One month ago, Madison, Wisconsin’s masked producer Man Mantis released his Sea Ambulance EP. The densely layered, darkly melodic tracks offered a glimpse of Man Mantis’ upcoming LP Cities Without Houses, and received an enthusiastic if sometimes perplexed response. Mantis continues the mystery this week with the release of the official video to Red Dragonfly:
Continuing in the EP’s druggy, unsettling fashion, the video laces a Twilight Zone atmosphere with the psychedelic visuals of 1960s hippie freakout films. The Red Dragonfly video was directed by Madison videographer Joe Ramos, who is also an avid documentarian of local live music. His extensive vault of footage can be viewed at joeguerilla.com.
Wedged in among his countless production credits, rigorous performing schedules and zany multimedia exploits, Man Mantis spent the precious free time he found during the last year putting together something truly extraordinary.
His full-length LP, Cities Without Houses, will be available via World Around Records on April 11th, but Mantis fans won’t need to wait another month to take a peek behind the curtain. The short-form companion piece Sea Ambulance EP is a collection of select advance tracks and b-sides from the Cities Without Houses sessions, and you can download it for free on Bandcamp.
It’s been well-established that 2011 is the Year of the Mantis. Keep your eyes open.
On the heels of his instrumental debut Destroyer of All Things, Louis Mackey has broken the silence for his new project with beat wizard Dr. Quandary, The Dioscuri. Fusing concepts from ancient Greek and Roman epics with the dreamy, guitar-laden ambiance of psychedelic rock, the two created an incredibly unique hip-hop record that is utterly unlike anything else you will hear in 2011.
In honor of the release, Quandary artfully mashed elements of the album together with some of the obscure sword-and-sandal movies that inspired it. The resultant “short film” adds awesome visual life to some of the album’s great conceptual moments.
Case in point: Minneapolis vocalist and songwriter K.Raydio. Her debut EP, the entirely Mantis-produced Significant (Other) dropped yesterday amidst minimal fanfare, but still netted hundreds of plays and downloads off of Facebook buzz alone. The record is a fresh blend of Raydio’s stunning voice and Mantis’ crisp, engaging beats, featuring some solid guest appearances from J.Dante and Phonetic ONE.
All of this is leading up to the release of Cities Without Houses — the long-awaited spiritual successor to Mantis’ classic original album. You can catch a preview by checking out tracks 5 and 7 on Significant (Other):
Ladies and gentlemen, mammals and mutants, we’d like to introduce one of our 2010 Draft Picks: the Las Vegas rap terrorist, Devastate. Before we drop his debut on World Around, the Zero EP, we rented out a boardroom at the Mandalay Bay for a signing ceremony and recorded interview.
Dr. Quandary: What are the influences who have shaped your vision, your music, your weltanschauung?
Devastate: Let’s start this bad boy off with a cliche…. Every day life. In this beautiful, macabre and entertaining world, its damn near impossible to not be influenced one way or another. I don’t think its about what influences my music though, I think its more about what adds fuel to that metaphorical fire.
These ideas are going to be thought, these emotions are going to be felt, right? Right. The interesting part is what grabs the abstract, molds it and then hammers it into something tangible.
Days in front of the radio got my feet wet. The desire to mimick what i was hearing put me on the diving board. The fact that my parents loathed my efforts, well… Hell, that gave me the balls to front flip into this metaphorical pool.
Hundreds of human beings have inspired me. Musicians, philosophers, authors, mythical heros and friends. They’ve all inspired me to take certain steps. They all gave me the tools to grow, but the primary goal is to feel the joy that kind in front of the radio was drenched in ...
First of all, if you’ve never heard the 5 O’Clock Shadowboxers, take some time out to fix that today. Zilla Rocca is the man behind the mic on that project, and he’s teamed up with World Around for some new projects. We met up at a dive bar in Quebec City for this introductory interview…
Thirtyseven: What are the influences that have brought you to where you are today?
Zilla Rocca: I got caught up in ‘08-‘09 with people I no longer work with in trying to be something that I wasn’t, namely to land a nice plushy Major Label Rap Contract. At the same time, I was doing Shadowboxers, which became the biggest thing I’d ever done. But the people I was dealing with didn’t like it, didn’t understand it, and frankly became resentful and petty when it proved to be more successful than any of their work. But I was a “team” player and enjoyed their stuff, so I was gung-ho about sleeping with the devil because we were “a squad”. I compromised myself, something I swore I’d never do.
Now that I no longer deal with them, I’ve realized that the people I respect and enjoy the most don’t do things conventionally. They don’t buy into the norms of What You Must Do As An Artist in 2010. El-P has never played it safe; his music is raw, he stands behind it, it’s got ...
Reclusive UK beatsmith s. maharba has been having an amazingly good year. Fresh off selling out multiple pressings of his vinyl debut, S/T, and a spotlight on BBC Radio (!!!) — now he’s been featured on the internationally famous beats showcase BTS Radio.
Obviously, this is awesome music and I don’t need to sell you on it…so click the image below to check it out:
First up, the Madison heavyweight hip hop live band dumate has been having an amazing year, and to celebrate, they’re offering their full length album, We Have the Technology, for free through Bandcamp. Click here to get yours. This is a limited time offer deal.
The dumate team has been very, very busy this year… especially MPC player / producer Man Mantis. He’s dropped an experimentally awesome EP’s with J. Dante, Whole New World, and a classic-flavored EP with dumate emcee D.L.O. the Iceman titled The IceMantis EP, which has been getting great reviews.
I mean, really great reviews. The Onion’s A/V Club gave it an “A” rating, concluding that the dumate crew was “grotesquely underrated on both a local and national scale.” Amen.
Up next, Man Mantis is working on an instrumental release, Cities Without Houses. Based on what I’ve heard, I think it’s going to make some serious noise for him… stay tuned.
We’ve got a lot of extremely dope producers on the World Around roster. This year has seen incredible releases from nearly all of them. First we dropped Naturetone‘s debut, Nihon, an ambitious and exotic tribute to the music and culture of Japan. Naturetone was fortunate enough to make a pilgrimage there this year… and he got married this year, too!
Humpasaur Jones: The 2010 Anthembanger Remix Contest
Jul 27, 2010
Fresh out of a court-mandated rehab vacation, Humpasaur Jones has been sleeping in the studio again. The first new release is the “2010 Anthembanger”, which we’ve built into a remix contest. If you’re not the producer type, great news: there’s already 3 remixes done, courtesy of Louis Mackey, Naturetone, and our newest addition to the roster, Custom. (More on him soon.)
The acapella file is the last track on the “EP” and the tempo is precisely 99 BPM. The deadline for the Contest contest is August 29th, 2010. (Because it’s a Sunday…and because we want to post the winners on September 1st.) All submissions go to: powerweirdo at gmail dot com.
Available exclusively in conjunction with our friends over at Potholes In My Blog, World Around Records presents the first installment in Louis Mackey‘s new beat tape series, Destroyer of All Things. This tidy collection of seven beats is a perfect way to familiarize yourself with with this poet-cum-producer’s signature blend of psychedelic soul and hard-hitting, barbarous breaks.
