Truant Media

For the past several weeks The Roots have been releasing video vignettes featuring song from their new studio album, undun, out in December on Island Def Jam. This week, our own Hot Sugar and Aaron Livingston, aka Young Vipers, have contributed a song to the album and the last vignette in the series, called “Sleep.” The song uses the Young Vipers original track as the soundbed to Black Thought’s rhymes, for a chilling outcome. In other news, Hot Sugar just signed an EP deal with Ninja Tune for the world, watch for him to drop his newest Moon Money in early 2012.

Not much else to say.

Compton hippy Kendrick Lamar and ‘Sleep Rave’ Producer Nosaj Thing team up for “Cloud 10,” for the Windows Mobile ‘Me Series’… Check the video and a stream of the track here.

“Let’s not mince words: Psychedelic up-and-comers Feeding People absolutely crushed the Emerging Stage.”

— LA Weekly

This is definitely ‘normal’ behavior for these guys, but it’s a treat to that Stussy got video of the pair (along with Pollyn) geeking out on their OP-1’s from the Swedish tech company Teenage Engineering. It looks like an uber design-savvy toy, but also pretty powerful pocket synthesizer that is currently on a number of electronic producer’s ‘must buy’ list. (It’s currently on back-order according to the company’s site.) The collab is part of the introduction to Stussy and Low End Theory’s ‘Make Beats’ contest, which you can read about here.

— via Booooom

“Hot Sugar is one of my favorite producers in music today. The New York-based beatmaker, real name Nick Koenig, creates super summery, organic instrumental hip-hop that is perfect for blasting on a sweltering July day. His recording process, an inventive method he calls Associative Music, culls sounds from our everyday lives to weave an incredible canvas of sound and texture that just isn’t possible with traditional recording methods. It’s a lot of work, but it shows: I’ve been bumping his instrumental EP, Muscle Milk, since around early this year. It’s that good. Nick has a full-length with a bunch of rappers that will be released sometime in 2011, and he’s working with crooner Aaron Livingston in a band called Young Vipers, who recently made their live debut at The Roots picnic.”

Read the interview here: Brown Noise, July 2011

“At one level, this is garage rock … But the music on Peace, Victory and the Devil breaks out of those constraints, not as if it’s struggling but as if it’s shrugging off any concern for rules, as if it’s easy to pioneer a new sound.

Whether [Jones] is channeling spirits, or whether Feeding People is simply a band of spirited musicians all pulling together to make her glossolalia of gloom the official soundtrack for these apocalyptic times, Peace will make you want to stockpile this album and hole up in your bunker to await the band’s next revelation.”

— Dan Collins, LA Record

*Watch for the re-release of these songs from Feeding People along with some new ones coming on the Innovative Leisure label soon.

Here’s a review from the San Francisco show at Mezzanine:

“I avoided the electro-loving crowd on the balcony as the long-haired Gaslamp Killer established himself as “someone I need to listen to.” His set was full of that gritty bass that the speakers at the Mezz are built for. As soon as he started playing “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” while drumming on his iPad , I knew this was a whole different level of DJing.

For the next hour and a half of his set, Gaslamp murdered the club with boogie-shaking house and some bass-heavy dub step. His most signature moments, however, were flipping classic hip hop beats and stripping them down to some of their key notes. It plays out well whenever you can play a electro funk version of Easy E without stripping away his essence.”

— SF Gate

“Nosaj Thing turned the festival’s Gobi tent into an aural igloo to weather Coachella’s blizzard of white noise. In the middle of his searing set, it became clear that Nosaj may be the next one from L.A.’s beat scene to make it big.” — LA Weekly

“Nosaj Thing dropping an insane remix of Portishead’s ‘Wandering Star’.” — Seattle Weekly

“In a very welcome change from most of the electronic acts of the day, the set was enjoyable even if you weren’t in a chemically altered state – with varied rhythms and some actual melody, it felt like an actual musical performance instead of just a rave.” — Brand X

“His set showed an understanding of the ideal way to work a late-night Coachella crowd. Lull the glow-stick rave kids into a sense of security, get those with a cresting high into a hypnotic groove, and allow the wallflowers to just stare in awe at the combination of tripped-out sound and screensavery visuals.” — LA Times

“Of the whole Los Angeles Beat Scene at Coachella, Nosaj’s set offered the prettiest tunes — haze-swathed and emotive even when underpinned by the heavy boom bap.” — Spin

Feeding People are Rollo & Grady’s “Artist to Watch” today… These kids from OC rock! New album on Burger Records out now, only 250 limited edition tapes. Stay tuned for much more.