Flight Facilities, Down To Earth

Sydney’s Flight Facilities have been reaching from strength to strength lately, and that includes this very cool new video clip for Down To Earth, starring actor Sam Rockwell. The clip basically features Rockwell sitting alone in a quiet, deserted diner. Soon enough, his imagination runs wild and we watch him suddenly wearing a suit and letting loose, dancing his way through the diner, the kitchen, a back alley and more. The final moments of the clip draw us back down to earth (hehehehe) and we see him still sitting at the diner, with a very blurry Flight Facilities sitting behind him.

Action Bronson, Actin Crazy
Ahhh, green screens. They are a wonderful, wonderful thing. Watch as the understated, food-loving Action Bronson turns a regular room into scenes including flying an exploding rocket ship, riding a robotic fire-breathing bird-snake through a city skyline, shooting through water on a fish-shark-submarine, playing basketball with Godzilla and more. In the middle of the insanity Bronson takes little breaks throughout, to eat cereal and have his hair brushed. Of course.

Raury, Seven Suns
I saw Raury live twice recently, and both times this was the track that he gave the biggest spiel about before performing. “Ima need y’all to be my personal therapist for the next few minutes,” he exclaimed in his Southern drawl. A highly personal, intimate and powerful song, it’s ambient swoops and soaring guitars lay the soundtrack to a smokey junkyard, backdrop to Raury gathering his Indigo Army. Messiah complex? Sure. Worth it? 100%. (PS Check out our exclusive photoshoot with Raury)

Courtney Barnett, Depreston
CB is at it again, with a new song and video to boot! Getting ready for her new album, she’s just premiered the lovely new Depreston. Stripped back and more intimate than her first single Pedestrian At Best, the emotional folk track showcases poetic lyrics at their most heartfelt. The video clip is split into three separate shots of Melbourne streets and follows her story of visiting a deceased estate for potential rental.

NYUON, Your City
More good Australian rap, hooray! Melbourne artist NYUON has recently released the old school video clip for single Your City. An homage to the hip hop clips of days gone past, the clip trails basketball courts, inner city streets and ‘industrial wasteland.’ Born to Sudanese parents in an Ethiopian refugee camp, NYUON and his family moved to Aus in 2001 to escape civil war. His heartwarming story only makes it that much better that we’ve got a great rising star on the scene.

Action Bronson is gearing up for his upcoming second album (but first on a major label) Mr Wonderful. Baby Blue is the fourth single we’ve heard so far, out of a total 13 tracks. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s noticed how different, and excellent, each track has been thus far. I am SO excited for this album.

Once again, we’re drawn into Bronson’s oily flow and his funny, at times vulgar train of thought lyrics. He’s always shown a knack for gorgeous backing loops, but this one’s been produced by Mark Ronson, so it’s one of his best ever. The simply, bluesy music creates a smooth atmosphere – the perfect antidote to Bronson’s harshly worded one-liner-heavy drawl.

Chance The Rapper‘s raspy choruses and guest verse are stellar, as always. And then there’s that trumpet bridge, oh my!

Mr Wonderful comes out on March 24 via Atlantic Records / Vice Records

Everyone’s favourite ginger food-loving rapper Action Bronson is back, and he’s getting ready to release is major label debut album Mr Wonderful on March 24. I’ll admit it’s taken me a long time to get into him, but I’m now an avid fan of his verses, his comedy and his serious addiction to gourmet food.

We’ve so far heard a few tracks from his upcoming album: The Light In The Addict, Actin Crazy and Easy Rider.

The latest release is Terry, produced by The Alchemist. With cruisey backing loops and breezy guitar samples, the abrasive lyrics can’t help but feel subdued. He’s got a really unique stream of consciousness flow in that each word is spat out, yet it still sounds so slick and smooth. Great scratch work here, and I can’t help but love anything that includes a saxophone. Overall, it’s a really interesting track that seems to traipse between a few styles from a few decades, coming together to create something interesting, accessible and very cool.

First week back, and already we’re seeing some great releases this week! We’ve found the best for our weekly playlist, which has come just in time for your weekend!

Phosphene, Silver

US rockers Phosphene are kicking things off with this pearler. Shoegaze at it’s best, Silver is a sweet little number with dreamy female vocals and heavenly arrangements. At 2:42, things get really cool with an instrumental breakdown and those sweet, sweet vocal melodies.

Arctic Maps, The Ocean Is My Cathedral

Similar to London Grammar, Arctic Maps‘ new tune The Ocean Is My Cathedral is a beautiful little song featuring soft vocals and atmospheric vibes. The duo play with light and dark here as the track trickles along, with darker arrangements swirling under the surface.

Drake, Jhene Aiko, From Time (KRNE x Portrait Edit)

KRNE and Portrait‘s take on one of my favourite tracks from Drake‘s album Nothing Was The Same is glitchy and sparse, combining the strongest sides of both artists. It’s no secret we’re fans of KRNE here, and this song reiterates how good this guy is!

Water Strider, White Light

Shimmering, chilled out, powerful – three words to sum up this track. It’s dynamic and vibrant, and has a lot going on! Math rock guitars, jungle vibes in the rhythm section, falsettos and funky twists; this one is a winner!

Real Slow, Girl U Know

Real Slow cherry picks his way through the trending electronic genres to create a sound that is his own. Tropical house, hip hop beats, Girl U Know is packed full of good vibes and is another big step forward for the Australian producer.

Midoca, Gotta Go

Midoca‘s Gotta Go is one of the most intriguing tracks I’ve heard in a while. Soulful vocal samples, glitchy synth samples, crashing cymbals, then whirling atmospheric vibes – it’s a little left field, but try getting it out of your head!

prints_, Ghosts

You can’t NOT compare these guys to Purity Ring, but once you get past that you open a whole new world of spooky, dreamy electronica that is begging for your attention. Brooding and eerie, the song is as mysterious as the duo themselves, who seem to vanish from the Internet when it suits them and only reappearing when they’ve made another gem of this otherworldly pop (last time if was for two years!)

Lxury, Let Down

A modern take on classic house, it’s no wonder this song was the first to be featured on Annie Mac‘s Free Music Mondays on BBCR1. Not unlike Gold Panda‘s stylings, Lxury makes this his own with his looping and chopping. 2015 looks pretty damn good for this guy!

Action Bronson, Actin Crazy

The first track of Action Bronson‘s upcoming album, Actin Crazy is produced by renowned hitmaker Noah “40” Shebib, so it’s safe to say it’s gonna be good! It’s dripping with Bronson’s signature badass style, and is raising the bar for his album. We can’t wait!

ESESE, Aintno ft Hancoq

We featured this song earlier this week, but I think it deserves another mention. Packed to the brim with super cool vibes, Hancoq is just the best in this track. The soulful chorus with a surprise brass section and the hook, “Ain’t no stoppin’, ain’t no stoppin’ me” is guaranteed to get stuck in your head for days – not that we’re complaining!

Wassup people! Here’s your new weekly playlist, curated by your faithful editor. Got a pretty eclectic selection today. We start with the raunchy sounds of Boss Moxi, before fuzzing it up and washing it down with Crepes and Kagu. From there we travel into weird-electro-land, where my picks this week are all about the hidden layers, subtle delights and subdued power. Topping it all off is a couple wicked hip hop tracks to finish it off. Enjoy!

  • Boss Moxi, Nymphomaniac
    I can’t get enough of this Brisbane group right now. Their haunting tones lie somewhere in between Nick Cave and Kirin J Callinan, with an indie beat and eerie guitars leading the way.
  • Kagu, Shadow of the Wind
    A really gorgeous track from former-Snakadaktal man Sean Heathcliff. Sentimental and deliberate, the rhythm slowly builds and drops and changes behind the melody, really captivating you through each moment.
  • Crepes, Ain’t Horrible
    The Melbourne act have released a new single that lies somewhere between lo-fi fuzz and summery bliss. Delayed beats and understated vocals, there’s a lot more than meets the eye to this one.
  • EMRSN, About Love
    I can’t get enough of this sound! An absolutely gorgeous future soul track, EMRSN has found the absolute perfect balance between delicately glitch electronic beats, and velvety rich, sensual vocals.
  • Sizarr, Baggage Man
    The swinging rhythm, the melodic bass and the swift rhythm lead the way on this one, while the vocals are warm, husky and seductive. I don’t like the bridge that much, but the rest of the track more than makes up for it.
  • Spirit Faces, Cloudplay ft. Buoy
    This is an utterly strange, utterly beautiful tune. Angelic melodies and lullaby xylophones, grungey guitar crunches and a whole myriad intermittent synth layers makes for something wholly unique.
  • TOKiMONSTA + Iza, Pinching
    A heavenly lilt with perfect harmonies really lead the fairly simple synth and beat layers. There’s a lot of cute little additions throughout, and all in all it’s another track where you gotta look a little closer to find the magic!
  • Marian Hill, Lips
    This is a funky electro-pop track with cheeky vocals and a rhythm that starts simple, but slowly builds into something really catchy. I really like the thinness of Hill’s voice – it’s not often that you find something so fine, yet so strong.
  • Lil Herb & Earl Sweatshirt, Knucklehead
    I love rap collabs where they just trade gritty verses, and this is exactly that. The basic loops leave loads of room for those raspy raps. Both rappers have seriously wicked tongues and they flow so fluidly together.
  • Danny Brown & Action Bronson, Bad News
    This one’s off the EPIC upcoming GTA V soundtrack. It’s an interesting collaboration, but it works. They really feed off one another, surrounded by eerie loops, evil lyrics and clanky beats. It’s dark and demented, so obviously I like it.

Yep, you read that right. The video below details rappers Action Bronson and Killer Mike attempting to engage in a rap battle while running on treadmills. The skit was part of US comedy ‘The Eric Andre Show’ and as you’ll see, it’s not exactly easy to do…

Killer Mike went on to tweet that he was “hella high on dabs” while the segment was filmed.

Action Bronson was meant to be heading down to Aus next month, but once again has cancelled his appearances. He’s set to release new album Mr Wonderful in 2015, while Mike, noe half of Rub The Jewels, is inevitably still basking in the glory of the recent, brilliant album release RTJ2.