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Kutmah's BLK/SMR is your anti-BBQ soundtrack. It's your summer is over, back to school funeral march. I meant that as a compliment.  I don't think I've ever covered anything by Kutmah on Syffal. He hardly needs the press. But this surprise beat record was just too good to not toss into the lion cage. Feast! In case you don't know, Kutmah was a staple in the early beat scene that would become the prolific Low End Theory and spawn international artists such as Daedalus and Flying Lotus and Gaslamp Killer. Basically he had a ham sammich in putting bass music on everybody's gay-dar. I'm pretty sure I don't have to break it down for you, but if you didn't know any of this, go do your homework, kid.  After being deported to the UK in...

Cars and Trains is an electronic folk outfit out of Portland, Oregon. If you don't know them or label Fake Four, Inc, it's time to order up an espresso because YOU BEEN FUCKING A SLEEP!  Cars and Trains conductor/chauffeur, Tom Filepp, has gifted us the first track ("Iris") off his new project, Dust, and it is immaculate. I'd eat off its toilet seat. I'd inject myself with it and lay in the park and forget there even was a world I was escaping. Dust is that painting hanging in a gallery that you stare at and stare at and despite your sobriety, it talks to you. Not in words, but in waves of information and rhythm and layers of sound. It seems melancholy....

When I hear a band for the first time, and (fuck goose pimples) I get a goose boner, I have to set aside time with the band without any outside influence to see if that boner was over what I was actually hearing or just a hope-boner. I got a hope-boner over a band a few years ago and before I had taken a moment with them I contacted them and called them amazing, only to finally listen to them and find all of the things I loved about them completely assumption based.  I needed to start vetting my boners bros.  A quiet room or a solo road trip or a pair of awesome fucking headphones while my kids try to kill each other, I needed one of those options to explore what initially gave me such a massive case of the holy shits. I needed this bandboner to actually be actual bros.  So I got the...

Guys, I like weird ass hip hop sometimes. And I like to eat sugar sandwiches while cutting out death threats to Bokeem Woodbine while listening to said weird ass hip hop. While curating my most recent opus to said Dead Presidents actor, I ran through the impressive collection of releases from Chicago group SLUDGE FACTORIE. Hit play below while crafting you're own letter to Mr. Woodbine. Talk about weird ass hip hop guys! No, seriously, talk about it! Now, you ass hats! Okay, are you taking about it? Good. So v8 TFD, the MC of the group (all production is handled by SYFFAL snuggle bunny Morbidly-O-Beats) is beyond crazy with his tangential word play, and stream of subconscious rhymes. Picture Dose One on LSD,...

I’m just going to be honest here. The first thing that caught my eye was this dude’s name. DOUG. That’s it, just DOUG. Not DOUG E. Fresh or Teach Me How to DOUGie. Just fucking capital fucking DOUG. One of my closest friend’s name is also Doug (not capitalized though) so I jokingly sent him an email stating that someone stole his rap name. Then I was like, well ok, let’s see what “DOUG” is all about. HOLY SHIT. DOUG just fucking schooled me bro. DOUG ain’t fucking around ok? Dude has this southern twang to his voice that sounds like Ludacris dipped in Outkast with a side of Yelawolf. DOUG’s voice sounds like it is lathered in lube....

BEFORE WE BEGIN BRO. SCROLL DOWN AND HIT PLAY BRO. YOU FEEL THAT IN YOUR UNDERCARRIAGE BRO? Whoever the fuck Big Jaw are, they have fucking rock testicles with fucking wifi they're so perfectly welcome in my face holes. JESUS BALLS ON A TURQUOISE CORSICA I WANT TO DRINK TECATE AND SPIN IN CIRCLES WHILE A CLEARANCE AISLE SPRINKLER SPRINKLES ME WITH WELL WATER TASTING WATER DROPLETS THAT REMIND ME OF OVERSEAS TRAVEL AND STOMACH UPSET. Big Jaw starts their six track album, Photophobia, with such insanely massive riffage, it's a wonder I even got past the first thirty seconds let alone the first fucking song. This shit feels like Foo Fighters gang raping the Black Keys while Helmet's Betty album spins in the background and everyone's got those Black...

I've said Busdriver is the Frank Zappa of Hellfyre. And Neitzche Cortez, its Captain Beefheart. For the sake of the game let's say Nocando is its Mick Jagger, Open Mike its Harry Nilsson, and Milo its Brian Eno. In my completely ridiculous opinion manufactured for the sake of my very own fucking entertainment, Sir William Red Thedford IV is Hellfyre Club's Ozzy Osbourne. It was either that or its Jim Jones. But Jim Jones wasn't nearly as acerbic, mordant, or fucking talented as WRTIV, koolaid or no koolaid. Ozzy, though, as godfather of snorting up lines of ants like cocaine and chomping off chiroptera heads, and attracting the devout parallels Thedford's contributions as the godfather of the, THANG THANG and the sole proprietor of the ThuggyCult...

I like good people. With citizens being blasted with gas and bullets and batons and journalists being beheaded and ransomed and a government seemingly operating on a second grade level with their ability to do anything about any of it, shit seems pretty fucked. It's easy to get discouraged...  But then I look around this big, bad city that I call home: full to the brim with vacuous wastoids and dick-riders, trend-fuckers, and deplorable moral characters. But in the words of Murs: There are still decent people making music! One of those good, if not great, people is the homie Blake aka Analog Dive. All adorable island-conceived vibes, Analog Dive might not be from LA originally, but the city is better off...

I dig inspiration. Most of the music I like feels like a beam of astral light shone down into the brain piece of the artist and art falls forth unto the world and into my considerably waxy ears (I'm trying to ween myself from q-tips) like a gift of a massage chair from Brookstone. A couple of weeks ago, I reviewed Graves33's instrumental record, Smoke Filled Rooms. One of the things, besides the hazed out production, was that the record was open for anybody who bought the release to use, albeit nonexclusively. When I say 'use', I mean on the soundtrack of your indie flick, as a beat for your bedroom mixtape, or to bring down the house at your cousin Rachel's wedding!  Enter Sammy Warm Hands. Also previously...

The best is ignoring your SYFFAL music submissions for four full months only to have 922 unread music submission emails and the fourth one you open has you fucking nodding like you were supposed to do so at the exact time you did so, so you did so to do so when you did so to fucking nod that head like yeaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Whoever the fuck this Palemen shit is? I WANT TO LIVE INSIDE OF ITS MOTHERBOARD, BROTHERBOARD. The fresh apple sampletinis this motherfucker be shakins over his taut gnartender shoulder just the right amount of times before servins is just fucking disgusting. The genre of electronic instrumental is either an excuse to space out or an invitation to concentrate, but I've never had one start playing in my headphones that immediately begs me to wiggle my toes...