This could be the biggest electronic music festival we've ever heard of. Starting Tuesday, September 23, the massive, 13-week event known as The Warehouse Project will present its fifth annual festival—monopolizing the many music venues and nightclubs of Manchester, England every weekend leading up to New Year's Day. Read more »
Funky dance-tune producer Munk (a.k.a. Gomma label head Mathias Modica) has a brand-new EP coming down the pipeline, following the release of the La Musica 12" in June. The new record, Mondo Vagabondo, is said to be five tracks of "sunny, romantic" house music flavored with bits of psychedelic rock, disco, electro, and other culturally rich genres. Read more »
One of London's many outstanding dubstep patrons, Silkie, has some pretty big plans in the works leading up to the release of his new sophomore album. Read more »
Earlier this year, both Seattle's curator of sublime ambiance, Rafael Anton Irisarri (a.k.a. The Sight Below, pictured above), and Berlin's heir to the minimal techno throne, Hendrik Weber (a.k.a. Pantha du Prince), released albums loved by those of us at XLR8R HQ. Read more »
Next week, Barcelona pop wizard El Guincho (a.k.a. Pablo Díaz-Reixa) will be unveiling his sophomore full-length, Pop Negro, on the Young Turks label. While his 2008 debut, Alegranza!, found Díaz-Reixa liberally sampling vintage tropicalia and Latin music, this time around he's crafting his own sounds, but his penchant for pop songwriting hasn't suffered in the least. Look for an in-depth conversation with El Guincho to appear on XLR8R in the weeks ahead, but in the meantime, Pop Negro will be streaming right here for the next two weeks. Read more »
Looks like The Orb's co-founder, Alex Paterson (pictured above, front and center), has been quite busy lately. A while back, the classic mixtape he made alongside Thomas Fehlmann for Coldcut's radio show back in 1991 was reintroduced to the world, and more recently, Paterson joined forces with Martin Glover (a.k.a. Youth) and Pink Floyd's David Gilmour on the forthcoming Metallic Spheres album. Read more »
Next week, legendary electronic music duo Underworld will be releasing Barking, its sixth studio album and first full-length in three years. The record was produced collaboratively, as Karl Hyde and Rick Smith wrote each of the songs and then sent them out to other artists for additional production and enhancement. The list of production co-conspirators includes Appleblim & Al Tourettes, Dubfire, Mark Knight & D. Ramirez, and even trance overlord Paul van Dyk, yet the album still retains Underworld's distinct aesthetic. Barking won't be officially released until Monday, September 13 via the Cooking Vinyl and Om labels, but you can listen to the entire thing right now on XLR8R.com for the next two weeks. Read more »
