Max Bell atoned for not celebrating Yom Kippur even though he’s not Jewish. Most instrumental albums suffer from a lack of cohesiveness. It’s the reason why I’m reluctant to check out most Bandcamp pages with the tag “beats” or  “instrumental.” More often than not, you’re apt to find a bunch of half-completed sketches; dusty, dull, […]

Jonah Bromwich’s most natural trait is telepathy. One of electronic music’s most enjoyable characteristics is its ability to seem alien. It can seem like the kind of advanced sound that everyone will listen to once the singularity takes over and our bodies are ½ nanobot. It’s easy to forget that the beats are crafted according […]

Since Kanye discovered robot techno three years late, rap’s been on an Itchy and Scratchy Land-style collision course with electronic music. Of course, there’s the long history: “Planet Rock,” Juan Atkins, disco-rap, Whodini, Egyptian Lover, hip-house, “Bombs over Baghdad,” hoobity blah. But when Kanye sampled “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger,” it indirectly annexed a new realm […]

Few descriptions are more trite than “organic.” It’s a word used to describe everything from music played with real instruments, to the seamless incorporation of seemingly irreconcilable styles, to the produce grown by white people with natty dreads and Sage Francis records.  Over the last few years, a glut of rappers have attempt to escape […]

With a name conjuring arsenals of assault weapons and photo galleries filled with him dressed like El Santo, I’ll assign the blame to Ernest Gonzales for causing me to want to make Breaking Bad analogies every time he drops a new Mexicans with Guns track. These comparisons never arise with his more headphone-friendly solo material, […]

Breaking Bad as seen through the prism of Aztec mythology and directed by a young Robert Rodriguez. Needless to stutter, Mexicans with Guns do not fuck around. Ernest Gonzales leaves the sensitivity and nostalgia for his solo work. I’ve described MwG as the product of narco-criminals clamping Gonzales in a figure–four leg lock and imprisoning […]

According to simple-minded caricature, San Antonio is a city best known for Tim Duncan, Pace Picante Sauce, and the Alamo (which according to my research gleaned from Pee Wee’s Big Adventure has neither bikes nor a basement). Though Austin and Dallas typically absorb the glare of the Texan music spotlight, Exponential Records, based in the […]