Tag Archives: Arnold

EP: C.Z. – bathtub

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Over the past year C.Z. (of M|O|D)’s sound has gone in a number of different directions.  He started buzzing with a sound that could be pretty easily classified as trap with songs like “Doin’ What I Do” and over the past few months has moved towards a heavy UK Garage influence with songs like “wana do”.  Now, with bathtub, C.Z, is releasing his first solo EP in a while and is finding a way to make all of these sounds work together.  On this EP he weaves influences from a huge number of genres of electronic music together into a cohesive project, maintaining a consistent well-produced but quirky sound throughout.  This is a weird time for a lot of artists who have been labeled as “trap” in the past despite creating lots of different types of music, but it looks like C.Z. is doing a really good job of keeping things interesting.  Stream my favorite track from the EP below and the whole thing after the jump.

-TC

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EP: Yung Satan – Maserati

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Out of all of the changing styles in M|O|D over the past year, one of the most exciting to watch in progress has been Yung Satan.  In the early stages of M|O|D’s work together Yung Satan stuck with a fairly distinct style of rapidly chopping samples to make melodic lines, but eventually started experimenting and moving away from it.  Over the course of late 2012 we saw Yung Satan mess around with a lot of different sounds, and now he is beginning to settle into one.  On PENG 003 Yung Satan contributed maybe his best track yet and is now releasing his first solo project in the form of an EP.  Maserati sees Yung Satan becoming comfortable among swelling, colorful, and melodic synths and vocal sample chops that recall his earlier style.  You can stream my favorite track off of the EP below and the whole thing after the jump.

-TC

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Video: French Royalty – Daggers

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Personally, I have never valued novelty and innovation in music over great songwriting and often find myself in a hipster existential crisis thinking that there are no new sounds and ideas in music.  Everything is recycled.  Sometimes, I feel like bands or artists go out of their way to make something completely new or novel and find themselves losing what makes listening to music so great and rewarding in the first place.  Yet sometimes, artists manage to find the perfect balance between complete abstraction and pop sensibilities with a resulting song that sounds like nothing I’ve ever heard before.  ”Daggers” from the outfit French Royalty (which I know nothing about at all – shouts out to Arnold for sending this along) is that once in a blogger’s blue moon track.  French Royalty flirt with abstract aspects of pop, hip-hop, post-dubstep and spoken word with a sound that manages to land on something concrete sounding both menacing and beautiful.  If French Royalty doesn’t become a household name in Brooklyn by the end of the year… I mean shoot.

-PK

EP: M|O|D – PENG 002

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Boston’s finest are back with the second installment in their PENG trill-ogy (hahahhah get it? im the man) and its more bangier than ever.  PENG 001 saw the five producers basically abandoning the cliché’s of their former trap aesthetic for more house and garage-influenced styles, and PENG 002 finds them polishing those sounds even more.  The EP opens with a track from C.Z. that represents the most clean and refined point his production style has reached yet, Arnold continues his experimentation with bass drum-driven music merging his quirky style with a cleaner house aesthetic, Yung Satan continues to build on the experimental and melodic sound he’s been building up, Lil TExAS finds the perfect medium between trap and house with probably the biggest banger on the EP, and Rewrote closes out with another indescribable and wonderfully experimental 8-bit track.  I can already see the improvement between PENG 001 and this, and its been less than a month so I’m excited to see where these guys take their sound in 2013.  Stream Lil TExAS and C.Z.’s tracks below and the whole thing after the jump.

-TC

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M|O|D – PENG001 (EP)

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With some of M|O|D’s earlier work, they were easily put into the increasingly claustrophobic box of trap music.  Trap music’s future is looking increasingly uncertain, so M|O|D are wisely moving away from the genre that many thought was all they knew how to do.  For PENG001 M|O|D kept it simple and down to only 1 track from each of them, which seems to be a really good format for highlighting each artists individual talents.  REWROTE’s track shows his sound to be just as indefinable as ever, LiL TExAS still maintains his southern flair along with some experimental sample choices that work really well, Arnold and C.Z. both are beginning to show the heavier influences of Boston’s burgeoning house and U.K. Garage scene on their music without ever resorting to straight four-on-the-floor bass drums, and Yung Satan continues his exciting experimentation with heavy reverb and synth work.  After appearing on the boiler room a couple of weeks ago M|O|D are sure to be getting an influx of attention recently, and this short EP is definitely a good move.  Stream my favorite track from the EP below and stream the whole thing after the jump.

-TC

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mp3: Sonja Marie – And I Gave My Love To You (Yung Satan Ultra Gucci Screw Down)

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In between providing us with some of the most interesting and colorful future-trap and electronic beats the blogosphere has to offer and kicking it with the other cool dudes of M|O|D, Yung Satan likes to get introspective and spend time reworking the soulful tunes of Sonja Marie.  Yung Satan’s ‘And I Gave My Love To You (Ultra Gucci Screw Down)’ doesn’t feature any of the high energy synths or 808s drum kicks that usually line his music, and instead provides Sonja’s jam with a classic slowed down and turnt up chopped and screwed treatment.  This is straight mood setting music so find the nearest fine lady or gent near you and spend three gorgeous minutes staring into each other’s eyes contemplating the fragility of the human heart.

-PK

mp3: Rewrote – o Rain

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Promising a “new sad club song for sad ravers in dark environments”, M|O|D member Rewrote continues to experiment beyond future-trap with his newest track ‘o Rain’.  Rewrote set lofty expectations for ‘o Rain’ and I wasn’t sure if the poetic description would match the content but the track absolutely delivers with an atmospheric, gorgeous and huge sound.  On ‘o Rain’, Rewrote works with the same walking down a city street at 4 A.M. vibe done so well by producers like Burial and DJ Shadow without directly taking from either of their playbooks.  The clean and beautifully produced drum tracks shift around, never settling into a solid grove behind the muted synth arpeggios and ghostly sampled vocals.  Rewrote has changed locations from Boston M|O|D headquarters and, whether or not the change of scenery has anything to do with it, I’m really liking how he’s been refining and defining his sound.

-PK