M-i-s-s-i-s-s-i-p-p-i

It's my pleasure to introduce you all to the world of Mississippi Jones, A duo of J@$ and Mississippi herself. I've known for some time now thanks to me having some back-and-forths with the woman herself on twitter. She seemed nice enough which is always a plus and based on what people were saying about their stuff I was inclined to like it, yesterday she was nice enough to hook me up with some of their latest music. Let's dive in.

Y'all know I'm no stranger to moody stuff, and seeing some comparisons with Portishead I was well prepped to get my sad on. Imagine my surprise when after the intro out of my speakers comes this sound almost like if La Roux did a collab with Amy Winehouse. There's other comparisons I could draw too, some of the more synthy tracks from Little Dragon's self-titled debut and maybe a smidge of Au Revoir Simone but the point is it's very, very well done.



I had barely enough time to recover before I got slammed in the chest by the next track. I haven't been taken unawares by bass like that since James Blake's cover of Limit To Your Love. A little change in direction here, definitely more on the electronic side, certainly some of that dubstep feel present on Blake's work. The production is on point here, well balanced and compliments the vocal talents of Mississippi well throughout, especially on the intro.



Ending with more of a poppy feel again, not that that's a bad thing mind, in fact it's something I've been meaning to pick up more of for a while now. More shoutouts to the production here, with yet another gorgeous intro and killer bassline. Not to discredit Mississippi herself, who is giving me major Martina-Topley Bird vibes here. this one's probably my favourite vocal of the three.



Mississippi Jones will be releasing the second part of their Recourse: Elemental series on July 20th digitally. I'll definitely be keeping tabs on them from now on, the variety on display here is promising and I'd very much love a band to fill the Broadcast shaped hole in my heart since we lost Trish Keenan.

Find Mississippi Jones at:
Bandcamp
Soundcloud
Official Site
Facebook
Youtube

Pride (Soundcloud player broken as of 2020)

A litte late on this one, but long time pal of the blog and ex-writer Joe (Now producing under Cloudfill) got around to releasing the newest project for his label Hexmania. The concept is simple enough, the compilation is chock full of productions and each one is by a LGBTQ+ artist, and all the proceeds from sales (both digital and casette!) go to The Kaleidoscope Trust, an intentional LGBTQ+ rights orginisation.



The results speak for themselves, from the bouncy sugary sweetness of the opening track Keep Moving!!! to 8-bit bass from Cloudfill himself there's not a dud note on it. And honestly to get a little if you're into electronic music at all, you owe the LGBTQ+ community a great deal seeing as they have been integral to its history and evolution, and despite the progress made in recent times discrimination and marginilisation is still a massive issue for these folk. So give it a listen and as always, stay safe and enjoy the music!

Toneden: The First Batch *(Players broken as of 2020)*

Finaly got around to sorting through the lit of promos sent to me thanks to our new 'n streamlined Toneden partnership. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the stuff we're getting is pretty varied in styles which is always good to see. I forwarded a few on to the other writers but here's a couple that caught me, after the art of course.

Dan Baldwin - Dark Forces

After covering 20 years of Warp Records it should be no surprise I like a little experimental stuff n the side, so immediately this one caught my eye. Before I even got to the track I was diggin' the visual accompaniment with me being all arty and whatnot, and the tracks fit them to a T. Take this one for example, right from the intro it was giving me Apparat-esque vibes, and I'm absolutely in love with the lush synths that get dropped in towards the mid point.



And finally something a little unexpected, reading promos can be a real drag sometimes but when they come out with saying they've already been featured on BBC Introducing you gotta give them a closer look. Reminds me of the kinda tunes I'd hear watching MTV at like 1 A.M years ago, liking it a lot.



But that's not what they got in touch with us about, no they wanted us to have a look at their follow up single! It shines a bit more on the production side than Cold and it seems like they're really finding their sound. It does get a little mainstream dance-y in parts which I'm not a massive fan of, but they're doing well for themselves and those breakdowns are still lovely. Interested to see where they take it in future.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Promos of the Week

Right, time for a new feature.

Every day, we get a healthy stack of promo emails. Quite a lot of them are shit, but a few of them sneak pass the crap-o-meter and I think some of these should get more recognition, so every week, i'll post my 3 or 4 favourite promos.

I should warn you though, that I don't get all of the promos that are sent. Prez forwards me a batch of them every day or two, so the ones I post, are the ones i get on my inbox.

Anyway, onto the tracks.

The first one is by a group called Laser Sex. Bit of an odd name. They're from Scranton, Pennsylvania and this is their first single "Dr. Thunder Nose".

It is a nice, flowing track with a deep feeling to it. It's a bit hard to describe, but the highlight is the guitar. Shame about the ending vocal samples though, they don't make much sense here.

Laser Sex · Dr. Thunder Nose

This next one is by CROPS, a Melbourne based british artist, who also gives us his first single, "Ana".

With fantastic vocals, this is a smooth and relaxing track, with a great use of synths and with a beat that just gives it that extra bit of force.

CROPS - Ana

Finally, we have something a bit funkier, by Claude Perdu, who we featured not long ago.

This is a remix for Faisal's "Journey" that entered a competition but sadly didn't win.

It has a fantastic bassline and the sample work follows right behind it. I can't figure out how this remix didn't win, this is what all House music should be like.

Claude Perdu · Faisal - Journey (Claude Perdu Remix)

Enjoy!


Surf's up,
Alex.

Intro To Epilogue

So, I'm still kinda on an electro kick, and having nearly exhausted my current supply I was craving some new stuff. that's when I checked my e-mails and saw this: The latest release from a group called Galactaron; an electro group with a Drexciya-esque backstory - a group of aliens on their first visit to earth. To make music with their new human friend Emily Wong of course.



The track they linked me is pretty sweet, avoiding cliche electro elements and dabbling in vocoders (which for me is ALWAYS a bonus). It also has a fairly unique twist in that every word in the lyrics is in a different language, ranging from Afrikaans to Russian, while this idea sounds a bit sketchy on paper, the end result actually sounds really good, almost comparable to some tracks from Squarepusher's Shobaleader One: d'Demonstrator. (you can download it from their soundcloud, I can't upload it at the minute as I'm on a borrowed laptop)

Galactaron - Epilogue by galactaron

And here are a few more of their tracks I liked from their soundcloud:


Galactaron - First Contact by galactaron


Galactaron - With Just One Moon by galactaron


Galactaron - Wǒmen Move On by galactaron

Find Galactaron on:
Soundcloud
Bandcamp
Facebook

Outer Space, To Find Another Race,
-Claude Van Foxbat