Caught in the Net: Mercy to Kanye West

Back in the summer of 2010 Kanye West kicked off his G.O.O.D Friday series, dropping a new track free on his website, kanyewest.com, every Friday in the lead up to the release of his glorious album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, later that year (not all the Friday tracks made it to the LP).

This year he appears to be following a similar path with a new song streaming on his site on the actual Good Friday - and simultaneously released as a single through his own G.O.O.D music label on iTunes.

The song “Mercy” features appearances from 2 Chainz as well as two artists from his label, Pusha T and Big Sean. It wasn’t the only track to appear on his site last week though, with another song Theraflu also showing up, this time without any official release. Neither song would stand up to his best work but both are interesting nonetheless, with the latter perhaps out in front. Theraflu comes complete with a lyrical reference to US Vogue editor Anna Wintour, which inspired The Fader magazine to compile a handy guide to “hip hop’s love of Anna Wintour”, with appearances from the likes of Diddy, Nicki Minaj and Childish Gambino

The Real Slim Shadygully

I first happened across Australian composer and musician Padma Newsome at a gig last year when he was playing with his group The Clogs. This experimental four piece, whose members include The National guitarist Bryce Dessner, mix improvisation with contemporary classical, indie rock and folk sounds - and are particularly impressive in a live setting. Last week Newsome put up a gorgeous seven track solo collection of recordings entitled Shadygully at soundcloud.com/shadygully. Here, those aforementioned music stylings - with the added help of Rachel Elliott’s bassoon playing - find themselves rolling together in a lovely pastoral setting, topped off with gentle vocals calling to mind the more adventurous 60s folk singers.  

Benga parties

The Croydon dubstep producer Benga has a new track knocking around called “I Will Never Change”, said to be from an upcoming LP called Chapter 2. Last week an exceptional video for the tune emerged, made by the UK directing and design duo Christoper Barret and Luke Taylor, who go by the name Us (not a great name for Googling, it has to be said). The clip is a rather perfect meshing of sound and visual content, with 960 vinyl records set up in a pulsing line building in time with the equally pulsing dubstep sounds, in what resembles a live action recreation of an animated sound wave. It really has to be seen to be appreciated. Find the video and more of the duo’s work at weareus.co.uk and listen below.

Solar power

Solar Bears, an electronic duo from Ireland have been leaking new tracks, peicemeal from their upcoming new album Supermigration - the follow up to their well received 2010 LP She Was Coloured In. The latest is album track Cosmic Runner, which sees them layer waves of synth soundscapes and beats in a fine fast manner. It’s rather more on their heavier end of their oeuvre, but no less good for it. Look out, too, for what sounds like a winning sample of cheering children’s choir punctuating the later half. The track is streaming at snd.sc/HuUe3m.

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