Blip music – or bitpop or 8-bit or chiptune music – gets its own four-day US festival this weekend with the inaugural Blip Festival in New York. It’s not exactly new, nor a phenomenon, nor a craze sweeping any nation any time soon, but there are a lot of guys out there who enjoy making shrill, cheap-sounding electronic pop music on old Commodore 64s, Ataris and Game Boys, and now they can all get together and discuss the future of circuit-bending...
Listen: Bubblyfish - "Ah"
Money and hip hop will always go together, even in places where only the latter exists. Coming straight outta Brownsville, Brooklyn - the second biggest project housing unit in the US - El Tysheikh talks about making it in the rap game even if you can't do the math.
Vice: So Sheikh, what’s your story?
El Tysheikh: Me and my boys, we were the first artists signed to Rawkus. We was called The Rose Family. Look, I just had so many opportunities and the door just closed. It was so close so many times ...
Ratatat are two guys from New York who make effortless, sample heavy, instrumental genius and their latest album, Classics, has been on high rotation in our office since the second it came out. They're playing around Aussie and NZ this week and the first person to email us here from each city will get a double pass to the show.
Bloc Party's Matt Tong was hospitalised after a gig in Atlanta last night. Apparantly he was playing football earlier in the day and started to feel unwell. His condition deteriorated during the show and he was rushed to hospital with a suspected collapsed lung. Doctors say he is not in any danger but will be kept in for at least the next three days for observation. The band have cancelled a number of shows, including a sold-out date at New York's Madison Square Garden on Monday. Get well soon Matt.
Kanye West threw a shitfit when he didn't win Best Video at the recent MTV Europe Awards. He crashed the stage, grabbed the mic and blubbed about how his "Touch The Sky" video should've won because it cost $1 million, had Pamela Anderson in it, and featured him jumping a canyon on a motorcycle. Kanye later said his outburst was caused by him being "sippy sippy", rebutting onlookers who might've thought that the glaring eyes and egomaniacal tirade were triggered by another substance.
French DJ duo Justice, whose "We Are You Friends" video won the award, were on tour in the US at the time of the ceremony. But we caught up with Xavier and asked him what he thought of the whole kerfuffle...
Our friends at Imperial (softie favourite José González’s label) just gave us a free MP3 to give away. It’s an exclusive with shoegazers Samuraj Cities. Enjoy.
Listen: Samuraj Cities - "Fire"
Here's the new video from our friends The Horrors.
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