Friday Free For All: Four Tet, Lil B + Chance The Rapper, Chinese electronic music
If Chinese underground electronic music doesn’t entice you enough to click and listen, dont know what will… Enjoy!
By Travis Holcombe • • 2 min readFour Tet – “BACK2THESTART”
Who knows what unreleased gems lurk within the hard drives of the ever-prolific Kieran Hebden, a.k.a. Four Tet?
After fielding questions from trainspotting fans for months about the mysterious song that appeared on his Rinse FM mix last year, Hebden put out the previously unreleased Ellie Goulding-sampling track last week called “BACK2THESTART“.
I’ve been loving this track and giving it some serious spins on my show lately. Not only is it a great standalone track, but for DJing purposes, it’s got a nice balance of house, techno, and breakbeat elements that makes it super flexible to work into all kinds of mixes.
Chance The Rapper & Lil B – Free (Based Freestyles Mixtape)
You won’t see his words quoted on cans of Sprite, but you gotta hand it to Lil B, whatever shortcomings you may feel he has as a lyricist, he has managed to build a name for himself as an artist by operating under his own set of rules – haters be damned.
2015 has been a relatively quiet year for the Based God, but he returned with a vengeance with a new mixtape, and a new partner in crime – Chance The Rapper.
Free (Based Freestyles Mixtape) finds Chance operating under Lil B‘s rules: loose, spontaneous, and often perilously close to the rails. Think of this as the anti-Compton.
I’ll admit, this mixtape isn’t for everyone. For every great punchline, there’s 3 or 4 moments that’ll leave you shaking your head incredulously, but like Saturday Night Live, you’ve got to respect the danger of the live element of the endeavor, and in the moments where they do pull it off, the results are even more thrilling than your usual fare.
You can download the tracks a la carte on Lil B’s soundcloud page or as a zip HERE.
**BONUS** Chance The Rapper – “Israel (Sparring)” (ft. Noname Gypsy)
On a completely different note, Chance The Rapper put out this laidback track earlier this week.
Vibey.
VA – Do Hits Vol. 2
Music from all over the world has never been more accessible to the music carnivore than it is today. Youtube, filesharing, and boutique labels catering to niche sounds have made it easier than ever to access today’s K-Pop hits or yesterday’s Turkish psychedelic folk classics.
If you’ve ever wondered about what modern Chinese underground electronic music sounds like (and let’s be honest, who hasn’t?), Chinese record label, Do Hits is here with a cool new 10 track compilation to quench your curiosity.
It’s an interesting collection, highlighting the similarities in the music produced in China as much as the differences, and certainly worthy of a listen.
You can “name your price” on Do Hits’ bandcamp pageto download this compilation.
Hat tip to the folks at the Mad Decent blog for never leaving any stone unturned in their quest for new sounds and for introducing me to this release.