I learned a new term this week – “cloud rap.” I hope you’re proud of me. Anyway, I came across said term while doing some research on Lushlife, a Philadelphia-based producer and emcee whose hypnotic beats are often laced with an intoxicating burst of ambiance and fluffy psychedelic.   From that brief description of his work you can probably see ...

West London’s The Vaccines are one of the hardest new bands to peg at times.  On first listen, they’ve totally got one of those late ‘50s, early ‘60s pop revivalist things going, except with a little more reverb and maybe a pinch more aggression.  But if you listen a bit more closely, the lines begin to blur.  They’re clearly on their way to beco...

2011 was the year Anthony Gonzalez of M83 found himself.  Or, better yet, the world finally found M83.  The French musician’s ambitious double album, Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming wasn’t a game-changer.  It didn’t redefine sonic boundaries or place indie-synth pop in some new levels of artistic proportion – it was just a really fucking good album.  It...

The web has been blowing up over Dropxlife’s new mixtape, Furthur, and the hype is well deserved.  The Weeknd affiliate’s mixtape is an easy-walking, slow-talking slice of instrumental R&B.  The sound is slow motion with heavily treated vocal snippets bouncing off walls of bass jelly. Dropxlife is a member of the XO crew along with the Weekn...

Chris Glover, better known as Penguin Prison, is a New York-based indie artist/dance producer.  His music lies steeped in the four-to-the-floor beat that pulses throughout the NYC underground by night, and his lyrical dark humor shot with the side-stepping grin of fellow NYC dance luminaries Talking Heads and LCD Soundsystem. Penguin Pri...