I don’t know what it is about artists based in New York City and summer jams; maybe east coasters just appreciate their few months of warm weather in a way we native Californians never will.

At any rate, Brooklyn producer Brilliant My Boy is back with another hotter, and it’s pure slinky, sweaty summer sex. Go outside, crank it up.

Download: Brilliant My Boy – Party Secrets

This past Saturday, while on vacation in California I took a side trip up to Los Angeles to hang out with #OTG’s SoCal correspondent, Perhansa. His plan for the day was to go to Brokechella, an all day music festival and art party, “done in the spirit of the festival none of us could afford.”

Put on by cARTEL, a collaborative arts and performing group, the event was held in a warehouse in an industrial section south of downtown. Walking past graffitied up buildings and the dried out L.A. River, I couldn’t help but feel that I was way more “off the grid” than at any time during Gathering of the Juggalos.

Negin Singh, Artistic Director for cARTEL, explained that when they put on Brokechella last year they had accidentally booked it the same weekend as Coachella. This year they decided to simply embrace that small mistake, knowing that plenty in the LA scene would be  unable to afford the $300 festival.

The event itself featured non-stop music on two stages, one inside for the ten bands playing and one outside in a long alleyway for the nonstop retinue of DJs. The outside stage definitely became the highlight for Perhansa and I. As the sun went down the whole alley became a big dance party, comparable only to the raging-90′s raves I never went to.

A personal highlight for me was DJ Smiles, who caught my attention initially when I noticed his gold shoes and they reminded me of Danny Brown.

All photos by Perhansa Skallerup

You gotta love when artists are so compelled to create that even while their main bands are between albums, the individual members are still cranking out tunes. Deerhunter dropped Halcyon Digest (my favorite album of 2010) and last year brought us another offering from frontman Bradford Cox’s solo project, Atlas Sound. Now that we’re yet another year past that, it looks like it’s time for the other creative force behind Deerhunter, Lockett Pundt, to show us some love.

While Bradford is the guy getting (demanding?) the most attention, Lockett seems to be the man behind some of the more expansive, blissed out Deerhunter moments. Anyone remember “Desire Lines“? Yeah. Exactly. Spooky Action At A Distance is full of amber tinged guitar washes — including the sadly hopeful “Dusty Rhoads” and the late night sparkle on “Eveningness” — but the most compelling cut has to be “Monoliths.” The track revs up with a siren-like guitar that just doesn’t quit while Lockett reassures us that ‘one of these days, he’ll be around.’ There’s just something about repetitive quirks that, instead of being annoying, only provide a focal point for the rest of the song to branch out from. So here’s to all the side projects in the world. May they continue to facilitate artistic experimentation, alleviate band tensions, and drop us a track for the playlist once in awhile.

Download: Lotus Plaza – Monoliths

Listen to What Else Is There?’s 2012 song playlist on Spotify and video playlist on YouTube.

After taking a hiatus from live shows to work on their upcoming album, Matt Ten Clay and The Howlers played Mulligan’s Pub in Grand Rapids, MI this week. Watch for their new EP to be released in May!

Photos by Jake Sebastian

Bear In Heaven made a few buzzwaves back in ’09 with their second album, but listening to Beast Rest Forth Mouth was always a pretty frustrating experience for me. Almost every track started out as an alluring, atmospheric cloud but by the end of the song I would be fighting off waves of boredom. It’s a shame when a band is able to create an intriguing sound but is unable to piece together a compelling song with it.

While I can’t say they’ve fixed this problem entirely on I Love You, It’s Cool, Bear In Heaven have finally managed to keep my eyebrows raised through an entire track. Right as “Sinful Nature” starts out you can tell it’s not built like most other BiH offerings as we’re introduced to a heavy wash of synths along with the usual reverb laced guitars. The instruments ebb and flow as they circle around Jon Philpot’s voice and the constant shimmering effects make for a pretty psychedelic venture. Finally, instead of letting the chorus grow stale the band decides to crank up the intensity on the fluttering synths as they bring them around a few more times. It’s kind of funny, Jon keeps repeating “It’s just a haze” on one of the few Bear In Heaven tracks that’s actually much more than that.

Download: Bear In Heaven – Sinful Nature

Listen to What Else Is There?’s 2012 song playlist on Spotify and video playlist on YouTube.

Photo: Ragnar Schmuck Studio

For years, the German duo Modeselektor has been refining their genre-bending brand of minimalist-hip hop-techno, creating in the process several increasingly great albums. With their latest, 2011′s Monkeytown, Gernot Bronsert and Sebastian Szary continue this tradition by delivering their most coherent and well-crafted album to date.

Modeselektor is something of a rarity amid the current crop of buzzed-about electronic artists, many of whom are being hyped as the next big thing before they’ve even unboxed their Macbook Pros–or at least released something other than a single padded with remixes. After 15 years of making music together, Bronsert and Szary have developed not only buzz, but a mature and nuanced sound that grows and evolves with each release. While there is a strong case to be made that the sort of short-but-frequent, single-oriented, all-killer-no-filler EPs currently on the rise in electronic music have generally improved the genre, it’s nice to know that there are still artists making albums that work as a whole, rather than simply a collection of singles. As with M83′s Hurry Up We’re Dreaming, it’s clear that Monkeytown is the product of experience–an artistic pinnacle that will survive electronic music’s current fads and remain a fresh, listenable album for years to come.

Fresh off an excellent performance at the first weekend of Coachella 2012, Modeselektor will be playing with support from Egyptrixx at The Metro in Chicago this Saturday, April 21 before heading back to the desert for Coachella’s second weekend. Go here for tickets and further information.

San Francisco’s 5th annual Outside Lands Music Festival lineup was announced today, and while I’m not too sure what MC Hammer has to do with the festival this year, the video is still pretty darn funny.

As usual, the lineup seems to have all the basis covered. Legends Neil Young and Stevie Wonder will be the old guard holding things down. Jack White will be hot off his new album Blunderbuss and the elusive Beck will be making one of just a few appearances this year. Metallica and Foo Fighters will be around for people who like their guitars loud. Skrillex, Justice and Wolfgang Gartner for the EDM-kids. Big Boi, Reggie Watts and #offthegrid darlings Die Antwoord for the hip-hop heads. Local underdogs Thee Oh Sees will obviously be there playing in a time slot that’s way too early. And, of course, the smattering of hipster fare that will be rounding things out includes Sigur Ros, Regina Spektor, Passion Pit, Andrew Bird, Explosions In The Sky, Santigold, Fitz And The Tantrums, Portugal. The Man, Dr. Dog, Washed Out, Alabama Shakes, Tame Impala, YACHT, Tennis and White Denim.

The festival takes place in San Francisco’s legendary Golden Gate Park and this year it falls on August 10th – 12th. The full lineup can be found below. For tickets and other info, visit www.sfoutsidelands.com and be sure to stay tuned to offthegrid for full coverage later this summer.

On Saturday Troy Dogg and I rolled the cutty an hour outside of LA to the NOS Events Center in San Bernardino for the Paid Dues Independent Hip-Hop festival. With only one press pass we had to pull some slight of hand at the gates to get both of us in but the CEC crew was clueless and once we got in we rolled VIP. Somehow the grip of Cheezzy Kush from the dispensary held out and by the time Hieroglyphics went on stage the whole crowd was floating several inches off of the ground. Troy Dogg couldn’t take Odd Future’s “teeny bopper bullshit” and split to the Dues Paid stage to catch DJ Quick but I stuck around long to get hit from a flying hamburger cooked and thrown from stage. Maybe next year we’ll make it in time for an early afternoon Wu-Tang set.

While not technically the first song on the album (that honor would fall on the aptly named track “Introduction”), “Hail Bop” is the first real tune on Django Django‘s self titled debut and it does everything that an opening cut should. Its pulsing synths, blood pumping drums, and ascending chords immediately draw us in and set the tone for an album that’s able to stay full of engaging ideas while meandering in quite a few directions. The glitchy chorus on “Default“, the mysterious desert mantra on “Firewater” and the ‘got to get to know – got to get to know – know you – know you’ chant on “Zumm Zumm” all point toward signs that these Brits aren’t fucking around. The band has drawn comparisons to The Beta Band (and not just because they share a pair of siblings) and with such a strong debut album, I would not be disappointed if these guys were able to pick up that electro-folk/brit-pop cult torch and run with it.

Download: Django Django – Hail Bop

Listen to What Else Is There?’s 2012 song playlist on Spotify and video playlist on YouTube.

There are plenty of reasons why “Black Tin Box” is so good at doing that standy thing to neck hairs — the muffled steel drums, Andrew Wyatt’s filter heavy voice and chilling, wavering theremin synths. However, nothing propels “Black Tin Box” forward more than those drums. They first appear in the background, but as the song progresses they seem to know exactly when to swiftly pop out and drop some contrast into the dark moodscape, just before slinking back into the distance for Lykke Li’s guest spot. It’s not often that percussion winds up being the highlight of a song, but in Miike’s co-opted nursery rhyme, it makes perfect sense.

Download: Miike Snow – Black Tin Box

Listen to What Else Is There?’s 2012 song playlist on Spotify and video playlist on YouTube.