MADLIB & FREDDIE GIBBS - SHAME

Right, so- simply, this is the best song I’ve heard this summer. It’s making me so happy. The sample- The Manhattans’ 1973 ‘Wish That You Were Mine’ combines with Freddie Gibbs’ rapping to make this an epic track from Madgibbs’ Shame EP (that being the second collaboration between workaholic machine producer Madlib and Freddie Gibbs). The first was Thuggin’ and can be found here.

For those who don’t know, Madlib’s behind some of the rawest soul slash mashup hip hop shit to grace physical formats since J Dilla. Part of Jaylib with the late J Dilla and a prolific producer, you should check out Madlib Medicine Show which runs to over a dozen volumes of beats, spits, spats and crazy if you don’t already know him.  

Meanwhile, BJ The Chicago Kid sings beautifully on ‘Shame’. Smashed together with Gibbs’ majorly explicit, uncompromising rapping, he punctures that machismo one night stand posturing and turns it into something tender, smooth and sexy. After 40 listens, I can confirm that the BJ The Chicago Kid’s hook may have been sent from god.     

guerre aka lavurn lee

‘Bedroom’ artist Guerre (aka Lavurn Lee) has produced a big musical catalogue in the past two years. His music is quietly enticing, like sand immediately after a wave has struck that gently gravitates towards the sea. It’s the after bits that Guerre deals in; the clicks, the slurs, the tiny cuts, to produce delicately emotional results.

Debut EP Darker My Love is available for digital download via new label Yes Please.

disclosure- carnival

We all love that feeling of a limited release, don’t we listeners? Isn’t it a fetish when we rush to buy a song whose production run is in three figures, enjoy the triumph of ring-fencing one of those copies in our little pockets, and then gallop to the nearest listening facility and share it heartily with our friends? I think so.

Well Disclosure, comprising 19 and 16-year-old brothers Guy and Howard Lawrence, have released 'Carnival' in a seriously limited, 300-print run 7” double A-side single (that’s one copy for every member of Bruce Springsteen & The E-Street Band, probably). However, simultaneously, they have been good enough to accommodate the fact that most of us won’t be able to get our mits on one by releasing the song as part of a free 5-track EP in exchange for liking the Disclosure Facebook page. Aw, guys.

If light market whoring seems an effort, then release aside, 'Carnival' is a great song. Its 2-step rhythms bring to mind SBTRKT’s recently successful 'Wildfire', which crossed sparse dubstep and garage, and herald good things for a duo that are so incredibly young. The tight vocal loops and minimal instrumentation that have been popularised by James Blake in the past year help the song build to a crescendo: a lively ball of fidgety pop that is at once familiar and irresistibly danceable.

Disclosure- Carnival

FRESH DENIM

White Denim kindly released this new EP Last Day of Summer for free through their WEBSITE last week. It's a rough outline of their work on a third album. 'Shy Billy' will hopefully really kick out after the 2mins-ish available now, when (or if) it's selected for the album.

White Denim- Shy Billy