The Witzard

Lushlife (Rajesh "Raj" Haldar) has long been one of our favorite emcees/producers here at The Witzard. We've been closely paying attention to and following his career since about 2005 upon the release of his Kanye West/Beach Boys mash-up mixtape, West Sounds . Lushlife has since let loose a gaggle of genre-defying releases including, but not limited to, collaborations with Ariel Pink, Killer Mike, CSLSX, Cities Aviv, STS, Dice Raw, Heems, Zilla Rocca, Sad13, R. Stevie Moore, Kevin D'Mello (Fakevinyl, Forevertron,) Camp Lo, eLZhi, billy woods, Moor Mother, John Morrison, and Khruangbin. As you can see, Lushlife has always comfortably teetered the fine line in-between Hip-Hop/Indie Rock; a prime example of this being "In Soft Focus" from Lushlife's 2009 effort, Cassette City, credits Rajesh Haldar with backing vocals/turntables, drums from Kyle Cedermark, primary features from Ariel Pink & eLZhi, and production from Lushlife himself. Lushlife...

Red Dillicious by Free Tillman "This project came together organically. I had just bought some new equipment and wasn't really comfortable with my drum sounds, so I decided to loop someone else's... and who has better drums than J Dilla ? I was looking for samples from my music collection and came across Fiona Apple 's Tidal ," beat-maker, writer, and social media personality Free (Lee) Tillman wrote within a recent email. "Throughout my life, I have been a recording engineer, a journalist, a rapper, a stand-up comedian, and a music video director. And I have had recognizable success in exactly zero of those things," Tillman writes within the Amazon description to his 2016 Kindle book, How to Fail at Everything: A Practical Guide for Coasting Through Life . On his Soundcloud page, Lee Tillman simply proclaims: "I make videos, I take pictures, I write Tweets , I write books," complete with links to his various platforms. Red Dillicious ...

"We are excited to announce that a new Joanna Newsom song was released this morning! Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson ," read an uncharacteristically serious Tweet from GRAMMY -winning Comedy-Rap triumvirate @thelonelyisland , which just so happens to showcase the rhymin' talents of Newsom's husband, Andy Samburg . While I'm vaguely familiar with Joanna Newsom 's beautifully fragile harp-assisted melodies, I'm gonna be completely honest here: the only time I've ever actually "heard" her music was on Asher Roth & Nottz Raw 's reflective "Sprout & The Bean" -sampling RAWTH EP cut, "Break Bread." Newsom's first album in nearly five years, Divers , features lush string arrangement composed by "a total murders' row: Newsom [herself], Nico Muhly , Dirty Projectors frontman Dave Longstreth , and Ryan Francesconi ," as Stereogum reports. Divers' string arrangements were additionally record...

While it's unclear to exactly what capacity at this point, but it seems as though Dirty Projectors frontman and guitarist Dave Longstreth was somehow involved in the writing/recording of Rihanna, Kanye & Paul McCartney 's new single, "FourFiveSeconds;" according to a currently unsubstantiated report from Kanye 's friend and long-time barber, Ibn Jasper , " Kanye 's whole new album is co-produced with Paul McCartney ... He decided to put Rihanna on ["FourFiveSeconds"] and put it on BOTH of their albums because they are both Roc-Nation " (reports which Rolling Stone have since shot down). In addition to Longstreth, "FourFiveSeconds" additionally features as-yet-unknown contributions from Mike Dean , Dalllas Austin, Elon Rutburg , and Noah Goldstein, as well as Ty Dolla $ign and Kirby Lauryen , both of whom previously worked with West-McCartney on "Only One." It's without a doubt the track Ty Dolla $ign ...

"A group of three hippies on a road trip through the backwaters of 2013's rural music scene fall prey to a murderous cannibalistic band making, including a leather-masked, guitar-wielding Avey Tare , his knife-wielding keyboard player Angel Deradoorian , and their cannibal chief drummer and decaying grandfather Jeremy Hyman ," Dave Portner vaguely attempted to describe his then newly-formed project, Avey Tare's Slasher Flicks upon their April 2013 formation. An Indie Rock super-group of sorts or even a self-described " Jazz power trio," Slasher Flicks features former members of Dirty Projectors and Ponytail , along with Avey Tare who's seemingly on a brief hiatus from his main band, Animal Collective . Domino Records will release the band's debut album, Enter The Slasher House on April 7-8th and paired with the Monday morning album announcement, came Avey Tare's Slasher Flicks' first pre-release sonic-appetizer, "Little Fang....

Following a largely un-fullfilled search for a copy of Modern Vampires of The City that aimlessly led me across Cumberland County , I realized that aside from 2-3 well-executed lyric videos, Vampire Weekend have yet to release a proper music video in support of their new album; Whilst still grabbing headlines by torching a couple Saab 900's and hanging out with "distant second cousin" Steve Buscemi , the New York -based band finally unleashed a "Diane Young" video Monday morning. Continuing a long-standing trend that started with "Giving Up The Gun" (2010), director Primo Kahn somehow managed to recruit a very interesting cast of characters: Chromeo , Dave Longstreth (Dirty Projectors), Sky Ferreira , Despot , Santigold, Hamilton Leithauser (The Walkmen), and a ski-masked man that just might be cameraman Kahn himself. What starts out looking mysteriously like a modern-day Last Supper slowly morphs into a righteous "dinner party where g...

Forget about aging gracefully; Life-time Punk Rockers Greg Ginn, Ron Reyes, Gregory Moore , and Dale Nixon Dave Klein (Screeching Weasel) are still as angst-filled, rebellious, and aggressive as they were way back in 1979. Coincidentally and much to their dismay, another sect of former Black Flag members AKA FLAG fronted by Keith Morris are actively touring this summer, too. Greg Ginn & Black Flag are prepping a currently untitled 22-track "new Black Flag " album for release on SST Records later this summer; Track titles are rumored to include "Honey, I Shit My Pants (Again)," "Viagra Blues," "Hair Down The Drain," "A Little to The Left," etc. "Down In The Dirt" was quietly uploaded online late Friday afternoon, along with a tastefully honest note from the band: " SST Records is proud to announce a free download of the first new Black Flag song in many years, "Down In The Dirt" ... ***NOTE: ...

I first discovered Brooklyn 's premier Indie Rock experimentalists , Dirty Projectors , quite a few years ago; Right around the same time that frontman Dave Longstreth decided to re-record an entire Black Flag record from memory (2007). The band's line-up seems to morph/permeate a little bit with each album and has previously included cats like Angel Deradoorian , Ezra Koenig, Rostam Batmanglij (Vampire Weekend), Adam Forkner, and former-drummer Brian McOmber . Dirty Projectors-13 's latest line-up consists of Longstreth, Nat Baldwin, Michael Johnson , and the sultry 3-part harmonies of Amber Coffman/Haley Dekle/ Jenn Wasner Olga Bell . I guess I'd almost describe their overall sound as some sort of post- Destiny's Child R&B crooning. Case in point: "Stillness Is The Move," which Beyoncé 's little sister Solange just so happened to cover, too. I just ordered used copies of Rise Above, Bitte Orca , and Swing Lo Magellan from Amazon and s...

Love This Giant , the long-rumored brass-based collaborative album from St. Vincent (Annie Clark) and former Talking Heads frontman, David Byrne is finally slated for a September 11th release on 4AD/Todo Mundo . Having randomly met @ a 2009 Dirty Projectors & Björk benefit show... Clark and Byrne were later approached to orchestrate a similar concert for Housing Works , to which David Byrne adamantly replied, "Why don't we [just] go ahead and record these and make it an album!?" After roughly 2 1/2 years of tinkering between their own solo albums, Love This Giant is finally good and ready for a wide-spread unveiling. Material was jointly co-written/recorded by both St. Vincent & David Byrne , with production assistance from John Congleton , and horn-aided backing from The Dap-Kings AND Antibalas . The album will be composed of 12 original tracks and accompanied by a Fall mini-tour spanning across the United States and Canada . First single, "Who?...

"GUN HAS NO TRIGGER" is about the possibility for true dissent, and how I can't figure out what that could be. What is a 2012 Exodus from the Society of the Spectacle (to mix language Situationist and Rastafari )? So, we made a video from the iconography of the "Default" profile image used by Facebook and Gmail , and also the look of the classic Apple iPod commercials. The colors in the background are the ones I think of when I hear the harmonies of Amber [Coffman] and Haley [Dekle] (via experimental synesthesia). Enjoy!! - David Longstreth (Director) Dirty Projectors will make their triumphant return to Late Night with Jimmy Fallon this coming June 19th, which just so happens to be the release date for the band's new album, Swing Lo Magellan . Cross your fingers that David, Amber, Haley , etc. decide to link up with The Roots for yet another made-for-TV performance like "When The World Comes to an End" (2009). Shout outs to the guy who ...

Originally formed in 2002 as the passion-filled solo project of frontman David Longstreth , has gradually morphed into a melodic sextet. Like many Indie Rock fans nation-wide, I first fell in love with Dirty Projectors' 2007 album-length project, Rise Above ; Loosely re-imagined version of Black Flag 's debut LP, Damaged (1981) spun solely from Longstreth's [spotty] memory. Wile previous incarnations included members of Vampire Weekend, Dirty Projectors is currently made up of Nat Baldwin , Amber Coffman, Angel Deradoorian, Haley Dekle , and Brian Mcomber . It's follow-up, which materialized some 2 years later, Bitte Orca ["please whale"] ended up appearing on many year-end lists. David Longstreth & Dirty Projectors recorded it's companion EP, Mount Wittenberg Orca "on the fly" along with Björk . The band became friendly with The Roots after playing Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and "The Dirty Projectors Girls" eventually en...