Guest Blogger - Data Transmission

Bibio – 'Light Sleep' [Warp]



Bibio’s new album Mind Bokeh has been one of the year’s highlights so far, and is sure to crop up in a lot of people’s end of year lists. It’s one of those records that you can’t really put your finger on. Someone asks you ‘what’s it like?’ and you’re left fumbling for words somehow.



What does run through the album though is a sense of sunny optimism, and its release has timed perfectly with the advent of summer. This is one of the record’s highlights, a beatless, cute, summery funk jam with some absolutely adorable squealing synths.



It’s like Air making love to Lenny Kravitz, as seen through the prism of chillwave.





James Pants – 'Kathleen' [Stones Throw]



Tyler, The Creator – who I am utterly obsessed with right now – described James Pants in a recent interview thusly: “he’s awesome, he’s white, and he makes real music” - quite.



This follows on nicely from the Bibio track, another wonderfully seductive bit of summer charm driven by slap bass and Pants’ breezy, breathless vocals.



It is taken from his new album for Peanut Butter Wolf’s legendary hip-hop, beats and then-some LA imprint Stones Throw.





Tyler, The Creator – Yonkers [XL Recordings]



If you don’t know about delinquent LA rap crew Odd Future and their gruff voiced figurehead Tyler, you are advised to ‘get to know’.



XL have continued their infallible and impossible to predict A&R policy by signing his new solo album, but in the meantime you can get his and his crew’s various mixtapes and albums for free from their website.



This is the rawest slice of hip-hop I’ve heard since the ‘90s probably. Sick rhymes, an incredible video and terrifying production – utterly addictive.



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Many thanks to Ben, until recently the editor of Data Transmission and who continues to look after the podcast. Listen to the show on Friday evening between 7-9pm to hear him talk about these tracks and play one of them in full.