The Witzard

"A penumbra is the space between the shade and the light of a partial eclipse, the area that is neither blacked-out nor illuminated fully. More broadly, the word is defined as something that surrounds or enshrouds a region or object. Like this twilit fringe between being and non-being, the production of Spencer Stephenson—known for his output under the name Botany—gives shape and circumference to The Skull Eclipses' self-titled debut .​ PENUMBRAS lays bare that album's hybrid scaffolding of ambient Boom-Bap, dubby Jungle, and hauntological sample-collage revealing a multi-faceted beat tapestry unadorned by lead-vocals, standing alone as a full-length listening experience. On ​October 26th,​ Western Vinyl is releasing ​PENUMBRAS by ​The Skull Eclipses​, an album of beats and previously unreleased pieces from the self-titled collaborative debut of producer Spencer Stephenson (​Botany​) and rapper Raj Haldar (​Lushlife​) that featured Laraaji, Open Mike Eagle, and many othe...

" Oneohtrix Point Never (0PN) teams up with longtime inspiration and Spiritual Rap guru Ishmael Butler , The Palaceer of Shabazz Palaces/Digable Planets . Listen to new track "The Rapture," below," Warp Records wrote within a 26/09/2017-published press release. " 0PN and Butler met and produced "The Rapture" on first meeting this Summer , creating the experiment of verses and spine-tingling dances of percussion. The track premieres as a unique addition to the [adult swim] singles club," it continued. "The Rapture" is actually credited to "319" —a newly-formed rapper-producer duo consisting of Ishamel "Butterfly" Butler AKA Palaceer Lazaro and Electronic producer Oneohtrix Point Never AKA Daniel Lopatin of Ford & Lopatin . It's been quite a busy year for both Butler and Lopatin with Shabazz Palaces releasing not one, but two full-length albums on the same July day, Quazarz: Born On a Gangster St...

"The WOKE project started about three years ago. I, myself, and some screenwriter friends of mine started writing a script for feature film called WOKE . It was something that we developed for quite a while. Initially, it was going to star Ishmael [Butler] from Shabazz Palaces and Jeremiah Jae . We worked on it for a while, started work-shopping, but there's always the financial issue — I haven't found anyone who is going to invest in the film," Flying Lotus recently revealed during a Pitchfork-prompted phone interview upon the release of his [adult swim] single, "The Lavishments of Light Looking." Despite the fact that he has yet to acquire adequate funding to produce a WOKE film, Flying Lotus aka multi-instrumentalist Steven Ellison decided to instead focus on the musical accompaniment for said unmade film first; "We started working earlier this year on music. We did a few songs. We have a few things. We're just going to let it build...

For starters, Daughn Gibson 's voice kinda sounds like an oddly appropriate mix between Johnny Cash , Barry White , and a bowl-full of coarse gravel; a style which is more than likely a direct result of teenage years spent drumming with assorted Philly and New York -area Hardcore Punk/Metal bands and the 10 years' time traveling cross-country in a BIG empty mac truck, blasting radio-transmitted Country music. When Daughn Gibson moved from his childhood town of Narazeth, PA to Carlisle in late 2010-11, he recorded what eventually ended up being All Hell ... simply created because "there weren't as many like-minded musicians to start a band with." Gibson's close friend Matt Korvette from Pissed Jeans pressed up a limited LP release of All Hell on his home-grown Indie label imprint, White Denim . Daughn Gibson then decided to follow that up with a 2-track 45 and Bandcamp digi-single simply titled, "Lite Me Up" in conjunction with Dull Kni...

The Roots became Jimmy Fallon 's in-house band [comedic relief] when Late Night originally kicked off back in 2009. All the while, they've still somehow managed to produce 2 studio albums (How I Got Over & undun) , as well as supply session work for John Legend , Duffy, Booker T. D'Angelo , and the late Amy Winehouse . ?uestlove recently became little Blue Ivy 's godfather and started a road-side food service truck, "Quest Loves Food." Since re-discovering this new-found sense of fame that came along with their 13th full-length album, The Roots have been asked to curate 2 separate yearly festivals: The Roots Picnic and July 4th Jam (Philly). One of the first BIG festivals of Summer [concert] season, The 5th Annual Roots Picnic is actually taking place this upcoming weekend - June 2 & 3rd. The Legendary Roots Crew will be playing a full "solo" set, backing De La Soul , and re-creating Paid In Full with Eric B. & Rakim ; They al...

The rough blueprint for "Black Up" sounds pretty ambiguous on paper: De-constructed film version of Shabazz Palaces' critically acclaimed 2011 debut, Black Up ... a fragmented stream of consciousness short film, all set to a score made up of segmented LP tracks. With that said, Kahlil Joseph 's "Black Up" is truly a murky, concept-heavy affair, which co-stars Palaceer Lazaro & Tendai Naraire throughout. Joseph has proven to be a frequent collaborator of the Seattle -based Hip-Hop/Jazz Fusion artists. Shabazz Palaces' featured scenes are inter-spliced against "artsy" frames, littered with [quick] images of plants, streetcars, pork chops, bodies in trees... a Gil Scott-Heron tribute, interpretive dancing, Hip-Hop clichés , and the ocean. I believe that the film's soundtrack features samplings of several Black Up cuts including: "free press," "recollections," "youlogy," and some sort of Chopped ...

The mask-bearing man behind SBTRKT is widely believed to in fact be one Aaron Jerome . Prior to adopting the "Rocket" moniker, the London -based beatsmith managed to release an album's-worth of Jazz/ Hip-Hop /Electronic/ Soul-Funk tracks under his birth name: Time to Re-arrange (2007). Nearly 4 months after its initial release, the lead single from SBTRKT ("Wildfire") is still gaining steam; Due in part to 2 remixes - Laced by the likes of Drake & Shabazz Palaces [Palaceer Lazaro] . The latter was released earlier today, August 15th, and was re-mixed by Memphis , Tennessee's own Drumma Boy . It should also be of note that both the original and remixed versions of "Wildfire" feature the vocal stylings of Little Dragon [Yukimi Nagano] .