The Witzard

"I was in my hotel room in Paris , and we were just chillin' and I just f*cked around and was like, 'We need to do the video while we're in Paris,'" G.O.O.D. Music -affiliated Grand Hustle emcee Travi$ Scott recently told Beats 1 DJ Zane Lowe during a phone interview while boarding a plane Friday afternoon. "Piss On Your Grave" is anchored by a fuzzed out guitar riff lifted from Jimi Hendrix -fronted Band of Gypsys' blistering Vietnam War protest jam "Machine Gun," which feels like it could have easily been a left-over from Kanye 's 2013 Aggro-Rap magnum opus, Yeezus ; funnily enough, Scott is amongst the gaggle of greenhorn beatsmiths who collectively helped produce frantic album tracks "New Slaves," "I Am a God," and "Guilt Trip." Long-time Kanye -affiliated director and photographer Nabil Elderkin was recruited to helm "Piss On Your Grave"' s ghoulish pre- Halloween visua

"Once in a while, a pop songwriter is not a songwriter, but a discoverer – some kind of celestial [archaeologist], uncovering the bones of songs that already exist somewhere, perfectly. D.A. exhibits such exploration here, his discoveries beautifully intact in their sparest, most potent forms. Some daringly plain wizardry," Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes frontman Alex Ebert said in high praise of close friend D.A. Wallach's long-awaited Harvest Records debut, Time Machine . Along with former Chester French partner-in-crime Max Drummey, Wallach was initially discovered by Hip-Hop heavyweights Kanye West and Pharrell, while he was studying as an undergrad at Harvard. Chester French released three full-length albums during their brief tenure together and somehow, managed to ignite a three-way bidding war between Kanye, Pharrell, and Jermaine Dupri with their infectious debut single, "She Loves Everybody." On the heels of Chester French's final album,

"+ fyi - every song on this album is a completely different style, so ["flesh without blood"] isn't a 'representation' of everything, just a taste of a vibe," @Grimezsz recently revealed on Twitter following the unexpected premier of her first Art Angels double-singe, "Flesh Without Blood/Life In The Vivid Dream." Grimes' long-awaited and previously scrapped follow-up to her critically-acclaimed album Visions (2012) has rather interestingly been described by Claire Boucher herself as: "it's all "real instruments," half of the tracks are diss tracks, there's a Nu-Metal track with a Taiwanese rapper, the whole thing was inspired by Billy Joel , there's a song about a gender-fluid vampire Al Pacino ," of course, paraphrased and reinterpreted a bit by the good people over at Stereogum . On the heels of "Flesh Without Blood" & "Life In The Vivid Dream," Grimes called in BBC Ra

"Now, the vocal album – that is something that I know [J Dilla] had a desire to see out, as he did Ruff Draft and, oddly enough, an album he'd made of noodling improvised keyboard lines over drum breaks (one of those made it to The Shining album)," Now-Again Records founder and former Stones Throw General Manager Eothen "Egon" Alapatt revealed when asked about Dilla's planned post-Donuts releases; to the best of my knowledge, Vintage Vibez Music Group 's sprawling 41-track Dillamatic album isn't in fact said "improvised noodling keyboard lines over drum breaks album." It is however, being billed as The Electronic Age of J Dilla , which was seemingly preceded by his "hard-edged, synth-heavy tracks crafted fro Busta Rhymes , Jaylib [with Madlib], Oh No , and Phat Kat." Detroit 's finest neck-snapping rapper-producer James "J Dilla" Yancey aka Jay Dee is still somehow releasing mass amounts of posthumous musi

"We've decided to make a new Death Grips album and it will be called Bottomless Pit ," Death Grips cryptically revealed, as per usual, on their Facebook page Wednesday evening. Founding members Stefan Burnett (better known as MC Ride ), Andy Morin , and Zach Hill have previously grabbed headlines for their frantic, nearly career-ruining antics; rubbing shoulders with Robert Pattinson & Beyoncé , appearing "in a minute" on Rachael Ray thanks to comedian Fred Armisen , releasing one album under Epic Records executive L.A. Reid 's hit-making reign, leaking a set of private emails and ultimately a d*ck-pic-boasting album cover, cancelling a string of dates in support of NIN & Soundgarden , suddenly breaking up via a note scrawled across a dinner napkin , only to "reunite" for a 2-disc album just a few months later, and if you ask me, inadvertently inspired Kanye West 's Aggro-Rap magnum opus Yeezus . Death Grips are for all intens

"B-E- darNielle - weinGarten -A-H-Z-I #tcot ... #tcot (top conservatives on Twitter ) is the first band I've been in since 2007. Ecstatic to be back in the game for Cassette Store Day ," @1000TimesYes , better known as Rolling Stone music critic, Christopher R. Weingarten enthusiastically Tweeted late Thursday morning. He's teamed with The Mountain Goats frontman and life-long wrestling super-fan John Darnielle for what can best be described as a spastic, cassette-only self-destructive drum and piano-assisted Jazz/Noise improv tape in conjunction with Saturday's third annual Cassette Store Day festivities; "the #tcot tape is now SOLD OUT [at] @northernspyrecs ! If you want one, these stores will have 'em on Cassette Store Day ." Charlottesville -based Senior Editor at Stereogum , and apparent mutual acquaintance, Tom Breihan wrote, "full disclosure, I guess: I'm friendly with both of them, though I had no idea this thing was happ

"We're dropping a 12" of Tuxedo remixes this summer. Here's one from Jean Tonique , remixing Tuxedo 's "The Right Time," Stones Throw wrote within a mini-press release uploaded this past May; preceeded by a handful of unofficially released remixes haphazardly shared on Tuxedo 's Soundcloud page including Funk -laden re-works from the likes of Nick Catchdubs , Dimitri from Paris, Flaunt Edwards (resident DJ J. Rocc ), Kaytranada, and Tonique. Following a set of unexpected delays, Stones Throw finally unleashed Tuxedo: The M+M Mixes back in mid-September. Mayer Hawthorne & Jake-One recruited self-described "original disco don dada" John Morales , who previously mixed Tuxedo 's critically-acclaimed debut, to painstakingly edit together a 12" collection of 80's Classic -stylized remixes; "I started to do my edits using the pause button on a Teac cassette, [then] purchased a Sony reel-to-reel. It was hard work, w

" The Gaslamp Killer is the assassin and the antidote. His nickname wasn't conceived out of thin air. William Bensussen is entitlement's worst nightmare. His DJ sets bludgeon the basic sh*t, restoring music to a sacred place: shamanistic, visceral, honest, leaving pupils dilated and heads rolling," reads a rather interesting Impressum (or description section) attached to Alternative Hip-Hop DJ-producer Gaslamp Killer 's Facebook profile. While it doesn't seem to appear within Bensussen's recently-released The Gaslamp Killer Experience: Live in Los Angeles , his latest video-single "Ritual" seems to have been filmed at the same November 2013 Mayan Theatre concert that yielded the album's highly complex, nearly orchestral sessions; recorded in collaboration with a 15-piece band featuring revered saxophonist Kamasi Washington , Jogger guitarist Amir Yaghma , LA -based drummer Gene Coye , and trumpet player Todd Simon . "As you watc

"White means purity, purity means GOD and GOD means the ruler of the land," @ShafiqHusayn profoundly replied, when asked what the name "WHITE BOIZ" actually meant, along with their stark white-stylized aesthetic; "'white" means different things to different people — from their record label to the Los Angeles Police Department to The Nation of Islam . In the 1700's, "white" did not represent race, but a state of freedom versus servitude. Today, however, white can be powder in the trap or a party in The Hamptons , which are seemingly worlds apart. Or are they," Husayn and primary WHITE BOIZ emcee Krondon continued in a Stones Throw-penned press release. Peanut Butter Wolf 's latest rapper-producer pairing formed organically out of mutual admiration when the Strong Arm Steady emcee would randomly show up to performances from Shafiq Husayn 's then G.O.O.D. Music -affiliated Alt. Hip-Hop collective, Sa-Ra (Creative Partn

"Remember one night, I went to Erykah [Badu 's] house, she made tea for me. We talked about love and what life could really be for me. She said, "when that sh*t is real, you just know," Canada 's #1 Rap-Singer Drake crooned of an apparent tea-date with Miss Badu on "Days In The East." While it may or may not actually be a fictionalized re-telling, Drake and Erykah Badu 's mutual admiration doesn't seem to end with "Days In The East;" without any prior warning, Erykah-She ILL-Badu suddenly uploaded her slightly wordy "HOTLINE BLING BUT U CAINT USE MY PHONE MIX" to her newly-minted Soundcloud page Friday evening. ANALOUGE GIRL {IN A DGITAL WORLD} aka THE MIGHTY AFRO DIGHTY herself plays bells, in addition to providing original vocal accompaniment, on "HOTLINE BLING" along with her cast of highly skilled players: producer/keyboardist Zach Witness , guitarist Ben Hixon , and Ethan Worland on "brushes