Designer Drugs - Drop Down

In a world of dirty hipsters and even dirtier electro, those that resound with gritty, zealous synths and frantic basslines reign supreme. Designer Drugs, a couple of odd fellows who have come out of the woodwork with those assets and more, have churned out remix after remix and made a name for themselves as purveyors of true fucking party music. Lucky for us, their original music is just as good as the many remixes that they lay claim to, and with their newly released singles, "Riot / Drop Down," they prove this to club kids with a stunning array of caustic, and often violent, beats. I'm somewhat concerned about the general anger and sense of sadism that I expect, and thoroughly enjoy, from a lot of the music I listen to... but with videos like The Bloody Beetroots' Awesome and the studded fist that adorns the cover of "Riot / Drop Down," this theme of animosity seems rather self-perpetuating, though it does happen to perfectly coincide with the "get fucked and dance" party atmosphere of electro as well. The single that stands out more to me out of the two is "Drop Down." The little hook, "drop down, let me give it to you," is catchy as all hell and signals the coming of an atomic explosion of sound and weird, manic melodies. The wobbly electro synth melody pervades through the music as convulsive and dark and conjoins fantastically with an equally invasive crazy resonating alarm sound. The build is fucking beautiful, and the drop even more so. If you want darkened electro with a taste of pure party frenzy, this track is for you. Check it.

MSTRKRFT - Heartbreaker [Music Video]

MSTRKRFT (featuring John Legend) from Vincent Haycock on Vimeo.

The awesomely cute video for "Heartbreaker" by MSTRKRFT. I've been obsessed with this song lately, check it out.

X & Hell - Jump the Gun [Jakwob Remix]

To those of you who are stuck dealing with me on a daily basis, you're probably well aware that in the last week or two, I've been on an unstoppable (possibly life-threatening) dubstep binge. The genre is propelling itself upwards out of the musical underground and tearing to shreds everyone's vestibular systems with grimey, syncopated basslines encompassing earth-shaking wobbles. As it's shoved into the limelight, I'm assuming somewhat against the will of many cause now it's just fucking "trendy," we can also see producers sprouting out of the ground like flowers in spring... and I assume we'll see that these very flowers wilt. Hell, I wouldn't lie to you, I've tried my hand at dubstep - it's a fun, new, and very expansive genre, with much room for creativity and experimentation. At the same time, I'm one of the aforementioned flowers. Granted, you won't see me grow, but... well, enough with the fucking plant metaphors already. Whether you're a dubstep musician or a dubstep fan, you see producers come and go like nothing; some have their 15 minutes of fame with a successful track, and some wreak havoc upon everything they lay their dirty little synths on.

Jakwob is very much the latter.

I would never be able to tell you whether the man is having a very well-coordinated and fantastically-timed streak of luck with his production or he holds the philosophers' stone of dubstep. It's not up for me to speculate about such supernatural issues. My job is to listen, and I would love to think that I do my job well, although people may tell me otherwise. But I do listen, and I hear naught but golden waves of sound from this track. "Jump the Gun" isn't as intense as some of his other remixes, but the staccato of his melody remains persistent and memorable throughout. Simple melodies like these tend to bore me, but he manages to pull it off perfectly, fusing his homogeneous principal against a bouncy and well-timed auxiliary harmonic line. In layman's terms, he kills it all too simplistically. If you're a fan of dubstep, a fan of electronic, or just a fan of good music in general, I can guarantee you won't be disappointed by this track.

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Ellie Goulding - Starry Eyed [Jakwob Remix]

Thumping dubstep track with bass that will rupture your eardrums and mercilessly strip you of your dignity. It's not the dark, evil sound you've come to expect from the generally grimey genre. In fact, it's rather emotional, and of a much brighter tone than most dubstep, most likely due to the choice of song and artist remixed. You don't have to be a musicologist to recognize that dubstep and indie-folk are two highly different genres, which makes Jakwob's melding of the two more impressive than you could ever consider. Sample-laden with vocals gated and pushed until the drop, the song builds and builds to crush you at the peak. Altitude is high. Jakwob presents to you his Everest and dares you to climb it... so go ahead; seize the day.

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Chiddy Bang - The Opposite of Adults (Kids) (ft. MGMT)

Philadelphia electronic/hip-hop crew Chiddy Bang have released one hell of a mixtape to the delight of internet bloggers spanning the world wide web, and the track that stands out in particular to me is "The Opposite of Adults." Chiddy Bang samples MGMT's dreamy, synth-laden summer hit "Kids," and fantastically reworks the beat around their snazzy flow and hypebeast lyricism, with the ever-welcome addition of catchy oscillation and percussion, of course. The vocal content isn't what shines on the track but compliments, to me, entirely their genius idea of sampling and re-editing MGMT. They transformed the nouveau-disco homage to the 80s into an arrangement of addictive and crunchy staccati. Start-stops never sounded so damn good. Check out the rest of the mixtape if you'd like... but for me, this gem shines the brightest.

National Skyline - Bliss & Death

Rating: 9
Links:
- Official Website
- Last.fm

National Skyline is the kind of music you'd stare off into the distance to, but at the same time, remain blissfully aware of your surroundings, for fear of an impending attack. I barely have any idea what I'm talking about, really. To put it in not-crazy-terms, beautifully mixed shoegazing guitars, eccentric electronics and surrealist lyricism are the result of National Skyline's newest effort, "Bliss & Death." I hadn't heard of National Skyline before this, but from what I gathered, they came off as a normal "indie rock" band. I was serendipitously wrong, my expectations crushed. Of a far higher quality than anything I had expected, "Bliss & Death" from beginning to end never failed to impress me. From the catchy, Radioheadesque "Revenge" to the acoustic strumming against ranging, varied soundscapes of "Kingdom" to the album's very last song & instrumental fit for a king, "The Ghost II," National Skyline prove themselves to be a hell of a band and certainly earn my respect. Not many artists can consistently get better, and since I've, from first hearing this album, looked up reviews for previous albums and saw only good things, I must congratulate them on a job well done. My minor problems with the album stem only from "Bloom", a 7 minute song whose instrumental passages, as much as I loved them, could stand to be less lengthy; they lead into a rather abrupt ending for the song, and what seems to come off as a build-up reveals itself to be rather consistent playing. Other than that, bravo to National Skyline.

Album Highlights: Everything, especially "The Ghost II", "Solid Cold", "Driving Down", and "Kingdom".