Article
Lucy
Albums
Alphabets Heaven
AREA C
Aidan Baker
Black Devil Disco Club
Cluster
Dakota Suite & Errante
Davis & Machinefabriek
Deaf Center
Fancy Mike
FM3
Forest Swords
Frivolous
Hakobune
Kyo Ichinose
Juv
Deniz Kurtel
Sven Laux
Lucy
Stephan Mathieu
Joel Mull
Near The Parenthesis
Netherworld
nunu
Fabio Orsi
Penalune
Pleq
port-royal
Rainbow Arabia
Todd Reynolds
Roedelius
Rosenqvist and Scott
Steffi
Sublamp
SubtractiveLAD
Tapage
Compilations
Back and 4th
Future Disco Volume 4
SMM: Context
Tasogare: Live in Tokyo
EPs
Aardvarck & Kubus
Corrugated Tunnel
Debilos
Djamel
Tolga Fidan
Flowers and Sea Creatures
Anne Garner
Mike Jedlicka / Cloudburst
Mo 2 Meaux-2
Proximity One: Remixes
Darren Rice
Sepalcure
Sharma + Krause
Josh T
Talvihorros
Francesco Tristano
Widesky
Dez Williams
Fancy Mike:
Madison Square Gardner
King Deluxe
In which Fancy Mike (Mike Kleine) inaugurates the Salmo, British Columbia-based King Deluxe label with a tasty collection of future-retro instrumental hip-hop called Madison Square Gardner. Kleine's only been operating under the moniker since 2008 but navigates the territory with aplomb as he powers his lo-fi, synth-heavy tracks with glitch-hop and crunk-funk beats. With a taste for analog-driven technology and tape hiss, Kleine weaves elements of synth-pop, dubstep, crunk, and hip-hop into a bass-heavy, eight-cut collection that weighs in at a svelte twenty-four minutes. As such, Madison Square Gardner may seem more EP than album but give Kleine points for keeping his tracks lean.
A next-level instrumental beamed in from another galaxy and powered by bleepy synth lines, entrancing arpeggios, and a wonky hip-hop pulse, “Ramachandran” immediately serves notice that Kleine's music is worth one's time. Following an opening fusillade of splintering sounds, “Ivy League Smack” rolls out a steamy slab of bass thump and smooth head-nod with all of it soaked in an industrial bath of clatter and wah-wah melodics. In “Lazer Opera,” a choir of warbling synth swirls paves the way for bass-thudding rhythms inflected with snake-rattling hi-hats, while “Hipster Crack” anchors grinding synth bleeps and a raw guitar figure with a bulldozing beat that might be the album's heaviest. Suave to its velvety core, “Cartoon Pornography” brings a jazz vibe and silken strings into its crackle-drenched orbit, all the better to sweeten its bottom-heavy flow. The crunk-styled banger “Mickey Mouse” snakes its way through a post-Dilla scrapheap filled with stuttering beats and soulful vocal fragments. To Kleine's credit, Madison Square Gardner dishes out one neck-snapper after another, with not a single one wearing out its welcome.March 2011