My apologies for letting the last week go by without more than a single post.  Hopefully this week I can take a little time to sharing some of the tunes I’ve been bumpin.  Today, we’re going to take a journey into the world of electronic music as embodied by abstract hip-hop.  There has been a massive increase in the popularity of this sound and its prevalence in the productions of a wide range of musicians, both new artists and in the catalogues of more well-established ones.  The style is characterized by a more abstract beat structure, use of more glitchy samples than you would ever hear in mainstream hip-hop, and lots of heavy samples and synths.  People name influences ranging from J Dilla to DJ Shadow, and it’s the wide multi-genre perspective gives this sound its appeal.

is a relatively new face on the scene, but this Dublin-native has been turning heads right out of the gate, first with his captivating remix of the Flying Lotus track Roberta Flack, more recently with a dusting of EPs, one of which was included on the All City Records (who put out guys like , Slott’s frequent collaborator) compilation 7×7 Beat (pictured above, love the layout!).  This track has been on non-stop repeat all weekend for me, I love the synth tones he weaves throughout the track, giving it a delicious vintage feel.

Speaking of , why not include him in today’s post…this track was my favorite from his release Los Angeles, which came out last year.  So you can imagine my palpable excitement when I found out that there was a music video for the track, called Parisian Goldfish.  After seeing the video, I was left speechless…yeah, speechless is the word.  Directed by Eric Wareheim of Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! fame under the name Dance Floor Dale, this video is most definitely NOT SAFE FOR WORK!

Here’s a producer I came across this past weekend, with a track that bumps hard, maybe this plays out a little less abstract than these other tracks, but it’s definitely steeped in the Detroit hip-hop sound.  (313 refers to Detroits main area code) sounds at first like it was made by someone from Detroit who had grown up there all his life, but it’s actually the solo project of Australian Mark Pritchard, a study in Detroit-style hip-hop and an offshoot of his Harmonic 33 project with Dave Brinkworth.

I know I already posted up something from ‘s latest album, Everything She Touched Turned Ampexian, but if I’m going to post of FlyLo, I might as well post up some P73 while I’m at it.  This artist is an example of the above-mentioned well-established musician whose music evolved into it’s current form, which aligns well with the genre categorization of abstract hip hop.  …Ampexian is shaping up to be one of my favorite releases of 2009, a wild journey through an alien world, a documentary of ancient star-faring tribes, with a soundtrack as diverse and astounding as you might expect if such a documentary were to exist.

Mike Slott – My Lightbridge

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Flying Lotus – Parisian Goldfish

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Harmonic 313 – Battlestar (ft. Phat Kat & Elzhi)

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Prefuse 73 – Regato

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Posted in Music Posted by Alex on Jun 29 2009 02:25 pm

Tags: All City Records, Flying Lotus, Harmonic 313, Mike Slott, Prefuse 73