Cymbals – Like An Animal

There’s something about post-punk/new wave/shoegaze that’s timeless. This is the lead single from Cymbals’ EP coming out later this year, but it just as easily could’ve been released in 2004 or 1985. Twinkly guitar mixes with simple drums under goth-influenced Dalston-accented vocals in this 9 minute opus.

Little People – Start Shootin (Little People’s Americana remix)

Little People (aka producer Laurent Clerc) constructs his songs as a collage of samples in a way that reminds me of The Avalanches, although his songs aren’t quite structurally as dense. This remix is actually Clerc’s remix of his own song from a previous album; here, there are added vocal samples and the drums are reworked to make them smoother and less choppy.

Aaliyah – Enough Said feat Drake (Shlohmo remix)

It’s hard to believe that it’s now been 11 years since Aaliyah died in a plane crash in The Bahamas. For many people who came of age in the early 2000s (and I include myself in that category), the combination of Aaliyah voice and Timbaland’s production formed the baseline for our appreciation of R&B. This is Shlohmo’s remix of the recently-released track “Enough Said,” containing Shlohmo’s characteristic haunting hollow reverb and super-flattened closed high hats.

Jeremih – Fuck U All The Time feat. Natasha Mosley

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fjaf8jc8oQ1

I’ve seen three DJs drop this song in the middle of sets and every single time, the crowd goes absolutely bonkers. This is an absolute banger.

Adrian Sherwood – Mix for The Fader

Sherwood is the founder of the On-U Sound label and a pioneering record producer (his credits include albums by Lee Perry, Ministry, KMFDM, and Nine Inch Nails, among others). The Fader asked him to make a 60 minute mix and he produced this gem that’s mostly trippy reggae songs and occasional ventures out to reggae’s derivative genres, like dancehall and dub. It’s an absolute pleasure to have such an influential figure in the music world dig through his record crates and create something like this.