The Witzard

CREDIT: Greg Gardner (SOURCE: Buenaventura Records) Controller 7 is a Berkeley, California-based producer, who makes self-described "beats, mostly sample-based cut-and-paste type stuff." C7 spent his early years spinning G.I. Joes off of his Sesame Street record player, playing in the mud, and falling face first off his bike. After spending some quality time memorizing the lyrics to Run-D.M.C.'s "You Be Illin,'" air drumming to mid-80's jams on MTV, and becoming obsessed with dubbing tapes, he started playing the drums in 1988. Fast-forward to a number of years later, Controller 7 had honed in his technique and started making rough demo tapes, one of which just so happened to fall into the hands of sole—then, one of the founders of anticon.—and by 1998-99, things were starting to take shape. Controller 7 has since worked with the like sof sole, Sage Francis, Third Sight, Atmosphere, Themselves (doseone & JEL.) Deep Puddle Dynamics, and Sixtoo. He ...

MESTIZO & Controller 7 - Couch "Fan Art" CREDIT: Jason Jägel (@jagel) MESTIZO & Controller 7 are two Underground/Indie Hip-Hop luminaries, who have now teamed up to self-release a collaborative 10-track album entitled Couch . Emcee MESTIZO , a Fake Four, Inc. affiliate, has released music with A7PHA (doseone,) Free The Robots, The Heavy Twelves , Mike Gao, k-the-i??? Meaty Orge, MURS , and Isaiah Toothtaker. Beat-maker Controller 7 , a one-time anticon. affiliate, has contributed production work for projects attributed to Atmosphere , Deep Puddle Dynamics, Sage Francis , sole, Themselves (doseone & JEL,) and Third Sight. Upon Couch 's initial release a few weeks ago, I decided to reach out to Controller 7 on a whim, via email, who told me he and MESTIZO are, actually, friends-of-friends and despite working together, have never met in-person. In addition to having doseone as a mutual collaborator, Controller 7 & MESTIZO "met" through p...

Collection of Work by The Station Signal Steven "Unsung" Miller is a rapper, producer, and musician hailing from Morgantown, West Virginia/Pittsburgh . Since initially bursting onto the map in 2001, Unsung has self-released 21 projects of varying lengths on his Bandcamp page, as well as Mugwampers -championed Young Man (2016) on Already Dead Tapes & Records and mini-album Mount St. Helens just this past May on BearTooth Collective . However, Miller's latest project isn't exactly credited to "Unsung" and honestly, it isn't exactly "new" either; Collection of Work is attributed to The Station Signal AKA Brandt Dykstra & Steven Miller . Nearly 10 years ago, between 2006-08, Unsung & Brandt wrote, recorded, and produced almost 60 songs together, which were very recently re-discovered and painstakingly whittled down to a concise 9-track Collection of Work . Not only did Unsung recently uncover a plethora of Station Signal ...

Transatlantic by Rabbi Max Rabbi Max AKA Ori (@rabbigmax) AKA Ori Ginzburg is a big, red-bearded multi-instrumentalist, producer, and "visual poetry" artist originally hailing from Jerusalem , who briefly resided in New York City , and now, calls Oakland, California home. Spokane -based imprint I Had An Accident Records (IHAA Records) released Rabbi Max 's album-length debut, INTERKONTINENTAL back in 2016, although, he has quietly been releasing frantic mixtapes and stand-alone tracks since about 2014. "My music is described as beautiful, horrible, hogwash, genius, maundering, precise, quaint, Avant-Garde , historical, hackneyed, masterful, trivial, intense, mystical, virtuosic, gnarly, absorbing, concise, absurd, amusing, eerie, innovative, nostalgic, gruesome, contemporary, sophisticated, trash, and masterpiece," Rabbi Max cryptically writes on his Bandcamp page. Just this past Friday, June 1st, Rabbi Max unleashed his second proper full-length, TRA...

"After being out of print for almost two decades, I am finally re-issuing my debut album, Bottle of Humans on double-vinyl. In 1998, I moved to California to start a record label with my friends and dedicate my life to music. I was a stranger in a strange land. I didn’t understand it then, but this was a magical period of human and musical history... it was the early era of The Internet and digital recording. Record stores were still a thing. We sat in rooms and made music together. We recorded onto tape. We wrote rhymes on paper. We broke all the rules. These were the early days of what some might later call "Art Rap," "Alternative Hip-Hop," or "Experimental Hip-Hop." Bottle of Humans was my first solo contribution to it. This album wasn’t meant to be an "album" at all; it was an evolving collection of songs I burned onto a CD-R that I strangely titled "Bottle of Humans." I would burn CD-R's at my corporate job, when my bo...

"I gave that lil' cockroach life, and he blasted me / N****s made all those memes, and they laughed at me... He's got 11 GRAMMY nominations, y'all not equal / Maaaan, f__k these white people / My grandma died at 82, scrubbin' floors / and n****s still runnin' 'round beggin' for awards," Jay Electronica ferociously rhymed on "The Curse of Mayweather" Monday; nearly an entire verse-worth of disses aimed at his one-time "Control" collaborator, Kendrick Lamar . Although, President Obama 's favorite emcee didn't seem to let Electronica's claims faze him, as he ended up winning five of 11 GRAMMY awards that very same night. I think it's pretty safe to say Kendrick effectively stole the show with his jarring live performance of "The Blacker The Berry/Alright/Untitled III," which juxtaposed he and a spirited Jazz band amidst an all-too realistic prison backdrop and a bonfire-lit African tribe scenari...

"A Ruthless Criticism of Everything Existing (AROEE) is the culmination and logical progression of all the various aesthetics and approaches I have cultivated over the years. This album is at times sarcastic, belligerent, serious, poetic, and abstract. I rap about rappers, I rap about the empire, I rap about capitalism, labor, alienation and the environment. I offer critiques , I offer solutions. Sonically, this album bounces between classic Hip-Hop, Electronica & Experimental Dance, traditional song formats and tracks that barely resemble songs. When I think about the artists that inspire me, I look to Pete Seeger, Chuck D, and Godspeed You! Black Emperor ; Musicians who never let the immediate needs of the market dictate what they created..." "Like many that came before it, this album holds dear the Situationist notion that art is only doing its job when it's challenging the status quo. Unlike much music that has emerged under the banner of Occupy, t...

Yoni Wolf , the rapping son of Rabbi Wolf , often makes music that sounds like a dis-jointed mix between Bright Eyes and something like Beastie Boys or Beck . Equally loved/loathed by Hip-Hop and Indie Rock fans alike, WHY? have finally re-emerged from roughly 3 years of utter silence. While they've had a full-length completed since Summer 2011 , WHY? are planning to release a new EP, Sod In The Seed , on August 14th first. Anticon uploaded "Sod In The Seed" (single) to their Soundcloud page just yesterday afternoon, along with the EP's interestingly painted cover art. Right off the bat, Yoni Wolf comes in sounding all emo, a little bit like Bright Eyes ... but fairly soon, WHY? laces up an Electronic bell-backed beat and Wolf starts rapping the shit out of "Sod In The Seed." In addition to all that, WHY? also announced a string of North American tour dates, running from August-Oct. along with some friends-collaborators: Serengeti , Doseone, D...