Skrillex - Quest for Fire

He found quite a bit.

Burial - Untrue

A defining moment for electronic music across the board, Burial's sophomore album evokes a state of continuous bliss under grey skies.

Skrillex & Rick Ross - "Purple Lamborghini"

Skrillex and Rick Ross come together for this serious BANGER off the Suicide Squad soundtrack.

Lotic - "From the Front" (ft. Dr. Luke, Rabit, Sugur Shane, DJ Karfox, Big Hud, Fat Pimp)

https://soundcloud.com/lotic/front Lotic's self-released mini-album Damsel In Distress was named one of the best of 2014 by FACT Magazine, referring to it as a mixtape of "gothic club nightmares". Quite a description of the Berlin, Germany DJ/Producers' brand of dark yet satisfying, enrapturing club music. And "From The Front" only helps to add to Lotic's mystique: it's a grab bag of disturbingly distorted southern voices and lyrics that are paired with a production job that includes elements of trap, trance, gritty grime and crunchy, squeaky dubstep, all competing with each other for attention but still working seamlessly together. Lotic, along with his collaborators (Dr. Luke, Rabit, Sugur Shane, DJ Karfox, Big Hud and Fat Pimp) have created a song that's sure to be considered an eerie, almost ghostly but exciting and bouncy certified club/strip joint banger.

-Ron Grant

Andy Stott - Faith in Strangers

Andy Stott explores more electornic subgenres on his latest full-length release.

I Am Your Destruction - Self-Titled

The new IAYD record brings together 8-bit synth timbres and with the kinds of "drops" popular in present-day EDM.

Living In Frames - "Closer"

With a deep, dense, spacey, almost gritty aura to it, Brazilian electronic duo Living in Frames' song "Closer" certainly doesn't slouch on delving into the darker side of what many folks may immediately lump into the category of EDM. There's heavy, obvious elements of both dubstep and drum and bass, as well as a fair amount of spacey voice manipulation, atmospheric instruments and an overall sense of strategic musical uncertainty that seeps and drips throughout "Closer," making for a listen that leans towards the neurotic. Yet the track still revels in and embraces its own scant but deeply-layered makeup. Heilo de Matos and Luis Antonio Muniz, though they've only been together for a year, seem to be getting closer to the specific sound they want to convey in their music, and "Closer," though it could maybe have been a bit more defined, is still proof of that.

"Closer" appears on the twosome's upcoming EP Outer. Listen to the track above and download it for free if you so please. Happy listening!

- Ron Grant

IAYD - TBBR003

I Am Your Destruction is an Austin, TX-based electronic music project that's just released its first full-length, which I think it self-titled. TBBR003 is just the catalog number from Thebasebit Recordings, I'm pretty sure. Title aside, this is a pretty fun album. It combines the blood-pumping drops and builds of modern EDM with the bright and glitchy grime of 8-bit music.

With the exception of a few artists, I typically find chiptune music to be a little limited. I mean, you have a multitude of artists here agreeing to center their music around 8-bit sounds, some working exclusively within that sound set. However, with IAYD, that is very much not the case. These tracks simultaneously worship at the chiptune altar, and look to bend the rules set by predecessors. Enjoy!