Since making the groundbreaking banger ‘Wut’, immediately going viral among white sorority girls, Le1f has somewhat fallen off the map of the general polulace. That isn’t to say that his music has declined; I found Fly Zone to be a solid tape. It just seems like the people that got interested in Le1f solely off the single aren’t interested in exploring his entire catalog, maybe seeing him as a gimmick.

‘Spa Day’ is a single from Fly Zone, the video was shot at the real spa Body by Brooklyn, which looks like a pretty ill place to get your relaxation on. Heems, Lakutis, and others all make cameos to get turnt in the hot tub, as the steam adds a hazy, surreal vibe to all the shots. The track features all the things that made ‘Wut’ so good, aside from its viral nature: Le1f’s extremely fast, articulate rapping, semi-taboo subject matter, and booming, grimy beats. Here, the production is supplied by HarryB, a synthy, EDM/trap-inspired joint. Even though Le1f raps ‘This that laid back music,’ its hard to believe over the ridiculously menacing beat. The hook, ‘This a spa day’ sounds more like a threat than what could be a flamboyant assertion. Le1f takes the gung-ho masculine energy of trap, fucking bitches and getting money, and diverts it into fucking your man (at one point your pastor?) and getting facials, in the coolest way possible.

In the movie Breakin‘, when Turbo’s moon walk sweeps the sidewalk to Kraftwerk’s “Tour de France”, cinematic history was made. That scene will be noted in the annals of time as the greatest two minutes in cinema ever, forever, until the end of time.

Greatest two minutes of cinematic history, AKA Turbo broom scene:

Breakin‘ has everything a good movie should have; leather gloves, moon walking, nice butts in tights, electro music, a guy with no legs doing the windmill and Ice mutha fuckin T. Breakin’ literally broke the mold when they came up with that insanely awesome movie formula.

This is real break dancing -not this bullshit “so you think you can dance” kinda break dancing that we see so much of in today’s society. This is breakin’ back when it was more punk rock than punk rock, with ripped T-shirts, leather, studs, spray paint and took place in the streets. To sum it up I will quote the illustrious Bar-Kays it was a “Freak show, baby, baby on the dance floor… They’re wearin’ miniskirts and camisoles, tight leather pants or nothing at all… Guys with guys, chicks with chicks, it really doesn’t matter they just do it for the kicks”. Those are words to live by my friends.

Which brings me to my last point of proof that this is one of, if not thee best movie of all time. The sound track is insanely good. I had this 12′ growing up and it largely inspired my entire music making process. The music in the movie is proper Electro, back when that term was used to describe artist who made people dance to their unique brand of electronic funk, not this new bastardization of that term by EDM dicks with mouse masks; seriously, fuck those guys.

The soundtrack features amazing bands like the Bar-Kays, Kraftwerk, The Art of Noise and Hot Streak. The jewel of the sound-track and the movie is Ice-T and the Glove’s amazing 808 and 303 acid bass line, hip-hop monster “Reckless”.

Grab your leather gloves, fasten your head band, tighten your sneakers and watch the full movie here:

Bloglin favorite Kevin Gates continues to ride the success of his Luca Brasi Story mixtape by releasing the visuals for ‘Paper Chasers’, one of the best tracks on the tape. The video is standard fare — some shots of Gates rapping on the roof, driving what Youtube commenter ‘ToXiiC1080′ identifies as a Jaguar XJ 2013, and with his girl in the studio on some hold-me-back shit. Gates has the gift/curse of looking perpetually emotional in every scene, and the teardrop tattoos just add to the effect. Surely, that desperation lends itself to the track, which is basically about hustling, and the trials that come with it.

The video was shot by Coyote Films, directed by Déjà Star. Weirdly, some clips just seem like stock footage of Gates doing normal shit, at the gas station, getting tattoos, and at some kind of high school pep rally. I wish Gates came to my high school. Something tells me that if he’s really chasing that paper, the gas station might not be the best spot to look. Gates also briefly claims that he’s ‘been retarded’. I don’t claim to be up on the hippest Baton Rouge street lingo, but I was pretty sure that was a bad thing. But I’m not a rapper. I’m not chasing paper. I could be wrong.

Parisian wave duo Opale (formally Playground) is set to release their debut effort L’incandescent on May 25, via the Heia Sun / Stellar Kinematics joint imprint. After getting over a million views with one of the most haunting and overtly French videos I’ve seen in  along time, I was so beyond excited to have the full-length LP in my clutches.

I have put this record on whenever possible and I will probably continue to do so, either when the atmosphere permits, or when the atmosphere needs to be created. With that being said, this is one of the most atmospheric collections of songs I have heard since whatever I last listened to on 7 grams of cubensis.

What I appreciate so much about L’incandescent is just as it is cold and shattering, it is also soft and wet. It is beautiful and harmonious as it is haunting, with brief bouts of atonality lightly peppered throughout. When I want to take a lukewarm bath in a haunted house, with no lights on, this is the record I am pulling out and putting on.

Sparkles and Wine – Teaser from Nacho Guzman on Vimeo.

With the amount of phased-out wishy-washy reverberated and arpeggiated sounds, I was given a feeling similar to the feeling one of my favorite groups Suicide gives me. However, where Alan Vega and Martin Rev are very savage and radiated in their approach, Opale is delicate and precise – though equally as offputting.

If you require a soft, melancholy soundtrack for exiting spring, and entering summer, Opale has crafted the perfect record, then.

Cosmotropia de Xam’s EKSTASIA – Discoteca Droga [Trailer, 2013] from Mater Suspiria Vision on Vimeo.

Vocalist and producer, Carmen Incarnadine, was recently featured in Rolling Stone for her contributions to net culture and South African contemporary music. Not bad you’d say, for an artist whose debut album, Siamese Inside (Black Bvs Records) is still up for pre-order.

This pretty kitty has global collaborators as numerous, as Gaea has demi-god spawn. Her Coco Carbomb persona is brash, feminine, sexy, strong and graceful with base notes of alt class. In my opinion, she is one of the few women out there who is actually getting sexual expression 2013 right. Her aesthetic leads with a clear message: I know exactly what I do. Do you get it? 

Too many girls out there are going a bit reverse-Rupaul on us just to find a voice -and no one deserves it. Not them, not us. Carmen stays accountable to herself. As her presence powers through neo sociology en masse, it shows. She has more to say with one image, one poem than a lot of artists can say with their whole catalogue.

Her main partner in crime is Nikhil Singh (Witchboy) who produces a great deal of Carbomb’s work and starred in the Rolling Stone article. The two of them are known to go hand in hand. Carmen is also a long time collaborator with who many would consider thee most prolific project of witch-net culture; Mater Suspiria Vision.

Filmmaker, MSV visionaire and founder of label Phantasma Disques: Cosmotropia de Xam has just completed a future-cult film with Carbomb as his leading femme fatale - Ekstasia Discoteca Droga.

I was thrilled to bits to get a sneak peak the film trailer and now present this Mishka premiere of it. It’s a cut above anything I have seen around netsphere this whole year… and confirms once more what I have always thought; MSV, CDX and Carbomb are the perfect avant garde team.

This film is on a strict limited run. The classic design boxset (white) is 25 copies only, which is almost criminal. The neon-noir style boxset (black) is limited to a generous 50 (If you are fast enough). Trust me, you don’t want to end up paying double on ebay for it in 10 months time. I did that a couple of years ago with the first Crack Witch. Regrets.

The Phantasma Disques system of output is increasingly cerebral with every release. You have to determine the relative collectability of the items and match the concepts with your personal passions or usage. This label is not for the kiddy pool. It has a certain alternate angle that you could only find with refined and bizaare German engineering.

Here’s how Ekstasia Discoteca Droga gets broken down… 6th May: pre-order for the movie DVD boxsets both white (25) and black (50). They each come with a CDR of rare material not found on the LP.

13th May: pre-order the LP picture disc vinyl (see image) with cassette tri-phonic (a 3D-ish soundsystem by CDX) boxset that works with the endless groove tone of the vinyl. It also comes with a pretty old timey device repackaged into MSV awesomeness, something called a phenakistoscope (well, the disc of it anyway). We all actually know exactly what they are. The name of it is just looks long and scary. Check the hyperlink. To view in full effect you need to use a 25 fps camera or phenakistoscope slides. Meh, don’t cry. It is way easier than you would suspect – and so much fun!

This weekend I eavesdropped on the girl next to me at a cafe telling her friend about her film premiering at all these different festivals. I have no knowledge of film (moving pictures, so I hear), but films, specifically short ones, are great topics of conversation amongst pretentious, bougie people. However, I will cede that when done well, they can be pretty fucking cool.

North Bay is one such project, a psuedo sci-fi short about Sachin Fayez, a scientist obsessed with the prospect of discovering frequencies that exist outside our dimension entirely. It’s a cool concept that straddles the line between campiness and genuine evocative cinema, not always perfectly. We get the standard tropes – a scientist that believes wholeheartedly in his theory, to the point that his reputation has been ruined, he’s lost his tenure, and now spends his days roaming the North Bay hills. He sends his recordings out into the ether, hoping they will somehow resonate with his chasm strait particles. Fayez (played by Jamie Harris) has been at his project for 17 years, but that’s when a rogue camper provides the proof he’s been waiting for. Suddenly, Fayez is forced to deal with the prospect that his life’s work may not be in vain.

North Bay’s plot is intriguing and provocative, but its real strength comes in its cinematography. Long, beautiful static shots of mountainous hiking trails illustrate the loneliness of Fayez’s devotion, as well as just being naturalistically beautiful in their own right. The film also plays with some ideas of new media, including clips of Fayez watching youtube videos, watching analog tapes, and their interaction is central to the film. Regardless of the occasionally weak dialogue, it’s hard not to feel gratified at the film’s climax, just as Fayez does. And peep those Mishka leggings on actress Corsica Wilson!

‘North Bay’ will premier at the London International Festival of Science Fiction and Fantastic Film, running from April 30 to May 6.

The internet is home to a lot of crazy shit. You got your BDSM porn, your mail-order drug websites, and now you got an animated short depicting Miami Heat power-forward Christopher Bosh as a trans-dimensional prince, sent to earth to defeat an evil witch. Despite accusations that Bosh might sue the creators, the video premiered at the Borscht Film Festival, since accurately dubbed the Bosh Film Festival. I don’t think I’d be able to accurately describe the sick mix of Web 1.0 references, ludicrous mythologies of humble Bosh, or the show-stealing cameo by teammate Mike Miller, who gets possessed by a Wolfman. Suffice to say, it’s worth it to take 12 minutes and watch the video, to follow Chris Bosh across time and space, through your monitor.

Today brings us two new tracks from Greedhead, both premiering with accompanying visuals.  It seems only fitting to talk about the two together; as the artists Kool A.D., Kassa Overall, and Lakutis are frequent collaborators and occupy the same weird/nerd/abstract/art-rap milieu.  I could add many more slash marks there, but it wouldn’t really help to reduce their art to previous subgenres, it’s simultaneously all of these things and none.

“Pleasance (WDGAF)” is the first track off the Kool/Kassa collab due out at the end of this month, and it’s a further exploration of the ‘future primitive’ concept that Kool A.D. has used in previous tracks.  The video, directed by ESNAF, features him and Kassa in full military gear, rounds of shells draped across torsos, gats in waistbands, but doing minimum wage work.  Similarly, he’s keeping chickens in his tiny New York apartment, and hiding out in abandoned buildings rebel-style while eating mass produced burgers.  It’s a cacophony of contradictions, meant to represent the dissociation we have in modern urban society from a greener, more naturalistic way of living common until recent history, and still common in other parts of the world.  To prevent oneself from being crushed by an expressive and exploitative capitalist system, one must act like a guerilla, not give a fuck (as the track says) about any of the bullshit, and just continue making art as a means of fighting back.

Lakutis’s video comes from Shomi Patwary, the director responsible for the dark and gritty New New York video vibe that’s been popular in the last year and a half.  Sure enough, he brings the same level of consistency to “Too Ill For the Law” a blue-tinted vision of Lakutis in dilapidated apartment (presumably hiding from the law), which contrasts nicely with the orange fire throughout the video.  I’m usually not down with burning money in videos, but given the fact that it’s about being above the law, I’ll give it a pass.  The track is solid, the chorus being an obvious reference to Biggie’s “Kick in the Door”.  Lakutis continues his talent for speaking absolute nonsense, but pulling it off with an absurd swagger and a series of obscure references that keep me interested in anything he puts out.  File these two tracks together, under innovative artists that paint a much different picture of New York than their A$AP Mob or Pro Era contemporaries.

The Simpsons have one of the most anthemic theme sequences for any TV show. Devilfish, a English creative agency, recreated the opening animation as a promo for the Simpsons on their network Sky1. The result? A video full of fmailair movement, timing, and music made more real than you ever thought possible. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t smile during the video. How cute to see Bart Simpson actually escape from his detention cell via skateboard. The actors chosen to play the Simpsons are so spot on too. If Homer was a real person, that is exactly what he would look like, beer-belly and all.

Converting animation to live action is not an easy task, however because The Simpsons are “real people” it’s not much of a challenge as it could be. What would be challenging, is to make a live-action version of Nickelodean classic, “Rocko’s Modern Life”. The cartoon about a immigrant wallaby might be a little bit more complicated, as all the Australian wallabies I know are either drunk on Bondai Beach, or just difficult to work with.

Sometimes making a sandwich can be tough. The endless permutations of meat, cheese, sauces can be maddening to ponder. Even harder is choosing the correct bread…do you go with ciabatta? Is whole wheat the right choice, or do you use a croissant for its sweetness? In A-trak and Tommy Trash’s new video, “Tuna Melt”, the perfect sandwich is crafted…via domino effect. Following these dominos, we are able to maneuver through the household starting at a pool table, climbing upstairs, taking a bath, and ultimately, opening the doors to the perfect tuna melt.

There are so many sections and complicated routines associated with the domino effect here, imagine how many attempts it took to get this right. This Rube Goldberg contraption ultimately makes a prime tuna melt. I guess sesame was the perfect bread of choice.