At the rapid rate Brooklyn’s multi-gifted MeLo-X puts out music (of good quality, no less), we’re just gonna go ahead and put it out there that dude is just super-human.

Only a few weeks after pumping out his extraordinary GOD:LoFi EP, X has already moved on to prepping the release of his next project, GOD:HiFi, a mini-collection slated to drop this June. And kicking off the set is the Abjo-produced “Mojitos and Little Dragon”, a summer-friendly electric relaxation piece that celebrates the calming benefits of its enticing titular alcohol/ music combination while showcasing MeLo’s always refreshing, and always vibrant, creative eclecticism.

Lean all you want on the track’s smooved-out sung elements (complete with a bit of Little Dragon/ “Ritual Union”-riffing) and sleek, electro-tribal soul production sheen for your chill session needs, but don’t get so comfy you end up sleeping on the rapped verses, in which MeLo attacks AbJo’s crackling percussion and itchy futuro-synth squiggles with a mean, relentlessly rat-a-tat flow filled to the brim with doper-than-your-average lyrical b-boy-ism.

It appears by year’s end, Kendrick Lamar will have collaborated with just about everybody.

A little over a week after teaming up with Solange on “Looks Good With Trouble”, the next stop on Lamar’s wildly unpredictable 2013 Tour Through Everybody Else’s Songs finds him sharing a cut with Danish blue-eyed soul act Quadron, folding in quite comfortably within the soft and sensual R&B seduction of the act’s newest offering “Better Off”.

Despite the track’s simmering, jazz-baked groove (love the muted horns!!) lending “Better Off” a late-night romantic air though, the song centers on a theme far less upbeat, finding Coco O. and Lamar both ruminating over the slow dissolution of a relationship: “I’m better off without you,” she snaps; “Cupid shot me in the dark, stupid I didn’t play my part,” he frets.

Still, despite the union crumbling before they’re eyes, one gets the feeling that both halves of this coupling aren’t yet ready to completely put this situation in their respective rear-views, with certain aching confessions in the lyrics and the track’s sexy luster working to help convey a magnetic chemistry the two share that’s perhaps a little too strong for them to let go of each other so easily.

Check out the track (from Quadron’s June 4th-due Avalanche) below, then continue to satisfy your Kendrick needs by planting a couple ears on his Black Hippy crew’s spin on controversial Rocko hit “U.O.E.N.O.” that, unsurprisingly, makes the best use of Childish Major‘s woozy production yet.

When it comes to Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, the Seattle rapper/ producer duo have pretty much been the Music Industry Story of The Year from late last summer and beyond, their sudden rise from indie rap heroes to mainstream pop dominators thanks to back-to-back chart topping mega-smashes “Thrift Shop” and “Can’t Hold Us” making them an inescapable, and seemingly unbeatable, Top 40 sensation as well as inspiration for so many rappers on-the-come-up yearning for their own breakthrough.

All that said though, we’re sure we’re not alone in wishing we could go the rest of our lives (or at least a good week) without having to hear either one of those two singles, the suffocating ubiquity of both making any pleasures that were initially grasped from each records a far distant memory.

Enter Major Lazer though, giving us a reason to enjoy “Can’t Hold Us” anew for at least another month thanks to the much-needed injection of newness they bring with this freshly unveiled remix, a re-scrubbing that tricks out the current U.S. No. 1 with an energetic assault of club-aiming trap and reggae/ dancehall flavors and manages to underline the original’s best element–featured singer Ray Dalton‘s inspirational, clouds-peaking hook–with a new, wider-scaling coating of ear-wormy epicness.

Except for some ghostly murmurings, there really aren’t any vocals to be found in the first sixty seconds of newcomer Jimi Nxir‘s “Sensation”, yet never once does the record even edge into the realm of being boring, thanks to ever-busy Brooklyn multi-talent Melo-X putting in some serious production work with a mesmerizing groove made of somersaulting drums, strobe-y keyboard stabs and blips of electric guitar that could easily satisfy as a repeat-worthy recording all on its own.

Once the 21-year-old, NYC-based Nxir does enter the frame a little over a minute in though, teasingly flickering in and out of Melo’s otherworldly R&B shuffle to spill out a soulful (and quite D’Angelo-esque) “love at first sight” confessional brimming with the erotic heat of the most naughtiest desires, “Sensation”‘s level of excellence is elevated from breath-haltingly good to OMFG AMAZING!!!, instantly locking Jimi in as our new favorite mysterious R&B obsession and leaving us hoping that he and Melo’s uber-enticing next-level studio chemistry gets a couple more chances to shine come the arrival of his GXLD debut EP sometime this fall.

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Believe us, deeming something “floaty”, one of the most silliest and over-used descriptors of the music blogger lexicon, is about as annoying for us to write (again) as it is for you to see (again), but sometimes it really is just the perfectly succinct way to sum up a song.

Case in point, Portland indie duo Pure Bathing Culture‘s “Pendulum”, a chill, smoldering wonder that, fueled by Sarah Versprille’s ethereal coos and her and bandmate Dan Hindman’s lush bed of 80′s-indebted electro-pop gleam, seems to hover somewhere above the ground and below the clouds while emitting the same sort of calming, senses-massaging euphoria we usually can only achieve when marathon-watching old clips of Bob Ross’ The Joy of Painting on YouTube.

Hit play below and it’s very likely you won’t ever want to escape from its blanketing layers of dream-pop bliss ever again.

Look for Pure Bathing Culture’s full-length debut Moon Tides to drop August 20th on Partisan Records in the U.S. and August 19th via Memphis Industries in the UK.

You can go ahead and file Kid Masterpiece in the column of “Beatmakers Who Have No Interest In Ever Resting For Too Long”.

In the past week alone, the rising Montreal-based producer has added to his already fantastic 2013 portfolio with not just one but two stellar remixes, this time turning his focus to more recent R&B favorites.

Masterpiece’s take on the latest Jeremih single, Thumpy Johnson lead preview “All The Time”, lives up to his previously established affinity for seductive bedroom grooves by repainting the woozy nocturnal sex jam with a late ’90′s Timbaland-inspired brush; but most notable is the re-edit job he gives to MNEK’s cover of the Disclosure/ AlunaGeorge jam “White Noise”, his blending of MNEK’s soulful chops, a deeply throbbing house thump, and a cleverly utilized sample of Timmy Thomas’ spine-tingling ’70′s soul classic “Why Can’t We Live Together” giving the “White Noise” remake a haunting, deconstructed bossa-nova-meets-club sparseness deserving of being made into its own official single.

Though the reunited Goodie Mob have been popping up here and there with live gigs and one-off tracks since 2007, fans have had to endure the frustration of many promised release dates of their first group album since 2004′s Cee-Lo-less One Monkey Don’t Stop No Show coming and going with no full-length product to be found.

That effort, now entitled Age Against The Machine, is now set for an August 27th arrival, and while we won’t necessarily be holding our breath for an album that could very well end up getting pushed back again, it has produced a brand new track in the form of “Special Education”, a cut teaming the Mob up with Janelle Monae.

An ode to being unique that encourages to others the benefit of walking their own lane (“It’s kind of sad and it’s a shame, that everyone wants to be the same,” laments Monae on the hook), “Education” practices what it preaches production-wise thanks to its clattering, space-age twist on Southern-fried G-funk, but as tough as that beat and the Monae grab is, its hearing Khujo (“I eat nuclear waste and spit atomic bombs”), T-Mo, Big Gipp and (a rapping!!) Cee-Lo all together again on the same track spitting heat-rock rhymes that brings out the most satisfaction.

Thanks to his star turn on Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky”, public interest in a new solo project from Pharrell is no doubt peaking in the red right about now. Smartly looking to use that record’s worldwide-crushing momentum to his benefit, the distinctive-voiced hitmaker has issued out another goodie in the form of “Happy”, one of three tracks he has contributed to the June 18th-due Despicable Me 2 Soundtrack.

A sunny burst of clap-happy soul that further showcases Pharrell’s well-established love for the retro in its channeling of names like Ray Charles and Curtis Mayfield and fellow yester-year-adoring contemporaries Cee-Lo Green and Janelle Monae, “Happy” finds the Neptunes crooner polishing off his signature falsetto to celebrate the internal feel-good high that has him feeling like a “a room without a roof” and a “hot air balloon that can go to space”.

An interesting choice of words to illustrate his personal ride on cloud nine no doubt, but the track definitely gets its point across, its spirited, contagious bop and those deliciously stacked vocals on the chorus having the power to inject in the masses all the necessary elements to keep frowns upside down long after its left the speakers.

The original version of mysterious London duo Snakehips‘ “On & On” was pretty much A+ on it’s own, its sensual, electro(& Ciara-sample)-glazed R&B shimmer and guest star/ Aussie vocalist George Maple‘s lovely, effortless pipes equaling a relaxing hip hop-soul summer jam slow burn that made any attempt to remix the tune pointless, as such efforts would be bound to chip away at the song’s perfection…

…that is, apparently, unless the people doing the remixing would happen to be the lead act themselves.

Yes, having an artist remixing their own work would usually be the kind of head-scratching move deserving of its own file in the “Where They Do That At?” folder, but Snakehips not only do just that with this amusingly titled “Snakehips Edit” of a Snakehips tune, but ultimately end up creating something that kinda-sorta bests the original, slightly upping the track’s tempo bump and inviting in a near-unrecognizable sample of Change & Luther Vandross’ post-disco gem “Glow of Love” (known to most younger folks as the looped groove behind Janet Jackson’s 2001 No. 1 “All For You”) for an even sweeter serving of “On & On” that’s sure to get played (get ready to groan) “on and on” for the foreseeable future.

The latest in a long line of male/ female duo outfits unleashed in the past year to penetrate the blogosphere with a strong early buzz, Virginia duo Sunny & Gabe (vocalist/ writer Sunny Gicz and producer/ writer Gabe Niles) quickly make their mark as an act to watch with the sound of their newest release “Clouds”.

A striking slab of hazed-over indie pop-soul that feels like something carved out of a daydream, “Clouds” features a whole lot of everything going on in its near-seven minute frame, but the track’s blend of Gicz’ gorgeous vocal melodics and Niles’ densely layered, patchwork-like production (slyly aided along by a sample of Q-Tip’s “Breathe & Stop”) never once toes over the line into being overwhelming, its artsy soundbed instead managing to nestle into a soothing, Afro-rhythmic comfort zone that delightfully pitches the record as some sort of sibling record to Solange’s “Losing You” while all the while establishing itself as a must-have accompaniment for the lazy summer afternoons to come.

Look for Sunny & Gabe’s Free Candy project to drop sometime this summer.

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