The Streets Announce April 2018 UK Shows -- YES REALLY

Now YOU can't unsee my all time favorite photograph of Mike Skinner either. lol.

YEAH. 

YOU READ THE DAMN HEADLINE. 

I am losing my goddamn mind right now. 

Earlier today Mike Skinner announced via Instagram that him and The Streets boys will be reuniting for a string of UK shows in April 2018. 

I do not wish to be a person to say I have any regrets in life, but damn my heart sure did shatter when they split and I hadn't been able to make it to any of their US shows. 

This sliver of hope is giving me this itch to do something crazy come this Friday (the 13th) like grab a pair or two now and figure out plane tickets and silly things like that later. 

Oh lorde, I feel like I'm out of my mind. 

Would you go? 

spoken to my band! told them we need to sing the old songs! on sale 9am Friday 13th

15k Likes, 2,776 Comments - Mike Skinner (@mikeskinnerltd) on Instagram: "spoken to my band! told them we need to sing the old songs! on sale 9am Friday 13th"

[Download] Toto - "Africa (Mason's Re-Jig)"

Hi hi I'm not dead I have just been super busy between switching jobs and MOVING BACK TO BROOOOKKKKLLLLLLYYYNNNN that um you know gushing to the internet about music on any platform but twitter dot com gets to be a bit time consuming tbh. 

Anywho, I have played this an embarrassing number of times today but it has made me so fucking happy that I ain't even mad tho. If you have been following along with Mason you'll have noticed that he really stepped up his internetting and recently asked his fans what song he should remix next. Apparently there was an overwhelming number of requests for Toto's 1982 classic, "Africa" and let me tell y'all the dude D E L I V E R E D. 

Don't take my word for it, have a listen below. 

BTW - amongst his stellar internetting he's also been doing a weekly mixshow podcast thing called The Animal Language Show. He's currently 16 weeks strong and each show runs about an hour of danceable delights. Definitely worth a listen if you're looking to dance and dig up new tunes. 

More soon promise! 

[Video] Fischerspooner - "Have Fun Tonight" (Official Video)

Photo by Asger Carlsen

I TOLD YOU SOMETHING WAS COMING SUPER SOON. 

I THOUGHT I WAS READY FOR THIS DAY TO COME. 

But honestly I wasn't ready for how hard the first *official* single from Fischerspooner would hit me.

I am truly blown away by "Have Fun Tonight". There's seriously so much going on here that with every spin I find Casey Spooner doing a number on my #feels as he delivers each lyrical blow. The song is described as, "a queer dance ballad about polyamory (...or polyagony) encouraging your lover to go out and have fun without you". It was co-written by a Michael Stipe and BOOTS and comes from their forthcoming album, Sir, which will be out on September 22nd courtesy of Ultra. That's right, fam. We FINALLY have a release date. Let the countdown begin!

What's interesting about the performance that Spooner gives on "Have Fun Tonight" is that it can lead you into interpreting the song a slightly different way each time you listen to it. By the end of my first listen I was convinced that this was the perspective of someone feeling trapped in a poly relationship that they didn't really want to be in. Another time I thought this could be taken as a brief moment of insecurity as all long term relationships have. Then in a different instance I considered the lyric, "I can't imagine anyone can love you like I can" to be the hint that the perspective is actually a lot more confident than previously though.  The words are all chosen so carefully that in spite of it being written with a polyamorous relationship in mind that it can speak to people in all walks of life because every intimate relationship has a certain level of complexity to it as this particular one has. 

Another thing I am loving about "Have Fun Tonight" is the context that it has provided to the first Sir-related song that was quietly half-released last year, "Everything Is Just Alright". As previously reported by yours truly, Spooner has said that this record was going to be "unabashedly homosexual". At the time with just "Everything Is Just Alright" as a reference point I wasn't sure where Fischerspooner was planning to take us, but with side by side listens of both EIJA and HFT it sounds like it could be anywhere - from the booze soaked dance floor of a gay bar to bedroom of longtime lovers and everywhere in between. 

In addition to the news about Sir, Fischerspooner have revealed that there will also be a museum show called SIR at MUMOK in Vienna, which will run June 29 to October 29, and that an art book will be released along with the exhibit.

[Video] Gold Class - "Twist In The Dark" (Official Video)

photo credit: Jules Christie

Aussie rockers Gold Class have delivered a one-two punch today. In addition to unveiling the video for their latest single, "Twist In The Dark", the band also announced their sophomore album, Drum, which drops on August 18th via felte. "Twist In The Dark" follows up the song that initially sold me on them, "Kids On Fire", and packs one hell of a wallop to your eardrums. 

I knew from the second The Algorithm™ delivered them to me that Gold Class had the potential to be fast-tracked into being SKOA Fam. After reading the statement from singer and lyricist Adam Curley about his motivation behind the album, well, you read this excerpt and tell me this isn't the kind of band you want to go all in behind: 

"I knew what the purpose of the album would be when I wrote the repeated line in 'Get Yours': 'There’s none left here and all I need.' I wanted it to be a record of defiance, a resistance to the idea of scrambling for a place at a table that wasn’t set for you. A sort of a love letter to anyone who not only can’t meet the standard but doesn’t want to. I wanted it to be a record of rage and ecstasy and endless nights and sex and dumb fun and ventures in solidarity. Not just an album of urgency and longing, but one of abandon and a reclaiming of a self beyond boundaries."

No word yet if the band from down under will be reenacting the below performance based music video on US soil AKA touring any time soon, but you kids in Europe will be able to catch them in September at their handful of tour dates. 

GOLD CLASS TOUR DATES

09.20-23 Hamburg, DE @ Reeperbahn Festival

09.23 Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso Noord

09.26 London, UK @ Moth Club

[Artist Playlist] Slum Sociable - Dip Your Head In The Oven (Spotify)

In my ongoing quest to cure my perpetual musical FOMO I have started following some artist playlists on Spotify of artists whose taste I trust to be good. I've decided as I go through their playlists and identify the active + solid ones that I'll share them through here because we know sharing is caring. 

Since Slum Sociable or "Slum fam" as I refer to them on Twitter were essential to making sure I had a final last day of CMJ 2015 during the Australian BBQ (or "Aussie Heaven" as I called it) I decided to give their playlist titled 'Dip Your Head In The Oven' a whirl. There's quite a variety going on here, which can be appreciated in the order they've arranged as well as on shuffle if that's more your thing. I hope this is an indication of what they drew inspiration from for their new album (which is done as of April according to Facebook). BTW - I've checked this playlist out a few times and they seem to keep it updated fairly frequently, so it's one worth following and checking in on. 

This is really hitting the spot for me today while I work. Finding some good gems as I go, too. 

Enjoy! 

[Watch] Prism Tats - "The Liar" (Official Video)

Yoooo how in the world did I miss there was new Prism Tats songs on the world wide web?! I mean I know I am only a whopping 6 days off but I don't think y'all understand how much I enjoyed his self-titled debut album. It was by and large one of my favorite records of 2016. If you have not heard that shit you need to get on that! 

ANYWAY 

Almost exactly one week ago today Prism Tats dropped a double single, which also came with a music video for the A-side, "The Liar". I am a person who typically gets very distracted while trying to watch music videos but this for the first time in awhile this actually held my attention. 

This video will probably make you wince a bit watching the rubber bands go across his eyes and stuff, but at the same time it's hard to take your eyes off of. I think this is the first time I've ever seen someone rubber band their face so I think part of what intrigued me was what on earth would compel someone to volunteer to do this. haha 

I don't know much else around this release other than that he's got some shows in California coming up in August with Pickwick. I'd like to think this means he has plans to feed us music constantly, but that's just me being selfish.

For now, enjoy "The Liar" and "Apples":

Hello, World!

side note: ugh ugh life has been so busy that I have a lot to catch up on which I promise I will do this week but I was so excited to stumble across this that it couldn't wait. 

[Interview] Yuksek Just Wants To Make You Groove

The day that Yuksek's debut album, Away From The Sea, graced my ears back in April of 2009 was the day my standards for what an electronic album should sound like were raised to such an insanely high level that only a handful of artists/records have managed to meet since. 8 years, 12 EPs, 3 LPs, and a plethora of remixes and various other projects later, the French producer and DJ has firmly cemented himself as a staple in the dance scene by meticulously making music that will have you dancing until daylight. Literally. I was literally out until 3am last month at his DJ set at Le Bain a few hours after he graciously chatted with me at his listening party in SoHo for his latest album, Nous Horizon, which was released in February. 

"It's more the music drives me than me who drives the music,"

He explained that his approach for making albums is less intentional and more of the byproduct of constantly creating. "I'm not thinking, 'I'm gonna do this kind of record,'" he said, "I just sit in the studio every day. Sometimes doing production for others. I [also] started to make movie scores and stuff. In between I do some stuff for me, just like tripping on a synthesizer or playing bass or something." He went on to detail how this sort of creative process turns into an album, "I record and record and record a lot of stuff and then something comes together like a puzzle in a way." This may sound daunting for some artists, but for him it's an integral part of the process. "It's more the music drives me than me who drives the music," he said. 

While Away From The Sea and Living On The Edge Of Time were both more on the indie/pop spectrum of dance records, his latest endeavor, Nous Horizon, is definitely more disco-esque than anything he's released to date. Even so, there is one core element to all things Yuksek related: groove. "I'm good for that: making people groove," he noted. As he put it, at the end of the day his music is all about, "feeling good, enjoying yourself, and having a good time." 

Unlike his previous albums, you'll notice that this time around that some quality artists appear alongside Yuksek on Nous Horizon: HER, Monika, Juveniles, KIM, and Roman Rappak, vocalist of SKOA favorite Breton. These were more than just your standard features on dance tracks, mind you. "It's called featuring [on the track listing] but I think the word is not exactly accurate," he said, "[...] featuring is sometimes you make an instrumental, you send it to someone, and then like [they] do your shit. On this we did it really old fashioned. They came to the studio. We worked together on the songs as well."

The only criteria for working with Yuksek in any capacity is fairly straightforward: he has to like the artist both personally and professionally. It's something I've continued to admire about him. It's amazing that for such sophisticated music there's zero pretense to how he operates. This is especially the case for both his album and his label, Partyfine, which he started in 2013 as a way to elevate talent that oftentimes might slip between the cracks otherwise. "I thought about [starting the label] for quite some time. I like to produce music for other people and to make records," he explained, "Sometimes it's a bit frustrating to do it and then the project disappears after I finish mixing it or producing it. [With Partyfine] it's more having relationships with artists and to help them to reach the goal they have with their music."

Considering he's both an artist and a label owner, of course I had to pick his brain about streaming. While most people assume that a record will either be a hit or a dud immediately, he sees releases now from a different perspective, "[...] what you release now, I don't know about in 50 years, but in 3 years people can hear it still and you get money from that. Even if it's a small amount of money but it's here." Moreover, he thinks that streaming gives albums a longer shelf life than what existed prior to streaming. "In the past, when you just released an album on vinyl or CD in a shop, when it's not in the shop anymore it's finished. No one can buy it and so it's long term. That's what's interesting with streaming," he noted, "You create a catalog like you do with a publishing company. You know that [like a publishing deal that streaming is] long term because you [have] tracks that are maybe going to be in a movie or in something in 5 years. Streaming has to be seen in that way I think." 

Funnily enough, as I was writing up this interview I decided to refresh my memory of his earlier EPs, which resulted in me wandering to eBay to pick them up on vinyl. Thinking he might be on to something there.

As you can see, Yuksek is some kind of awesome. Be sure to pick up his latest album, Nous Horizon and follow him on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Soundcloud. Oh! And check out his label Partyfine, which is currently prepping some upcoming releases as we speak! 

[Listen] Mason - "Toucan"

I mean just from this press photo we can already tell that Mason is future #SKOAfam amirite?

yoooooo the sun is shining in NYC and I just found my new favorite track to strut my stuff to! 

Enter: producer/DJ/label owner Mason hailing from Amsterdam! In a completely serendipitous moment I happened to catch BBC R1 Dance's tweet about another song of his, "Rhino" (which I cannot find a full version of on BBC but there is this clip). Being the curious person I am when the BBC claims something is the "Hottest Record In The World " I decided to look into this gentleman myself and WOW WOW WOW WOW there is so much goodness going on that I can't wait to spend some quality time this evening going through all of it. 

In addition to what has me dancing in my chair to presently, "Toucan", Mason also has a label called Animal Language, which appears will be chocked full of artists I will soon be gushing about based on the few clips I checked out on Soundcloud. 

I will report back with more findings once I dig into this but MY EARS ARE JUST SO HAPPY I HAD TO SHARE AS SOON AS I COULD! 

Listen to "Toucan" below! 

SO!? Do we love or do we L 😍 V E!?!?!?!