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The last time we went to Fabric it looked like a dirty asylum full of 12-year-old epileptic junkies. But while the young bassheads who cram themselves into this subterranean dankhole often look more like actual baseheads, the club’s sharp booking policy has ensured the music is always well turned out. Fabric has applied the same smarts to its budget mix series which has seen the great, the good and the OK contributing to its 30+ volumes. James Murphy & Pat Mahoney take charge of mix no.36 and the tracklisting reveals a trip through disco history with choice cuts from the seventies, eighties, nineties and beyond. This should tide us over until that Carl Craig mix of Sound Of Silver drops.
Back in the days when we were teenagers (before we had status, before we had pagers) we got our kicks reading the short-lived hip-hop 'zine Fat Lace. With features on crap graf and ugly rappers it was the UK’s answer to Ego Trip. It was silly, sarcastic and pretty autistic in its nerdy dissection of rap music minutia.
Now Fat Lace is back, reborn as a blog, and part of Rawkus’s growing internets network that includes those generous dudes at Smoking Section. They’ve already uploaded some old Westwood radio shows (Sugar Bear and Stezo in session!) and there’s promise of plenty more. Bookmark it under Dumb English Rap Blogs.
Our occasional buffet of interview leftovers continues with the lovely Goldilocks. Hailing from the home of Kate Moss, scrunchies and dubstep, you're more likely to find Sarah Louise Akwisombe blowing up bassbins than burgling the bear fam. She's produced tracks for Tinchy Stryder and Kate Nash, and remixes for Mutya and Example. Her debut single Wasteman (featuring Boy Better Know’s Frisco) and will be out on Locked On in October.
Here she tells us about making beats and her talented pals... [Continues...]
Kanye popped up on Entourage this week, but his DJ and main dude A-Trak was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he was busy pumping the Daft Punk droids full of 'roids for this beefcake remix of 'Ye's Stronger. As Graduation's gentler moments start to leak all over the internets we propose A-Trak be locked in a studio until he has turned the whole album into a bulging, club-wrecking testostermonster.
If you think MIA is a bright-eyed pioneer with a Bjorkish knack for innovative collaboration then these videos won’t do anything to change your mind. Likewise, if you think she’s a barely-informed cultural tourist, they're not going to persuade you otherwise. But what you will learn is:
1) Those Spike Jonze 4 MIA rumours are probably true.
2) Mr Jonze got mugged in Greenwich.
3) You shouldn’t let Shemko cut your hair if he’s been taking ketamine.
4) MIA is starting a new label called Zig Zag.
5) Her first signing (and Kala co-star) Afrikan Boy is a good dude.
Here’s an excellent Blaqstarr-produced cut that didn’t make it on to Kala and [courtesy of our pals at Fader] Afrikan Boy’s shoplifting anthem, Lidl.
Over the next couple of days Pinglewood.com will occasionally be replaced by ugly messages from our hosting company. We're doing a bit of housekeeping so the site will be up and down. Everything will be back to normal on Monday. We hope.
It may be romance in the air or whimsy in the water, but there's something about the music made in Gothenburg. Take Pacific! the latest band to emerge from Moshi Moshi’s hit machine. On their new single Break Your Social System beach-bound boys wrap heavy-lidded harmonies around the shiniest synths as daydreaming drum machines drift through an endlessly clear sky.
Perfect pop from a land where the summer sun never sets.
The escapades of Bill Groundhog Day Ghostbusting Murray may well be the most amazing thing you’ll hear all day, but this slinky takedown of a mummy’s boy boyfriend should run it a close second.
Cock N Bull Kid sounds like Kelis making grime on a broken laptop and her velvet voice disguises a vicious wit. Though she hasn’t even finished recording her debut LP the 22-year-oldDalston-dweller already has a second project on the go, a collab album with the mighty Metronomy.
There’s a sterling cover of Talking Heads' Psycho Killer on her MySpace and you catch her at Madam Jojo's on 30/8 at a party thrown by our Dazed pals.
"For me drumming is something to do with physical endurance- it's this that makes me want to do it- just like fucking. Pushing yourself to your limit, draining all your energy, making you feel like you've done something good. I certainly didn't get that from playing the piano."
Akikio Matsuura [Source]
Akikio Matsuura is clearly awesome. But do crazy girls who bang the shit out of drums while screaming about sex and death ever really go out of style? London’s latest heroine takes care of drums and vocals for doom rock duo Comanechi (named after the first Olympic gymnast to score a perfect 10.0) and screeches some more for avant-noisniks Pre whose debut LP may well be produced by Karen O. Matsuura is even in a third band, Baka, with DJ Scotch Egg.
This week Merok release a split 7" with Comanechi's terrifying Death Of You on one side and Pre's rudecore Popping Showers on the other. We have the latter here and a track from Comanechi's hard to find '04 debut, One Pervert Knows Another.
FOPs Catchdubs and Ayres have slipped on the tight jeans and wayfarers for their awesome new rock mixtape. Superfriends features everything from Gary Numan, Devo and the Pixies to Wolf & Cub, !!! and the Psychedelic Furs. It makes us want to spit on people, but in a good way.
Sometimes we have to hold our breath while typing. It’s not that the Pinglepad smells especially bad (not always) it’s just a rare day when we’re cable of doing more than one thing at a time. So it’s either breathing............or blogging. Which is why we loath multi-tasking bastards like Sam Eastgate AKA Samuel Dust. Not only is he the singer in Late Of The Pier- the heavily-tipped and intriguingly odd new-wavers- his solo side-project LA Priest is just as exciting. Eastgate/Dust is being mentored by Erol Alkan (who produced the crazy new LOTP single and has re-edited LA Priest’s forthcoming Engine) and we............hate him.
L to R: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Nathan Johnson, Rian Johnson, Jared Gellar
With its cryptic hard-boiled dialogue and a stellar performance from Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Rian Johnson’s Brick is one the best American independent movies of recent times. The film’s haunting junkyard score was composed by Johnson’s cousin, the multi-instrumentalist, band leader and all round good dude Nathan Johnson. The Johnsons are currently working on their next film The Brothers Bloom, a con-man caper starring Mark Ruffalo, Adrien Brody, Rachel Weisz and Rinko Kikuchi.
From a fancy set in Belgrade, Nathan told us about the new movie, drinking songs and the difference between a junkyard score and one that’s “back-porch”.
As if appearing in Kanye’s last video wasn’t enough, Will Oldham has taken his deranged flirtation with R&B to dizzy new heights: he stars in chapter 15 of R Kelly’s Trapped In The Closet.
Possible-paedo Kelly releases Chapters 13-22 of his Tyler Perry-channeling masterwork on 21/08/07 and pre-release speculation is already 12 degrees above insane. If the tangled relationships of Sylvester & Co don’t interest you then don’t bother looking at the internets next Tuesday.
£3,500 is just about enough to keep us in hair products for a fortnight. Though others can only dream of achieving our lustrous volume, some have found better ways to spend that kind of money.
Over the weekend, the BBC screened Greg Hall's The Plague as part of their British Film Forever season. Made for just £3,500 in 2004 (when Hall was 22-years-old) it's a gritty tale of growing up ghetto and a prime example of truly independent cinema.
If you missed The Plague on Saturday you can still catch it using the Beeb's fancy new iPlayer, but what we really recommend is that you purchase it with real money and help fund Hall's next feature.
The London quintet recently finished recording their debut album for Transgressive and this is their new single. You can't really tell from the video, but the singer, Yannis, is a tiny man.
Like foot & mouth disease, Prince Fever is coursing through the UK. While Mr Nelson’s stay is unlikely to result in the untimely slaughter of millions of cows, he will almost certainly fuck the life out of a few dozen guitars.
His new album may have been a bit crap, but, as these songs attest, his Purple influence has never been stronger.
You do not want to fuck with The Real Heat. This hardworking London trio makes tough, dirty pop music and are anything but timid. “Our sound is a mix of electro, rock'n'rave, soul and whatever else we fancy at the time,” they told us. “We call it Grit Pop!” Shaki, Zaza and Suki have spent the last year adding glamour and Grit to Europe’s best parties and they’ll be doing the same to the pop charts before long.
Here they tell us about their influences, proving themselves as producers and starting a label...
Dinner With The Band is either the best web TV show ever or further evidence that indie rock is greedily eating itself. Being shallow sorts we firmly believe it's the former. Who wouldn't want to watch a heavily tattooed hipster chef make small talk with Holy Hail whilst rustling up Miso Butterscotch Halibut with an Artichoke & Edamame Salad? What kind of idiot doesn't want to see the Tommy Lee of loft cookery chatting with Tokyo Police Club about their set at "South-by" as he makes Migas and Avacado Margaritas? And are there truly people out there who don't want to watch El-P feasting on Bagels & Lox and Bloody Marys after rapping gruffly in Sam's swanky downtown pad? This, friends, is why God gave birth to the internets.
This week M.I.A.'s new album Kala leaked. Her charming brand of transglobal brainfuckery can now be found allovertheinternets. So, rather than more madness from Miss Arulpragasam, here is a song named after her.
The first lady of anti-folk, Emmy The Great, will soon release her first EP, My Bad, and amongst its many delights you'll find this delicate tale of a car crash and an ambiguously named singer.