The Witzard

" Tom & Ed met in history class at Manchester University in 1988. They started off as DJ's known as "The 237 Turbo Nutters" (named after the number of their house on Dickenson Road in Manchester and a reference to their Blackburn raving days). They then opted for "The Dust Brothers," which they nicked from the L.A. producers of Paul's Boutique (as they thought they would never be famous). In 1995, they changed their name to "The Chemical Brothers" after the real Dust Brothers threatened to sue," reads The Chemical Brothers' eerily cryptic abridged Discogs profile description. Electro-House pioneers Tom Rowlands & Ed Simmons are effectively back with their first album in nearly five years after taking a self-imposed hiatus following their seventh studio album, Further . All the while, The Chemical Brothers haven't remained entirely inactive during this gestation period: Rowlands & Simmons prepared a han...

Not entirely unlike the three-volume Art Dealer Chic EP set released leading up to his 2012 commercial break-through, Kaleidoscope Dream , Miguel suddenly uploaded a three-track EP to Soundcloud in the wee hours of Friday morning; seemingly titled either nwa.hollywoodreams.coffee EP or WILD EP , similar to the tattoo scrawled across Miguel 's knuckles on the rather suggestive album cover. It's a painfully brief 10-minute burst of guitar-fueled Soul-Funk/R&B , part of which okayplayer effectively refers to as "a swagged-out Spaghetti Western with Curtis Mayfield wheeling and dealing on the score, driven by fuzzy guitar and total impropriety." EP opener, "NWA" features Snoop Dogg -affiliated Philly rapper Kurupt atop a stuttering 808 drumbeat and slinky guitar-accented quasi-rocker flanked by Miguel 's seductive hook and bridge refrains, "she just wanna ride with a N.W.A... Got you walkin' with a gangsta lean." "NWA" ...