Artist of the Day: Alias & Ehren

Alias continues his inspired trip through wordless soundscapes with his third full-length and first collaborative instrumental album, Lillian. On 2003’s Muted, Alias (born Brendan Whitney) turned the corner from sample-based beatmaking and introspective raps to live instrumentation and electronic songcraft. He’d taken a giant leap of faith and strangely enough, landed square in his own shoes. Warm, fuzzy and swelled with pride, he sent the first copies of the record back to his family in Maine. Ehren Whitney, eleven years Brendon’s junior, was only three when his big brother started plastering the walls of their room with posters of screw-faced rappers but the music’s crotch tight grip never quite got a hold of him.

In fifth grade he started playing saxophone and discovered he was a natural. Dad, a jazz drummer, would bring Ehren with him to gigs and pretty soon he was jamming along with the old-timers. Word spread through the extended Whitney clan, and before long he’d gathered a pile of hand-me-down highschool band instruments. He learned each in no time at all.

The day that Muted reached Ehren in Hollis, Maine, Alias’s phone rang and plans were made: Ehren would fly out to Oakland, flute, alto sax, soprano sax, and clarinet in tow; they’d press record and see what happened. Using a few basic tracks laid down in advance, the brothers began layering sounds and improvising freely Alias’ trademark sounds are all here-crunchy fuzz, bassy cut up drums, pop-and-click percussion, atmospheric synth, ghostly guitars-but they’re made bright and buoyant by Ehren’s incredible ear for melody.

The end result is Lillian, a warm and wonderful album inspired by (and named after) their grandmother. The perfect postmodern tribute to an American musical family (Last.fm, 2010).

You can listen to Alias and Ehren's music at:
http://www.last.fm/music/Alias%2B%2526%2BEhren



Released Albums:
Alias and Ehren - Lillian

Reference:
(2010). Alias & Ehren. Last.fm. Retrieved from http://www.last.fm/music/Alias%2B%2526%2BEhren

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Artist of the Day: Tobacco

If the details seem scarce, it's because that's how TOBACCO likes to keep them. Hailing from an unspecified burg in rural Pennsylvania, somewhere north of Pittsburgh, he has successfully made a name for himself even as he's avoided acknowledging that name's legal counterpart. As both the frontman of Black Moth Super Rainbow and the sole creative engine behind TOBACCO, he's earned the eager ears and prying eyes of doggedly loyal fans and smitten critics alike - a kindness he's repaid by granting few interviews, obscuring his face in photos, and seeming wholly uninterested in the subject of his own identity. Such things just get in the way of the music after all, so if it's easier, you might think of TOBACCO as music - a one-man genre made of equal parts analog crunch, earthy psychedelia, fuzzed-up hip-hop, and outside pop. All the same, here's what's known.

TOBACCO has a sister. He grew up in a decent neighborhood. He was nearly strong-armed into elementary school band after an aptitude test suggested he play an instrument. He hated the idea, so he didn't do it. He didn't like music at all, in fact, until he discovered MTV - and hence, the Beasties' "So What'cha Want" video - one long summer bridging the middle of middle school. The first concert he attended was Butthole Surfers, and it's still his favorite. His favorite record of all time is Beck's Mellow Gold. Sticking to his childhood guns, he typically doesn't like music released earlier than the late '80s.

As for high school, TOBACCO could have done without the classes. An extracurricular interest in freestyle BMX - flatland - was soon replaced by a growing zeal for music, even though his first band, called Wood, didn't employ any instruments to its cause. (Its two main ingredients were flyers and hype.) Acquiring a guitar and a four-track opened up new doors, to the purplish noise and busted ghetto-blaster tracks that now populate The Allegheny White Fish Tapes, which TOBACCO self-released in 2009.

This was before the gritty analog synths, the murky vocoder-ing, and the hypnotic aural crush that came with founding Black Moth Super Rainbow. TOBACCO rounded up the group's members before graduation, and until last year's Dave Fridmann-produced collaborative affair, Eating Us, roughly treated BMSR as a solo project, penning three albums' and several EPs' worth of sludgy pagan pop for his cohorts to realize live. He designed BMSR's album art as well, which occasionally involved scratch-n-sniff elements or hair.

But TOBACCO would come to crave a more pure musical identity, one steeped in guttural sounds that hit harder and flashed brighter. This fixation reared its ugly head as 2008's beat-oriented Fucked Up Friends, TOBACCO's official debut. Two years later, with BMSR effectively on hiatus, the man is back and beastlier than ever with Maniac Meat, a record designed to bully his previous works into a corner, gut them, and leave 'em for dead. This is a good time to mention that TOBACCO believes he is making pop music (Anticon).

You can listen to Tobacco's music at:
http://www.last.fm/music/Tobacco



Released Albums:
Tobacco - Fucked Up Friends
Tobacco - Maniac Meat
Tobacco - Mystic Thickness
Tobacco - The Allegheny White Fish Tapes

Reference:
Tobacco. Anticon. Retrieved from http://anticon.com/index.php?section=artist&target=Tobacco&js=yes

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Artist of the Day: Dj Mayonnaise

Chris Greer was hunched down in his seat, slim face almost eye-level with the top of his desk, feigning the mild amount of interest needed to pass ninth grade earth science with flying colors, when something actually happened. The kid next to him—Brendon Whitney, the tall one who dressed like Parker Lewis—turned to Chris and asked: “Hey, what music do you like?” Chris responded the only way he could: “Guy.” “What?” “Guy…you know, Teddy Riley.” Brendon sighed: “Jesus, man. Here. Borrow this.” Something rippled the staid classroom air, and a copy of Special Ed’s Youngest in Charge skidded to a stop on top of Chris’ desk.

It was the beginning of a lot of things. To name three: a valuable new friendship (Brendon would soon become known as emcee/producer Alias), a future movement in art and sound (see “Anticon”), and a powerful obsession that would drive Chris away from new jack swing into the tough-but-loving arms of hip-hop. His roots were in the quiet suburbs of Maine and New Jersey (dad was in the coast guard, mom was a nurse, little brother fed the cats); his “now” consisted of spinning rap at school dances, working on his turntable chops from the bedroom window (each noise complaint was a merit badge), and combing local vinyl bargain bins for little round bits of fantastic. Thusly, DJ Mayonnaise arrived.

1993 saw Mayo and Alias crossing fate with another pair of inseparable and unusually named high school friends: Sole and Moodswing9. Together (with a few others) they founded a short-lived indie label (45 Below), became the greatest rap crew Portland, Maine has ever seen (Live Poets—Mayo contributed the cuts), and forged one puzzle piece of the early Anticon collective. DJ Mayonnaise was among the first wave to follow Sole’s vision to the Bay Area, to cramped spaces and creative saturation. And his first compositions helped define Anticon’s monumental opening salvo: Music for the Advancement of Hip-Hop, Deep Puddle Dynamics’ A Taste of Rain…Why Kneel, Sole’s Bottle of Humans, and his own debut LP, 55 Stories (all released in 1999). Mayo’s Stories was an eclectic instrumental platter built from (the art of) scratch with a deep, bassy melancholic core. It would also be his last album for eight years.

In 2007, Anticon welcomes DJ Mayonnaise back into the fold. Day jobs, distance and disillusionment can work their wear on one’s inspiration (as can living in a two-bedroom apartment with eight other artists), but if Chris Greer learned anything in earth science, it was that in the most familiar of circumstances, inspiration has a tendency of appearing quite naturally before one’s eyes. Mayo returned to his roots—moving to the arts-friendly Portland neighborhood of Munjoy Hill—and there he discovered his sophomore opus, the full and brightly musical Still Alive. His latest is marked by bold instrumentation, effortless detail and atmospheric pacing that, in sum, outright destroy the notion that DJ Mayonnaise had fallen off. On the contrary, we’ve finally been invited to his homecoming (Anticon).

You can listen to Dj Mayonnaise's music at:
http://www.last.fm/music/DJ+Mayonnaise



Released Albums:
Dj Mayonnaise - 55 Stories
Dj Mayonnaise - Still Alive
Dj Mayonnaise - B-Sides

Reference:
Dj Mayonnaise. Anticon. Retrieved from
http://www.anticon.com/index.php?section=artist&target=DJ%20Mayonnaise&js=yes

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Artist of the Day: Odd Nosdam

Meet David P. Madson, a.k.a. Odd Nosdam: artist, musician, DJ, and co-founder and ex-art director of Bay Area record label/collective Anticon.

Through the years, this Middle American maestro of beat-driven collage has championed a sound reflective of his greatest influences (hip-hop, indie rock, reggae, ambient), but one that can only be paired with the Odd Nosdam name. His source materials are meticulously selected from dusty vinyl archives, field recordings and occasional live instrumentation, then spun into heady atmospheric bliss via sampling, knob turning, layering, tape-dubbing, and the happy accidents that come with the territory. His oeuvre comprises album-length opuses of shadowy soundscapes (2005 and 2007’s fuzz-addled, dub-damaged wonder twins, 'Burner' and 'Level Live Wires'), hodgepodge instrumental collections (1999’s 'Plan 9... Meat Your Hypnotis.', 2002’s 'No More Wig For Ohio', and 2006’s self-released 'Vol. 8'), crate-digging mix tape delights (like 2002's masterful DJ mash-up 'Le Mixtape Delux' and 2007's smash-up 'Mixtape Super Delux'), original soundtracks (most notably, for Element Skateboards' 2007 feature length film, 'This Is My Element'), and compilations of choice odds and ends (2008's double disc set of remixes, B-sides, videos and original songs, 'Pretty Swell Explode').

In collaboration as well, Nosdam has made deep forays into the far side of sound, first gaining wide acclaim for the megaspheric drone and warped pop of his former group cLOUDDEAD (with fellow Anticon founders Why? and Doseone); more recently, working closely with Mike Patton on his Peeping Tom project and remixing tracks by a variety of bands including The Notwist, Danielson Famile, Serena-Maneesh, Boards of Canada, Bracken and Black Moth Super Rainbow. He’s also produced, mixed or collaborated with Jel, Jessica Bailiff, Reaching Quiet, Restiform Bodies, Thee More Shallows, TV On The Radio, Kool Keith, Themselves, Sole, Sage Francis, Mr. Dibbs, Dosh, Fog, Why?, Alias, Múm, Eluvium, Grouper, Greenthink, Hood and others (Anticon).

You can listen to Odd Nosdam's music at:
http://www.last.fm/music/Odd+Nosdam



Released Albums:
Odd Nosdam - Level Live Wires
Odd Nosdam - Burner
Odd Nosdam - T.I.M.E. Soundtrack
Odd Nosdam - No More Wig For Ohio
Odd Nosdam - Untitled Three
Odd Nosdam - Plan 9...Meat Your Hypnotist
Odd Nosdam - Pretty Sweet Explode

Reference:
Odd Nosdam. Anticon. Retrieved from
http://www.anticon.com/index.php?section=artist&target=odd%20nosdam&js=yes

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Artist of the Day: Alias from Anticon

If it wasn't for Theo Huxtable, Brendon Whitney might might have never left the woods of Southern Maine. Raised by a church organist/hobby store clerk and a fire-fighting jazz drummer on six acres of land in rural Hollis, little Bren never had cable television. Naturally, when the MTV receptors started flaring up in his 13-year-old brain, something had to be done. With only three general stores in town, the musical pickings were slim, so Bren and big sis Aubrey would stay up combing their five TV channels for some sort of sign. And that was when they found Theo, hosting NBC's now defunct Friday Night Videos.

Specifically, it was the video for Special Ed's "I'm the Magnificent" that did it. A 16-year-old rapping about owning 74 Honda scooters is hot shit to a kid whose nearest peer lives on the other side of a small forest populated by toothless itinerants. Bren bought every hip-hop magazine he could find, and plastered the walls of his and younger brother Ehren's bedroom with pictures of rappers feverishly grabbing their crotches. His parents were unsure about the imagery, but supportive of his passion, so on Christmas of 1992 they gave him his first drum machine. Exit little Bren, enter big Alias.

In 1993, a trip to the Maine Mall in Portland brought Alias, 17, to the feet of a real life Karl Kani-fitted hip-hop scholar. He listened to the wisdom spoken through this guru's then-patchy red beard, and soon would be battle-rapping in the "ciphers" he'd only read about. The mythical Moodswing9 would teach him to use an MPC3000 and an ADAT machine, how to find vinyl records with drum breaks and, three years later, he joined Sole (who'd since ditched the Karl Kani) as a member of the Live Poets crew.

Still, it wasn't until 1998, after finishing the seminal Deep Puddle Dynamics project alongside Sole, Dose One, and Atmosphere's Slug, that Alias realized he was a lifer. He and his wife Jenn were on their way to the laundromat when they got a copy of the finished DPD record. They subsequently sold the car, quit their jobs, packed everything into a U-Haul to head west. In East Oakland, they moved into an old warehouse with the rest of Anticon's first migratory wave. Here, Alias concocted his first album--a rap-heavy, poetic and brooding introspective called The Other Side of the Looking Glass (2002).

But after producing tracks for Sole's Selling Live Water and watching Dax Pierson play keyboards in Themselves' touring band, Alias began to focus on wordless moodpieces. His Eyes Closed EP and Muted full-length (2003) wedded rich atmospherics to guitars, keys, synth, and drums (both tapped out and played live), announcing a new direction for the artist. In 2005, Alias' little brother Ehren--quite the musician now--flew to California to visit and record. The resulting instrumental LP--a gorgeous, swirling work of woodwinds and signature Alias sounds--was named after their grandmother, Lillian.

2006 brought a new Alias-anchored duo, this time in collaboration with New York electro chanteuse Tarsier (Rona Rapadas), and the album Brookland/Oaklyn, which paid homage to vintage trip-hop even while pushing the boundaries of contemporary electronica. In 2007, Collected Remixes gathered intricate and icy reworkings of pieces by The One AM Radio, John Vanderslice, Christ., 13 & God, Lali Puna, and Lunz, among others. And later that year, partly in an attempt to shake off creative stagnation (which seems absurd considering his steady output), Alias and wife Jenn once again packed for a cross-country trip (Anticon).

You can listen to Alias's music at:
http://www.last.fm/music/Alias



Released Albums:
Alias - The Other Side of The Looking Glass
Alias - Three Phase Irony Ep
Alias - Eyes Closed Ep
Alias - Muted
Alias - All Things Fixable
Alias - Resurgam
Alias - Resurgam Residual Ep

Reference:
Alias. Anticon. Retrieved from http://www.anticon.com/index.php?section=artist&target=Alias&js=yes

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Artist of the Day: Dj Signify

DJ Signify of Brooklyn, NY, first came to people's attention in the mid 90s with the infamous mixtape releases, "Signifyin' Breaks" and "Mixed Messages". Both ... efforts were universally cited for bringing a thrust of forward thinking where actual composition and hands on cut and paste techniques were the order of the day. During this time he was invited by Mr. Dibbs to join the legendary 1200 Hobos crew.

In 2004 Signify showcased a seamless transition into production with his debut album, "Sleep No More". The project featured Buck 65 and Sage Francis, narrating over Signify's minimalist beat landscape. The sounds evoked a dark and barren environment that inadvertently challenged the status quo of instrumental/independent hip hop. Subsequently, Signify has released a slew of 45's and toured /collaborated with the likes of everyone from Blockhead and Steinski to Joe Beats and GrandMaster Caz, to name a few.

Signify's latest release, "Of Cities", is his most evolved and realised record to date. Although he stays true to his hip hop core, there are a multitude of palatable influences ranging from Krautrock to Glitch to early 90's Hip hop to New Wave. Once again, he effortlessly nestles his drum-heavy signature style into new musical territory. Factor in two lead contributions by Aesop Rock and this album is sure to please fans of beats and beyond (RCRD LBL).

You can listen to Dj Signify's music at:
http://www.last.fm/music/DJ+Signify



Released Albums:
Dj Signify - Sleep No More
Dj Signify - Of Cities

Reference:
Dj Signify. RCRD LBL. Retrieved from http://rcrdlbl.com/artists/DJ_Signify/music

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Artist of the Day: Controller 7

Born in San Jose, CA in 1979, Controller 7 (aka Tommy McMahon) spent his early years spinning G.I. Joes off of his Sesame Street record player, playing in the mud, and falling face first off his bike. After spending some quality time memorizing the lyrics to Run-D.M.C.'s "You Be Illin'," air drumming to mid '80s jams on MTV, and becoming obsessed with dubbing tapes, he started playing the drums in 1988.

Fast forward four impatient years later and the idea of lessons and proper technique have been abandoned for pause tape beats with drums and an out of tune player piano. Two or three years later the obsession becomes making mix-tapes with a belt-drive turntable, a cd player, no mixer, and a broken 8 track cassette receiver.
It wasn't until he was introduced to the Ensoniq EPS sampler that his music materialized into rough demo tapes. Although the tapes were made purely for his own enjoyment, the dream of pressing up a record was there. So when one of those demo tapes fell into the hands of Sole (who was starting the Anticon label) in 1998, things started to take shape. Requests for a beat or two soon turned into a series of budding friendships.

In 1999, while living in Berkeley, Controller 7 started working on the third of those demo tapes. The two week project ended up taking six months to finish, and after squeezing 4 track mix sessions in between classes and homework, "Left Handed Straw" was finally released in the Spring of 2000. A small scale hand-made cd, it was self-described as a mixtape of "soon to be lost beats and records". After receiving great reviews, it was professionally re-released, and helped earn Controller 7 the honor of being one of URB Magazine's NEXT 100 people to watch for the year 2002 (in the company of D-Styles, RJD2, Dabrye, FOG, and others).
Check out the "expansions" EP and the "Egg" EP to see what he has been up to lately (Controller 7).

You can listen to Controller 7's music at:
http://www.last.fm/music/Controller+7



Released Albums:
Controller 7 - Left Handed Straw
Controller 7 - The Egg Ep

Reference:
Controller 7. Controller 7. Retrieved from http://www.controller7.com/bio.html

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Artist of the Day: Jel

He was but a young buck, wet behind the ears and not all that wise. But if Jeffery James Logan--Catholic-born Chicago son, one-time Chuck Berry enthusiast, junior high schooler- knew one thing, he knew that he needed to play the drums. If he knew another thing, it was that he wouldn't get to, no matter how much angsty teen protest or sullen-eyed brooding he put into the cause, because, well, some jock kid was in better with the gym teacher. So Jeff-the SP-1200 beatmachine master we now know as Jel-took up the coronet. Thankfully, the SP found Jel shortly after Christmas one high school year. He'd been helping elderly women pump gas as part of a long-term scheme to turn fuel into money into circuitry into sound. He still had the tapes from the year he fell in love with music-1989 radio broadcasts from 105.9 WGCI, The Rap Down with Franky J and Disco Dave-and had been desperately searching for a way to feed his intense attraction to beat-making ever since his first urges were denied. With cash clenched tightly in young fist, he marched to the nearest music store and happily bought the cornerstone of his entire sound: the SP-1200. Revenge on a gym teacher never felt so sweet. And Jel never looked back.

The next few years were spent mostly in two places. When Jel wasn't locked away in his room with his new mechanical love, he was helping out behind the scenes at Northwestern University's radio station. At home he'd cut, chop, record, and tap; on campus he'd pass his tapes along to local DJs and emcees that would stop by the station. Jel's friend and radio partner Kevin Beacham introduced him to the hip-hop that came before, the secrets of the drum machine (i.e. how to cheat to 10-second sample time), and -most importantly-a certain nasaltoned Cincinnati rapper who went by the name of Doseone. The rest of Jel's story is the beginning stages and steady fruition of an entire movement in sound. In 1996, he quit art school in favor of the chills. In 1998, his first collaborations with dose saw the light of day (Hemispheres). In January of 1999, the debut themselves LP was finished (them), and by Spring of the same year, work would begin on the seminal Deep Puddle Dynamics project. And from that record-which included Jel and Doseone, Sole and Alias of Portland, Maine's Live Poets, and Slug from Atmosphere-the concept of anticon was somewhere born.

Today Jel lives in the Oakland Bay Area with the same SP-1200 he purchased as a teen. They left the Midwest together in a concerted effort to defy genre with a collective of like-minded individuals and instruments. His crunchy punched-out beats and swells of low-bit atmospherics have become anticon trademarks, highly sought after by artists around the globe. Jel was one of the first, if not the very first musician to use the a drum machine in live performance like a drum kit with little to no sequencing. Using the pads on the drum machine, Jel plays each snare, bass kick, cymbal and loop with his fingers. And his raps ain't half bad either. To date, Jel's list of collaborators includes Can's Malcolm Mooney, Stephanie Bohm from Ms. John Soda, Mike Patton, Wise Intelligent of Poor Righteous Teachers, Black Thought of the Roots, DJ Krush, Mr. Dibbs, Sage Francis, Atmosphere, and just about the entire anticon roster, naturally. Jel is currently a member of themselves (with Doseone and Dax Pierson), Subtle (a cello-drumssamplers-guitar-keyboards-winds-and-words sextet on Lex Records), and 13+God (themselves and the Notwist). His second solo full-length is entitled Soft Money (Anticon).

You can listen to Jel's music at:
http://www.last.fm/music/Jel



Released Albums:
Jel - 10 Seconds
Jel - Soft Money
Jel - Greenball 1,2, & 3
Jel - The Meat and Oil Ep

Reference:
Jel. Anticon. Retrieved from http://www.anticon.com/index.php?section=artist&target=Jel&js=yes

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