Exclusive: Never Holding Back

He's back.

I tipped him for big things back in January and The Aspirins For My Children has slowly been building the momentum to fulfill the hype.

After a great start to the year with remixes for Marina & The Diamonds, Frankmusik and Lost Valentinos, love from every corner of the blogsphere and working with some of the UK's freshest talent, he's back in the game and bringing the Grace Jones classic My Jamaican Guy in to the 21st century.

His rework of the 1983 single, taken from her third album Living My Life, features Manchester rapper Envy spitting a verse about her take on what's required from the modern UK man.

Ridiculously huge.

Grace Jones - My Jamaican Guy (The Aspirins For My Children Redux 2009 feat. Envy) (YSI) (EXCLUSIVE)

In Motion: Won't You Take Me To The Queen Of Hearts?

The fantastic new video for the second limited single from Wolf Gang.

The King & All of His Men is released through fellow bloggers and BFFs Hit Club in what will be their debut release.

With remixes to come from Hot Chip, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs and Egyptian Hip Hop (who'll be releasing their debut single through Hit Club in the near future), it will be available both digitally and on limited 7".

The latter will be available exclusively from Puregroove on November 16th, you can get your pre-order in here, but don't hesitate as I've no doubt that these will sell out fast.

Max et al are hitting the live shows hard in November with performances for NME, MTV and Levi's as well as dates at the Hit Club night at The Corner in Manchester, Stealth in Nottingham and The Cooler in Bristol (for full info check out their Myspace).

Hype: A Halo Radiating Through Time

image by Josef Kraska

Laurel Halo is a Brooklyn based songwriter / producer who just blows my mind.

Originating from Ann Arbor in Michigan and ending up in New York via Thailand, she takes influence from free jazz to Detroit techno and definitely caters to the experimental / avant-garde side of my tastes.

I think this is the bit where I'm meant to describe her track Future Fruit using puns and metaphors based around its name but instead I'll just say that it was written for her best friend's birthday and it's just over six minutes of bliss, enjoy.

Laurel Halo - Future Fruit (YSI)

I was actually introduced to her music by another IT favourite Radiant Dragon, who has just finished a remix of the above track, dragging it by the ankles into some sort of an angsty paranoid parallel universe.

Laurel Halo - Future Fruit (Radiant Dragon Remix) (YSI)

He also sent me some amazing remixes of the tracks on his Island EP, including this haunting kraut effort from Allez-Allez.

Radiant Dragon - Cloud Seeding (Allez-Allez Remix) (YSI)

If you're in London over the next couple of months, check out the live show at Dirty Bingo (@ The Vicoria), AITBF (@ Cargo) and Barden's Boudoir.

Hype: Secret Army

Erol and Tiga? Gary Barlow and MNEK? Derek Davies and Starsmith?

Truth is, nobody knows anything about the identity of Monarchy or any other information that's not given up on their Myspace.

What I do know however, is that this track is completely addictive and can be played on repeat for hours until it turns in to some sort of subliminal hypnosis.

In the immortal words of Neil Buchanan "Try it yerself?!".

Monarchy - Gold In The Fire (Demo) (YSI)

Plug: All For One And...

Apologies are in order once again. I've been neglecting you all for far too long and it's time to get back in to the blogging groove.

I thought I'd start by recapping on a few things that have apparated in to my inbox in recent weeks concerning IT favourites.

French five-piece Turzi have just released their Buenos Aires / Bombay EP (which you can purchase at Rough Trade here) through Record Makers.

Featuring remixes from label-mate Sebastien Tellier and relative newcomers to the remix game Django Django adding some Pharaoh flava.

I'm starting to love DD as much for their choice of mix/remix names as I am their music. This time referencing the unquestionable TV classic staring Hulk Hogan and a speedboat named Thunder.

Turzi - Bombay (Django Django's Thunder In Paradise Remix) (YSI)



Next up is a new track from So Say So who recently supported Gaggle and the much loved Clock Opera (whom I'll soon be interviewing) at Hoxton Bar & Kitchen as well as having several live dates at Catch, The Fly and The Flowerpot in the coming months.

So Say So - Nowhere Near The Heart (YSI)



by Riaz Phillips

Kwes is also up to his usual tricks, finding time between nurturing the next generation of London's musical prodigies and cultivating his own solo material to rework Screaming Lights new single 21st Century.

The original may not be to my taste but this is fantastic.

Screaming Lights - 21st Century (Kwes./[o=o]. Rework) (YSI)




Finally, after my previous interview with the mysterious Kid Adrift, he decided that he liked the title of the post that much that he decided to name his EP after it (no joke).

L.E.D. Illusions EP will be released through Euphonios on 19th October and you can pre-order it from their online store here.