Today was beautiful, and tomorrow’s going to be too. Just roll the windows down and play this shit.

To be honest, I didn’t have very high hopes for a Sir Michael joint sans Chuck Inglish, but this is some seriously smooth shit. That beat drop at the beginning with “lay down the windows and I’m on one…” is actually really striking. On The Bake Sale, he certainly didn’t do much to change his reputation as the less-talented half of the Cool Kids, but there was certainly a marked improvement on Gone Fishing and some of his Tacklebox verses are definitely rewind-worthy.

Download: Mikey Rocks – “Bat Phone”

I don’t understand why this wasn’t on Pilot Talk, but whatever. The beat on this version sounds like a studio interpolation of the sample-based version that dropped a while back. I remember reading that Ski Beatz has had issues clearing a lot of the samples for 24-Hour Karate School, so instead of fighting expensive legal battles he’s just reworked the joints in question with the in-house band at DD172.

It wasn’t on the original tracklist, but according to Ski it’s going to be on the for-sale retail version that’s dropping on September 7th. Jet life.

I’ve never heard of Skeme, but this has an easy, head-nodding feel to it. Nothing too exciting here, just late summer evening cruise music. Reminds me a bit of CYNE, but this definitely knocks harder. From Skeme’s upcoming project Pistols and Palm Trees, which was supposed to drop in July but apparently didn’t.

Download: Skeme – “Don’t Lose Focus”

(via The Swaggatory)

Let’s forget, for a second, the pair of G.O.O.D. Music releases that are dropping on the same day, and indulge in the fantasy that Album of the Year might not be hyperbole:

Tronic was soul-melting fire from front to back, and the early leaks from this record have all been hot so, who knows? Add this to the fact that now-Twittering Kanye’s album (no longer titled Good Ass Job) and Big Sean’s debut are supposed to drop on the same day, and Septemer 14 is shaping up to be Christmas come early, Cudi or no Cudi. Of course, this is rap music we’re talking about here, so all of these albums will probably drop midway through 2011, after we’ve endured months of “behind the scenes” promo videos and re-hashed mixtapes with no new songs. Oh well, at least we’ll have Act II by then, right?

Download: Black Milk–”Welcome (Gotta Go)”

Download: Black Milk–”Don Cornelius”

Everyone’s favorite mashup duo is back with 25 more tongue-in-cheek blends of bloggable indie bands and southern rappers. Seriously, where do they find all these acapellas? As usual, there are more than a few clunkers (Toro Y Moi and Jay Electronica is a match made in the darkest corner of hell), but there’s something undeniably cool about hearing MF DOOM over the Flaming Lips. Highlights include “Beamer, Benz or Bentley” over Neon Indian’s “Mind Drips” (the only contribution from Juelz Santana: “AYE”), a version of Kanye’s verse on “Barry Bonds” that’s actually listenable, and Drake’s “Over” with the slowed-down, mournful march of Beach House’s “Walk in the Park.” Also, Weezy and Birdman over “Feel it All Around” would be nice if Lushlife hadn’t already murdered it.

Cop the whole tape here.

(via Hell is Other Hipsters)

You’re not a real blogger until you’ve done a Best Coast post or seven. I thought about writing a review for Crazy for You, but what’s the point? It’s one of the few records everyone seems to agree on, and it’s really no different from the sound of the steady stream of 7″ singles Bethany Consentino has been putting out for a while. It’s simple, it’s sunny with a tinge of heartbreak, and there’s lots and lots of dreamy reverb–the kind of record that takes you as close as you can get to a sun-soaked California beach in 1964 without actually closing your MacBook and flying back in time to California. No wonder bloggers love it so much.

I like a lot of the dude’s music, but I can’t say I’m too surprised. The timing of this is also pretty poor, with his recently-launched comeback attempt and heartfelt open letter to the world this past year. I know he pissed a lot of people off with the whole J Dilla scandal, but he seems to me like a genuinely honest and good (if slightly crazy and/or misunderstood) guy. And even those turned off by the whole pink polo, Sonic the Hedgehog business might admit the man is a talented producer.

(via RapRadar)

It’s a great moment, because it’s a new decade, and there’s the potential to find another way. Brazil has so much, in all areas . . . culturally there’s a new generation, and Lucio Maia said, ‘Let’s do it right now, because it’s a new decade. 2010 started things again.’ The new generation is hungry for news, information, for new conceptions, to rejuvenate what we need to do. And the new album can help with that — that’s our intention.

Continuing his Life Aquatic Sessions work, the album will be all covers, including Roy Ayers’ “Everybody Loves the Sunshine,” Kraftwerk’s “The Model,” Michael Jackson’s “Rock With You,” and some Brazilian songs. Sounds like a good excuse to brush up on your bossa nova. (And your “mangue beat,” for that matter).

You can read the full interview here.

If Supreme Clientele is the Illmatic of the ’00s (and I have no problem with that comparison), this record is its “N.Y. State of Mind.” It’s a strong contender for hardest beat of whole record (note: hardest, not necessarily best), and Ghost drops two splintering, rambling verses with a rapped hook in the middle as a breather. Of course, every beat on Supreme Clientele is a banger, and Ghost rips them all, but this one particularly reminds me of the way Nas destroyed the first real song on his debut.

(The drums, it should be noted, are taken from “Synthetic Substitution,” one of the most-sampled breaks of all time, by the great Melvin Bliss, who passed away today. R.I.P.)

Like Clay Purdom put it in Cokemachineglow’s decade wrap up, “Supreme Clientele is the sound of a man animated fully by this lightning—composed of it, his voice trebly with electricity, explaining the contours of each electric flash in the language that works for him, the stories that work for him.” Nowhere is that electricity more evident than on this record.

“We lay low glitter wax full bangles/
Priceless rolls, lay around the God get tangled”

Supreme Clientele was a genre-refining triumph, its vaguely Joyceian free-associative poesy predating the postmodernism commercialized by Cam’ron and Lil’ Wayne by half a decade. I’m just trying to string together words as beautifully dense and joyful as Ghost’s pen. So what’s in a name?