BADBADNOTGOOD – Lavender feat. Kaytranada

After recently announcing their forthcoming album IV and sharing its lead single, featuring Samuel T. Herring, BADBADNOTGOOD are back to share a new Kaytranada-assisted album cut. “Lavender” picks up where BADBADNOTGOOD and Kaytranada left off with “Weight Off”, the BADBADNOTGOOD-featuring song from 99.9% and explores even more alien-sounding sonic terrain.

Speaking about the collaboration, BADBADNOTGOOD said, “We made Lavender amongst many other songs and samples with Kaytranada in our home studio ‘Studio 69’. Kay started the idea as a beat with our drum breaks and some synth melodies. Then we recut the drums and synth to formulate a song with more sections. Kay came back to Toronto and gave us that hot lead melody as well as percussion and we all finalized the arrangement. It’s an incredible honor to call Kay a close friend of ours; he is a talent like no other.”

Its release comes on the heels of BADBADNOTGOOD wrapping a run of North American tour dates, which was capped off by a performance at House of Vans in Brooklyn with DIIV and Sunflower Bean last week. Check out “Lavender” above now.

IV DUE OUT JULY 8TH VIA INNOVATIVE LEISURE.

Video: Classixx feat. T-Pain – Whatever I Want

Classixx have released the official video for “Whatever I Want” feat. T-Pain in partnership with GoPro’s Director’s Program, ahead of the duo’s sophomore album Faraway Reach out June 3rd on Innovative Leisure. Director Daniel Pappas enlisted Morrissey fans from all over East Los Angeles to put a modern spin on this shot-for-shot remake of The Smiths’ iconic video “Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before.” Watch the video below (premiered via The FADER) and pre-order Faraway Reach.

Classixx – I Feel Numb feat. Alex Frankel

LA electronic duo Classixx have shared “I Feel Numb” featuring Alex Frankel from Holy Ghost!. The song is off their forthcoming sophomore album, Faraway Reach, out June 3rd via Innovative Leisure, available for pre-order here. “I Feel Numb” was a natural collaboration that came together after Alex met Classixx a few years ago, and was finally finished last Summer while the band was wrapping up the new album.

Video: Holy Fuck – Tom Tom

Holy Fuck’s new album will be out in a month, Congrats is out on May 27th on Innovative Leisure. It’s the first new music from the band in 6 years and is absolutely worth the wait.

The band previously released the track “Xed Eyes” and “Tom Tom” with both tracks showcasing the dark electronica the band is known for. Today they released the video for “Tom Tom” an intense clip shot in Romania and premiered on Pitchfork.

Director Michael Leblanc tells us “Brian and I decided to shoot the video in Romania so we could cast authentic people in a unfamiliar setting. I wanted to shoot most of the scenes when the sky was just about to fade and use as much natural light as possible. This helped with the surreal style I was trying to create. Though…we did end up using a few lights and a homemade dolly we built in Romania with wheels I ordered from the US.

I was lucky to have my Romanian friend Miruna Soiu who helped produce/translate and her husband Ian Mcgettigan who’s one of my best friends who helped with all things including being the dolly grip and doing most of the driving. Myself, the two of them and my girlfriend Erika Lobko who’s a local set designer from Toronto flew over. There we found our two main characters and now friends Marius Staicu senior and his son Marius. They were perfect in every way. Everything I had hoped for and way more really. Casting was really fun as we just walked around Zarnesti and asked people if they’d like to be in a music video. We shot most of the video in Sirnia a small village near Brasov where both Ian and Miruna had once stayed. It was through their contacts that we were able to do this video. Without them and Erika who ended up operating on many shots the video would have never been made. Miruna’s wonderful Aunt Iona cooked us traditional Romanian meals every day and woke up really early every morning and lit the heaters to make sure we were warm and cozy.”

Holy Fuck will be hitting the road in June for a US tour. Known for their explosive and jaw dropping live show, these dates are not to be missed. All dates are listed below.

Congrats is out May 27th on Innovative Leisure, you can pre-order it here.

Nosaj Thing – N R 2

Following 2015’s Fated LP, Nosaj Thing is back today to announce a new EP set for release on April 8th. NO REALITY, which also shares a name with his new audio-visual tour with esteemed visual artist (and frequent collaborator) Daito Manabe, is a 5-track offering to be released by Innovative Leisure. Check out NO REALITY cut “N R 2” below now.

Nosaj Thing will showcase NO REALITY material on his forthcoming performances with Daito Manabe, a run that is bookended by Coachella appearances with shows in Brooklyn, San Francisco and Los Angeles in between. The shows will feature technology applications drawn and evolved from their their previous collaborations together on Nosaj Thing’s “Eclipse/Blue” and “Cold Stares” music videos, which includes Augmented Reality, 3D scanning and motion capture.
Daito has become well-known in the music space for his work with artists like Bjork, Squarepusher, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Perfume, with which he premiered some of these same techniques during their SXSW performance in 2015. In discussing their latest video, Wired UK points out the effectiveness of Daito’s focus on switching between worlds. “The [result] is both jarring and seamless, shifting between real and virtual realities so quickly that the line between the two worlds vanishes.” This is the goal of NO REALITY collaboration, to give the audience a truly transportive live experience. “We are constantly experimenting and thinking of ways to create a new form of performance by utilizing technologies such as machine and deep learning,” adds Manabe.

The NO REALITY vision was birthed with their first live performance together at Taico Festival in Japan last year, however the US premiere is the initial realization of the dream. While Nosaj has been known for his leading edge visual shows, the Daito live performance promises to be a mind-blowing revelation. Plans are being formed now for the next set of US tour dates, for Fall 2016.

In the meantime, check out the cover art for the NO REALITY EP and first track “N R 2” above now and see below for all EP details and tour dates.

Nosaj Thing – NO REALITY (Innovative Leisure) April 8, 2016
1. N R 1
2. N R 2
3. N R 3
4. N R 4
5. N R 5

TOUR DATES
04/17 Indio, CA – Coachella
04/18 Brooklyn, NY – Music Hall of Williamsburg
04/20 San Francisco, CA – Mezzanine
04/21 Los Angeles, CA – The Regent
04/24 Indio, CA – Coachella

Video: Tropics – Blame

London producer Chris Ward, aka Tropics has shared the video for his great track “Blame”, taken from his recently released debut album “Rapture” on Innovative Leisure. Buy the album here. Video directed by Chloe Hayward.

Nosaj Thing – Fated LP

Nosaj Thing announces new LP, called “Fated”, due May 5th 2015 via Innovative Leisure. Below you can stream the first taste, “Cold Stares” featuring Chance The Rapper.

“I just tried to escape really, and escape even what’s going on in the music world,” says Nosaj Thing, the LA producer born Jason Chung. “It just felt so suffocating in a way. I just wanted to do my own thing.” It’s been six years since Nosaj Thing emerged among the vanguard of Low End Theory-affiliated producers. His debut Drift created 31st century tones and chromatic textures so sleek that they inspired innumerable Soundcloud imitators.

None could match its moody iridescence, faded sadness and funky swing. Bach collided with Boards of Canada. Spaceships came equipped with rear view mirrors and a booming system bumping G-Funk and warped soul.

Fated exists in this same alternate dimension, but further out. If comparisons previously existed with other artists within the LA beat scene, Nosaj has rendered them baseless. His second album on Innovative Leisure (after 2013’s Home) seeks celestial escape through streamlining.

“The last record took out so much of me. I just wanted to go back to simplifying and overthinking so much. It was a battle,” Nosaj says. “The soul of a song, the essence of a song-whatever you want to call it-should be simple.”

By stripping away all but what’s really necessary, the sounds harness an unusual directness. Guest appearances are rare, save for vocals from Whoarei on “Don’t Mind Me,” and Chicago rap phenomenon, Chance the Rapper. The latter gravely spits on “Cold Stares,” invoking terminal fevers, empty beds, devil’s whispers, and insomniac fears.

If comparisons crop up, Fated has most in common with records like Burial’s Untrue or J Dilla’s Donuts. Requiems that canvass the shadowy hinterlands between life and death, darkness and light, loneliness and love. Eternal themes re-imagined in ingenious fashion.

“The album name came from all these coincidences that just kept on happening to me,” Nosaj says. “Specific interaction with specific people in unexpected places. A perpetual feeling of déjà vu.”

It’s foundation rests on that intangible thing that some call fate or primordial feeling. Numbness receding, old emotions flooding back, un-tampered visions. Fated is what you can’t explain, so it’s best to just listen. Pre-order Fated on iTunes w. “Cold Stares” free: hyperurl.co/NTfated.

Tracklist:
1. Sci
2. Don’t Mind Me ft. Whoarei
3. Realize
4. Varius
5. Cold Stares ft. Chance The Rapper
6. Watch
7. UV3
8. Let You
9. Moon
10. Erase
11. Medic
12. A
13. Phase IV
14. Light #5
15. 2K

Video: Tropics – Rapture

Here’s the official video for Tropics’ recent single “Rapture“, taken from the London producer’s same-titled forthcoming album, in stores on February 17th 2015 via  on Innovative Leisure. Directed by Chris Toumazou.

Order Rapture on iTunes & get “Blame” & “Rapture” instantly: http://found.ee/RaptureiTunes

Tropics – Rapture

London musician Chris Ward aka Tropics is back with the piano-led track “Rapture”, the title track from his forthcoming album, which will drop on February 16th 2015 on Innovative Leisure. You can pre-order the “Rapture” album here.

Video: Classixx – A Stranger Love

Check out the beautiful video for Classixx‘s new single “Stranger Love”, featuring Sarah Chernoff of fellow Los Angeles dream-pop band Superhumanoids. Taken from the duo’s debut LP “Hanging Gardens”, out now via Innovative Leisure. Directed by Jordan Michael Blake.