For those of you who missed their first go around back in January, the Chicago-based trio Orchard Lounge have kindly posted their 4 hour set on SoundCloud and it’s just as good as we remembered. Tech house, deep house and disco, oh my!

Refresh your memory or get familiar with their sound as OL prepares for their triumphant return to U Street Music Hall on April 28th for BLISS. Grab your tickets here. And check out our interview with Ben Silver of Orchard Lounge.

Orchard Lounge @ U Street Music Hall (1-11-12)

South by Southwest is a week of performances by cutting-edge underground artists, potpourris of paper-based entry wristbands, and getting to know Texas’ notoriously weird city. Even to someone like myself who’s experienced two CMJs, and having worked at a college radio station for the past four years and thinking I know music, SXSW has proven me floored as the next level of music festival. The showcase features a range of artists, from dystopian midwestern folk rockers to DC-originated moombahton DJs.

Taking place every spring in Austin, Texas, the city transforms itself into a fantasy world for a week, flooding the city with musicians, journalists, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, and loyal followers and fans. Locals also have a strong presence at SXSW, a few Austinites I met were St. Edwards students and were generally enthusiastic about having artists from across the globe come to them. Not to say Austin is a city at all lacking musical culture. Famously, Austin is also known for PBS Show “Austin City Limits,” which, since broadcasting on national television since 1976, has opened up Austin’s entertainment draw to the rest of the nation. During South By, Austin locales are rented out for the week and taken over by artistic collectives, record companies, and American companies to further industry connections. The venues and bars of the city of Austin open their doors, promoters standing outside vouching for all passerbys to see “the next big band.” Although its a lot for anyone to absorb in a week, I’m going to guide you through a number of amazing acts who should be worthy of your attention in 2012.

Keep reading…

Nacey’s bootleg remix of the already beautifully composed Game of Thrones’ theme, adds a wintry touch and militant drum line to the symphonically combative and sorrowful anthem.

“Game of Thrones Bootleg” is available for streaming and free download below.

Edits and re-works of classic disco and soul tracks are popping up all over the web in 2012 and one person we urge you to look out for is a producer from Belarus known as Funkyjaws. He holds down a low key profile (doesn’t own a personal Facebook account and his tweets are private) but don’t let that sway you from tapping into his recent edit collection. The man flat out gets the concept of adding flavor to tracks without overpowering them or taking away their identity. Just look at what he did with this soulful, funked-out Barry White classic:

Barry White – Playing Your Game, Baby (Funkyjaws Re-work)

Funkyjaws recently jumped into some original production with the release of his Introduction LP on Bandcamp. The ten track journey takes us through a fluid mixture of jazz, soul and hip-hop. It’s also available for free download. Check it out below…

Alex Krüger – better known as Tigerskin/Dub Taylor/Korsakow – most recently (and very generously) uploaded Psychoplasma - a nine-track LP recorded in Berlin between the years of ’94-’96 via his ambient/electronic project with Jan Gabler, Psycho Plasma. This material was originally only available through the limited amount of CD copies that were released by Futurepop Recordings in 1996.

The album includes tracks like “Künstliche Freiheit”; a harsh fusion of sounds ranging from mechanical squelches, bubble popping and repetitive drones to flickering metallic prisms that can only be reminiscent of what interstellar communication might sound like – to slightly more accessible material like “Wellensittich”;  a celestial nature tribute that delivers layering echoes of clapping woodblocks in company with reoccurring animalistic howling and a strong, pulsating beat that softens and balances the sounds of piercing tweets and chirps.

The collection communicates a soundtrack that will both soothe and disturb. Further exploration of Psychoplasma is available below for streaming and free download.