RQ LANEWAY AFTER PARTY

MP3: Washed Out - Eyes Be Closed

We're putting on a (free) post-Laneway party here in Auckland and are stoked to have Washed Out dropping by for a guest DJ set. Cheap beers available as usual.

Monday 30 January
10pm - late
D.O.C. Bar

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FADE AWAY JUMPSHOT

MP3: Mondo Lava - Life is Great

Really enjoying the simplistic, mantra-like exotica across this Slam Dunk Bodhisattva EP from Davis, California's Mondo Lava at the moment. Touching on an eclectic mixture of styles from organ-driven funk, primitive dub, and a loose, Make Mine Macaw-style percussive track, the EP somehow unifies a disparate range of the best recent lo-fi meanderings by the likes of Sun Araw, Taterbug, Ducktails and Dirty Beaches.

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STRANGE NEW WORLD

New video from an Auckland duo on the new-House tip, with a faded Italo vibe and luxury interests that recall the aesthetics of both 100% Silk and Future Times. Hear the whole EP at their Bandcamp.

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WASSUP

New video for my/everybody's jam at the moment.

(via Gorilla vs Bear / VICE)

VIGO

MP3: Bad Slorp - 555-9333

A little throwback to those early 90s golden days from San Jose producer Bad Slorp as he flips and chops the beat to SWV's "It's About Time" for a breezy update. Half expecting to hear some purple-tinged gulliness from his River of Slime EP, I was surprised to be hit instead with sounds borrowing heavily on 80s crossover funk blended with sensitive r&b moments and slick drums.

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TRANSATLANTIC MELTS

Branches "Canção para o Luís" from SOLID MELTS on Vimeo.

Total trans-national melter from Branches, the alias of Portuguese musician Pedro Rios. This video, from his new tape Ninguém É Como Tu on Solid Melts, evokes a blissfully disassociated American culture with its pizza bodybuilder imagery.

HOW CAN I RESIST U

(via P4K)

RQ GUEST MIX 002: TOP GIRLS

MIX: RQ Mix 002: Top Girls

Top Girls is the solo project of North Carolina's Evan Adams, who in the last year or so has been putting out some of the most quietly interesting jams this side of the post-internet underground. His music evokes a decayed and muffled r&b, inflected with the legacy of singer-songwriter traditions but nonetheless steeped in the ethos of the post-noise bedroom producer.

His mix for us today juxtaposes the familiar and unfamiliar, maintaining the narcotic yet wistful vibe that characterises his own productions. The mix also features a new Top Girls jam, his latest single “It's Over”, in which over near-ecstatic syncopated rhythms and synth mumbles, Adams' vocals explore the line between fragility and confidence.

Tracklist
1. Fleetwood Mac - Everywhere
2. Party Trash - Transform
3. Nite Jewel - Universal Mind
4. The Radio Dept. - I Wanted You To Feel The Same
5. Active Child - Ivy
6. Beat Connection - Motorway
7. Sigur Rós - Fljótavík
8. Top Girls - It's Over
9. Squarepusher - Tommib Help Buss
10. Björk - Unravel
11. Robyn - Stars-4-Ever
12. Gem Club - Breakers
13. Janet Jackson - Escapade

ღ ♋ ღ

Sentimental feat. Indigo Bunting by Teams

ღ ♋ ღ by Teams

 Woah! Two new ones from Teams . One iced out / blue eyed R&B zoner and the other a crazily funky loop-based glam track.

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KINGDOMS

 MP3: Fort Romeau - Jack Rollin'

100% Silk seems to be continuing the crazy run of better-than-the-real-thing club adventures with the new Kingdoms EP from Fort Romeau. Eternally indebted to Fact Magazine for posting this dreamy, synth house coaster that they aptly describe as having "YouTube-ripped and cassette-crunched feel".

(via Fact Magazine)

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MIXED EMOTIONS

MP3: Tanlines - Brothers

Just caught wind of this lead track from Tanlines' forthcoming LP and it's a total hit. Love how the strong vocal-lead grows increasingly anthemic, perfectly backed by Tanlines' signature pared-back club lushness. The LP Mixed Emotions drops March 20 on True Panther.

(via p4k)

UNDERWATER MIRAGE

Been really digging these first-person 3D voyage videos coming out of the Dior Nights internet collective at the moment. Like many of those guys, it's hard to find much info about Internet Club, but that anonymity fits pretty well with the general inclination to borrow from past greats, pouring heaps of canyon-y shimmers over a loosely played Cars loop that ends up having a more 90s office music or even Boys II Men (on hold music) vibe.

RQ GUEST MIX 001: OCTO OCTA

MP3: RQ Mix 001 - Octo Octa

We at Rose Quartz are very pleased to introduce our new guest mix series, where we ask musicians we admire and have been posting about to produce a mix of songs for us. For the first instalment we are honoured to have a mix of largely all new original material (!) from one of our favourite new artists of 2011, Octo Octa.

Octo Octa is the alias of Brooklyn-based Michael Morrison, who came to blog-prominence last year when he released the excellent Let Me See You 12” on 100% Silk back in September. Like much of 100% Silk's catalogue to date, Let Me See You and especially the sweaty, shimmering “I'm Trying”, skirts the line between a roughshod DIY approach to House & Disco, and ecstatic dance-floor energies that evoke NY House's early 90s glory days.

His mix for us, which he says is a sort of follow up to his previous Megamixes, is comprised of some released tracks and some unreleased and draft tracks. It works as a good follow-up to last year's 12”, employing the same lush, slightly hazy synths, and exhilarating/ecstatic vocal samples in true House style.

THEY CALL IT

MP3: Albatross - Murder (Guerre's Suede Mix)

This super chill remix (from RQ favourite Guerre) of Sydney duo Albatross's "Murder" takes that track's brilliantly low-key vibe and organic, folky textures and drugs them the fuck out; the hints of piano and woodwind are gone here, replaced by Guerre's signature narcotic r&b production. The tone is contemplative and the sound borders on ambient, the violence of the song's subject matter abstracted in a totally fascinating way. The Murder 7" will be out soon through Life Aquatic Records (run by our pal, Jarred Beeler) - preorder it here.

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RUN YOU

Sounds like some sort of "chill-juke" coming from The-Drum this time; big time bass persistence under all the floatational, hazed-out melodies. It's from a collab with Sich Mang which you can grab at their bandcamp.

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WITH YOU, WITH ME

That last blown-out, digi-psych jam Lay Bac track we heard was only a demo so this new slickness is sounding pretty great. The Shortcuts EP is up for free download via Zoom Lens on January 21. There's a new one over at his Soundcloud from a few days ago, too:
 

TIME DEBT

Another rainy Auckland morning is fitting for this new delicate CVLTS song. This one's from a split with Virgin Spirit; real filmic and dozing on the usual ambient lilt. There are a bunch of remixes up at the bandcamp, and a very limited supply of shirts and 7" records is available at their website or from Mishka NYC.

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RUBIO

New Oneohtrix Point Never demo that seems to run on pretty closely from the soft, oddly paced but ultra beautiful tracks of Replica, which seems, in a certain way, to be one of the genuinely weirdest albums of 2011.

(via No Fear Of Pop)

website

BLONDE AZTEC

MP3: Coyote Clean-Up - Blonde Aztec

We've been posting about Detroit's Coyote Clean-Up fairly regularly for a while now, but even though he is so prolific everything he does is just so good. This one just showed up on soundcloud and clocking in at over 13-minutes is a chilly slice of weirdo deep house. Perfect rainy-day music, "Blonde Aztec" is also on a seriously deeep trip, evincing CCU's familiar repetitive-strains channeled through his Detroit-future-murk vision.

Coyote Clean-Up's Frozen Solid 12" is out soon on 100% Silk.

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ITAL AUS/NZ TOUR MIX

MP3: Ital & Bookworms - Smoke Central AU/NZ Tour Mix (90mb)

Next week we're officially launching our 2012 guest mix series (starting with one from Octo Octa) but to kick the year off in true luxury style, here's an Australian/New Zealand tour promotion mix from one of our favs from last year, Ital. We're stoked to be putting on his only New Zealand show (plus a Top Secret house party that he'll be DJing at), and thanks to our friends Palmer and Pocock for hosting the Melbourne dates. As usual, Daniel Martin-McCormick has taken a pretty oblique stance to song selection, hooking up with Bookworms for a blur of early pop, classic ambient and of course house gold. Tracklist below

Auckland:
January 20 at Whammy Bar (Tickets)
January 21 at Mystery Party Venue [DJ Set]

Melbourne:
January 25 at Buffalo Club [DJ Set]
January 27 at Phoenix Public House (Tickets)

TRACKLIST:
Jon Hassell/Brian Eno - Ba-Benzele
Jeff Mills - Human Tracking Device
Theo Parrish - Shadow Dancing
Tony Allen - Ole (A Remix by Moritz von Oswald)
M. Pittman - Cherry Lee
Anthony "Shake" Shakir - Marching Into Darkness
Motor City Drum Ensemble - Raw Cuts #6
Steve Moore - Zero-Point Field
Drexciya - Under Sea Disturbances
Mark E - Call Me

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