We were actually getting a little worried that we weren't going to fulfill our character from the Wire appearing in a rap video quota this week—but then this Trae two video epic came out, and there's Slim Charles in the second half sitting on the steps! That was close. We're not sure what the thinking is in releasing this directly on the heels of the Trae as a biker video, but we're also not going to question it too much because any new Trae is welcome, especially when it contains a song-stealing verse from Jayton and the return of Slim Thug, who's Already Platinum is still in rotation.

Wouldn't you love to hear any one of NYC's big dogs on this beat? Imagine if it was the Lox's triumphant comeback single? The Rae and Ghost collab to end all Rae and Ghost collabs? The song everyone in their heart of hearts really wants to leak off that Nas LP? Faces would melt! Radios would explode! The internet would eat itself! But daydreams are for suckers—and Massachusetts MC Reks doesn't sound half bad on this. Still, it seems like every new Premier track we've come accross over the past year has been attached to an underground rapper with about as much starpower as we have. Is it too much to ask for, like, Fabolous? Think about the children!

Oh hey look it's a song featuring all former and current FADER artists. We're not going to say this is the best video ever because it's really, really not, but that's not stopping us saying something! It has Estelle and it has Daytona and it has Capone and a somehow even bulkier NORE trading verses in a stairwell. Why don't people trade verses more these days? Did the entire rap industry forget how awesome it sounds?

Hold tight Pharrell! Hold tight Chad! Um...safe! That's about as much UK slang as we can muster as a lead-in to this Roll Deep remix of the Star Trak snorter, spotted over at DJ Semtex's blog. We don't harbor any naive hope for future rap/grime collabs that this remix might lead to (peep the back issues if naive hope is what you're after!) but come on guys, this is a co-branding no-brainer! Your shit isn't called BBC for nothing! Alert the blog...


Download:NERD, "Everyone Nose (Roll Deep Remix)"

These have been streaming on here for awhile now, and some days we found ourselves making multiple pilgrimages to their page to listen to off the wall live renditions of "Tomahawk," and shake our heads and wonder why we can't download them already. It turns out that the answer to that question was that they kind of wanted to put them on a CD and sell them. That's not happening now, so we downloaded those songs for our personal use with the quickness, but maybe they will sell them later and if they do then we will be there to purchase them.

Download: Wild Yaks Live Songs

There is nothing we love more than raging to Justice until all hours of the morning, but sometimes we want something with a little more swing—like maybe some disco, but then that gets repetitive for awhile so we go home and put on some minimal techno and whisperdance (we just made that up) around our rooms until the sun comes up. Also, we sometimes just like to bang on a wooden block with a stick because it sounds good. We didn't think we'd be able to find anyone who made music that put all these things into one huge mix, but then we found Dmitry Fyodorov, who make graceful music that tells you it is graceful by punching you in the eyes. Yeah, we don't know how that works either, but just go with it. There's a bunch of new music to listen to from them on their MySpace, but if you want something you can listen to right now on your iTunes or on a CD or whatever you can download this oldish mix of mostly their own remixes from No Love Lost Records. Sidenote: In our quest to find out if these guys were actually two guys or actually even Russian we discovered a lot of Youtube videos like the one above that look like a bunch of Europeans snuck into our basement and had a party without inviting us.

Download: Dmitry Fyordorov NLLR Mix

Every once in awhile we fantasize about being rock stars. We dream of crawling across the floor in tight white jumpsuits, warehouses filled with KISS-concert-at-Giants-Stadium lights and extreme close-ups of us swinging our hair around. The closest we actually get to this is sliding around our living room in our socks. In their new video, CSS live the dream—white jumpsuit (silver studded and fur-collared, no less!) and all, and are proving they’ve moved far away from making endearing songs that are basically quick bursts of repetitive energy.

Really dude? You're really going to name your album that? And you're really going to have that be the album cover?

Each Tuesday, FADER editor Matthew Schnipper highlights an underappreciated recent release he thinks we need to know about. This week it's Smith N Hack's Tribute. Listen to "Strength and Inspiration" below, buy Tribute here and read about it after the jump.





In college, I thought it would be a good idea to learn to play an instrument. I bought a trumpet from some guy on Craigslist and had him mail it to me. I remember I missed it one day and thought they would redeliver the next two days but they didn’t and I was so disappointed because all I wanted to do was play the trumpet and when it showed up I was excited and I played it. But I had to get it repaired first, and get a new mouthpiece. Have you ever played the trumpet? It’s weird and difficult. You have to pucker your lips while making them strong and blow your breath in different direction. It’s like whistling except not whimsical. If you ever saw pictures of people playing trumpet with big puffed out cheeks and crazy eyes, you should know they are playing wrong. Or at least that is what my trumpet teacher said. I never got to be good at playing right (or wrong), though I could play a very simple Bach piece, which was nice. At least I think it was Bach, I can’t remember. I really wanted to learn more about how music was made because I listen to it so much. It seemed frivolous to be so presumptuous with strong opinions with no knowledge to back it up. It’s not that I had any desire for skill, but just for an understanding of what skill might feel like.

Last night I was in a recording studio for a few hours watching people move music from Logic to Pro Tools. The bass wouldn’t sound right, then the clavinet. The piano worked, and it was recorded with what is apparently Elton John’s preferred method, which is a large contact microphone in the instrument’s guts. There were so many wires everywhere, instruments stacked on instruments. The drums had blankets over them, a maypole’s worth of hanging microphones. Everything looked like an earthquake meter or a ’70s movie prop. Dude pulled some old broken acid house keyboard out of an orange gym bag and started trilling away. They played the demo vocals, you could hear the feedback from headphones. There was an oscilloscope and a dude watching movies on his computer whose job was just to sit there in case they needed anything. And when they did, he fixed it.

I cannot imagine making music naturally. It is difficult enough for me to imagine getting enough hangers so that my shirts do not sit in a pile on a chair in my bedroom. But that’s why both natural cleanliness and an inclination towards musicianship are all-alluring to me. I like ideas, but I like follow through better. And when you blend the two it makes me feel jealous and excited. Smith N Hack, two German dudes, listened to a lot of Bohannon and figured out how to cut it up and repurpose. In the studio last night dudes were having to fill in their own blanks, on Tribute they already have the answers they just have to find the right ones. That’s what’s so impressive about the record; it’s like a crossword puzzle, you know all the answers will be letters but you don’t know which one. I like Bohannon. But I like the idea of someone liking Bohannon and cutting his music into little pieces to make obsessively repetitive songs better. And better than that I like that I actually like it. “Strength and Inspiration” has guitar moan and little solace for the Bohannon fan, just gritty beatbacks and a midpace. “To Our Disco Friends,” the album opener and lead jammer is the cut and paste masterpiece, but it’s more flagrant and less subtle. “It’s time it’s time it’s to to to get get funk funk funky,” Bohannon is cut up to say, pupeteered and lightly mocking. Not that there isn’t love there, but it’s goofy and for a project already so teetering on ridiculous, a smidge of kindness needs to be regularly peppered.

I’m a simple listener, simple critic. I’m not sure how simple of a dude I am but I at least like to front. And Tribute is a simple concept, simple word. I like that the song I like most is called “Strength and Inspiration.” Listen to that plink, it’s heartfelt. I bet Smith and/or Hack really got heavy vibes from Bohannon and needed to repurpose, work out on their own. I cannot imagine. It’s such a kind gesture to him, to his music, fashioning his songs as an instrument itself. Is Bohannon alive? He seems like the kind of guy who would be dead. Do you think he heard this? Do you think he liked it? It would be harsh if he was upset. But imagine if they met, Smith, Hack, Big B chilling together talking about drumsticks and musical futures. I know Bohannon would still exist without Smith N Hack but in some ways they invented his myth and you’re nothing without a little lore.

Before I started playing trumpet I remember watching a video of John Fahey on an instructional guitar show and the host asked him how he composed, because she would never teach her students to use their thumbs the way he did. He didn’t really address that, just said he got a six pack of beer and started playing. For some people it’s just natural and I was kind of like, Yeah.

Sometimes it's fun to imagine that FADER brings artists together. Maybe after our D'Angelo/Beck cover D'Angelo has secretly been spending all his time in the lab with Beck or maybe after the America issue Beanie Sigel and Conor Oberst hit it off and are making the saddest album ever. We didn't say our mindgarden collab ideas would always be flawless. Sometimes though, FADER artists getting together does work and actually makes sense, like this song from Kid Cudi's seemingly forthcoming since forever mixtape A Kid Named Cudi featuring Wale, who you may have heard of about nine million times since we featured him in F44. We are all about artists making good decisions.


Download: Kid Cudi f. Wale, "Is There Any Love"