Squadda’s voice trails off as he contemplates life after the monetary change, but if beats was money, then North Oakland hip-hop duo Main Attrakionz would have so much you could find them setting piles of their cash ablaze like The Joker. Not that money is the end-game for Charles Glover a.k.a. “Squadda Bambino” or Demondre “MondreM.A.N” Grice. Both freshly 21, the two have been rapping since they were 12; consider their journey the anti Lil’ Bow Wow.

In 2002 as seventh graders at Oakland’s Carter Middle School, which is no longer, Mondre met Squadda cutting classes. That led to recording their first track – for fun on a Cassio karaoke recorder – over “In Da Club”, which was at that time a chart topper. It makes sense for two rappers raised in the 90s. Something about rapping with one another clicked, and the two have been brothers in the game ever since. The two tried their hand as kid rappers under the name Cash Out Soldiers, but labels didn’t see value in a group that had no big name rap relative or mentor. That couldn’t stop the pursuit of passion. Trophies from talent shows adorn a shelf at Mondre’s home. Those talent shows led to the next era of their careers, one that would usher in Main Attrakionz, and see the creation of Green Ova, the group of which they are two of the five members, after they met fellow Oakland rapper Shady Blaze.

With beats from Youtube and CD samples made on their laptop, and a home recording booth fashioned from a foam-lined closet, their “Lo-Fi” sound was born. Now days anyone can hop on garage band, or download free and probably pirated software, and try to make rap easily, but trying to be great isn’t easy. What their early hip-hop MacGyver act showed was a dedication to their sound and style that is still evolving but familiar on their newest album, Bossalinis & Fooliyones. A dedication and passion to true style, unique style, is an important step for young artists; making the jump from imitator, imposter and faker, to creator. Check out 2011 songs like “Legion of Doom” or “Shining Everytime”, the latter a track over Clams Casino – considered by many one of the best producers in raps new hazy meets syrupy “Cloud” movement – and you can hear the freshness.

Don’t let Mondre fool you when he says Main Attrakionz doesn’t rap about deeper issues. Just because the duo is more focused on codeine than congress doesn’t make Main Attrakionz shallow rappers. Their music is a far cry from what Squadda sees as the main stream, or what many of us know as Pit Bull. By being true to their roots Main Attrakionz is thought provoking without having to force it. The Tupac quote about a rose growing from between cracks in the sidewalk applies here.

Regardless of where the road ends for Main Attrakionz, they are relevant as voices of Oakland, and while Mondre and Squadda still may be in search of their first hit single, they are getting closer with every day and every EP. Maybe its foundation is just waiting for them in an inbox, in an unread e-mail. Maybe someday soon, beats will be money.

It’s been a little while since we’ve gotten new material from QM friends PAPA. The Los Angeles band who played one of our shows earlier this year have been hard at work on their upcoming album, and the first of it hit “The Web” today (the internet, I mean the internet). “Put Me To Work” continues the sort of propellant energy from songs like “I Am The Lion King,” steadied by the cool of Darren Weiss’s even-tempered vocals. There’s still a bit of raw shape to their performance, a little roughness around the edges of a bright-eyed underdog on the brink of it all, still very much coming into its own. To me, they sound a lot like Los Angeles.

Look out for their debut full-length in the new year. Grab the track below

Patrick Stickles has bold bones to pick. Endlessly moaning on 2010’s The Monitor in lament over the sediment of Civil War, the Titus Andronicus frontman now uses this most recent release to hone in on the micro-level conflicts that torment himself and his immediate surroundings. The brutality of truth and blunt cynicism that Local Business abides by is a testament to Stickles’s undying investment in calling attention to all things shitty, with a strained throat that throbs in agonizing helplessness.

Because desperation is nothing new to Titus, the album seeks refreshment in its riffing nods to previously unexplored staples of rock phenomena. Hence the shameless halftime breakdowns that undercut these pinchy guitar solos compliments of what sounds like Joe Satriani’s high school protege in “My Eating Disorder” and elsewhere. Fairly early on in the record, it becomes obvious that with Monitor tracks like “Titus Andronicus Forever” and “Theme From ‘Cheers’,” the bad news from New Jersey was only scratching the surface of how kitschy they’re willing to get.

Perhaps it’s a symptom of the unrelentingly positive critical response met by The Monitor that convinced the band of their need to refuse expectations and wow with a new bag of tricks. Sadly, the sac is torn. Local Business simply can’t keep either the strictly regimented parades of ceaseless energetics that made The Monitor memorable, nor this newfound fascination with midlevel aesthetics of harmonic hygiene afloat. What’s offered is a respectably thought-out, but poorly orchestrated vision of where Stickles and the guys felt the need to go (call it the Kid A syndrome or arrested Beatles nostalgia). It’s really a task that should be reserved for bands that have solidified both their intentions and their means of stating them well enough to move carefully and craftily into new territory. Despite The Monitor’s hundred-star summer, taking on the challenge of making corny cool, was too lofty a task.

It’s this hodgepodging of rock approach that steals the desired uniformity and solid affective power that could have made Local Business great. These guys clearly know how to rock like it’s decades ago, but putting their power to use with tiring throwaways of repetitive gestures like “(I Am The) Electric Man” and “Tried To Quit Smoking” take the wreck-factor out of listening for fun. Closing with the “Smoking” somber, circa blues retakes as far back as the fifties, with the ridiculously punchy gimmicks of “Food Fight” not far behind, listeners are left with lacking in a dozen directions.

When Stickles actually gets the chance to calm his band’s frantic pick and choosing with the lyrics he’s made himself known for, there’s some amount of amicably unrelenting mopiness that attests to what there is to love about Titus Andronicus. As stubborn as one might expect from a dirty dude with some Bright Eyes in him, he asserts “Okay I think by now we’ve established everything is inherently worthless, and there’s nothin’ in the universe with any kind of objective purpose.” This brand of flagrancy, especially for the first words on an opening track, is what’s endearing about Stickles and his Shakespeare-loving henchmen.

His kinship with listeners, passion for cynicism and attempted lit major lingo as backed by a rowdy yet unarguably capable crew, is the Titus Andronicus that needed to be more earnestly flushed out after The Monitor. With “Ecce Homo” as opener, and most notably “In A Small Body,” the record retains this young eagerness to say and play as much as a single rock song will allow. Elsewhere, there’s a lot left hanging behind the holler.

Still definitively in their spotlight, the band should have let the satisfying runoff from their 2010 sweetheart-maker do most of the talking for this bulky record. There’s a lot to be desired in terms of trusting where their ears lie and how to maintain character as a group floating between peoples’ punk and the scraps of indie rock. Local Business simply tries too hard to make a point about what these guys are capable of eclectically, without chomping at the bit toward any single grievance the way a guy with bulimia and plenty of eloquent self-awareness ought to. There’s some value in this record as a statement against the reverberant drowning of rock as we knew it, but for Titus Andronicus followers, Local Business is wrought with far too much tumultuous teasing.

You know a video for a song is good when you can no longer separate rolling image from melody after exposure. Like an outbreak (not the scary monkeys) of musical disease, it infests every future connotation of the tune in your head, expanding a context beyond the sound. An already memorable track, UK production duo Disclosure just released an accompany video to “Latch” this week.

They’ve crafted its visual counterpart, a spellbinding brush with the near future, set against all the sensual intrigue of a downtown loft party without all the weird actual encounters of a warehouse. Close talking, private elevators, and darkened, brick-walled rooms help bring out the intimacy at its thumping core, with a focus on the touch of clasped hands after the rush of catching a stranger’s eye. Tension builds through anticipatory verses that burst both visually and sonically at Sam Smith’s strutting chorus, while cameras spin a web of magic until you’re punch-drunk love on the night that seems to be happening to you, in a good way.

This is their first release since signing to PMR Records (home to fellow QM favorite Jessie Ware), so keep on the lookout for more output in the coming months.

Now I’ve got you in my space, I won’t let go of you/ I’ve got you shackled in my embrace, I’m latching on to you”

MØ is 23-year-old Copenhagen native who makes punchy electropop that’s already been compared to Grimes, and fellow Scandinavian Lykke Li. “Pilgrim” is brooding and unapologetic, carried by well-placed horns and supportive synths that can’t overshadow her deep-belly vocals that feel like they’re burning a hole through your back pockets. It has some ominous progressions, but any dark tones are balanced by enough of a smart pop sensibility and clean production that will keep this one playing in your head on loop until her debut is out later this year. Check out “Pilgrim” below.

We’ve been fans of Rhye since their mysterious debut track “Open” came out of nowhere early this year. Well we now know a little bit more about the Los Angeles by way of Berlin duo Robin Hannibal and Mike Milosh, but it’s almost better keeping their shroud of mystery in tact behind the fleeting moods their songs inhabit. From “3 Days” to new single “The Fall,” they’ve developed a niche in trying to hold on to moments as they’re slipping through. Steady, heartbeat rhythms keep things intimate without being desperate, and strings always inject a classic awareness of the fickle nature of passing time. “Don’t slip away, my dear,” Milosh coos, but their songs, like the consuming relationships of which they sing, always end in a blur before you’re ready.

Their aptly-titled second EP The Fall will be out on Innovative Leisure October 9—check out the song and accompanying video below.

Robyn’s “Call Your Girlfriend” has incurred a staggering amount of cover versions. Perhaps it’s the earnest lyrics or simple chord progressions that lend themselves so beautifully to harmonies (exhibit A, exhibit B), but for whatever reason, the Swedish electropop song has shuffled its way off of the dance floor and into the kitchens and living rooms of countless Youtube troubadours (youtroubadours…consider it coined).

Los Angeles-based folk singer Javier Dunn portrays the song from a male perspective. “Call your boyfriend,” Dunn croons over a lilting acoustic guitar, replacing the original’s righteous urgency with a melancholy sense of defeat. This version of the story evokes a last-ditch effort to convince the singer’s beloved adulterer to leave the boyfriend in question. Though we usually don’t side with the third point of a love triangle, Dunn’s sweet voice and sincere delivery endow him with underdog status. And who doesn’t want to root for that?

Dunn’s EP Small Spaces is available now.

On an unusually active Thursday night at Oberlin College, I had the curious opportunity of sharing some words with Ariel Pink, currently on tour with his band Haunted Graffiti supporting their new record, Mature Themes. Pacing the sidewalk with impressive composure for a 34-year-old in a glittered blouse, the neon-haired Pink had some feisty things to say concerning his bratty persona, the LA music scene and life as a recent divorcee—but it’s not Ariel Pink’s facetious glam banter that needs to be said. It’s neuroscience and uh, Chinese food.

QM: The Mature Themes record is a lot more sculpted as far as structure and production values go, than a lot of the stuff you’ve put out earlier. I’m curious as to whether or not that’s a conscious intention on the part of you and the band to put out a product with more mass appeal.

AP: Yes. Absolutely, those things don’t happen by mistake. My earlier shit, that’s what happens by mistake.

QM: Do you feel like it’s possible that you’re alienating any of your old fans?

AP: They’re alienated anyway. Hopefully they’re over it, hopefully they’re onto new and better things like getting married and being yuppies like they should be.  

QM: A lot of the lyrical content on this new record makes you out to be very much a typical celebrity type, kind of bratty and promiscuous [he cackled]. I take it at least somewhat ironically, but I’m wondering if your life is at all the life of the rockstar that you make yourself out to be.

AP: Oh, well, I mean the life of a rockstar is really the life of every man. And it’s just a matter of time before you realize that. When your wife of eight years dumps you, then we’ll see how much of a rockstar you’ll be ok?

QM: Fair enough. So you grew up in Beverly Hills right?

AP: Uh huh.

QM: And now you live in Echo Park?

AP: Uh huh.

QM: So do you—[he cut me off]

AP: No. Neither. Yes. Yes, both.

QM: Do you identify more with either side of the city? Or would you say you’re half and half a product of both?

AP: No. I’m a product of the city, the city of Beverly Hills. The city of…LA, Hollywood. And uh, do I pit one against the other? No. They do that all by themselves. It’s just more…basically the line is cut down the middle. On the East side, the further East you go the cheaper it gets basically, until you hit like Riverside.

QM: So I’ve spoken to musicians in LA who say you are one of if not the most important person in that scene, in the alt. rock scene or whatever you want to call it.

AP: Alt. rock. Alt!

QM: Is that appropriate?

AP: No you have to enunciate, it’s Quit Mumbling.

QM: Alt.

AP: Alt! Rock.

QM: Yeah yeah.

AP: No I have never heard that I’m the prince of the alt. rock either, that’s a new one. I’ve heard prince of the lo-fi, I’ve heard prince of the glow-fi. I’ve heard prince of the hauntological hauntology. Hypnogogic crap. Hipster garbage. I’ve heard every last insult you could possibly hurl at me.

QM: My question is whether you take any personal investment in lesser known acts who are trying to make more of a uniform scene in LA, as opposed to the scattered mess—[I don’t finish]

AP: I hate scenes. I hate scenes, any scene that says that I am a member of it, you can definitely count me out. Except for my own scene, which is me. I am permanently a member, and I am permanently welcome in my own scene, which is me. That’s it.

QM: That’s a good place to be in. This is kind of a corny one, but do you think rock and roll is the best means of saying what needs to be said?

AP: No! I think neuroscience and computers and all that kind of stuff paved the way for the future. Maybe English is a good language to speak. Umm, Chinese food.

Read the full QM review of Mature Themes here.

Last night, Frank Ocean released (“dropped”) a non-album track via his Tumblr page that acts both lyrically and sonically as an epilogue to his recently praised album Channel Orange.

Though Ocean’s signature falsetto is nowhere to be found on “Blue Whale,” a song he raps instead of sings on, it’s still full of his corner-of-the-room thoughts, with a hopeful “life goes on” refrain to ease its digestion. His subtle, stream of consciousness style hints at seeds of issues (“My hometown flooded,” “How that gravel taste?/How you paid your medical bills?”) without imposing on the listener, all over a real pretty beat that takes it through its final enlightened minute, the first morning after mourning.

This life goes on, man, that’s one thing about it/ Life goes on, pimpin’, the wise don’t doubt it”