Deadmau5 - Random Album Title

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Deadmau5 - Random Album Title

“Context is everything. If you’ve been following electronic dance music, Deadmau5’s sonically rich and dramatically arranged beats will sound familiar, very much like the progressive house pouring out of the United Kingdom at the beginning of the decade. But for the genre’s young fans, Deadmau5—aka Toronto bedroom producer-turned-touring sensation Joel Zimmerman—is something new, an artist born from their ranks who resembles them more closely than the old guard of overpaid Europe-based superstars. His debut long-player is mostly made up of material previously released via DJ download site Beatport.com, collected in a more consumer- focused format. And while the music is primarily instrumental and best-suited to big clubs and their giant subwoofers, tracks like “Faxing Berlin” and “Some Kind of Blue” have an epic scope, making the case that the universal heartbeat might just be a kick drum. —Kerri Mason”

Roots Manuva - Slime and Reason

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Roots Manuva - Slime and Reason

“Roots Manuva’s proper English dialect, fierce, street-smart microphone skills and undying love for dub-reggae are part of a unique sound that has inspired everyone from Dizzee Rascal to These New Puritans. Flexing a bit of the angry lyrical edge he boasted on 2005’s “Awfully Deep,” Roots digs into “fickle DJs,” no-talent rappers, Trustafarians and “bourgeois hippies” who “wanna fight my flow,” as he proclaims on the track “2 Much 2 Soon,” which also sports the priceless couplet, “I came from this, I got to do better/My pen is my sword, my pen is my Beretta.” The ragga-muffin styles of his 2001 rap classic “Run Come Save Me” are also back in prevalence on the two-step dancehall flair of “Do Nah Bodda Mi” and the ska-like riddims of “Well Alright.”—Ron Hart”