DJ Babu

... and as long as everyone is on the topic of crack cocaine, here's mine.

DJ Babu (who also goes by the name The Turntablist) is the DJ for the hip hop group Dilated Peoples. "DJ Babu in Deep Concentration" is the closing track of their 2004 album Neighborhood Watch and features DJ Babu delivering clean, straight forward scratches over a catchy laid back beat. The samples used include the recognizeable 'ahh', 'fresh', and *beep* and sounds very simple (albeit deceptively so) and is an absolute pleasure to listen to if you're in the mood for some good ol' fashioned scratching.

My favorite moment of the track occurs at 1:58 with a perfectly executed *beep*-'ahh' 1-2 punch. It doesn't get much better than that, folks.

DJ Babu in Deep Concentration

edit: by *beep* I mean an actual beeping sound, not censoring anything.

Mad World

Full marks to whoever was in charge of the bgmusic for this ad, definitely as perfect an example as any of music's unmatched ability to dominate mood. The ad wisely refrains from employing the bastard child of death metal and electronica, and instead lets Michael Andrews' solemn cover of "Mad World" expose the weary soul of a war-hardened soldier. It's quite possibly the most unlikely of pairings, yet it's perfect... or maybe thus, it's perfect. The fitting lyrics don't hurt either.

"the music creates such a psychadelic mood!" -Heavy Nutz the Bastard

Mad World

Faultline

i still remember listening to coldplay's clocks for the first time. it sent a chill down my spine, and i wished for some better headphones. i got a similar effect when i listened to faultline's 'your love means everything, pt 2' featuring chris martin of coldplay.

faultline currently has two cd's out, their debut 'closer colder' and 'your love means everything'. according to their site -"Your Love Means Everything' is an equal mix of songs and instrumentals, the songs featuring guest lead vocals by Chris Martin of Coldplay, Michael Stipe of REM, Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips and Joseph Arthur". they also have one w/ keane. mostly new creations, they did cover 'wild horses' tho. y.l.m.e.pt2 still stands out the most.

if you are a coldplay purist - you didnt like nelly furtado/chris martin's 'rocky' duet - you may not like this either. this is darker, more haunting, and involving more wrenches. there's plenty of reverberating echoes and hollow sounds. sometimes i even hear trip hop.

they have music streaming from their site.

Faultline - Your Love Means Everything, Pt 2 (feat. Chris Martin)

Free The Robots

Spin mag says these guys are a "California-based production team" (read "these guys are a group of DJs"). They've produced one album called "The Prototype" which is an eclectic collection of sounds and genres mixed with the ears of a DJ. It's pretty cool stuff. You can listen to it in the player on their myspace page or buy it for $5. There's also a bit more about them at http://elsewherestudios.com/.

They are featured on a track in Spin.com's cheekily named Hey This Is Awesome section. Cities is an fairly uninteresting college rock band from North Carolina. However, they put out a remix album of their self-titled debut. The remix album is called Variations and Free The Robots' slicing and dicing of the song Capitol is the reason for this post.

I'm not sure why, but this track is like crack cocaine to me. The original version of the song is not bad but this freebase form produced in the Robots' lab is likely to destroy families and might need to be banned.

Please use caution as you listen:
Cities - Capitol (original version)
Variations - Capitol (FTR remix) (updated 11/12)

Switchfoot

I'm sure you've heard of, or at least have heard, Switchfoot. In my personal quest for good music by Christian artists people have mentioned them more than once. But after scanning a couple of tracks, I dismissed them as being too poppy. Well, they haven't stopped making pop songs but I'm giving them a second listen.

I've thought the mythical kind of band I would love to listen to and support would be a great rock band whose members "just happened" to be Christian. What happens in reality is, either a Christian band tries to crossover losing one audience while gaining another (like Sixpence), the band or artists flop (too many to name here), or the band has no identity as Christians and they might as well be any other band. Commercially, DC Talk might be closest to "living in the balance" that I listened to (Jesus Freak went double Platinum- people were definitely listening), although I can't really say they made much of an impact in terms of public mindshare.

Switchfoot is a band that is successfully playing to that secular/sacred balance. They achieved some success on re:think/Sparrow Records but after their role in the movie "A Walk To Remember" with Mandy Moore, and moving to major label Columbia is when they started really making a splash.

Two different groups of people have to relate to their lyrics and I think they do a decent job of writing lyrics that are broad enough that anyone can identify with them while being honest and not completely watered down. See what you think.

Daisy is an interesting song from their latest album Nothing Is Sound, and the Goo Goo Dolls-y Dare You To Move is an earlier radio single from The Beautiful Letdown.

Daisy - Nothing Is Sound
Dare You To Move - The Beautiful Letdown

missFlag

missFlag is a band from Isreal who I stumbled upon when I was looking for a fix of coldplay/keane type music. That should give you a good enough idea of their sound and the such. So far they've only released a 5-track EP, with a full album due out in November (not sure on the release date).

One thing that's kind of odd is reading their blog, and the lead guitarist (Assa Bukelman) is writing about how he was teaching a guitar lesson and walking the dog. Such "regular" and "ordinary" things. All this while in possibly a years time they could be a huge band, given the successes of keane and coldplay to date and their similiar sound.

Their live reviews are good, but they've only played a handful of US shows in Minnesota and LA. If myspace is any indication (36763 friends), they're gaining steam.

Check out their official site and use the built in player there to stream the first single "to infinity".