Team Rockit - "första hjälpen" & "leviathan"

All-time favorite Swedish pop stars Air France just started a tumblr, and today they recommended the music of fellow Sincerely Yours-signees Team Rockit.  I'm at an absolute loss for words over how to describe "första hjälpen" and "leviathan," the two songs that make up their new 7", but the words ambient, dancehall, hip-hop and majestic come to mind.  Grab the MP3s below; buy the 7" here.

MP3: Team Rockit - första hjälpen
MP3: Team Rockit - leviathan

Two Inch Punch - InspHERation MiXXX

London lovestepper Two Inch Punch curated a mini-mix for BBC Radio 1 and it's currently available to stream (and download!) at his SoundCloud.  Clocking in at just over 20 minutes, producer Ben Ash breezes through more than 30 songs, seamlessly blending electronica, classic R&B and old-school hip-hop into one solid, sexy whole.  The short mix goes a long way in illuminating the inspiration for Ash's own blush-pop glitch-hop.  

+++ InspHERation MiXXX --- by T.I.P

New Phaseone - "Murk Unit"

It's been two months since we've heard an original joint from Phaseone.  The dude recently packed up his game and moved from St. Louis to New York, so now seems like the perfect time for a new tune.  "Murk Unit" is tagged as belonging to the "killa" genre.  I'm not quite sure what that entails, but the song itself is pretty much "killa" and then some.  Buttressed by a sample* of The Luniz's "I Got A 5 On It," the song features the same trepid-sounding tubular bells as the original, with Phaseone adding some extra bleeps and plenty of bump to the mix.  Sounds like an unreleased hip-hop theme song to soundtrack a crime documentary about, well, "killas."

Phaseone - Murk Unit by PHASEONE

Get more Phaseone at SoundCloud and Tumblr.

(*Props to my buddy Tony for knowing his shit and name-dropping The Luniz.  I knew I'd heard the sample before but had no idea where to look.)

Phaseone - "True Romance"

We first heard a dub version of Phaseone's "True Romance" on the December 2010 mix he made for XLR8R.  A standalone version now streams below and at the St. Louis-based beat producer's SoundCloud.  Backed by soaring atmospherics, vocoder vocals, woodblock beats and some Eastern-tinged synthesizers, I believe this is the longest and most laid-back track we've heard from Phaseone.  And I'm not complaining in the slightest. 

Phaseone - True Romance by PHASEONE

Phaseone on Facebook / MySpace / SoundCloud / Tumblr / Twitter

New Two Inch Punch - "Love You Up"

Poppin' fresh pulses from producer Ben Ash, who records blush-pop glitch-hop as +Two Inch Punch-.  "Love You Up" just dropped yesterday, while "Breaking Hearts" is a few weeks old.  Dude is seriously becoming a front-runner in my best hope/most anticipated artist of 2011 list.  Music so fresh and great is basically demands a record deal.  I'm thinking Ash needs a debut 12" like right now.  I'm talking to you, Ghostly International.

  +++ Love You Up. --- by +Two Inch Punch-

  +++ Breaking <!--3's --- by +Two Inch Punch-

Follow +Two Inch Punch- on MySpace, SoundCloud and Twitter.

---

Previously:

+++ Her Heart Moves --- by +Two Inch Punch-

+++ Luv Luv --- by +Two Inch Punch-

Forest Spirits

Forest Spirits is one Liam Fitzpatrick, a twenty-something college student from Auckland, New Zealand. If his glitchy, dubbed-out hip-hop beats belong to Los Angeles or London, his sampling skills are entirely his own, unique in style and yet universally appealing in their dream-like quality. With "Summer Sleep," we're being romanced by a French girl, bumping to an 808 beat even as we travel down Avenue Gustave Eiffel in a Peugeot 403 - a mash-up so misconstrued in time and place only deep R.E.M. sleep could reconcile it.  Likewise, even with "Storm Clouds" on the horizon, we're dreaming old-school Disney, our cartoon caricatures unconcerned as they twirl umbrellas and skip across a sun-swept field. Beautifully evocative, fantasy-filled, even romanticized beats. Dreamstep? I think so.

Forest Spirits - Summer Sleep
Forest Spirits - Storm Clouds

Follow Forest Spirits here.

Props to Rose Quartz for pointing me in his direction.