A sea of reverb. Proud, deliberate bass. An ancient drum machine playing static filled kicks and snares in a dilapidated church. And from the basement, a haunting singer lends her voice. What an excellent tune. Timeless.

Given the stripped down layers and texture, I thought today’s artwork was appropriate.

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I first heard the full version of this Starkey track on Hudson Mohawke’s extremely great Essential Mix on BBC Radio 1. Here’s the instrumental. It’s got an amazing structure and good bass to boot.

For this design on the album artwork, I tried mimicking the crunchy bass and scattered percussion in the texture, the tones in the colour and the smooth structure in the floating orbs.

Anyways, this is very heavy. Very epic. So, enjoy.

Starkey on eMusic

Futuristic boom bap. SirOJ utilizes samples, synths and great production to create head nodding tracks that don’t feel played out. Check out this cool producer: http://www.myspace.com/slumgullion

Grab SirOJ’s State Beat Tape for FREE!

Low Limit’s remix of a very cool Shlohmo track is on the outer edges of my comfort zone for electronic music. At first it sounds like a basic house record but man… the feeling this sound gives you is incredible. It’s so spacey, sketchy, and atmospheric that I’ll forgive the four-on-the-floor skeleton. What is built up on top of that basic construct is shimmery and beautiful. Low Limit will turn you into a beat head.

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Check Low Limit out too!

This has such an interesting feel. Flako takes this track for a spaced out, slinky ride and while it shuffles, skips and generally stays very funky it gets intense, hard and super beat driven. The rapping and scratching hearken back to the golden age while the production and overall values of the remix keep it firmly placed in the near future.

Check out some great Flako productions on Sound Cloud

And be sure to grab some Flako on eMusic

Hazy sunshine music. So incredibly lethargic, chilled out and warm. This is what it sounds like to be inside a black cassette tape on a leather seat in the middle of July. You can hear the heat waves.

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Frantic and smooth. Fast and slow. So unique. As a rule, Debruit is just crazy. He crafts such interesting tracks and the breaks the mold with the weirdest effects. Even if I don’t like a track he does right off the bat, I’ll grab it as a rule just to listen to what he’s up to. The original of this track is great. But the remix by Reso might be even better, glossing up the rappers choppy, breathless, earnest delivery with the smoothest ambient noise and buttery synths.

I found out that another designer, know as Lukes Beard is doing something similar to me – designing a poster a day to compliment a lyric. He is very good. So, so good. I’m loving his “every day” project. Check it out on tumblr: alyricaday.tumblr.com

As for the music – support the artists and enjoy some new music:

Debruit – Let’s Post Funk
Reso – Temjin EP

This song by 14kt took me by surprise, especially as I hadn’t heard of him before – this song is so huge and the kick drums sound like punchy ripples in an electronic pond. So I followed that aspect of the song and created the artwork around the sound of the kick drum. Gentle, floating light melodies and distorted vocals jump around, refracting and reflecting.

14kt is a surprisingly great producer and most of the songs on his album, The Golden Hour [Sdtrk] are pretty solid. Check him out.

Is it odd that this combination of rolling bass, warbly, fuzzed out synths and sparse drum programming sounds like the first snow fall of the year? Living on the west coast is great. There isn’t snow at all downtown in the winter. Still, coming from the mountains, I feel a bit nostalgic for heaps of snow. So here’s my interpretation of the song – looking out at a blizzardy day in the not-so-distant past.

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One endless loop of cosmic sultriness. Heavy, intense, and passionate yet restrained. Jose’s voice feels suitably pulled back and he blends in well with the bass heavy neo-galactic-soul. Gentle electronic whirring, robotic atmospheric strings and overhead piano place this edifice in a distant corner of the universe, ancient and futuristic.

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