The Witzard

I honestly can't even remember how, but about 5-6 years ago now, I first discovered Pennsylvania -based by way of Ocean City, NJ —which just so happens to be my family's favorite "beach town"—awesomely-named Psych/Indie Rock trio Peanut Butter Lovesicle . PB Lovesicle consisted of blonde dread-locked drummer and frontman Timmy Miller and his two cousins (and brothers) guitarist Jake D'Arc and bassist Mike D'Arc . Between 2010-15, Timmy, Jake & Mike self-released a steady supply of Queens of The Stone Age & The Black Keys -influenced material, which included an array of Blues/Desert Rock -minded singles and EP's including, but not limited to: Heavy Daze Wildcat Craze EP , "Black Eyed Blues," Dirty Pride EP , "Complex," "Jealous Minds," and "Dragon Disease," as well as Timmy Miller & Jake D'Arc 's Hip-Hop -indebted Milky 22's EP from their side-band of the same name. Lest we forget, Pean...

Tiger Breaks (Vinyl / Producer Drum Kit) by Te'Amir Sweeney Los Angeles -based drummer and producer Te'Amir Sweeney has frequently toured and recorded with Stones Throw -affiliated Soul singer and Emanon emcee Aloe Blacc . Sweeney has additionally played with a wide array of musicians, mainly affiliated with LA 's burgeoning Hip-Hop , beat-making, Jazz , and Neo-Soul scenes including, but not limited to Sa-Ra Creative Partners , Mark de Clive-Lowe, Kamasi Washington , Kadhja Bonet, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson , YG, Wondem , and Ethic-Cali. Te'Amir Sweeney has recorded extensively with "LA All Day" musician and producer Jason McGuiness (AKA Analog Burners ) contributing drums to his Bandcamp-released collections: Masterpiece EP: A Whitfield​-​Strong Tribute , "We Could Be" with High Science Project/"Empyrean Tones" with Keyon Harrold, and ConSoul 's 2017 "I Need You"/"Ball of Confusion" 7-inch. The Ologist (@Olo...

"I landed in London on my way to meet up with the Madlib Medicine [Show] Tour and had one goal in mind upon de-planing: FIND IF Music! I had read about the proprietor, Jean-Claude Thompson, in a Wax Poetics article and heard from multiple sources that for my tastes, this was THE shop to hit. Upon arriving, I was surprised to find the dapper owner hanging out on the street, seemingly there to welcome me, since the shop [was] on the second floor. After watching me devour the stacks, the dapper owner said, "do you listen to new music?" "Yes, I do," [I replied]. His first recommendation was a new Jazz record from some young musicians in Poland. And that was how I discovered EABS the old-fashioned way, by a recommendation from one of the most knowledgeable selectors on the planet. A week later I opened Repetitions [Letters to Krzysztof Komeda] a beautiful double-album package with an in-depth insert and dropped Side 1 on the turntable. What I discovered ...

@SharpCheddar856: Hey what's up, M Slago? How's it going? How did get involved with Aesop Rock & Homeboy Sandman's latest TRIPLE FAT LICE EP, man? I know you produced Sandman's All That I Hold Dear a few years back (phenomenal record, might I add!) @m_slago: Let me get to a laptop and I'll start answering questions to avoid (some) typos lol. SC: No worries, man! I'm gonna go jump in the shower, but I'll be back momentarily... just send whatever you think may be interesting and useful. Thanks! m_s: Much thanks on the [All That I Hold Dear] props. Homeboy Sandman and I met back in '09 and have been doing joints together, since The Good Sun . When Aesop Rock & Boy Sand were touring during the first Lice release, I met Aesop for the first time, here in Dallas, at their show. We talked lightly about future work and other things... and "Panacea" is the result. SC: Oh OK, nice! So, you're one of Homeboy Sandman's initial pr...

Bias vs. Jordan by ullnevano x jumbled "There's an old saying, "iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another." This can be found many times over in sports and in music. One of the legendary debates in basketball is whether Len Bias was a better basketball player than Michael Jordan ; while we consider Jordan to be the greatest of all-time, we can't help but wonder what could have been," Jumbled & UllNevaNo wrote within a recent press release. UllNevaNo & Jumbled have just released the second single, "Bias vs. Jordan," from their upcoming basketball-themed The Ghost of Len Bias EP . Len Bias was of course, an extremely talented 22-year-old forward at the University of Maryland . Bias was the Boston Celtics' second overall pick in the 1986 NBA Draft on June 17th and sadly, passed away two days later from cardiac arrhythmia, as a result of a cocaine overdose. "Iron sharpening iron" can also be found in Hip-Hop all th...

Root Down feat. Fleur Earth - Oonops Drops Vol. 1 by Nautilus German -based DJ Oonops (AKA Patrick Decker ) is a self-described "connoisseur of tight spider beats and juggler with different musical genres" who hosts a monthly Brooklyn Radio Mixcloud show and has compiled guest mixes for world-renown stations such as Laid Back Radio (LDBK) and Breakin' Bread . As DJ Oonops tells it, he first discovered Japanese Jazz Fusion/Soul-Funk trio Nautilus "a few years ago" by chance, upon diggin' up their first few 45 singles; amazed with their work, Decker soon "got in touch with [Nautilus] and dropped several tunes in [his] shows for Brooklyn Radio " including Oonops Drops - Straight from Japan II , Smoky Jazz Session 4, Black Gold of The Sun , WORLD TRIAL 2, and SMOKY JAZZ SESSIONS 5 . "After that, I had the idea to bring them on German label Agogo Records for a wider audience and I compiled this compilation out of their first two albums...

It was a little strange, to say the least, driving into work this morning knowing that in a few short hours, New Jersey and nearly the whole United States would experience a period of total (albeit momentary) darkness for a few hours today, Monday, August 21st. I'm of course, talking about the Total Solar Eclipse , which will obscure roughly 76.9% of The Sun at 2:44 pm here in South Jersey and will experience various shades of darkness until about 4:00 pm. According to The Smithsonian 's Solar Eclipse app , The Eclipse will make its first point of contact in Oregon in about three hours and will last for approximately 2 minutes and 43 seconds in any given area across The United States and Greater North America . If you, like my co-workers, family, and friends and myself, were unable to attain a coveted pair of Solar Eclipse viewing glasses, you can still view The Eclipse by making a a home-made Box Pinhole Projector ; you'll just need a a long cardboard box or tube...

"The man, the myth, the Human Swiss Army Knife , @pdialect is killing it and you better be listening," self-proclaimed father, husband, emcee, producer, and "talker of Hip-Hop sh*t" at Damn That Noise DADVILLAINY (@DrBloodmoney) Tweeted this past Wednesday, August 16th. Zane Rice , better known as Purple Dialect is a Philadelphia -based artist, who very simply put, "makes beats and raps at GHOST VOLCANO " along with in-house graphic designer and partner-in-rhyme Spook Novel . Earlier this year, Rice quietly released his first 100% self-released full-length, Forest Fortress and Darko The Super -featuring EP, Ghost Beach to wide-spread fanfare and critical acclaim. Now, he's unleashed his third effort of 2017, Campfire EP , which was fully "written, produced, and recorded in a single night in a tent next to a fire." Armed with only a Roland SP-404 beat machine, rudimentary mic, and a tapedeck, Purple Dialect set out to do the unthinka...

Baltimore-based singer, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and web/multi-media designer Emily Scott has recently released her second, aptly-titled Pale Spring EP2. Wenker is a classically-trained pianist and has been tickling the ivory keys since she was five. She mostly played Beethoven & Chopin for the better part of her musical upbringing and took guitar lessons in high school, but always felt like she was "bad at it." It took several years, but Emily Scott says she had to essentially un-learn everything she had amassed during her classical training in order to be able to make her own music. It wasn't until Scott met frequent collaborator and fiance Drew Scott about two and a half years ago that she learned how to use ProTools and attained a new outlook on the world of music-making and production. Since first meeting Scott, Emily Scott has recorded and released two now-removed Anna Notte albums (her rapping alter-ego) and two EP's-worth of "genre-fluid...

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 ...

While he still might be a relatively unknown "underground emcee," Roughneck Jihad—formerly known as Jihad The Roughneck MC—has been spittin' fresh rhymes since high school, 1988; over the years, he's formed countless Hip-Hop crews including Un Cut Poets, Third Sight with DJ Du Funk, Smooth Tone, and D-Styles, The Incredible Torture Show (T.I.T.S.) with Trailer Trasher & Maestro Gamin, The Language Mechanics with Insomniac & Raggedy Andy, The Tarantula Brothers with DJ Du Funk, Disco Sinisto with Turin, Italy-based producer IL Torsolo, newly-formed Echoes of Oratory Music, The Darc Bros. and currently runs label imprint Disgruntled Sounds. There's also a vinyl and cassette re-release of Third Sight's 2016 Orchids & Corpses compilation album originally recorded to 4-track between 1993-96 scheduled for this upcoming September. Aside from his just-released second solo album, The Wretched of The Verse (A Microphone Murderer's Extended-play Respons...

Triple Fat Lice by Aesop Rock & Homeboy Sandman Triple Fat Lice (Poem) By: Homeboy Sandman " Triple Fat Lice is similar to Die Hard with a Vengeance in that it is a part 3 that gets very busy. It's also like A Nightmare On Elm Street Part 3 [Dream Warriors] in that regard the dream warriors kicking Freddy ’s a$$ with all their special powers. Triple Fat Lice is not at all like Halloween III [Season of The Witch] that didn't even have Michael Myers in it and was about roaches or something I don’t even really know. It might have been a great Horror movie, in it's own right, but I was so appalled Michael Myers wasn't even in it. Triple Fat Lice is also nothing at all like Beverly Hills Cop III which to me was almost like sacrilege but no disrespect that’s just my own personal opinion. Even though Back to The Future Part III and Terminator 3 [Rise of The Machines] are not as sensational as Triple Fat Lice (something they share in common with ...

"'Made for Me" was actually one of the last tracks I added to the EP I hope to release later this year. I remember walking into the studio and hearing Mikhail (my producer) messing around with two different cuts of the same sample. One was very down-tempo and in the pocket, while the other felt lively with a real bounce to it. We went back-and-forth, debating which of the two we rocked with the most, but couldn't justify separating the sounds," Canadian rapper, producer, and song-writer David Versis wrote within a recent email. Upon first hearing his latest single, "Made for Me," I wrote a quick, semi-tongue-in-cheek "review" on Twitter which read: "'Made for Me" sounds like John Mayer meets Drake and it's actually pretty awesome!" Versis is a GRAMMY -nominated producer, who contributed to Wiz Khalifia 's 2014 album, Blacc Hollywood and produced Yo Gotti & T.I. 's collaborative single, "King ...

Darnell "iLL-Omega" Storey (@illomega) is a friend and frequent collaborator of The Witzard ; he hand-crafted the beats for Ray Strife 's recent The Witzard -premiered Preface: I Will Never Be Beautiful EP , he's one half of rapper-producer duo A Mankind Complex , founder of Trenton -based label Cap City Ent. and recently assembled a producer-selected Beat-maker Bedrock playlist. iLL-Omega 's latest endeavor is Rocky's House Podcast hosted by Cap City Ent. signee and collaborator Rocky (@rockythepromoter.) Alongside Rocky & iLL-Omega , Rocky's House Podcast 's panel of co-hosts additionally features Hip-Hop artists and lyricist Alien (@bonafied_alien) and Princeton -bred improv actor and comedian Adam Politis (@smokinpolitis) as well as a variety of special guests on each month's episode. Rocky himself describes Rocky's House Podcast as a unique online platform wherein they're able to "shed light on local/mainstream ...