Hotflush Recordings presents a brand new production duo that eludes classification: Mount Kimbie. Based in London, they have developed a truly unique sound whose experimental rhythms lend themselves to the fringes of dubstep, wonky and hip hop, but ooze with emotion and echoing ambient soundscapes that take the listener to an entirely different place.
This first release features four tracks, which capture their evolving sound. The minds behind Mount Kimbie, Dominic Maker and Kai Campos, both 23, met at university and began making music together in a home studio in Peckham. Hints of their influences from hip-hop, jazz, dubstep and experimental electronica can be heard in their productions.
Both Mount Kimbie EP’s 'Maybes' and ‘Sketched On Glass’ have already been well received, with support coming from DJs including Mary Anne Hobbs’ Scuba, Rob Booth, Ramadanman and Gilles Peterson
Now with their fantastic remixes for The Big Pink and The XX making the rounds, plus an exclusive Radio 1 Maida Vale session planned on the Gilles Peterson show very soon, it’s official, “Mount Kimbie are here” (RA).
“Mount Kimbie are in a genre all of their own” - Fact Magazine
“Anyone investigating the fringes of the dubstep scene this is among the most intriguing and best informed gear you'll find.” - Boomkat
back
Not much is known about this Mexican virtuoso who hails from Guadalajara, other than that José Carlos Pesina Siller goes under three pseudonyms Pesina Siller, Pepepe and his newest and greatest aliasLos Amparito. Siller has been making music since 2007, but I reckon he’s only now hitting his stride.
Like a Mexican version of Animal Collective, this one-man band makes music for people who need to move, dance and philosophize at the same time. Although he has remixed Animal Collective, Los Amparito seems to identify with the anarchistic music culture we now live in, taking in elements from all the different trashcans of popular culture. Maybe a post-Animal Collective/Pitchfork mosaic if you will.
This will be definitely one of the big names on everyone’s lips in 2010. When I first heard his featured SXSW track, ”Por Medio De La Lectura”, I honestly had to make sure I wasn’t listening to The Books, El Guincho or even The Avalanches. Just a trippy and enlightening journey into the wide-open vistas of Mexico.
How can such a talent go so unnoticed? What a crime.
Under Pepepe he was giving his albums away for free for gods sake! But under Los Amparito he has yet to release his debut LP. Of all the three pseudonyms Los Amparito seems to be the most articulate and confident, choosing traditional and psychedelic melodies to fly away on. Amazing tunes like ‘4500 milliones De Anos De Soledad’ really show his strengths and the acid drenched Cajun tune ‘Las Miradas De Magaly’ forces you to take notice.
Check out all three of his MySpace’s and make sure you help out this obscure independent artist, not that he’ll need it soon.
back
Hype Williams is a project conceived by artists D. Blunt and Inga Copeland. Music being their main creative form of expression, the band exists as part of a bigger picture completed by video, installation and performance works.
Despite the misguiding messages about their identity, Hype Williams act as protagonists in most of their work inviting the public into an intimate space where diverse mass-culture references get filtered through a personal relationship with their surroundings: ‘It’s all about abuse, be it drugs, culture or our equipment’.
Accustomed to the habit of recording only during “magic hours”, their music is a reflection of this sunless but bright time of day when everyday objects are exposed to a new kind of light. Complicated keyboard melodies, heavy bass and disjointed beats are layered in their seemingly incomplete productions; off-key vocals are adopted from borrowed characters.
Too raw to be pop and too slick to be lo-fi, Hype Williams inhabits the world in between where imperfections are, in fact, perfect. They own a timeshare with singer T-Pain and own 553 copies of the 'up in smoke' tour DVD.
"Believe our hype about Hype." The Guardian
“We can confidently assert that d.blunt and inga copeland have released a handful of disarmingly excellent tracks over the past year or so" Wire magazine
For tourdates check Crocodiles’ Myspace
For the uninitiated, Crocodiles songs began slinging across the Interweb after their friends in No Age named the band’s song “Neon Jesus” as one of their Top Ten shredders of 2008. Unprompted, the forward-thinking Fader Blog posted two more stunner tracks, “I Wanna Kill” and “Summer of Hate.” Stereogum recently named them Band to Watch and described them as “The Velvet Underground swinging Jesus and Mary Chain.” Really though, Crocodiles are just a great new rock duo hollering some fine tunes.
San Diego is a sleepy military town, stuck between Tijuana and the bright lights of Los Angeles, but this isn’t Surf City, USA. The beaches may be home to students and tanners, but they’re also home to hell’s angels, jocks, drug casualties, and the medicated rich. Warplanes rumble in and out of the naval base, and as in countless American cities, the kids here are bored.
Charles Rowell and Brandon Welchez met as teenagers amidst this overwhelming feeling of emptiness. Playing in various groups since then, the duo struck out on their own as Crocodiles in April of 2008. They quickly self-released a 7” single and used it as an excuse to escape their tarpit hometown, first touring up and down the west coast and then venturing across the whole of the U.S.
Crocodiles debut album, Summer of Hate, was recorded over the winter of 2008, and will be released by Fat Possum on April 28, 2009. it is born of the same alienation and frustration that fueled Charles’ and Brandon’s initial pairing. Poppy vocal melodies are crushed with harsh electronic drums or lifted and left floating in spaced-out noise and echo. loud, wiry guitars jab wildly like mutant synapses skirting along a tightrope drone.This is the dark side of the California sun.
back