Starting his career as one of the first DJ YouTubers in his native France, Xyhon is a rising French influencer, DJ and producer. His first YouTube videos focused on his two passions — music and history: His most successful videos discussed the development of acid house in England during the 1990s, house music in Chicago during the 80s and Berlin techno during the 90s.
Although he has been DJ’ing since he was 17, he started producing when he was 21. releasing his debut EP, 2020’s Deep Trouse, a mix of deep house, house, tech house, tech and psych trance sounds. Since then he has been busy releasing five EPs, a full-length album.
But since 2013, the French producer has released a one-hour mix every month — mostly of deep house and techno tracks. All of his work is inspired by traveling — especially to Nepal, Scotland and Morocco, which often results in new musical and auditory ideas.
His latest mixtape “Performance Techno Mix” is an hour-long mix of 103 hard hitting, club thumping techno tracks meshed with vocal samples from 90s smash hits and techno classics from the 90s. Dance the night away — and your troubles, too.
Last week Ghostface Killah celebrated the 25th Anniversary of the release of his seminal debut album Ironman with a special broadcast on his Blue & Cream Sonos station that saw the beloved emcee taking listeners through the entire album, track by track, reflecting on the stories behind what may arguably be one of the more important influential albums within the Wu-Tang universe.
Today, Ghostface released another special episode “Ghost Season of Love.” The episode features Ghost playing some of his favorite tracks that should be part of your Valentine’s Day, however you’re spending it. Fittingly, the mix features tracks from Luther Vandross, Marvin Gaye, Lauryn Hill,Prince, Stevie Wonder and more. And it’s that Quiet Storm fire that all you lovers you there need today.
The Ghost Season of Love playlist
1. Ghostface Killa & Ne-Yo – “Back Like That” (0:00:06)
2. Marvin Gaye – “I Want You” (0:00:55)
3. Lauryn Hill – “Nothing Even Matters” feat. D’Angelo (0:05:25)
4. Sade – “Your Love Is King” (0:11:12)
5. Mali Music – “Loved By You” feat. Jazmine Sullivan – (0:14:50)
Deriving their name from the tittle of 1993’s “Chemical Beats,” a single which helped establish their sound, the acclaimed Manchester UK-based electronic duo The Chemical Brothers — Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons — can trace their origins back to 1989, when they initially formed as The Dust Brothers. And although they were forced to change their name `in 1995, when they discovered that another act existed with the same name, the Manchester-based electronic duo are considered pioneers of big beat electronica, along with The Prodigy, Fatboy Slim and The Crystal Method.
The British duo’s debut, 1995’s Exit Planet Dust, which features the aforementioned “Chemical Beats” went on to sell over a million copies globally. They caught the attention of Virgin Records, who signed the act and released their sophomore album, Dig Your Own Hole, which topped the UK charts. In their native England, the duo have six #1 albums, 13 Top 20 singles — and two #1 hits.
Here in the States, the duo have won six Grammy Awards including Best Rock Instrumental Performance, Best Dance Recording and Best Dance/Electronic Album of the Year, which they’ve won three times in the category’s Grammy history, including as recently as 2020.
With the forced hiatus in touring, the acclaimed Manchester- based duo have managed to remain busy: they have their own Sonos Radio HD station Radio Chemical. The station features some mixtapes that the pair have expertly and loving curated, including their latest “Early Rap and Beyond Mix.” (The mix is available both on Sonos Radio and Mixcloud, which allows anyone to listen to it.)
“In this ‘Early Rap and Beyond” mix we celebrate the moments disco met rap. All mixed from the original 12” records we take you all around the 5 boroughs whilst also finding the space to throw down some other essential b boy curveballs,” the duo explain.
Featuring some deep crate digging obscurities for even the most ardent hip-hop head, like Super 3’s “When You’re Standing on Top of the World,” Pied Piper of Funkingham’s “Clap Song,” Sweaty G’s “We Want to Get Down” and a lengthy list of others (which you can see below), the mix captures a unique moment in the beloved genre’s history: it’s pioneering first decade or so, when it was brand new, and still centered around local block parties. And as a result, each song is a dance floor banger, built around the big breakbeats meant to get the b-boys and b-girls off the wall, and popping and locking.
Playlist:
Super 3 – “When You’re Standing on Top of the World”
JOVM has been a (mostly) one-man operation that I’ve run out of my Corona, Queens, NYC apartment and out of various Starbucks in and around Queens for its nine-plus year history. Unsurprisingly, I’m usually multi-tasking while going through countless emails featuring tracks, mixtapes, videos — and as a result I wind up stumbling upon a wild variety of interesting things. In this case, I stumbled upon the “48 hr Pu$$yMIX 1.0” mixtape by the mysterious emcee, Memphis-based Elle. (I’m presuming she’s based in Memphis because of all the love shown to the city. But who knows? I can’t find a thing about her.)
Although it was released earlier this year, the mixtapes features some of the most self-assured, swaggering bars and wildly inventive rhyming I’ve heard in some time over tweeter and woofer rocking, feverish productions. Simply put — this this is fire.
Founded back in 2014 by Jessica Louise Dye (vocals, guitar) and Jono Bernstein (drums), the New York-based JOVM mainstays High Waisted have received attention across the blogosphere and elsewhere for a sound that draws from surf rock, garage rock, dream pop, Riot Grrl punk and punk rock among others and for their long-running and very popular DIY concert showcase/booze cruise High Waisted at Sea.
The band’s Bryan Pugh-produced full-length debut On Ludlow further cemented their reputation for scuzzy, party ’til you drop rock — but just under the surface, the material revealed vulnerability and ache. Since the release of On Ludlow, the the band contributed “Firebomb,” a scuzzy, ass-kicking, power chord-driven Lita Ford and Motley Crue-like single to a split single with The Coax, toured with the likes of Hundred Hounds, Beechwood, played a handful of live shows across town and been periodically working on a bunch of new material. And they’ve done all of that while going through a series of lineup changes but one thing has remained: they’re a non-stop party machine.
Throughout their history, the JOVM mainstays have released an ongoing, psychedelic mixtape series, Acid Tapes and like the preceding three other editions, the fourth edition, which will drop on Friday finds the New York-based act covering an eclectic variety of beloved songs. Naturally, the covers reveal the band’s impressive and wide ranging tastes with the fourth edition featuring the band’s unique take on songs by the likes of The Zombies,10cc, Kacey Musgraves, The Troggs and others. As the band explains in press notes, the covers allow them to “dissect songs we love, throw everything we know about them away and rebuild something entirely new.” The band’s frontwoman Jessica Louise Dye adds “It changes the gravitational pull in my creative mind, often spawning a big writing period of new High Waisted material as well.” Along with covers, there are a handful of rare, previously unreleased originals.
The fourth installment of Acid Tapes may arguably find the JOVM mainstays at their best sounding. The guitars shimmer and glisten while the band’s Jessica Louise Dye sounds at her very best, beginning with a gorgeous and Patsy Cline-like take of The Zombies,” “The Way I Feel Inside,” a Pretenders-like original, “Modern Love,” a stunningly accurate 60s and dexterous take on The Lively Ones instrumental composition “Surf Rock,” a dream pop-like take of Kacey Musgraves’ “High Horse” that nods at Still Corners‘ gorgeous Slow Air, the slow-burning, Quiet Storm-like original “Dream Sea,” and a slow-burning, straightforward take on 10cc’s “I’m Not in Love” closes out the tape’s A Side. The tape’s B side features the anthemic and alt rock meets alt country ballad “Eyes Crying,” which manages to recall Pearl Jam‘s “Dissident” to my ears, a Cars meets Phil Spector Wall of Sound-like take on Wreckless Eric‘s “Whole Wide World” before ending with a heartbreakingly gorgeous cover of Julie London‘s “Cry Me a River.” It’s a wildly eclectic grouping of songs but the mixtape reveals the JOVM mainstays’ ridiculous versatility paired with a deep emotional connection to the material.
“Our recording process has come a long way from the first cassette. Acid Tape, Vol. 1 was recorded while were on acid, all in one go, in a haunted house in Nashville. A buddy of ours threw a room mic over the chandelier and ran it through the tape deck and away we went. Now the recording process is more deliberate, articulated and better executed.” the band explains in press notes. Vol 4 was recorded entirely in our new studio which Jono Bernstien and Stephen Nielsen built in Bed Stuy. We’re mixing digital and analog gear with vintage instruments and a little magic.”
The band is celebrating the release of Acid Tape, Vol. 4 with a release show at Mercury Lounge with Yella Belly and Songs for Sabotage. You can check out ticket info and purchase here:
With 2016 being a few hours old, let’s get the year started on a little bit of new music. Now if you’ve been frequenting JOVM over the past year, you may recall that I wrote about the Los Angeles-based act, Mothership Collective. Their last mixtape All Nigga Radio was largely influenced by Parliament Funkadelic, Too Short, Roni Size, Bootsy Collins and others, and was written and conceived as a continuous late night radio broadcast featuring several genres of music, namely hip-hop, funk, reggae, commercials, snippets of interviews and disc jockey ramblings with a biting satirical bent as the mixtape thematically explored how mainstream media and mainstream music can pervert your soul, your perceptions of the world and others by encouraging people to see the world through dangerously cartoonish stereotypes.
The collective’s latest mixtape, Ghetto Galactic is a heady and sonically challenging mix of futuristic hip hop, funktech, alien soul, trap, trap house, G-funk-inspired hip-hop in an incredibly slick, modern production. And much like All Nigga Radio, the act’s satire still manages to be incredibly incisive as it continues to point out the ridiculousness of stereotyped imagery and marketing, and empty imagery of fame and success– while featuring dope emcees spitting fire over dope beats.
GHETTO GALACTIC SIDE A
Intro
Ghetto Galactic (JSwift / Lukecage)
Kush ( M20 / Lukecage)
Backyard Party ( Lukecage / Longevity and Some Girl)
Full Pull (Triple 7 / Lukecage)
Adamantium (Lukecage)
Interlude (Lukecage)
Bricks Bitch (Lukecage / Big Bricks)
Mr. YaYa (Big Hit / Lukecage)
Interview With Cage (JSwift / Lukecage)
They Really Beat Him (Lukecage)
IDGAF (Young Mizu / Lukecage)
Colors
AB 4 Ghetto Galactic (Abstract Butta Fingas / Lukecage)
Junky
Latin Yuji (DJ Yuji / Lukecage)
Kingslish (Bigg Doxx / Lukecage)
Dicey 101 (Lukecage)
Intermission (The Koreatown Oddity / Lukecage)
GHETTO GALACTIC SIDE B
Opra Got Weed For You (Lukecage)
Koreatown Galactic (The Koreatown Oddity / Lukecage)
Freaky Style (DJ D-Styles / Lukecage)
Mothership Malt Liquor Wine
The Body (Longevity / Lukecage)
Ash Put This In That Video (Lukecage)
Can You Smell The Flavor Coming Through Your Speakers? (Lukecage)
Phase Shift (Dynamics Plus / Lukecage)
Yeti Ship One (Sub Yeti / Lukecage)
XMHFHJHUIGGVFVV
Pimp Saint Peter (JSwift / Lukecage)
Mothership My Ass Nigga Interlude (Lukecage)
Street Meat (JSwift / Lukecage)
Human Race (Harv Nicholes)
If any of you follow me on Twitter and Facebook, you’d know that a few months ago I recently joined Spotify — and interestingly enough I’ve been using it in some way to build a sort of retrospective/end of the month playlist for old and new followers alike. Sadly, in some cases some songs don’t appear because they’re not currently available on Spotify; however, this particular playlist is the start of a much more detailed playlist — a playlist that mentions not not the songs I’ve written about over the month, but the songs I’ve referenced throughout the month.
As I’ve mentioned before on the site, I’m usually up to all kinds of experimentation and I’m curious as to what you think of the monthly playlist as a regularly recurring feature. Let me know, folks.
Experimentation is par for the course in the world of JOVM, and with that in mind check out the JOVM August Playlist on Spotify. I think this will be a regular feature, especially if you’ve […]
The Audible Doctor, of the Brown Bag AllStars crew had a pretty big 2012 as he produced tracks and remixes for Onyx, Mobb Deep, Big Noyd, Consequence, John Legend, Method Man, Freddie Gibbs, Homeboy Sandman, Journalist […]
