I’ve enjoyed listening to all of Toby Driver‘s work over the years.

I found this at a used CD store in the early ’00s. It certainly has an atmosphere. Good stuff.

Wow.

“The “Blood of the Fang” visual is inspired by a photo of Huey Newton — co-founder of The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense — hand-cuffed to a hospital gurney while being treated for a gunshot wound in the abdomen after a gun battle with Oakland police in October 1967.

The song itself is built around a sample from Sam Waymon’s score to the 1973 experimental vampire film Ganja & Hess. Daveed Diggs’s lyrics conjure an alternate history of black political struggle in the 1960s and 70s, name-dropping radical activists and reimagining them as a pantheon of undead superheroes fighting against systems of oppression.”

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“DADDY is a spotlight for my mother’s talents in performance and dance. Through the efforts of many, it became a stage for she and I to remember, to negotiate, to duel, to release. Somewhere in-between filmmaking and rapprochement, we met there to dig up some things, to bury others, and to be in the light together.” More

Great voice. Her original music here.

“Elephant Gym is an instrumental math/post rock trio with heavy jazz and classical influences. They write technical, agile tunes with irregular rhythms and off kilter song constructions. The trio has received countless awards in Taiwan including nominations at the Golden Indie Music Awards for best album, best rock single, and best jazz single.”

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“Fifty years ago, when June Millington and her sister Jean formed the all-female rock band Fanny, they felt like they were living a secret. “As a girl, you couldn’t tell anyone ‘I’m in a band,’” June Millington recalled. “You might as well say ‘I’m flying to the moon.’ It just wasn’t in the realm of experience. We had to create our own frame – and then step into it.”

In fact, they did so confidently enough to become the first all-female rock band ever to release an album on a major label, a crisp, self-titled work on Reprise Records in 1970.

[…]

Then, in 1972, they got a fan letter from David Bowie, which Millington ignored. “I didn’t know who he was,” she said.”

More @ The Guardian

This sounds like some 70s jazz fusion filtered through modern prog metal, I dig.

Youtube

“”I won K-Pop Star, but I don’t even want to be labeled as a K-pop artist anymore.”

[…] Even though YG has helped shaped the landscape of K-pop and the Korean entertainment industry over the last two decades, alongside rivals JYP Entertainment (GOT7, Wonder Girls) and SM Entertainment Co. (BoA, Girls’ Generation), Kim felt as though she couldn’t produce her best work as a K-pop trainee. Especially not under the watchful eye of executives who she says have a hand in every aspect of their artists’ careers, from the songs they cut to the clothes they wear.

“Those labels are doing well, and they’ve been around for quite a long time. So I guess they’re doing something right. A testament to that is the fact that K-pop is having a big moment in the U.S. right now,” Kim says, calling out boy band BTS, whose unprecedented American crossover includes two No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 and a historic, sold-out stadium concert at New York’s Citi Field on Saturday.

“That’s all wonderful and I’m happy for all the success that the K-pop scene is experiencing internationally,” she adds. “But that’s not me.””

Hollywood Reporter

“A diverse music collective taking their name from the famous Asian tiger balm ointment, Balming Tiger is a self-proclaimed “Multi-national Alternative K-pop band” with the aim to create a global impact. Balming Tiger’s main creative vision is to reflect and represent today’s younger generation of society, with also having the goal of further popularising Asian culture to the rest of the world. Members include artists Omega Sapien, sogumm, wnjn, and Mudd the student, producers San Yawn and Unsinkable, DJ Abyss, film-maker Jan’qui, Editor Henson creating a group that is both talented and versatile.”

More info

“The child of French-Algerian immigrants, Zouaï, who sings in both English and French, contributed songwriting last year to H.E.R.’s Grammy-winning self-titled album. Her own music, which she’s released sparingly over the past year, blends the vulnerability of H.E.R.’s lyricism, the hip-hop-adjacent bounce of thank u, next-era Ariana Grande, and the electro-pop experimentation of AlunaGeorge. High Highs to Low Lows, written entirely by Zouaï and produced by her frequent collaborator Stelios Phili (responsible for Young Thug and Elton John’s “High”), is compelling in its movement between sultry, charismatic bops and moody, melancholy slow-burners.”

More on Pitchfork

I will always be in awe of artists that build up loops like this. Look at all those little doodads he’s using, haha. Fast forward to 1:20 if you’re impatient.

More: Binkbeats \ Niels Broos

How? Amazing. More here.