Because I am a giver...

Some of you, probably not very many, may be aware that I have a Soundcloud page, upon which I have posted various dodgy original tunes from time to time. As you may imagine, this page is sparsely visited and rightly so... except for this tune here, which for some reason has well over a thousand listens. Obviously, someone posted it somewhere... but I have no idea how to find out where. Anyone got any tips on that? Is that some info I have to pay for? 'Cuz that ain't happenin'. Google searches have been fruitless. Anyhoo, since this one has become "popular" and I could never release it for purchase (not that anyone would actually pay "money" for my music) due to the non-clearable 40 Year Old Virgin sample, I've decided to set it free to return to nature. In other words, here's a free download. You're welcome, world.



Handsome devil, aren't I?

Pissing off for a bit...

On vacation for a couple of weeks...





Deal with the pain by "liking" the Tonegents Facebook page. Things that do not suck will be posted there over the hiatus. Giggity.

A Return To Sexytime

Because House music is supposed to make you feel funny in your pants parts...



As someone who fully got into House during the late '90s/early Aughts, I like my shit deep and sexay. But with the rise of the minimal lately, that's become a lot harder to find. Everything's all techy and precise and crispy.... which isn't a bad thing necessarily... but things have tipped far too heavily in that direction. Where would Naked Music rate today? I fear not as highly, which is a fucking travesty. But here's one guy trying to bring the sexy back... Cuban/American producer (who now lives in Spain... well played, sir) Eric Estornel aka Maceo Plex. It is certainly not the ol' Rhodes-and-congas-and-Lisa-Shaw formula like alot of the classic stuff, but it's got that sexy vibe that's been sorely lacking in House lately... Dig it...

Maceo Plex - Sex Appeal (ysi)

Actually reminds me a bit of the old NM jam, Lovetronic's "You Are Love"... And hey, if you like this tune, you'll definitely want to peep Mr. Plex's recent BBC Essential Mix... but just know that if you were all "liked" up with the Facebook page, you would have had that bumpin' on your Walkman a good two months ago. Just sayin'...

Grime Time

Why don't British rappers get more play in the US? I mean, they speak better English than the American rappers do. Discuss...



Is it perhaps a bit cheeky to call your debut album Greatest Hits? Perhaps, but I'd worry less about people thinking I'm cheeky and more about making sure that title didn't come true and everything I recorded from that point on didn't suck. "His first album was in fact his "Greatest Hits", because every other song he ever recorded was shit." Not good. And a situation that was nicely avoided by Nigerian/British Grime MC Skepta, who has built from this fine debut into becoming a regular visitor to the UK charts. Not the US charts though, because his music is actually good. Flo Rida is this guy's bitch...

Skepta - I Spy (ysi)

Actually, Skepta's finally got himself some major label love, so maybe they'll try to break him in the states... although I'm sure the British accent will doom him with the main Flo Rida demographic: binge-drinking white junior college girls. We'll see...

Visit Mauritius!

Tonegents is about to teach you up on some geography, fool...



Anybody ever heard of Mauritius? No, it's not the first name of an NBA draft pick, it's a tiny island country in the Indian Ocean somewhere in the vicinity of Madagascar. Actually it looks like a pretty fucking fabulous place to visit if you check out their website. That's not even a joke. And it's also the country, thanks to one of it's residents having sex with someone a few years back, that brings us the producer known as Mo Kolours. His sound could be straight out of the L.A. beat scene, which has absolutely nothing to do with Mauritius, but I don't really know what else does have to do with Mauritius, so... (shrugs)...

Mo Kolours - Talking Move (ysi)

By the way, I seriously wasn't kidding. This place looks rad. Check it out...



So who's gonna buy me a ticket?

Orbiting Madge's Vadge

Hey hey hey! Let's start the day by me telling you that yet another classic Tonegents DJ mix has been uploaded to the Mixcloud, this one full of summer jams. Go get you some...



I'm not sure what folks think about William Orbit anymore... but in the early '90s, homeboy was on fire. And the hottest part of that was the Strange Cargo series of albums, of which this was the last. Even though those records weren't huge commercial hits, they established his steez enough so that Madonna would pick him to produce Ray Of Light, which (I believe we can all agree) is pretty much the last decent thing she ever did. Now I know that sounds mean, but Madonna should be happy for any praise she can get the way things have been going lately. Hell, the woman fucked Jose Canseco, Vanilla Ice and Dennis Rodman, so I think she should just be glad she's alive and not one big Herpe. But this is about William Orbit, right? I think so. Oh, look, a William Orbit song. It must be, then...

Strange Cargo - Hulaville (ysi)

But all talk of the old spinster's vagina aside, William Orbit's Strange Cargo albums are among the best of early '90s Electronica and are highly recommended. So go find 'em...

More Sides Than KFC

Today, a dude that I would say has a plethora of side projects if A) he had an actual main project and B) I knew what "plethora" meant...



Yohimbe Brothers was a project teaming up Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid, a guy who seemingly never met a one-off collaboration he wouldn't fuck, and Philly's DJ Logic, a fine turntablist who has unfortunately become a fixture on the jam band circuit as of late... so he seemingly has never meant a mushroom-gobbling white girl with hairy ampits that he wouldn't fuck. But that's neither here nor there. What is relevant is that I'm going to see yet another Reid one-off, something called Spectrum Road, at the Playboy Jazz Fest this weekend. And that's obviously why the shuffle chose this track, so suck on it...

Yohimbe Brothers - Tenemental (ysi)

I got Vernon Reid (and the rest of the band for that matter) to autograph my ticket after a Living Colour show quite a few years back. True story. You wanna be me, don't you?

I can't really think of any stupid New Zealand puns right now...

Keeping it international for the third straight post, we are heading due south...



... to New Zealand, where there is apparently there are people there who do things other than work on Peter Jackson films. I had no idea. But I kid. Because although it seems that not that many Kiwi acts get noticed internationally, the ones that do tend to be pretty fucking good. Case in point... Electric Wire Hustle and their amazing Future Soul vibes. This one features eccentric earth mama Georgia Anne Muldrow (who's got a nice new record out herself) on the vocal. Sublime and prime for sexy time...

Electric Wire Hustle - This World (ft. Georgia Anne Muldrow) (ysi)

... but that's just a guest shot, so I figured I'd include this vid featuring EWH's actual vocalist Mara TK, who is no slouch himself...



So much better than chart R&B that it's almost unfair, isn't it? Have a good weekend, suckas...

Land of the Rising Nutbags

Busy-ass week. Not to be confused with a busy ass week. That's something maybe Kim Kardashian has (that and the herpes). The hyphen makes all the difference, you see? Anyhoo, we pick back up on the international vibe with this...



As we've discussed before, no one does batshit crazy quite as well as the Japanese, and today's record is no exception to that rule. There's not a whole lot of info out there (not in English anyway) on drummer Takeshi Inomata, so I'll just let this funky Free Jazz/Prog Rock weirdness speak for itself. Literally. There's some dude that just keeps rambling on in Japanese. Who knows what the fuck he's talking about... probably Pokemons or some shit. You laugh... you say "Pokemons weren't even invented in 1971"... but you never know with these people. They're fucking batshit, I tells ya...

Takeshi Inomata - Blue (ysi)

Now you may, after listening, say that wasn't all that crazy, but it's easily the most normal song on the record. This is not a bad thing, just be warned...

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And now, on a totally unrelated note, here's another bonus submission from the Facebook page. One Era is a project of Mr. Matt Coogan & friends from sunny Philadelphia. Lush Downtempo Electro-Pop with dude vocals. A lot going on in this one. Me likey...



Keep 'em coming folks... as long as they don't suck.

Frenchies On Friday

Seems to me like the last few posts have been pretty similar in vibe, so let's change it up a bit, shall we?



So here's what I know about Autour De Lucie... they're a French guitar Pop band from the '90s, I probably first heard them on Morning Becomes Eclectic, I probably bought this for 99 cents at a parking lot sale and I probably haven't listened to this record in 10 years. That's what I know. Oh, and the song title translates as "What Have We Done?" Ecoutez...

Autour De Lucie - Qu'avons-nous Fait (ysi)

Put that in your Indie Film and smoke it. And have a great weekend...