Here’s some new Big K.R.I.T. off of his upcoming mixtape 4evaNaDay. The official single, entitled “I Got This,” is dropping in the next few days.

Big K.R.I.T. explains that this is the first song he wanted to release from the mixtape:

The 1st song i wanted 2 release from #4evaNaDay is called Boobie Miles. Its about over coming all the obstacles that block your dreams, the sacrifices that come with how hard you have to go to obtain your goal, giving your all no matter what the situation, the only difference between a winner N a loser is a winner plays until he win.

Big K.R.I.T.’s debut album, Live From The Underground, is due out this year on Def Jam.

Another cut from recently recommended Habits & Contradictions gets the video treatment. Check it out below.

Directed by Jerome D.

Habits & Contradictions is out now on TDE.

Yeah, you might have to sit through a bit of Del talking about dubstep, but there’s a solid confirmation here that his supergroup with producer Dan the Automator and DJ Kid Koala — Deltron 3030 — has completed the follow-up to 2000′s self-titled release, Deltron Event II.

Dzl has been under the radar for a while recouping from a series of sicknesses and loss of his brother. He is here in the flesh to thank everybody for sticking with him and supporting him through the last few months and apologizes for having to cancel tour twice (2:10) and speaks on his cousin Ice Cube. He shares that Deltron Event II is DONE and will be released soon (3:30), Chuck D, and that he has two new mixtapes he will be giving away soon along with a lot of other upcoming projects both futuristic and classic sounding (8:12). Check it out!

[via Pigeons and Planes]

Stones Throw has announced a subscription service callled Stones Throw Digital Discography in partnership with Drip.fm. The service will send every new Stones Throw release (albums, singles, and EPs) to your inbox in 320kbps MP3 format.

Upon signing up, you will receive the following three releases:
- Homeboy Sandman’s Subject: Matter EP
- The Minimal Wave Tapes Vol. 2 (advance release exclusively on drip.fm)
- M.E.D.’s Classic Instrumentals LP

Next up:
- J. Rocc’s Mystery Tracks EP
- Quakers, Quakers Album (Geoff Barrow of Portisthead & a hip-hop group of 35+ members)
- Jonwayne’s Oodles of Doodles Album

Read up more on Stones Throw or visit the Drip.fm site.

Looks like we’ll be signing up for some Quakers and M.E.D. for now. We sure hope that a Madvillain or Quasimoto follow-up lands in our inbox sometime soon though.

As if we needed any more proof that corporations and major labels abuse power…

Independent rap group After The Smoke (producer Anthony X² and lyricist Whuzi) not only had their beat used by Yelawolf without credit, but the original was pulled after a copyright claim by UMG.

The group’s track “One In A Millon” (aka “OIAM”) — a track which features all original instrumentation and vocals, was released over a year ago, and is copyrighted by the group — had its beat used by rapper UMG/Interscope Yelawolf on a track entitled “Far From A Bitch” featuring rappers from Yela’s Slumerican imprint label. The track started circulating the rap blogs about a week ago without any acknowledgement of the original track.

When the group tried to upload their new video for the track yesterday they were faced with a notice from YouTube, citing a copyright claim from UMG.

We spoke with the group’s producer Anthony X² about the incident.

“Originally Yelawolf was supposed to do a verse on “One In A Million,” but he ended up doing his own song to the beat, with some guys from his Slumerican label. He had told us he would be down to collab and he took the beat for himself. So when the song came out, there was no credit to either me or After The Smoke as a group.”

“We intended on releasing the music video for “OIAM” today, but after a few hours of being up, it was removed and we got this email from YouTube:

Video removed – Copyright Infringement

We have disabled the following material as a result of a third-party notification from UMG claiming that this material is infringing:

After The Smoke – OIAM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBj2nmodCuA

Please Note: Repeat incidents of copyright infringement will result in the deletion of your account and all videos uploaded to that account.

”

It’s clear that UMG’s deal with YouTube is a clear abuse of power that without a doubt hurts independent artists. We see these acts by both the artist and label as deplorable and hope you will help us in speaking out against these actions.

After The Smoke – “One In A Millon”
After The Smoke – One In A Million by afterthesmoke

Yelawolf (Ft. Rittz, Young Struggle, Big HUD) – “Far From A Bitch”

Hey folks. Beats Per Minute is looking for writers and photographers to contribute content to the site. We are searching for writers with a clear, strong, and engaging voice — and up-and-coming photographers — that have an extensive knowledge of music past and present, an open mind, and passion for new and exciting upcoming acts.

Those interested should email apps@beatsperminute.com with the following:

- Links to your three best pieces (or photo galleries) [no attachments, please]
- Lists of your 10 favorite albums of 2011 and 10 favorite albums of all time
- Some brief details about yourself, including your location and past publications you’ve written for

Unfortunately we won’t be able to respond to each submission, but if we like what we see, we’ll get in contact with you and give you the details of what we need to move forward.

The deadline for submissions is Sunday, February 12th. Thank you.

Tomorrow, on January 18th, Beats Per Minute will join Wikipedia, Reddit, BoingBoing, The Free Software Foundation, and tens of thousands of other websites around the Internet in going offline to oppose SOPA and PIPA, the looming US legislation that would create an impossible Internet censorship regime and export it to the rest of the world.

If either bill is passed, Beats Per Minute would cease to be able to operate as it does presently. We would need to clear every image and track we post with each of the rights holders before publishing, and if we were suspected of copyright infringement of any kind we would be essentially pulled from the web without due process.

We believe that this new system will undoubtably be abused by rights holders, competing outlets, and the government to effectively censor unwanted voices.

So take the time tomorrow to read up on the bills (links are below) and spread the word to your friends and family about these devastating pieces of legislation that would destroy the web as we know it.

Thank you.

-Evan Kaloudis
CEO & Publisher, Beats Per Minute

Technical Explanation of SOPA and PIPA
Stop American Censorship
SOPA on OpenCongress
PIPA on OpenCongress

We bet that At the Drive-In reunion news made you forget about The Mars Volta entirely, huh?

Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler-Zavala’s main act is back with their sixth studio album, entitled Noctourniquet. The single is rumored to be “Zed and Two Naughts,” a track which Sony’s official Playstation Blog has revealed to be part of the soundtrack for the upcoming baseball game ‘MLB 12 The Show.’

Check out the tracklist below.

Noctourniquet tracklisting:
01. The Whip Hand
02. Aegis
03. Dyslexicon
04. Empty Bessels Make The Loudest Sound
05. The Malkin Jewel
06. Lapochka
07. In Absentia
08. Imago
09. Molochwalker
10. Trinkets Pale Of Moon
11. Vedamalady
12. Noctourniquet
13. Zed and Two Naughts

Noctourniquet is due out March 27th on Warner Bros. Records.

By now you’ve hopefully at least heard the word of mouth around Yellow Ostrich. Their last album, The Mistress, was good enough and talked about enough to be rereleased by Barsuk Records, and now they seem ready to capitalize upon this hype with a new release.

Speaking to Paste, Yellow Ostrich mastermind Alex Schaaf has unveiled that the new album is called Strange Land and is due out on March 6th. Fans may be interested to hear Schaaf say that the new album will be a change in sound for Yellow Ostrich. Part of this is due to working as a proper band for the first time with Jon Natchez and Michael Trapper. Schaaf says that the album is “bigger and heavier” and that the band as a whole is “bigger than it ever has been,” which gives you more incentive to go see them on tour. The band will be touring the West Coast around mid-March to coincide with SXSW; dates will come soon.

Read more about the recording and sound of Strange Land over at Paste.

After 11 years, the post-hardcore band from El Paso, Texas has reunited. The group posted the following message on their official website and Twitter account.

¡ ATTENTION ! To whom it may concern: AT THE DRIVE-IN will be breaking their 11 year silence THIS STATION IS …NOW…OPERATIONAL

What’s next? Coachella announcement? Tour dates? Upcoming album? We’ll keep you posted.

Allegedly titled “Putting Ketchup in the Fridge,” this demo track is rumored to be from The Bends/OK Computer era.

We’re still trying to verify its authenticity but figured you guys might like to hear it.

Earlier this year, musician Trent Reznor and composer Atticus Ross rightfully received an Academy Award for their original score for The Social Network. Their collaboration gave the film a propulsive feel, helping the drama move as quick as its protagonist acts and talks. Their music perfectly contributed to the film’s tone and atmosphere. With The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Reznor and Ross once again collaborate with director David Fincher for a much different and much bigger film.

Reznor and Ross’ score is epic, soon available on a 3-disc set and currently available online. Even while listening to the score separate from the film, the tension and mood it creates is clear. Like The Social Network, it’s a score that works wonders as a standalone piece.

Here’s what artist Reznor had to say about the long process of scoring Dragon Tattoo, the respect and meticulousness of Fincher, and determining success and failure:

I’m guessing you’ve seen the film a hundred times about now?

I’ve seen it a few times, yeah.

Does it stay exciting or does it get a little tiring?

[Laughs] I mean, we worked on this for so long there was a time where it was really impossible to maintain any objectivity. It really wasn’t until I got to see the almost, almost, almost finished version up at Skywalker a couple of weeks ago, I gotta admit that was the first time – and I had seen it assembled many times – but to see it with another layer of polish, the right audio mix and the right space, I got that charge like I had never seen it before. It was a nice experience.

The album itself is epic and quite lengthy. When you took this on, did you know what kind of undertaking it was going to be?

Well, Atticus and I made the conscious decision to really leave this last entire year open for this project, not take on any other work, and not try to spread ourselves too thin, because we assumed it could branch out and seemed like there was a lot of stuff we had to do. Going into it with that kind of mindset, it wasn’t a surprise when we really got into it and saw we had a lot of ground to cover. It was a fun experience, and an in-depth and detailed one. It’s nice coming down and seeing the end of the tunnel now, since we’re proud about it.

You mentioned how it was tough maintaining objectivity. When you do lose objectivity, what does that do to the process?

We started off thinking, ‘Let’s just stay very abstract and very impressionistic,’ and when we didn’t even have the script. I had read the book and spoke, in detail, with David [Fincher] about the kinds of soundscapes, emotions and what not, then we just blindly composed for six weeks this time last year. We composed music we felt might belong, and then we’d run it by Fincher, to see where his head’s at and he responded positively. He was filming at this time last year and assembling rough edits of scenes to see what it feels like, and he was inserting our music at that point, rather than using temp music, which is how it usually takes place, apparently. Getting into this year, when we finally started seeing scenes and digging into the sequence of shots, where we’re seeing things out of context and out of continuity, so it gets pretty hard, especially for a film this long. You try to remember, “Oh wait, this comes after those ten things and comes before that,” so we have to be considering of that and the mood we’re trying conjure up.

So the difficulty was finding the structure of the score?

Yeah, we weren’t working on a finished thing, so everything keeps moving around, scenes are changing in length, and even the order of things are shuffled around, and that can get pretty frustrating when you get precious about your work. It was a lesson we learned pretty quickly of, “Everything is in flux, and approach it as such. Hopefully it’ll work out in the end.”

Was it a much different process from The Social Network? I believe you came on after it was shot.

We officially came on after it was shot, and it was pretty much edited to recognizable form. You could watch it, and it flowed like a film. We knew what we were up against at that point. There was a structure, and that structure didn’t really change. Things got a bit polished, but there wasn’t kind of a real – we knew the scenes that were going to be in the film, that kind of thought. With this one, it was much of things in play, a longer movie, and much more to consider.

Working on another score obviously means you had a good experience with The Social Network. On an artistic level, what did you find satisfying about scoring that film?

It forced me to compose in a way I had never thought about. It forced me to work for a different purpose and master. You know, if I’m working on my own music, I’m hoping that’s 100% of your attention. In the role of film composer, I realize I’m working on what’s best for the picture and helping realize David’s vision, and that was a refreshing change. I didn’t look at any of that as a series of restrictions, it was more like an interesting exercise and an interesting process. I think the key to that working was a mutual respect between David and I, which we very much have. And it was fun; it was fun not being the boss for a change and fun getting into his head, and helping him realize what he saw and heard there. The same thing followed over to this film, to a more extreme degree. We were much more involved in the process on this one.

Does going off of someone else’s vision versus creating your own make the process — I hate to say easier, but is it?

I wouldn’t say easier, it’s different. Usually when I’m working on a piece of music, I would think generally, as opposed to, say, Paul McCartney or a real traditional songwriter who starts with a melody, words, and then arranges it in a certain fashion. A lot of times I find inspiration from the arrangement of the texture or the setting. What I’ll do, if I’m composing for Nine Inch Nails or How to Destroy Angels, is visualize something – a place, a feeling, an emotion, or some scenario like that. I’ll start to try to see what it sounds like, to get a feeling evoked, and then insert a melody and lyrics inside that frame. So this process wasn’t radically different from that, except I’m being told what the scenario is, rather than conjuring up. The pro of that is, “Oh, I can literally see what I need to make come to life.” In my world, if that scenario kind of sucks, I can throw it out and conjure up a new one [Laughs].

[Laughs] Your writing process, I’m guessing, would be similar to working on this film, since the film relies heavily on atmosphere. 

Yeah. I started off thinking… you know, my fear with The Social Network was: How the hell do I score that? [Laughs] When I’m looking for inspiration, I’m usually not conjuring up entitled assholes arguing about shit in courtrooms. I thought when The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo came up, I thought, “Great, I see landscapes, terrible scenarios, and stuff I can understand.” You realize once you get that out of your system, in the first ten percent of the process, you think, “Now what?” It’s not really about the icy landscapes, it’s about what these characters our feeling, and what we’re implying they’re feeling and getting into their minds. It was a much more difficult — and maybe just because it was a longer process — than dealing with The Social Network. I think we had so much opportunities and time, we backed ourselves into corners quite often.

When you get into one of those corners, what do you do? 

When you look at some of our composer brethren, who do six or seven films a year, I envy that, in some ways. In some ways, I’m mystified at how you can do that, and do that with depth. I don’t think I could do that. If I had to, I think I could come up with something. We really became this film. We lived with it, thought about it, overthought about it, woke up thinking about it, and dreamt thinking about it. We kind of inhabited these characters, and composed fully involved in that. Having the time to realize when something isn’t the right direction, we’d have time to fix it. That was comforting. Also, we’re new to this, the whole world of film scoring. We really didn’t want to fuck this up, so we gave ourselves time to fix things.

I was surprised to hear you say what you thought about writing The Social Network, and not the part of not thinking about entitled assholes arguing. I’m betting you could relate to what it’s about: the process of creating and the pitfalls of ambition.

You’re right, that’s what the movie is about. I think my first fear was, ‘Oh shit, I’m not seeing dragons slaying and serial killers. What is the sound of, you know, what I described earlier.’ On the surface, it felt like that. It was the first panic moment of, ‘What’s the music going to sound like?’ It wasn’t obvious, but I quickly realized what the film is about isn’t the setting, it’s about exactly what you pointed out, which I do have a lot to relate to. I could empathize with the characters in that film, in a lot of ways.

Results will be posted next week along with our Year End content.

We sleep on this one a bit too long. Up-and-comers SKYWAY (Rufat and producer Kyle Wyss [aka Chromatic Flights]) further define their sound with this fantastic track featuring Whuzi of After The Smoke.

The SKYWAY album is on its way. I may or may not have heard it already…

Trenchcoats (feat. Whuzi) by SKYWAY

Fans of the production should also check out the Chromatic Flights’ breathtaking remix of Class Actress’ “Keep You” — which we slept on for even longer.

class actress- Keep You (chromatic flights remix) by chromaticflights

We’re proud to present you with a new track from Coloradan singer-songwriter Mesita. Stream or download it below.

Mesita (née James Cooley) won’t reveal much, but more material is on the way. If “On Through The Dark” is any indicator, we’ll certainly have a very special release in our hands in the coming months.

Official Website
Facebook
@mesitamusic

Our favorite orchestral indie kids, Miracles of Modern Science, have taken the initiative to try to annoy us all with another annoying version of “Pumped Up Kicks.” They failed. It’s quite awesome.

If you like the cover, download the MP3 for free on Facebook.

Miracles of Modern Science’s full-length debut Dog Year is due out December 6th.

Dog Year Tracklisting:
01. MOMS AWAY!
02. Strangerous
03. Tensity
04. Eating Me Alive
05. Quantum of Solace
06. Luminol
07. Friend of the Animals
08. Space Chopper
09. I Found Space
10. The Moon & Australia
11. Bossa Supernova

Welcome to Studio Lurk, One Thirty BPM’s first original video content! Studio Lurk is a project in which we invite some of our favorite bands in to perform in a world class recording studio and film it all with top of the range equipment, to bring you the highest quality studio session in both audio and video quality. Simple really.

For our first session we got in long time friends of One Thirty BPM Cymbals Eat Guitars. CEG are in the process of touring in support of their new album Lenses Alien and stopped by the studio in Santa Ana, California between dates in the Los Angeles area, to kindly grant us an interview and melt our faces with a couple of new tracks. Check out part 1 below.

Part 1: Cymbals Eat Guitars – “Keep Me Waiting”

Produced by Max Ritter & his Blood Brothers
Executive Producer: Evan Kaloudis
Co-Produced by Neil Goss
Sound Engineer: Cameron Webb
Director of Photography: Neil Goss
Editor: Justin Smith
Camera Operators: Neil Goss, Eldrich Legaspi, Max Ritter
Graphics: Nick Zegel
Interview: Rob Hakimian, Philip Cosores

Part 2 coming soon…

It’s true; all the freaks come out at night in New York. This time of year they just happen to be in costume. Nevertheless, this makes NYC one of the most fun places to spend Halloween in, so naturally a chance to see the masked SBTRKT on the 31st was a no-brainer.

Opening was AraabMUZIK, an electronic DJ known for his fusing of all different elements of hip-hop, house, trance, drum ‘n bass, and dubstep together. Not being familiar with his music, but having heard praise from several publications, I was, at the very least, curious to hear him perform. His 45-minute set (split into two parts so that he could reload his samples) shined at times. Those were moments in which the infusion of the genres were balanced, only enhanced by the 16- and 32-note breaks, and not too over the top. It’s mostly because of my distaste for mainstream ‘dubstep’ but when the set leaned more towards it — drenched with infuriating “WOMP”s and bullhorns — that I felt that the performance faltered. Personal biases towards electronic music aside, AraabMUZIK was certainly technical as he pieced together the tracks on his sampler and did a fantastic job of warming up the crowd for the main act.

In between the sets, glow-in-the-dark SBTRKT masks were passed out to the audience. Anyone in the crowd that wasn’t already dressed up was now masked and SBTRKT was ready to perform for a sea of people donning their visage.

It’s a bit confusing but SBTRKT is essentially two people. Producer Aaron Jerome is the main figure, accompanied by singer Sampha who provided many of the vocals on the self-titled debut. Both wore their masks, but not ones resembling those on the LP or EP covers. They were more so headbands with nothing obscuring the face below the eyes. It turns out the masks handed out to the audience resembled more of that of Sampha’s.

Jerome was focused around his drum kit, turning to queue up sounds on his laptop, hitting his digital pads and acoustic drums, providing some back-up vocals, and jumping to the back to his theremin. Sampha not only provided vocals on nearly every track, but he also played keyboard, controlled some loops, and played a bit of percussion.

Jerome would explode on the drums in a Stanier-like fashion, sort of like a breakdown on any track of his choosing. This proved to be extremely impressive on opening track “Heatwave” but became increasingly less impressive when it became known that he played the same beat (or at least an extremely similar one) on every track, seemingly at whim.

That fact aside, SBTRKT put on a mesmerizing, energy-filled, and technically impressive performance. Despite the repetition, Jerome proved to be extremely proficient and skilled on multiple instruments, showing off his endurance by jumping around his set-up and playing with constant intensity throughout the set. Sampha brought the performance to another level with his vocal performance as he took on the melodies, performing the parts of other vocalists on the album and feeding off of the energy of the crowd, particularly during “Hold On” and personal favorite “Trials of the Past.”

As the duo came back onstage to perform their encore, the Drake remix of “Wildfire” played, which had Sampha resigned to controlling the keyboards and loops, and let the recorded vocals play on for the most part. Here, it became apparent that he was an essential figure of SBTRKT. Perhaps Jerome will choose to have a different touring arrangement in the future, and while it would be nice to bring more vocalists on tour, it’d be a mistake not to bring the multi-talented Sampha with him. In case that changes in the future, you should catch SBTRKT on tour now.

Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, and DOOM have teamed up for Lex Records’ 10th anniversary compilation. Stream the track titled “Retarded Fren” (no comment) below.

[via P4k]

Years ago when I began diving into the world of indie rock, I ruled out the possibility of ever seeing Neutral Milk Hotel or the reclusive Jeff Mangum — in any form — perform live. In the Aeroplane Over the Sea would be seen by many as the “crowning gem” of the genre and since the band’s breakup, Mangum had been as elusive a figure as any, only showing his face at Elephant 6 reunions at random.

In recent years, however, Mangum began poking his head out of his shell, first by playing Neutral Milk Hotel songs at others’ shows, to playing full sets unannounced, to playing ATP and embarking on a small tour of his own. About two weeks ago he even stopped by Zuccotti Park for a brief performance at Occupy Wall Street. Naturally, after missing him at ATP, I had to catch him in New York.

I trekked out into the snowy New York night (the first pre-Halloween snowfall since 1958!) and made it to New York City’s Town Hall theater just off of Times Square. The Town Hall hosts a wide array of events including Broadway shows, choirs, orchestras, jazz bands, comedians — hell, you can even catch Rush Limbaugh there at the end of the month (I implore you not to). And while the venue often does do acoustic shows like this, I didn’t really expect to be seated for this momentous occasion.

Opening for Mangum was Ólöf Arnalds, an Icelandic singer-songwriter, who alternated between guitars and a ukulele-like charango. She performed in both English and Icelandic, bantering with the audience throughout her songs as she plucked her strings and arpeggiated her chords before entering into the next verse. The 35-minute set was certainly soothing, and truly showcased Arnalds’ talents — especially her closing: a mic-less, a cappella version of an Irish folk tune — but I couldn’t help but feel anxious throughout the whole set, eagerly anticipating what was to follow.

Mangum soon appeared on stage and the entire theater erupted in applause. Then — absolute silence as he opened up with Aeroplane‘s closer “Two-Headed Boy Pt. Two.” Perhaps it was out of awe, or maybe it was just he nature of the venue, but for his first three songs (“In the Aeroplane Over the Sea,” “Song Against Sex”) there was complete silence except for applause between songs. Mangum commented, “You don’t have to be so quiet,” and went into “Gardenhead” as the cheers began.

Next was the eight-minute epic, “Oh Comely,” which yet again brought the crowd to silence as Mangum clenched his eyes shut and bellowed through the darkness of the theater, going the extra mile by holding notes before carrying into the final section of the song.

After another solemn number, “I Love the Living You” (a Roky Erickson cover), Mangum returned to Aeroplane again with “Ghost.” The silence had become prevalent again, leading Mangum to engage the audience to get them to make some noise: “Now fucking sing!”

The cheering and banter from there on continued, with the audience’s singing becoming more and more amplified as Mangum played through all parts of “The King of Carrot Flowers” without break, and climaxed with his last song of the set, “Holland, 1945.” As he played those opening chords the room suddenly came alive; it seemed as if ever single person in attendance knew all the words as was singing along. It was truly an enthralling moment.

After a standing ovation, Mangum returned with “Two-Headed Boy Pt. One” and b-side “Engine” before taking off into the night, leaving the audience standing and cheering for a good five minutes before they were disappointed by the sight of tech crew taking his set-up apart.

Although the audience lulled at times, Mangum put on a fantastic performance and managed to get us all roaring together to make for a truly ghostly experience. Despite this all — and it pains me to say it — Mangum’s “dee-dees” will never compare to Scott Spillane’s trumpet work, and however great the songs stood on their own, a full-backed band performing them would be worlds apart. Unfortunately, I don’t think a full reunion will ever happen.

Hopefully I’ll be eating my words in a year or two’s time.

Setlist
Two-Headed Boy Pt. Two
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
Song Against Sex
Gardenhead / Leave Me Alone
Oh Comely
I Love the Living You (Roky Erickson cover)
Ghost
A Baby for Pree
Naomi
The King of Carrot Flowers Pt. One
The King of Carrot Flowers Pts. Two & Three
Holland, 1945

Two-Headed Boy Pt. One
Engine

What happens when you take Queens’ hottest new rapper and pair him up with one of the most renowned producers in the game? You get Well Done: an Action Bronson album produced entirely by Statik Selektah. Well Done will be released on Selektah’s very own DCide Records.

Single “Cocoa Butter” features Nina Sky and will be seeing a video release in the coming weeks.

Action Bronson and Statik Selektah will be touring in support of the album across North America and Europe.

Tracklist and tour dates after the jump.

Well Done tracklist:
01. Respect The Mustache
02. Time For Some ft Lil Fame of M.O.P.
03. Cocoa Butter ft. Nina Sky
04. White Silk
05. I Don’t Need No Love
06. The Stick Up
07. Central Bookings ft. Meyhem Lauren
08. Cirque Du Soleil
09. The RainMaker
10. Love Letter
11. Not Enough Words
12. Terror Death Camp ft. Meyhem Lauren, Maffew Ragazino, & AG Da Coroner
13. Miss Fordham Road (86′ 87′ 88′)
14. Cliff Notes
15. Bon Voyage’

Well Done tour dates:
-Friday Oct 21st New York, NY Action Bronson at Highline Ballroom – XXL CMJ Event w/ Machine Gun Kelly, Dom Kennedy, French Montana, Kid Ink, Chris Webby
-Saturday Oct 22nd Brooklyn, NY Statik Selektah at Williamsburg Music Hall -Duck Down vs. Blacksmith CMJ Event w/ Talib Kweli, Pharoahe Monch, Buckshot, Jean Grae, Smif N Wessun, Kidz In The Hall
-Saturday October 22nd New York, NY Action Bronson at Good Units – Fools Gold CMJ Event w/ N.O.R.E., A-Trak, Party Supplies, Danny Brown
-Saturday October 22nd New York, NY Action Bronson – Converse CMJ Event at Santos Party House w/ Araab Muzik, Mr. MFN Exquire
-Thursday Nov 3rd Montreal, Quebec Action Bronson at TBA
-Friday November 4th Toronto, Canada Action Bronson at The Rivoli
-Saturday Nov 5th Salt Lake City, UT Statik Selektah at Hotel Elevate
-Monday Nov 7th at Salt Lake City, UT Action Bronson & Statik Selektah at Hotel Elevate
-Wednesday Nov 9th New York, NY Action Bronson at Sullivan Hall
-Monday Nov 12th Chicago, IL Action Bronson at TBA
-Thursday Nov 17th Los Angeles, CA Action Bronson at The Wiltern w/ Chromeo
-Saturday Nov 19th Rotterdam, The Netherlands Action Bronson at Exit
-Friday Nov 25th Cambridge, MA Action Bronson at The Middle East w/ Slaine
-Friday December 16th Lowell, MA Statik Selektah at The Brewery w/ Termanology

Well Done is due out November 22nd on DCide Records. Preorder it here.

Three years ago today, my 16 year-old self — just a kid on Long Island — rounded up some friends that were passionate about music to do one thing: express their love for the art and help bring some of their favorite music to light. If we had turned just one person on to a band we liked we would have considered it a success. We never expected this newfound hobby of ours to become anything more than that.

Fast-forward three years and we now find ourselves with an audience of hundreds of thousands, a staff of over 50 active contributors located across the globe, a spot on CBS’ Metacritic site, and an archive of thousands and thousands of posts of captivating content.

We now have two full-time “employees” (admittedly they’re more like brothers), and will hopefully have a pretty sweet job myself out of college when I graduate in about two-and-a-half years’ time. We still have a ways ahead of us, but seeing how far we’ve come there is no doubt in my mind that we’ll achieve everything we set out to do.

I’d like to thank everyone out there that has helped make this dream possible. Thanks to the guys who were here from day one: Brent Koepp, Rob Hakimian, Sean Highkin, Ryan Nichols (glad to have you back, bud), Larry Weaver (who actually came aboard just a few days after launch), and my good friend Christopher Woodall; even though he’s moved on, he continues to support what we do. Thanks to Philip Cosores who came on this past year as Managing Editor and brought our live coverage up to higher level. Thanks to editors Andrew Bailey, Will Ryan, and Erik Burg who work on the site everyday as well. Thanks to the hundreds of writers and photographers who have contributed to us in the past and those who continue to contribute. Thanks to Jordan Raup and everyone in the Banquet Media family. Thanks to all my friends and family for their support, especially mom and dad who helped foot the server bill a few times in the early days. And most importantly, thanks to all of readers who keep us up and running, spread the word about the site, and provide us with feedback that keeps us inspired. And lastly thanks again to Brent Koepp for all his swag!

These past three years have been amazing, but believe me, from the look of the things we’re working on the next three will be. Trust me.

- Evan Kaloudis, CEO & Publisher

It seems just like yesterday, that I met Evan on a forum for what now seems like the most random thing ever. The new TV On The Radio had just made its way on to the Internet, and I was having a discussion with him that led to an AIM conversation. We had been talking maybe an hour, when he suddenly proclaimed that he was going to start a music site, and was wondering if I was interested in helping out. At the time I was an English major, so I said absolutely. It still blows my mind that back then, he was 16 years old, and I was 20. In fact, most of the staff starting out were just kids still in high school. It seemed impossible at the time that a group of people so young, would be able to start a blog, and then have it turn into a full site featured on Metacritic and signed to Complex Media Network just three years later.

The journey has been incredible. Yeah, it’s been filled with thousands upon thousands of hours of work. And yeah, there have even been times in the beginning where we doubted that BPM could stay afloat. Yet, every moment has been worth it each and every time we get to see our friends’ and our work published on this site. I’ll never forget the first advanced album promo that we received from Sub Pop (you guys really are the best). Or our first interview ever with Phil Elverum — that was amateur to say the least. It’s really been the generosity and the kindness of the indie artists and labels that have helped a struggling new site become a voice in a medium that is often cluttered. Even today when we are afforded opportunities such as covering albums and live shows, it’s a dream come true.

Above all else, One Thirty BPM is an example of what can be achieved when people passionate about something generously give their time and dedication to that something that they love. We would not be here today if it were not for all the writers, and, of course, the people that read this site. I would like to think that in a way, BPM is a by-product of the communal aspect that the Internet has provided music fans in the last decade.

I really don’t know how else to end this, without being cliché. But here’s to another three years. Personally, I want to thank every single editor and writer that puts in so much time and dedication without ever asking anything in return. BPM would not be here without you guys. I want to thank my brothers, Evan, Rob, Sean, Phil and also of course Arika (for always listening to my crazy rants).

I’m just ready for us to finally get an office.

- Brent Koepp, President & Reviews Editor

I remember encountering a message board post made by Evan about a new site he had setup that intended to run music reviews from normal young guys like ourselves. Despite the jeers from most of the posters of “aren’t there enough sites like this already?” I thought it was something I wanted to be involved in. I never really intended to become a writer, but I was consuming a lot of music and I thought it might be nice to have somewhere to let out some thoughts. Upon talking to the original guys (Evan, Brent, Sean, Larry, Ryan) in our original group chats I found a kind of kinship that I had never felt with anyone when talking about music before, and a real sense of dedication to this project.

Three years later and much more attention paid to this website than my degree, my belief that One Thirty BPM can be something real has led me to move across the world. Obviously plenty of work has gone into those three years; I don’t need to go into detail about what exactly, since if you’re a regular visitor to One Thirty BPM you see the kind of content quality we strive to reach and maintain on a daily basis, and I’m sure you all appreciate how much work behind the scenes some of it can take. I can honestly say this is the thing I’ve worked hardest on in my life, and I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t get the little perks; the steadily increasing traffic, the pats on the back for good work, the meeting other like-minded bloggers and of course, the big one, getting to be involved in the world that is my passion. In the three years since then I’ve had my flirtations with contributing to other sites, but none have ever felt as comfortable or as homely as this one.

So I guess all that leaves to say is thank you to Evan for accepting my weird Britishness onto his team three years ago, and thank you to all of you who have supported the site. We’re doing well now, but we’re only three years old, and as such we’re only just learning to walk, but just you wait and see what we have instore — it won’t be long before we’re running.

- Rob Hakimian, Editor-in-Chief

Well Radiohead didn’t show last Friday, but this makes for a great consolation. Down in New York’s Zuccotti Park Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel played a brief set consisting of “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea,” “The King of Carrot Flowers Part 1,″ and ”Oh Comely.”

Check out a replay of his performance below.

According to Green Plastic, Radiohead fans have a lot to look forward to in the near future.

During frontman Thom Yorke’s appearance on Gille Peterson’s show on BBC Radio 1, Yorke revealed that Radiohead will be tourng in 2012: “The idea is to go out and play next year on and off during the year.” Additionally, Yorke revealed that his side-project Atoms For Peace has an album on the way. The album is currently being finished off with Atoms For Peace member and Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich.

Green Plastic will have a recording of the Gille Peterson show up shortly which we will link to when it’s made available.

In other recent Radiohead news, the Oxford band will be playing two shows in New York and will be making an appearance on the Colbert Report next week (EDIT: and playing SNL!). Readers should also check out our brand new ‘Discussions’ piece with Radiohead as its focus.

UPDATE: Download an MP3 recording of the entire radio show here.

Here’s the highly anticipated Jay-Z/J. Cole collab off of Cole’s upcoming debut album Cole World: The Sideline Story. Check it out below.

Cole World: The Sideline Story tracklist
01. Intro
02. Dollar And A Dream III
03. Can’t Get Enough f. Trey Songz
04. Lights Please
05. Interlude
06. Sideline Story
07. Mr. Nice Watch f. Jay-Z
08. Cole World
09. In the Morning f. Drake
10. Lost Ones
11. Nobody’s Perfect f. Missy Elliott
12. Never Told (prod. No I.D.)
13. Rise & Shine
14. God’s Gift
15. Breakdown
16. Cheer Up
17. Nothing Lasts Forever [Bonus]
18. Work Out [Bonus]
19. Daddy’s Little Girl [Bonus]

Cole World: The Sideline Story is due out September 27th on Roc Nation.

[Via DJ Skee]

When people think jazz, people generally think about music that is highly influenced by swing and bebop, held together tightly with fast tempos, and concise structure. Whereas Coltrane’s past works of say, Blue Train and Giant Steps, may fit the bill, A Love Supreme is a vast deviation. It’s full of emotion, hooks, and at times, sheer chaos so a new-found jazz listener may just dismiss it as an unfathomable mess.

Coltrane’s quartet for this album consists of tight-knit group of players consisting of Jimmy Garrison on bass, McCoy Tyner on piano, Elvin Jones on drums, and of course, John Coltrane on tenor saxophone. The album is a suite, broken into four different movements, “Acknowledgement,” “Resolution,” “Pursuance,” and “Psalm.” The album maintains a spiritual theme; Coltrane expresses his gratitude and ‘acknowledgement’ of his skills and talent and admits that that skill is owned by a higher power or God.

The spiritual journey of A Love Supreme begins with the banging of a gong “Acknowledgement.” It’s quickly followed by cymbal washes from Elvin Jones, Coltrane plays his brief intro of notes, the piano builds tension with a tremolo and slowly the cymbal washes fade out as bassist Jimmy Garrison enters with a four-note motif upon which the whole movement is based. The drums and piano soon enter and Coltrane begins his lively solo. After soloing over different variations of the motif, the motif eventually becomes a vocal chant of “A Love Supreme,” chanted by Coltrane himself. The purpose of this movement is to show that he “acknowledges” the existence of God and asks for strength and guidance to overcome the addictions (including a devastating heroin addiction of his which tore apart former playing groups) which had plagued him through most of his musical career. The chanting of “A Love Supreme” is a proclamation of his love for God that cannot be matched. As the tracks slows to a finish, Garrison’s bass fades out into the next track.

“Resolution” opens with a continuation of Garrison’s bass solo, which consists of some very low, but lively muted bass riffs, full of double-stops and a swing feel. Suddenly, the piece explodes as Coltrane enters about 20 seconds in. This opening solo is full of pure emotion. It’s dynamic, audacious, and simply breathtaking. In the background Tyner lays down his minor-key piano chords, supporting Coltrane, until Tyner takes the helm and enters with his solo. Tyner’s solo style is so drastically different. It’s seemingly the only fitting way to follow up Coltrane powerful opener. Tyner uses less of a range of notes; he’s clear and concise but very much on point. It all makes for a very strong solo. Coltrane then reenters for a second time, repeating the theme from the beginning of the movement. This second solo has more angst. Coltrane distorts his tones this time around by blowing more vigorously on his mouthpiece. This is perhaps representative of the pain in his life before rediscovering God. In many ways, “Resolution” can be seen as Coltrane’s mighty return after reaching out to God for help. Here Coltrane is at his finest: explosive, powerful, and transcendent.

Part three of the suite, “Pursuance,” opens with a roaring drum solo from Elvin Jones. The word ‘pursuance’ is defined as “The action of trying to achieve something.” This is conveyed through Jones’ determination as he plays through his solo and pounds on the snare drum. Jones follows the tempo set by drummer Garrison, and fills his solo with double-stops accordingly. After a minute and a half, Coltrane enters for a solo, but is quickly followed by a piano solo from full of cadenzas that finds him all over the keyboard. He then begins playing chords that lead into Coltrane’s second solo. This time around, Coltrane has a full three minutes on his hands. In it he reintroduces the six-note theme from the beginning of the movement. Concluding the piece is a bass solo from Garrison. The free-flowing solo is similar to that on “Acknowledgement” in that he repeats the three-note “A Love Supreme” theme.

Alas, we reach the conclusion of A Love Supreme, with “Psalm.” This incredibly moving track is based around a poem by Coltrane, dedicated to God, which is included in the album’s liner notes, also titled “A Love Supreme.” The track, in ways, is a “reading” of the poem in musical form. It’s a wordless recital of sorts. The saxophone solo is set to the meter of the poem. Elvin Jones creates a beautiful atmosphere by playing tympani as Coltrane emblematically reads the poem. This heartfelt and highly emotion performances from Coltrane ends on the line “Elation. Elegance. Exaltation. All from God. Thank you God. Amen.” And thus A Love Supreme comes to a close.

Remarkably the album was recorded in a single late-night session by Coltrane’s quartet, consisting of Elvin Jones, McCoy Tyner, and Jimmy Garrison, on December 9th, 1964 at the Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. This marked the first time that Coltrane had plotted out an album. For the most part, the tracks on the album were recorded in only one or two tracks. This was surprising for the time because previous to this Coltrane was known for being a perfectionist. He would record tracks over and over again until he was satisfied them. This marks another change in Coltrane’s life with this album. This is particularly amazing in that “Pursuance” and “Psalm” were recorded together in a single take. It begs the question, how could such a groundbreaking piece of art be constructed in so little time and in such few takes?

Not only does A Love Supreme showcase John Coltrane in his prime, encompassing flawless playing, emotional power, and rawness but it also marks several transitions in his life. First, is his change is from hard bop to free jazz style of playing. Second, is embracing of God which thematically dictates the whole album. Last is his transition from being more improvisation and winging the structure of his songs, while constantly re-recording for perfection to premeditating his pieces and recording in few takes. A Love Supreme also showcases one of the finest jazz quartets ever assembled. The four of them understood each other completely and played with such audacity, while laying down some of the greatest jazz solos ever played.

A Love Supreme is one of the most soulful recordings of all time. It’s spiritual, timeless, and transcendent All the while it remains the best selling Coltrane album to date. A Love Supreme may just be the greatest jazz record of all time. There’s no question, it’s certainly John Coltrane’s finest achievement.

Here’s another video in the Reebok Classic Presents series. This time Raekwon discusses his seminal debut solo album Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…, meeting Nas, and how Nas’ verse on “Verbal Intercourse” came together.

Watch Nas discuss Illmatic here.

Label Spotlight is our new feature in which we take a look at an up-and-coming independent record label. For this premiere installment we sit down with Mike Naideau, cofounder of Long Island indie record label Life On An Island.

One Thirty BPM: Hey Mike, first off could you briefly describe your label? How many artists and releases are under its wing and what are its ‘sounds’?

Mike Naideau: Sure. “Life On an Island” has definitely always been more of a collective of close friends than a label. We began without any real intention of working on projects not involving people and bands and music that we all know and love! As a whole it has functioned accordingly, too. We all try to split costs and keep as many aspects of the whole process as local and personal as possible. Our friend Brian’s recording studio called “Blue Sunshine” has really been an indispensable resource for many of us.

So with that said we have somewhere around 20 artists under our wing, but it’s not so much a real wing, we’re all just friends. We’ve also released only single songs by a lot of artists on our summer compilations. At the end of this month we will have 30 physical releases (mostly cassettes and CDs but I see more vinyl in our future), which rules! Many are out of print and gone at this point, and a handful of others are just barely sticking around. Doing things in very limited editions has not only encouraged us to pay more attention to detail, but also to keep our attention present and focused on new projects and ideas.

As a whole, our stuff sits somewhere between some kinda guitar-heavy indie-rock and a post-punk influenced brand of pop-punk. Some of the Neato Fleets, Fuzzy Hell, Your Birthday, Brian Chaudhry and Screen House Music stuff dips a little deeper into the lo-fi realm, while the Giant Peach, For Serious This Time and Nude Beach stuff is a bit more rockin’ and the Haircut and Womyn Boiz stuff is just straight up crunch/crusty.

How did you start up the label? What prompted you to start it?

The label stemmed pretty naturally from a small group of friends from Northport, New York. It started some time in 2006. We had all been living near each other and working individually on home recordings for a few years at that point. It was a nice way to kind of bring everybody’s work together into a more dynamic, cohesive representation of what it meant to us to live and grow up in this pretty small town. Our first release was a cassette compilation of sorts that we called Story Of Man. It was a real tiny collaborative release that you can read a little more about thanks to the “Here On This Island” blog. We gave out a bunch of copies of this tape when we played our one and only show under this name that same year in a basement in Northport. It was a show with Wildebeest, Infinity Mirror and Brian Chaudhry. That’s kind of where it all began.

Summer tour 2010 by Brian Chaudhry

I think the primary motivation for many of us was to simply have an excuse that we felt was worthwhile to turn these intimate experiments into more tangible things, with artwork and explanations, that we could then literally hand to each other. We’ve all always valued when that kind of personal interaction exists alongside music. The whole scene was already thriving around here at that point, and we were all extremely lucky to be able to experience that era of musicians and house shows, much less participate in it. We were also definitely inspired by the ideologies behind some local labels such as Burn It Down/Rebuild and Rok Lok.

Our series of summer compilations is kind of our way of thanking a lot of these influential artists whom we respect a great deal, and whom have contributed so much over the years to the local music community. I don’t think this whole thing was ever actually intended to become a label, but it seems to have kind of naturally moved in that direction!

How have you seen the Long Island music scene change since you’ve got involved in it? Who are the prominent figures?

This whole thing began in 2006, when a lot of us were still in high school. But at that point there were a lot of super inspiring and accessible performances going on around Long Island. Many were in Huntington Station, various basements and garages in Northport and the short-lived Long Island Freespace in Ronkonkoma. Those shows were what instilled a lot of significant values in us with regards to our approach to music.

Allatoona by For Serious This Time

A raw and sincere intensity kept everybody coming back to these places. Some distinct bands were Bent Outta Shape, Latterman, Wildebeest, The Insurgent, Guadalupe, The Solidarity Pact, and Fellow Project. More often than not the music was all given out for free as burned CDs packaged in some kinda weird folded paper thing. Everything about it was personal and unintimidating.

Since then there has been an overall sort of migration from Long Island to other places in New York like Brooklyn and Queens. A lot of amazing bands have broken up, but a lot of new ones have formed!

How do you feel about technology such as Bandcamp as distribution methods?

Bandcamp is a useful page to host a lot of MP3s for people to hear and download for free. It’s the only site of that kind that we really use, and we primarily started using it as a simple way to make a bunch of our out-of-print releases more widely available. Not so much into the idea of selling things directly through Bandcamp though because they take some, but also because we’d rather handle that aspect of the process ourselves anyway.

We prefer to stay away from digital releases, yet they do help in making it easier and cheaper to reach a large audience. It’s just important to us to use these methods properly, like still putting a lot into the physical artwork of whatever you’re working on even if you’re offering a digital version too.

How has this year been for you as a label?

This has been our biggest year yet! We focused on putting out a bunch of limited edition cassettes early in the year, each with lots of personal attention, care and real nice hand-printed artwork, and then moved forward.

You can read more about these cassettes on our website, but here’s a quick summary: The first is Toxicology Songs, a 60-minute, magical full-length from NY-native Fuzzy Hell. She lives in Ireland most of the year but is also deeply supportive of and involved in the scene over here. There’s nothing else out there like this and we’re unbelievably grateful to be involved in the output of this music. The second is a collection of mostly acoustic, older songs from 2006-2008 by Long Island-based artist and musician Brian Chaudhry. This one personally meant a lot to us, and we think it will mean a lot to anyone who hears it. The third was a reissue of sorts, though we like to think of it as its first proper release. It is a record from Northport-based, hardcore grunge rockers Haircut. Though a couple years old it still shreds so hard, and it sounds pretty amazing blasting on cassette. We then also did a limited edition cassette version of upstate NY-based Summer People’s most recent full-length called Teamwork.

So that was the beginning of the year, but that was just the beginning of the year. Giant Peach and For Serious This Time both put out new EPs just a couple of months ago. Giant Peach’s People Don’t Believe Me EP was the next step forward for these dudes in their own brand of crunchy, melodic grunge-rock. Four songs, 20 minutes, pretty solid! For Serious This Time’s Weird Life EP is six songs of crisp, fluid pop-punk. This one was released on 12” as a split with Dead Broke Rekerds, which we were really psyched about! These two bands also went on a brief two-week US tour in June in support of their respective releases. For the tour we released a limited edition cassette, a split with each record on a side!

The Moon is the Eye of a T-Rex cloud by Giant Peach

Giant Peach

And now just recently we were able to be a part of two great digital releases: Small Plants, a sweet electro-lo-fi venture from Screen House Music, Nicky of For Serious This Time’s solo project, as well as Stay In The Sunlight, a real intricate, new EP from Northport’s Nightwalks.

What can we expect from you in the next couple months? The future?

We have a bunch of exciting things lined up for the fall. Very soon we’ll have CD versions of the new People Don’t Believe Me EP from Giant Peach. This digital edition will be pro-printed with all new artwork, and limited to 100! We are also really psyched to be putting out a limited edition cassette by Nude Beach called Live at Gunther’s. These both should be finished and available early-September at the latest!

Also in the works are a cassette of brand new material by Punks On Mars (this will be a split with Ratgum Records) and an amazing full-length CD by Fuzzy Hell. Come fall-time we will be working on the third in our series of cassette comps, with a lot of sweet unreleased stuff by a bunch of our favorite artists, as well as a new Giant Peach record joint-released with Rok Lok Records! That’s what we’re working on now, but there will no doubt be more to come.

What new artists (whether it be on your label or just in general) are you most looking forward to hearing new music from?

We are super excited for the Nude Beach, Punks On Mars and Fuzzy Hell releases! Aside from those, always looking forward to new stuff from The Fish, Iron Chic, Metacomet, and all the other Dead Broke bands, as well as our good friends in Fellow Project, Delay, Ink Mouth, and our buddy CH-ROM!

Blyngwie malmsteen by Palmkite

More info:

To hear a lot of the bands mentioned in this interview download Life On An Island’s Summer Compilation #2 for free.

See Giant Peach at the Rok Lok Records Showcase @ Mr. Beery’s in Bethpage, NY on 8/20/2011 w/ Deep Pockets, Brick Mower, Make It Plain, Vehicle Blues and Famous Laughs — Facebook Event

See For Serious This Time @ 2579 Montauk Hwy, Brookhaven NY on 8/21/2011 w/ Wax Phantom, Fat Shadow, Make It Plain and Warm Needles — Facebook Event

Life On An Island website
Bandcamp
Tumblr

On September 14th, Radiohead will serve as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live‘s season premiere. The show, on which Radiohead has performed only once before (check out the video from 2000 below), will be hosted by Alec Baldwin, now more well known for his work on 30 Rock.

Although this may seem a little out of the blue, please remember that they band is releasing their remix album on September 13th and barely did any promotion for The King of Limbs which was released just a few months ago. Please, no speculation on a The King of Limbs Part 2, please.

Check out Radiohead’s performance of “The National Anthem” on SNL back in 2000 here.

[Via CoS / Zap2It]

MTV is reporting that for the release of their new album, Watch the Throne, Kanye West and Jay-Z have opened a a pop-up store to sell CD copies down in New York’s SoHo.

Inside, the store is coated with Watch the Throne wallpaper designed by Riccardo Tisci and will contain the insane Maybach from the “Otis” music video.

There’s also a rumor that Jay-Z will be making an appearance down there tonight. So if you’re in the NYC-area, check it out folks. The address is 201 Mulberry Street.

So much for a Best Buy exclusive.