mixtape maestro (2.0)

“Dear Dictator”, the dark ‘n glammy first single from the justifiably buzzed-about L.A. indie pop outfit Saint Motel‘s 2009 introductory EP ForPlay (also featuring the very excellent “Butch”) was totally fine as it was, but we can’t help but be a tad bit more in love with this Sam Sparro-helmed remix, which recasts the tune into a sultry new wave-meets-electro-funk affair.

Suddenly we’ve developed an undying desire to have Mr. “Black & Gold” drop another album like now.

DL: “Dear Dictator (Sam Sparro Remix)” (alt)

Oh look, it’s in-box cleaning out time again.

Wale & Just Jack “Embers/ Good Girls (Phillip Martell Mash-Up Remix)”

For it’s first two-thirds, this mash-up concoction by ATL DJ Phillip Martell emerges quite effective in it’s enchanting blend of the acapella from Wale’s 2007 track “Good Girls” with a hyper-speed orchestral loop and sampled vocal snippets swiped from Just Jack’s ’09 UK hit “Embers”, but it’s in it’s final minute-and-a-half when the project truly blooms, thanks to Martell completely doing away with the JJ instrumental for a killer assault of electro-house pomp.

DL: “Embers/ Good Girls (Phillip Martell Mash-Up Remix)” (alt)

Aaliyah “One In A Million (Belief Remix)”

The third installment in L.A.-based producer Belief‘s on-going Aaliyah remix project
finds him taking on the late singer’s 1996 classic “One In A Million”, and while nothing could really come close to topping the way-ahead-of-it’s-time Y3K sonics Timbaland cooked up for the original, we’re digging the languid, neo-soul-ish incense vibe Belief brings here.

DL: “One In A Million (Belief Remix)” (alt)

Private “My Secret Lover”

First things first: Thomas Troelson, the main producer and lead singer dude of this Dutch dance-pop trio, looks a little bit freaky.

Once you get past his physical creepiness, though, you’ll likely be swept away by the pure ’80′s pop infectiousness on display in this single, an irresistible sugar packet of helium-voice mackadelics (“Girl take off your dress/ Let’s make this place a mess!!”), warped old-school B-boy-isms and glossy bubblegum-funk carved from the guilty pleasure-filled catalogue of Wham!.

DL: “My Secret Lover” (alt)

Tayma Loren featuring The-Dream “Tipsy”

This Detroit-born R&B newcomer‘s real-life brother Carlos “Los Da Mystro” McKinney has co-helmed some of the best The-Dream jams (“Shawty Is A 10″, “Rockin’ That Thing”, “Walkin On The Moon”, “My Love”), as well as hits for Usher (“Trading Places”), Trey Songz (“I Invented Sex”) and J. Holiday (“Bed”), so it’s only right that he would hook up his sister with a joint that’s just as smash-worthy.

Tayma’s debut single “Tipsy” oozes that signature Dream/ Mystro radio magic, from it’s light and lazy piano bounce to the quirky, echo vocal mini-hooks speckled throughout it. It’s most entertaining factor, however, lies in the humorous honesty of it lyrics’, which detail how a drunken, post-nightclub one night stand usually ends up being a regrettable moment in one’s life rather than the mind-blowing sexcapades event most R&B acts blow it up to be (“When you wake up/ It’s all fucked up”).

DL: “Tipsy” (alt)

Jack Splash has quietly made a name for himself over the past few years in his roles as singer, rapper, songwriter and producer.

Besides drawing raving acclaim for his contributions to Plantlife, a wildly entertaining, three-albums-deep funk outfit based out of L.A., he’s also hooked up some of the brightest talents in modern-day R&B (Alicia Keys, R. Kelly, John Legend, Raheem DeVaughn, Solange, Estelle, Jennifer Hudson, Jazmine Sullivan) with these amazingly lush sounds and classic-tinged romantic scripts steeped in the always-rewarding luster of yesteryear soul (credits include throwback-seasoned singles like Keys’ “Teenage Love Affair”, Legend’s “P.D.A.” and Solange’s “T.O.N.Y.”).

This year has the potential to be Jack’s true breakout year though, thanks to the premiere of his much-delayed solo debut, Technology And Love Might Save It All. But just in case you’re still not yet completely sold on why it should be a necessity for you to circle the May release date of the project (or, hell, are still scratching your head trying to figure out who dude is), we’ve gathered three previously unleashed cuts for your listening pleasure below. Promises you’ll be an instant fan after hearing them:

“I Could Have Loved You” featuring Missy Elliott & Jazmine Sullivan

-leaked to high praise last summer, this infectious four-on-the-floor delight finds the ladies and Splash in the midst of a flirtatious stand-off. “I could have loved you,” they tease in a buttery smoove R&B hook, but because they’re both already attached, they can only offer a naughty twirl on the dancefloor. With their mates nowhere in sight though, Jack isn’t fully convinced they’re telling the truth, inquiring in his best Prince voice, “If you gotta man at home/ Why you got them high heels on?”.

DL: “I Could Have Loved You” (alt)

“Ringtone” featuring R. Kelly & T-Pain

-here, Splash is once again on the prowl (“Baby I just wanna get with you/ In a most familiar way/ I don’t wanna cause a spectacle/ I just had to stop and say…”) and being flanked by a supporting cast of A-listers (T-Pain drops a rap verse, an Auto-Tuned Kellz provides the chorus); but the track’s most noteworthy element is it’s oddly meshed groove, a surprisingly effective combination of synth-R&B quirk and acoustic guitar sunniness

DL: “Ringtone” (alt)

“.38 Special” featuring Cee-Lo

-Splash’s latest leakage, from the forthcoming mixtape King of The Beats (due this week), re-teams him with The Heart Attack partner Cee-Lo, for an exquisite dishing of needly guitar funk, golden age mic braggadocio (“I ain’t talkin’ bout a gun/ My .38 special, I spit from my tongue…”) and the kind of soul-stirring Gnarls Barkley-ish hooks Cee handles so well.

DL: “.38 Special” (alt)

Sample some of Splash’s other creations via the widget below; pick up his last mixtape, Heir To The Throne, here.

When looking back at some of the best artist/ producer teamings in R&B and Pop music history, Timbaland and the late, great Aaliyah deserve to be recognized somewhere near the top of the pack. Though the singer didn’t have the biggest pipes, once her slinky, understated purr was interwoven into one of Tim’s mad scientist Y3K pop-funk sonics, the most incredible aural magic always seemed to happen. Hell, you could place any one of their joints next to a majority of what’s lodged on today’s Hot 100 list and their collaborations would still sound flyer, fresher and a million times more innovative.

When we got word that L.A. producer Belief (Murs, Jean Grae, C-Rayz Walz) was taking on a new remix project in which he would give some of Aaliyah’s classics some brand new flavor, we approached the results with much trepidation and our hands already palming the “Hell No” buzzer, just knowing that this dude’s “modern updating” would likely make Aaliyah & Timbaland’s greatest jams sound like some corny Lady Gaga knock-offs.

Much to our pleasant surprise though, the two re-imaginations that Belief have so far unleashed have quickly swatted away all traces of our initial pessimism (both involve enough genre-melding imagination to actually sound like beatscapes Aaliyah might have possibly considered taking on), birthing an excited anticipation for the premieres of his future Aaliyah Remix Project works in it’s place.

Take a listen/ peep the videos to Belief’s fantastic remixes of Aaliyah’s 2000 #1 “Try Again” (now bedazzled with summery synth blurbs, old school drum loops and a lil’ electric guitar rock sparkle) and her under-appreciated 2001 gem “We Need A Resolution” (re-configured with a tense, electro-R&B stomp that nicely compliments the lyrics’ relationship drama) below:

“Try Again (Belief Remix)”:

DL: “Try Again (Belief Remix)” (alt)

“We Need A Resolution (Belief Remix)”:

DL: “We Need A Resolution (Belief Remix)” (alt)

Los Angeles-based four-piece King Washington describe their music as “a throwback to when rock and roll was a songwriter’s game” and we couldn’t agree more after investing a few minutes of our time enjoying their pleasant brand of three-part male harmony blessed, ’60′s/ 70′s-influenced pop/ rock.

Locking onto easily accessible melodies and lyricism that will likely inspire many “Beatles-esque”-focused critical write-ups once their debut EP arrives next year, Washington make it seem like the past forty years in music never happened, mastering this sunny simplicity in their sound that comes across as oh-so-refreshing during a time when all new music that arises seem a little too desperate in their attempt to invent their own hyphen-heavy sub-genre.

Below, dig into the loose playfulness of “I Get By” or the sunshiny, doo-wop-like structuring of (our favorite) “Angela” (where lead vocalist/ rhythm guitarist Tyson Ritter’s voice reaches a desperate rasp as he longs for the titular woman to rescue him from the depressingly hum-drum existence he currently calls life), and take note of the feel-good high that washes over you when listening to them.

DL: “I Get By” (alt)

DL: “Angela” (alt)

After discovering Mariachi El Bronx via their gorgeously festive remake of Prince’s “I Would Die 4 U” from SPIN’s Purplish Rain tribute mixtape a while back, we were surprised to learn, after a couple seconds of Internet sleuthing, that MEB was not only this amazing band with an expert handling of the mariachi musical style (at least, what sounds like “expert handling” from our limited-knowledge-of-the-genre standpoint), but actually the alter-ego of The Bronx, a well-established hardcore punk band out of L.A.

And we thought we had heard it all.

The Bronx recently dropped the first album under this guise (entitled El Bronx) and to further hype the project, they’ve allowed a free downloading of album track “Quinceniera”, an tenderly crooned nugget about a night-creeping mystical Goddess that’s pleasantly built on a romancing sway of jolly Spanish guitars and soothing trumpet and violin contributions.

Pick up that freebie here, then sample the rest of the quite marvelous El Bronx album either through their MySpace or the Amazon widget below.

“I Would Die 4 U (Prince Cover)” (DL) (alt):

Demands for the returns of rifles; motorcycle jackets being slung out of windows; tossed-off disses and chorus pleas to “Stay away from me”. We don’t know what’s completely going on in the suspenseful scenario that “You Don’t Need No Doctor, Sugar” sketches, but one thing is made ultimately clear: we bow to it’s pop greatness.

The track comes from the upcoming self-titled EP by The Library, an up-and-coming dance-rock act out of Los Angeles, and it’s a definite treat for the ears. Polished with a neon-y synth gloss and featuring the soul-tinged vocal sweeps of frontman Court Alexander (requisite ridiculous critic hype-tag: “It’s like if Sam Sparro and Adam Levine morphed into one through some JJ Abrams-scripted sci-fi mishap and somehow became a new lead singer for The Killers!!”), this chugging, four-minute-plus number has the epic presence of something twice as long. But we’re not complaining, cause we can’t think of anything better than being wrapped in it’s disco-rock grandeur for extended lengths of time.

Peep a minute of The Library performing the song live, than snatch up the MP3 below (The Library EP is due March 10th via Feudal Records):

You Don’t Need No Doctor, Sugar

DL: “You Don’t Need No Doctor, Sugar” (alt)