mixtape maestro (2.0)

Portland, Oregon’s Moxie Black (rapper/ vocalist iLLAJ and producer Dekk) aren’t re-writing any rules as far as their post-808s & Heartbreak/ Rebirth/ The E.N.D. indie electro-hip-pop sound goes, but if one is searching for something new to soundtrack their final days of summer to, they’ll have plenty of addictive gems to choose from in the group’s new mixtape How Did This Happen?, an eleven track collection of hipster-hued, ride-friendly feel-good.

Early leak “So Much Better” reigns at the project’s finest. Based on a blog-baiting pairing of driving, new wave guitars and Auto-Tuned rap-singing, the track is insanely catchy, and quite amusing in it’s detailing of iLLAJ struggles to cope after seeing his ex-girlfriend enter the same club as him with a new dude on his arm (“I’m downing all the bottle/ Raging like full throttle/ And I never want to see her again”).

Check out the jam, alongside their remix of Phoenix’ “1901″ (re-titled “2901″), below; pick up the entirety of How Did This Happen? over at DJBooth.net.

Moxie Black – So Much Better

Moxie Black – 2901 (feat. Phoenix)

“She won’t be waiting/ You’re lost but she’s found”? “Helpful is hurtful when life’s inside out”? “Know what you’re building will fall to the ground”?

With cryptically depressing lyrics like these, Portland, Oregon indie-folk band Weinland‘s “I’m Sure It Helps” may not seem to be the most uplifting song choice, but damn if the melancholic beauty brought forth in the song’s gorgeous, woodsy twang and the hushed, plaintive delivery spewing from behind the thick beard of lead singer/ guitarist’s Adam Shearer aren’t the most soothing marriage of sounds to chill back to when hiding away from the autumn cold.

Pair those elements up with a visually stunning, and quite tender, semi-computer animated video that finds them stare down a herd of buffalo (who they eventually befriend and share a campfire with), and this 2009 break-out band triumphantly succeed in stealing away our hearts.

From their latest album, Breaks In The Sun.

Not in the mood for the history lesson that themes Portland, Oregon indie pop five-piece The Dimes latest EP New England, a four-song set revolving around important Bostonion subjects like the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator and American Red Cross founder Clara Barton? That’s fine, since one mustn’t have had to pay attention in class to be able to fully enjoy this endearing mini-collection.

All that’s really required is an appreciation for cotton-soft male vocals and lush, acoustic-folk musical frames, two elements that keep New England at an evenly pleasant, dream-like level the entire way through.

Our favorites? Opener “The Liberator”, a demure lil’ strum-along highlighted by the bandmember’s mellowed harmonies and wiggly mandolin (and what sounds like accordion) accents (catch a live rehearsal performance of the tune below); and “Watching The Wheels”, a sublimely tenderized cover of John Lennon’s poignant 1980 ode to the pleasures of domesticity over superstar fame that’s still as tearjerking as when it premiered nearly thirty years ago.

For more info and music from The Dimes, head on over to their blog. Their next full-length is slated for an August release.

DL: “The Liberator” (alt)

DL: “Watching The Wheels (John Lennon Cover)” (alt)

It’s understandable why longtime Gossip fans might be a little concerned after hearing the now-Portland-based band’s new single, “Heavy Cross”: with it’s semi-polished dance-rock thrust and tinge of disco, it has very little in common with the shaggy blues-rock that defined their earlier output. But damn if it still isn’t an epic mind-blower that launches their new major label-backed, Rick Rubin-produced era on an exciting note.

It’s slow-build intro of tightly-wound guitar, starry-eyed keyboard notes and Beth Ditto’s wailing of “a cruel, cruel world” kicks things off thrillingly, but once it’s main groove enters the picture a minute of the way in, an explosion of twitchy riffage and Beth’s eruption-like testifying, “Cross” grabs firm hold over your entire body and refuses to let go, beating you over the heard with it’s Stevie Nicks-ish fireworks until you have no choice but to let loose and pull out your best strut-shimmy.

If nothing else, after months of having so many tiny-voiced, electro-pop pixie chicks make us shake what our mother’s gave us, it’s simply exhilarating to be blasted across the fact with the super-sized pipes of Ditto on a ferocious dance charmer like this.

Catch the “maybe-or-maybe-not” official video of “Cross”, followed by an offering of the spazzy, Black Lights-helmed remix, below.

“Heavy Cross”‘ parent album, Music For Men, arrives June 22nd.

DL: “Heavy Cross (Black Lights Remix)” (alt)

On “Too Fake”, a indie-dance rock tune supplied by Portland, Oregon buzz band Hockey, it’s not entirely clear whether front-man Benjamin Grubin is either stricken with ADHD or peaks of drunken confusion as he stumbles his way through several doses of contradictory dialogue (“Everybody’s watching oh but nobody cares/ Oh wait…Nobody’s watching but everybody cares/…Oh whatever, talk to you later”).

What is firmly established, though, is that his sexy Mick Jagger-meets-Prince persona and “too cool for the room” ‘tude nicely flatters the track’s verse foundation of electro burbles and throbbing basslines; not to mention the way a certain Rod Stewart-rasp in his voice is exposed once “Fake”‘s thrilling new wave-built rush of a chorus arrives.

Grubin may not be able to figure out whether he’s “just too fake for this world” or just “got too much soul for this world” (or, somewhat confusingly, both), but with tracks like “Too Fake” and other MySpace-featured delights like “Song Away” and the slinky, disco-flirting romp “Work”, we get the sense that “this world” will definitely be better off as more and more people get in tune with what Hockey is cooking.

Look for their Mad Chaos LP to drop around May/ June.

Too Fake Music Video

DL: “Too Fake” (alt)