DIAMOND RUGS - DIAMOND RUGS - 2012

Diamond Rugs is a collaboration between John McCauley (Deer Tick), Robbie Crowell (Deer Tick), Ian Saint Pé (The Black Lips), Steve Berlin (Los Lobos), Hardy Morris (Dead Confederate) and Bryan Dufresne (Six Finger Satellite).

Not too dissimilar from the beginnings of Middle Brother, McCauley decided he wanted to make another record during his downtime in his new home base of Nashville with producers Adam Landry and Justin Collins (Middle Brother, Deer Tick). While attending a Los Lobos show (one of his all-time favorite bands), he made his way backstage and met Steve Berlin. McCauley convinced Berlin to come to Nashville to play on the record. Over the course of the next month, he also managed to convince Saint Pe (whom he’d met once before), Morris (who had opened for Deer Tick on tour) and his good friend from his hometown of Providence, RI, Dufresne. McCauley also recruited Deer Tick keys/sax player Robbie Crowell to play bass on the album. What happened next was entirely unexpected; the musicians McCauley had recruited to play on his record, ended up contributing their own songs to the album and a fully-formed band emerged, rather than a group of musicians playing on another artists’ record.

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LA FINE EQUIPE - LA BOULANGERIE 2 - 2011

From French Beatmakers La Fine Equipe (Blanka, Oogo, Mr.Gib, Mattic and Chomsky) comes the album La Boulangerie 2, masters of the sampler one and all. Here they showcase their skills with over 30 tracks, whose titles seem to come from staring longingly at the scrumptious delights in the pâtisserie window. They cut up soul, funk, reggae, dioulouge, swing, dub, hip hop, arabic music, rocksteady and anything else they come across.

Most of La Fine Equipe seems to have some kind of affilation with the mighty Wax Taylor (The French equivilant of America’s RJD2 or the UK’s DJ Parker). So you know these guys have pedigree and as all are strong artists in their own right the 30 plus tracks are solid stuff with no padding and being instrumental there’s no worries about languauge barriers. Hopefully artists in the US and UK will consider hooking up with these French beatmakers for production because their stuff is fantastic.

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CLUB DES BELUGAS - FORWARD 2012

Club des Belugas is one of the leading lounge & nujazz projects in Germany, perhaps in Europe. They combine Contemporary European Lounge & Nujazz Styles with Brazilian Beats and American Black Soul of the fifties, sixties and seventies, using their unique creativity and intensity.

Main members are Maxim Illion & Kitty the Bill, with such exquisite guests as the Californian Jazz Lady Brenda Boykin, trumpeter Reiner Winterschladen (Nighthawks), Swedish singer anna.luca, London based Jazz singer Iain Mackenzie, Anne Schnell from Jojo Effect, Dean Bowman from New York and trumpet player Thomas Siffling.

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CHEAP GIRLS - GIANT ORANGE 2012

Lansing, Michigan trio Cheap Girls’ high-energy, nostalgic pop-meets-punk sound lands somewhere between the Replacements and Superchunk. Comprised of singer/bassist/acoustic guitarist Ian Graham, his drummer/percussionist brother Ben Graham and guitarist Adam Aymor, the band formed in 2007 with the objective of playing back-to-basics rock. Their first album, the self-released Find Me a Drink Home, arrived the following year. A busy touring schedule followed, making way for sophomore record My Roaring 20s, released on Paper + Plastick, which also reissued Find Me a Drink Home. In 2010, Cheap Girls played with Against Me! for the first time, a meeting which grew into a U.S. tour together the following year, and securing Tom Gabel to produce their next record at his new studio. The result was Giant Orange, a collection of road-tested songs showcasing the band’s giant hooks and cohesiveness, which arrived on Rise in February 2012.

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BROTHERTIGER - GOLDEN YEARS - 2012

John Jagos began recording under the name Brothertiger in Toledo, OH during the summer of 2009. He began recording electronic music in 2006 as Monoteque, an experimental project characterized by tribal beats and pulsing synthesizers. Influenced heavily by the electronic sound of Brian Eno and M83, along with the experimental characteristics of Animal Collective, Caribou, and Yeasayer. Drawing heavily upon cassette-esque drum tracks and dream-like synths, Brothertiger combines the ethereal style of 80s new wave with the modern electro-dance sound. Like contemporaries Washed Out and Toro Y Moi, Brothertiger aims to capture the “carefree and woozy feelings of summer ease.”

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IAMDYNAMITE - Super Mega Fantastic - 2012

Big things come in small packages for IAMDYNAMITE (Formerly Mahoney) as they come armed with a simple guitar and drum kit, but pack clever harmonies, dancy guitar riffs, fist-pounding drums and undeniable dance hooks to leave an explosive fallout. The Raleigh, NC based duo featuring Chris Martin and Chris Phillips have been cutting their teeth in the indie rock scene of their native Detroit for years but wanted to separate themselves with their own unique brand of music that presents itself as the armed robbery of dance rock.

IAMDYNAMITE’s brand of distinct sound is filled with sharp, calculated guitar lines coupled with explosive, driving drum rhythms. If IAMDYNAMITE’S sound held a ruckus of a dinner party, Weezer, The White Stripes and Matt and Kim would all be seated at the table. Even though the band is approaching the industry at blazing speed, the duo is known for their party-like live shows with a huge sound that beckons for fist-pounding, ass-shaking and sweaty high fives.

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