Short but sweet. Really sweet. I just stumbled about this Slava fellow. Apparently he has an album coming out on the label run by the dude from Oneohtrix Point Never.
Little ambient. Little dark. Little footwork with those drums in the background. Some spaced out synths. I'm digging it because I like the combo of the psychedelic synth loops and weird footwork beats. Two things that I don't really listen to a ton of by themselves but which seem to work well together.
1. This photo was taken by the one and only Stanley Kubrick. True story, he use to be a newspaper photographer before he made films. He spent a summer in Chicago and documented the city. You can find more of that here.
2. Favorite video of the year by far. To be honest, I have pretty much stopped watching music videos. I find most of them to be obnoxious and gimmicky but I think this is fantastic. I love how all the photos are positioned in such a way that you can only see portions of them. You never know exactly what you are looking at and how the reflections just distort your senses even more.
3. I literally have been sleeping on this track. (Puns!) I normally get the new Kompakt Pop Ambient album every year and it immediately gets put into the sleeping music rotation. When I heard this track pop up on the Beat Oracle mix I was listening to today I recognized it from my dreams but couldn't figure out why. Seriously though, 100 times better in waking life. Yea, it is quintessential ambient pop music that I assume they play in Starbucks all over Germany but it is still awesome.
It wouldn't be winter without a bitching ambient track from Kompakt, would it?
Some beats. Finally, right? It's been a minute I feel like since we've had some beats around these parts. And, of all places to find them - John Talabot. I'm glad to see we haven't given up on are campaign to post every single John Talabot track every. We'll get there someday.
It's Monday, I've been dragging all day and I'm already dreading the rest of the week. I think that's why I listened to this tune about a dozen times today - I need to hear those drums to get me going. Percussion has always been front in center in Talabot's work. Lots of energetic beats, shimmering chords, and an effort to just lay it all out on the table. Holding back doesn't seem to be part of his MO which is why I love it.
After doing a little digging this is what I have learned - Tevo Howard, son of Rick 'Poppa' Howard is a House producer from Chicago. He produces the tracks and his dad contributes vocals. It's a family affair. And after reading Tevo's bio, I'm all in. I kind of wish I did the same thing. I suppose it isn't too late.
There is just something so refreshing about this track. I can listen to it over and over again and it never gets old. Similarly to the track of his that I posted the other day its the fact that so much comes from so little. The vocals are the most noticeable part, clearly, but do not sleep on the rest. It's like a good steak. Don't full around with any seasonings or anything. Don't get too fancy. Less is more.
Holy shit! Look at that chicken. Look at that kid smoking. Who takes a picture of that. It's brilliant.
I'm not even going to try and get into how I found this song. Just know that it was during a period of time where I really should have been doing some other work. But then I learned about 'voguing' and how that was a thing in the 80's in NYC. And then I learned that someone had put out a collection of tracks from that period. And the next thing I know I'm down a YouTube rabbits hole of disco that has no end in sight. It's a brutal existence.
