What have you done with my vowels?!?!?!

The year, even the decade, may have changed, but some things never change here at Tonegents... for instance, if some act I've never heard of is suddenly the featured artist on Gilles Peterson's show, Im'ma go find me out sum-MO 'bout dat guy!



The dude up there in the kooky mask has been making waves under the name SBTRKT lately, as a feature spot on Worldwide will attest. The kooky mask is because he's another MYSTERY PRODUCERRRRRRR (Cue theremin/Vincent Price laugh). Hey, it worked for that Burial dude, right? Now... folks always like to think that it's someone famous behind the mask (even though in Burial's case it was just a bloke who more or less didn't want the bother of being recognized), which I think would only truly be awesome if the man behind the mask was someone so unexpected that you'd never, um... expect it and stuff. Like if it was, say, Ray J... think about that. Imagine if you found out this sick little 2-Step number... was by Ray J...

SBTRKT - Rekorda (ysi)

(As far as I can tell this one was given out gratis. So enjoy with a clean conscience... and clean underwear)

RAY J? WTF?!?!?... that would be somethin', huh? But... highly unlikely.

Oh, and you may want to go check out SBTRKT's page on my new favorite site, Soundcloud... the mixes are highly recommended...

The Hawk to The Hall!

Andre Dawson has been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame! I'm extremely happy about this even though most of you have no idea what I'm talking about. But that's your problem...



Now, I would imagine it might be kinda hard being Clara Hill. She's pretty much "the girl" on the Sonar Kollektiv label, which means two things. On the one hand, she is able to consistently work with her choice of some of the most amazing producers in the entire world, and as a result her music is pretty awesome... but on the other hand, she ends up spending all of her time with a bunch of pasty, nerdy Germans who probably don't get out of the studio that often and masturbate to her furiously pretty much any time she's not looking. So it's a bit of a glass half-full/half-empty kinda thing, I'm sure. We'll just focus on the half-full side...

Clara Hill - Flawless (ysi)

I suppose one could make some kind of connection with the title of that song and The Hawk himself, but I'm not nearly that much of a huge, flaming gay. 'Til tomorrow...

Tee hee...

And now a return visit from an act we haven't heard from around here in almost 2 years. This is noteworthy because in the time I've taken to type these two short sentences, Gorilla Vs. Bear has put up 13 posts on Animal Collective...



It's an annual occurrence in these parts... a rite of the early winter if you will... they take to the Coachella message boards and scream, scream... scream for Boards Of Canada! And every year it proves as futile an undertaking as trying to find a laugh in Dane Cook's act or a brain cell in any Kardashian's head. But still they do it... and I don't hate, because if it ever happens I am ALL. OVER. THAT. SHIT...

Boards Of Canada - Sixtyniner (ysi)

"Sixtyniner"... tee hee... tee hee hee... tee hee hee... tee hee...

(three hours later)

tee hee hee... tee hee... phew...

We shall call him Bjeck!

Hey everybody! Well after a nice long break it's good to be back and I look forward to another exciting, death-defying, paradigm-shifting and ass-blasting year of the Tonegents Interwebs Musical Spot and Clambake. And what better way to start the year than with the song that was stuck in my head for the last two weeks of '09...



So this Bjorn Torske cat looks kinda like a creepy Nordic version of Beck, doesn't he? The kind of dude that would be like, "Hey little girl, come for a ride on my toboggan. I've got cannnnndyyyyy..." Or is it just me? Well, that aside, here's the best use of whistling in a House song since, well... "The Whistle Song"...

Bjorn Torske - Hatten Passer (ysi)

The whole record isn't all House, btw... actually dude is quite odd, as you'd expect from someone from the Nordic part of the world. I think it has something to do with the fjords. How odd is this dude? Well...



So yeah. 2010, folks... saddle up!

Dyne-amo!

You may have noticed lately how I've been in a bit of a hurry to cram in some of my favorite leftfield sounds of the year before it's over. That trend continues... now.



So, I dunno where this Julien Dyne cat came from, but... well, actually it's New Zealand, but you know what I mean... but I am feelin' this record...

Julien Dyne - Incredulous (ysi)

And here we have Mr. Dyne and some cronies jamming out on another one...



Nice shitty camera work there, eh? 'Til tomorrow...

Shibuya Sounds

Woo-hoo, it's "Hump Day". Everybody go hump something. NOT your cat...



You are quite likely to find Dutch producer Nicolay's new record in year-end lists of the best in Hip-Hop (I know I have)... which is incredibly wrong. Not because this isn't a good album, but it's nowhere near Hip-Hop, despite the fact that Nicolay, you know, does Hip-Hop. It's actually really hard to slap a genre on this one... it's a whole concept album thingy that touches on everything from Broken Beats to J-Pop to Jazzy to House to you name it. So, I guess the point of all this is that year-end lists are completely fucking meaningless. That's why I don't do 'em. Anyhoo, one track will not do it justice, it's really a piece that demands to be listened to all the way through... but one track is all you get, because suck it...

Nicolay - Meiji Shrine (ysi)

And yes, Meiji Shrine is an extremely cool real place. Dang, I want to go to Japan. Any of you wanna sport me a ticket?

Sell out? Yes, please!

Today's act is probably one of your best all-time examples of how "selling out" is, in fact, a fantastic idea...



... although Alabama 3 claim on their website that the use of their song "Woke Up This Morning" as the theme song for The Sopranos "...bought someone a swimming pool, but it sure wasn't any of us..." Now, I find this kinda hard to believe... unless, of course, they were a bunch of idiots and signed a bad deal. They wouldn't be the first. But either way, the fact that they even have a website (and more importantly a continuing career) probably has a lot to do with James Gandolfini and his paisans, don't ya think? Even so, I didn't even know they were still a going concern until today, and well... good for them...

Alabama 3 - U Don't Dance 2 Tekno Anymore (ysi)

From the title of the song, you'd think it might be about a retired raver such as myself, but it's actually far more depressing than that... apparently she don't dance 2 tekno anymore because... she dropped dead while dancing to tekno... from teh drugz... so good times...

Humperdinck in da House!

Sorry I missed House Music Friday last week. I was, um... meeting with Gloria Allred to figure out just how much hush money I can get out of Tiger Woods. I'm sure you understand. So... you think you can handle the House on Monday?



There is nothing, nada, and also jack shit out there for info on this Arif Vega person, so I'm just going to assume it's an alias for Englebert Humperdinck, whom I've always heard is a closet House head. Smokin' Beats, however, is in fact a real record label that's been around for a while, and although this is my first record from them, I think I may look into their output a bit more deeply. Because... not bad...

Arif Vega - I Wanna Be (Smokin' Beats Funk Dub) (ysi)

Nice work, Englebert. You sexy bitch, you...



AM I RIGHT, LADIES!?!?

You can hang any time

Contemporary Jazz that doesn't suck, and also doesn't come from Japan? Geddafuckouttahere...



... but I've said that before. After over 700 posts, I know that I repeat myself sometimes, which I suppose is natural... as I have very few original ideas and the ones I do have tend to be rather underwhelming. Unlike this new record from Britain's Portico Quartet, which is quite, um... whelming... indeed. Holy shitty segue, Batman. See what I mean? You try to be pithy and entertaining five days a week. Anyhoo, really good record. Atmospheric, dark, and a bit funky. And they use this thing called a hang which is some sort of tuned percussion instrument that looks like a couple of woks thrown together and sounds pretty cool. It's that thing at the beginning of this song that it's hard to tell what it is. Well, it's a hang, so impress your friends with that info, if that's the kind of info that impresses your friends...

Portico Quartet - Dawn Patrol (ysi)

Album of the year contender. And hey, wanna see the hang in action? OF COURSE YOU DO!



I also like the baby saxomaphone. Much cooler than the regular soprano that looks like a clarinet, if you ask me... and you were going to, I know you were...

Tiger Woods Gay Sex Tape... with Animals, Too?

Today's post title, well let's just call it a little experiment and move on...



Afro-Mystik is (was? is?) a project from Om Records head honcho DJ Fluid and your ever-popular rotating cast of characters... and for me is most note-worthy in that it was (is? was?) one of the few acts from this side of the pond that really does (did? does?) the Broken Beat thing. And yeah, I'm not exactly sure if they're still doing it. How could you tell?

Afro-Mystik - Natural

I also didn't realize DJ Fluid was the head of Om. I thought it was just some sort of mysterious cabal of some kind. Mysterious cabals are cool...