The Witzard

It all starts out innocently enough, at a Road House -stye "dive bar" that's seemingly located out in the middle of the desert; Dave 1 seductively croons, "if you think romance is dead and gone, found an old jukebox full of 45's, pop a nickle in it, and it all comes back to me" at "Old 45's" gorgeous dark-haired protagonist. Chromeo multi-instrumentalist P-Thugg can be seen seated by himself up at the bar, where our leading lady eventually settles, and in certain frames, sisters Danielle, Este & Alana Haim are seated alongside Dave 1 in a booth. "You know what? I tried out these new pants. I didn't think I'd like 'em... thought they'd be a little bit too tight. But hey, I'll tell ya... I kinda like the way they grip me," laments our cocktail-pouring bartender, right before a sensual bar-top dance routine suddenly breaks out. And before too long, yet another dance routine erupts, as the lights dim down an...

It seems as though veteran TDE emcee Ab-Soul has ripped a page right out of one-time "label-mate" Action Bronson 's book of tricks, essentially rapping over an untouched Jackson Browne track, "These Days," once recorded by both Nico and Gregg Allman . While Browne's track shares it's title with Ab-Soul 's recent third album, These Days... "W.W.S.D." is actually an apparent non-album left-over; "What Would Soul Do" doesn't really even sample Jackson Browne 's original recording, Ab-Soul more or less manages to rap in-between or along with "These Days," which was included on Browne's second album, For Everyman (1973). "Yo, how the f*ck my new girl got me jealous of other girls / I think I live in another world," Ab-Soul ruthless raps as he fades in and out of Jackson Browne's subdued crooning, "And I had a lover / But it's so hard to risk another / These days," a clev...

Kendrick Lamar 's latest non-album single, "i" has a seemingly unlikely sample source, The Isley Brother 's 1973 Soul-Funk hit, "[Who's] That Lady," which many of you may recognize from Swiffer 's hilarious long-standing "Who's That Lady" campaign. Right off the bat, "i" itself is more blatantly "commercial" than the combined the whole of it's predecessor good kid, m.A.A.d city (2012), but in the best way humanly possible. It's almost reminiscent of OutKast or even Native Tongues' 90's era brand of light-heated "conscious rap." Kendrick Lamar has supposedly recorded about 30 tracks for his as-yet-untitled second album, including "a bunch of tracks" with Dr. Dre . "Lamar says to expect "aggression and emotion" from the album, as well as some straight-up freestyling" laments a recent Rolling Stone profile; "if I can say anything about this record...

It's almost unfathomable to me, as both a home-grown music writer and music-buying all-American 20-something, to hear that musical luminaries Michael Jackson and Queen frontman Freddie Mercury once recorded a number of incomplete tracks together that have been sitting in a vault somewhere in "Neverland," collecting dust for nearly 30 years! Mercury supposedly brought the potentially über-fruitful 1983-84 sessions to a screeching halt after Jackson attempted to bring a llama into the recording studio. Head Stereogum writer, Tom Breihan basically conceptualized the whole mind-boggling scenario perfectly: "[it's] like finding a giant pile of money under the bed in your hotel room and deciding, what the Hell, you'll just leave it there" ha. But now, Grammy -winning producer and Madonna collaborator, William Orbit has gone back in and meticulously re-produced/mastered the long-lost Queen -backed track, "There Must Be More to Life Than This,...

" Run The Jewels will self-produce a new episode of Kitchen Nightmares with Gordon Ramsey , with Mike and El both playing Gordon Ramsey . We will travel to a restaurant with you of your choice, completely uninvited and attempt to force them to change the menu. All the while, verbally abusing and insulting the entire staff to hilarious effect," reads the utterly side-splitting RTJ2 We Are Gordon Ramsey Package ($150,000). It's one of 11 totally outlandish too-good-to-be-true RTJ2 pre-order "BONU$" packages ranging from $7,500-10,000,000 in "price," which Run The Jewels blatantly admit that they'll "take your money and not fulfill any of [their] obligations as outlined in any package priced at 35k or more." There's even a Meow The Jewels package, wherein for the right purrice, Killer Mike & El-P will supposedly "re-record RTJ2 using nothing but cat sounds for music." Run The Jewels unleashed the second single...

"IF [YOU] LISTEN TO THIS, [YOU] WILL HEAR ANOTHER SNIPPET OFF MR. WONDERFUL . SHHH, DON'T TELL [ANYONE] @Alchemist THIS EXPLAINS IT," @ActionBronson quietly Tweeted late Thursday night, alluding to his recent "Which Ways The Beach Mix;" commissioned by Dr. Romanelli (DRx) and footwear company, British Knights and jointly produced by The Alchemist & Samiyam . The newly-minted rapper-producer beatsmith team painstakingly culled right around 8-minutes worth of audio snippets and vocal effects harvested from a series of 1980-90's British Knights TV commercials. It's without a doubt, an interesting sound collage, which fittingly provides viewers and sneaker-heads with a self-proclaimed "contemporary musical travelogue through BK History ." Action Bronson bulldozes in at about 6:15 as the beat suddenly morphs into something, shall we say, a little more rap-able; "I know you seen me on the TV lookin' like a hunk of beef / When I s...

" Phex Twinnipicks material is still unquenched thirst... Syria , September 23, 2014, along with records of Aphex Twin 's new album to be released. For the owner of Triple vinyl, CD and digital formats will be available. Bleep a very limited vinyl version you can register your interest in buying," reads Warp Records' seemingly intentionally jumbled Aphex Twin SYRO press release. While he hasn't released a full-length album in a whopping 13 years, Aphex Twin mastermind Richard D. James recently alluded to new material via both a mysterious "2014" tagged blimp and a few encrypted posts uploaded onto the more often than not corrupt underground Deep Web. Aphex Twin then unexpectedly unleashed the first SYRO teaser track, "minipops 67 [120.2] [source field mix]," just in time for the onslaught of the weekend. It's already garnered loose comparisons to Thom Yorke , Caribou, and Burial , fellow modern day veiled Electro -leaning artist...

While pseudo-frontman Justin Nealis has seemingly singularly produced countless records for Action Bronson, Cam'ron , and Danny Brown , Party Supplies is in fact, a self-described 2-man "Anachronistic Rock Music" group; newly-augmented member Sean Mahon appeared alongside Nealis on Party Supplies' 2013 Fool's Gold Records debut, Tough Love and supposedly assisted in production on frequent collaborator Action Bronson 's critically-acclaimed Blue Chips 2 mixtape and long-rumored cross-genre "Jericho" project. They've been relentlessly teasing at a Tough Love vinyl re-issue for months now... " Justine [Monsul], Sean [Mahon] , and myself wrote this in a hotel in Ohio a few months back, very happy to see it come together #OHIO," @xpartysuppliesx sporadically Tweeted this past weekend. It was of course, a preemptive message in allusion to "Ohio," the latest Country -laden non-album Party Supplies track, which was so...