to the next one. And make sure you go check out both of these artists, and if you’re already faithfully listening, then keep doing so, and stay tuned for what’s sure to be great upcoming projects.

Мишка
350 Broadway
Brooklyn, NY
718-388-1725

J/M/Z to Marcy Ave
G to Broadway
L to Lorimer

This is it! This is what you’ve been waiting for! You have been waiting, have you not? Well, regardless, our biannual warehouse sale is here! From Friday, July 29, to Sunday, July 31, come on down and enjoy 50-75% off and prove to this damn sun that you won’t be restricted to your air conditioned bedroom where things are all normally priced.

We’ve got tees, hoodies, knits, sweaters, shirts, jackets, jeans, new eras, hats, and bags, and we need to get rid of this stuff! Plus, as you should already expect if you’ve ever been to one of our warehouse sales, we’ll have tons of samples, both new and old, as well as an assortment of one-offs and odds and ends! You don’t want to miss this!

We’ll be restocking fresh each day, so don’t think all the good stuff will be gone on Friday. You never know what you’ll find!

And also, there will be food trucks!!! So if by some chance 50-75% off is not a good enough reason for you, there will also be various types of trucks serving various types of food. Get there.

Мишкa Warehouse
226 North 6th St.
Between Driggs & Roebling
Brooklyn, NY

L Train to Bedford Ave

So I was in the chair, anxious, and on the verge of a panic attack, when my hair cutting friend told me that I could relax. I prefer the term hair cutting friend to hairdresser as it leaves both my hair cutting friend and myself looking more dignified. Actually, I guess it leaves her looking rather unprofessional. But whatever, I look much more cool and nonchalant this way, so we’re sticking to it. “You can relax now,” she said, “We’re out of the woods.”

Out of the woods? Great idiom. I’m really interested in idioms and this particular one had not crossed my mind in some time (crossed my mind, there’s another one right there). It’s a great one though, don’t you think? It’s simple, and easy to understand. “Out of the woods.” It makes perfect sense. You’re in the woods: terrified, anxious, sweaty, crying, perhaps; and then you’re out. You’ve made it. You’re safe.

Upon hearing the news that we had made it through the woods, I released a sigh of relief, at which point my friend promptly continued: “Yeah don’t worry. Calm down, stop shaking. We’re out; we made it through the woods. You’re Scott free.”

I’m what? I’m Scott free? I don’t much like that. No, don’t like it at all. Who’s Scott? I certainly am not. Who was this Scott that just got away with everything? He must have been a wizard of some sort to have consistently gotten away with deviant actions. Whoever he was, I’m pretty sure that idiom didn’t even apply to the circumstance at hand.

You can bet I looked it up. Really, I did! In between that last paragraph and this current one I took a break from writing to figure out just who Scott was. It turns out he, Dred Scott, was a slave born in Virginia in 1779. His whole schtick was that he didn’t want to be a slave, instead, opting to be free. And I guess after several unsuccessful court cases, he was finally freed by his owners.

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o F F go the found-footage route on their latest video for the Mascara HOTHOUSE Remix of  Let U Know . I’m sure that one afro Tv Carnage guy would be proud of the two-piece here, as they’ve successfully strung together a clip that not only pulls back the curtain on a beach-side rave, but also presents us with some trippy glitched-out visual passes, and killer party footage. As a huge fan of watching awkward white people dance around, I really can’t recommend this video enough. Set any group of eager caucasian dancers in a dingy secluded creek, where they can throw all inhibition to the wind, and you have a bit of music video gold on your hands.

While it might be easy to mix up this particular o F F with the OG punk supergroup OFF!, there shouldn’t be any mistaking one for the other after you actually watch this thing. I wouldn’t put it past OFF! frontman Keith Morris to pump out a grainy looking video filled with folks moving and shaking, I just get the feeling that his treatment would involve far more slam dancing. I’ll bet Morris would order his pit to eradicate anyone grooving in a manner that slightly resembled Elaine Benes.

Anyway, this Mascara collabo currently only has around 200 views on YouTube, so it might be in your best interest to watch it before all your goofy little buddies lay their grimy mits all over it. When this blows up, you’ll be able to say that you were on the cutting edge… Tyler the Creator just got nominated for a VMA, so it seems that nothing is off-limits these days!

The brothers Baryshnikov just dropped another mix brimming with woozy hipshakers. If their name doesn’t ring a bell it’s definitely worth your time to scour the Bloglin for some past mixes, including one they did for Vice Italy and for those who are familiar with the cold danciness that the tag-team of Mike Dextro and Mr. Мишка, himself, MP†C command from behind a pair of turntables, you have an idea of what your getting into. An immovable force of witch-house and drowsy disco for a night out on the town with a cup of lean.

As part of their weekly mixtape drop, Nicky Digital, nightlife officiators at large, just released a Baryshnikov volume of their Pre Party Jamz series. Modern players like Pictureplane, LAKE R▲DIO, and Clams Casino dance cheek to cheek with old flames like Fine Young Cannibals and Max Berlin in this surrealist layering, mixing, and jazzing-up routine. The entrancing mix is a mouse-click away, so download it already, resistance is futile. Full tracklist after the jump.

Download Baryshnikov’s Pre-Party Jamz Vo. 124 (Click Here)

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How did this get by me!? I’ve been taken with the wacky ways people get off, not letting a fetish or sickeningly offensive video evade my grasp, since first seeing shock sites like the coprophilic Tubgirl or the much-talked-about BME Pain Olympics, a contest held by the Body Modification E-Zine, inquiring readers to send in video submissions of their most extreme body alterations. From that wretched challenge, we received some pretty serious penile decimation and all-around genital disfigurement. A tough watch for myself and many others including Joe Rogan and his pal who began with a screening of the wet n’ wild, piss-shit-puke soirée known internationally as 2girls1cup.

Grotesque mutilation and fluid swapping is all fine and dandy but sometimes it’s the subtle things that make web-surfing worthwhile. That’s where ‘woolies’ come in. This branch of huggable submissives have joined warm and fuzzy knit outfits, covering every square inch of the body of course, with the traditional dresscodes of shiny, black leather and clear plastic bags as in the S&M community as acceptable, kinky fodder. Are these enthusiasts merely adults that couldn’t bear the postpartum depression that comes with giving up your childhood blanket or are they instinctively stimulated and aroused by the around-the-clock sensation of wool touching skin. Either way these people look like an alien race of bundled-up wanderers, a soft to the touch Tusken Raider if you will.

Made of wool and mohair, these stifling suits of armor gained popularity among the sexual underground when a French designer and fetishist began knitting full-size costumes for bedroom play. It seems that from their inception, the hand-crafted bodysuits were enough to rouse the more damaged deviants that floated to the surface. Images of the clothing and people wearing the clothing circulated around message boards acting as skimmers do, stirring up debris that had laid dormant on the bottom of a pool.

You might be thinking “Tactile obsession is nothing new to BDSM or fetish culture” and you’d be right. I realize we’ve got people dressed as stuffed animals plugging each other and more with nipple clamps and clothes pins attached to their vagina lips. I, somehow, find that to be more or less understandable, in the face of people walking around in modified granny sweaters that run from head to toe. Maybe skin-tight leather is on it’s way out and pretty soon you’ll be seeing ‘woolies’ taking over with the whole bound and cozy look.

Ever wondered how gimps stay warm during cold months in addition to the winter holidays? Yeah, neither have I but this sexualization of wool sure is fun to talk about. Some of them even have separate holsters for your dick, cool!