Pinboard

GASLAMP KILLER + RUSTIE + VILLAGE UNDERGROUND

= Essential

This coming Friday sees the Earnest Endeavours boys return to London’s Village Underground for the second instalment of their event series. As expected, the lineup is, well, huge. Willie the motherfucking Gaslamp Killer gets behind the ones and twos for the first time since the release of his debut album on Brainfeeder, with Warp/Numbers beat monster Rustie sharing the stage.

BRAINER SOUNDS 29TH APRIL

A playlist of good music to set you up for the week

It’s Spring! Kind of. Not really. We had a sporadic few days of sunshine in London lately that sent us a little crazy at Brainer, and we thought it’d be an amazing idea to have Spring as the theme for our next Brainer Sounds. Just so you know, it’s cold, cloudy and raining right now.

FINGER LICKIN’ GOOD

Dante Fried Chicken launches his new book at Protein this Thursday

Three years in the making, LA chef Dante Gonzales (you might know him better as Dante Fried Chicken) is ready to launch his new book – Ride or Fry: The Dante Fried Chicken Experience. Co-written by the homie Terence Teh and with creative direction from New York studio HellaCrisis, the bold, brash, fun book (natch) will reveal the inspiration behind over 100 exclusive recipes. Including, yep, Sock-it-to-me fried chicken.

EMIKA COVERS CHRIS ISSAK’S WICKED GAME

New album Dva released through Ninja Tune on 10th June

Nearly a year and a half on from her self-titled debut album, Emika – or Ema Jolly – is back with news of a follow up record. It’s called Dva (cover art above), and according to the press release is an “exploration of self-expression and sound, taking dark dub pop, sound design inspirations and melding them with classical music of her upbringing, taking Emika’s production a giant step forward”.

LISTEN TO THE LATEST FROM TROPICS

The Southampton artist is set to drop his new EP in April

Chris Ward – aka Tropics – is back with a follow-up EP to his last release: the Popup Cinema EP. Titled Home & Consonance, the Southampton-based artist is bringing us four new tracks, building further on the (own) vocal-focussed sound he developed on Popup. “I like to think of Home & Consonance as a collection of songs evoking the compatibility of harmony and sadness,” says Ward of the new record.

NOSAJ THING RETURNS TO LONDON

The LA producer gets ready to bring his signature brand of electronic wizardry to Village Underground on 14th March

The homies at Earnest Endeavours are back, and with them they’re bringing back LA’s doyen of brooding, electronic soundscapes to London in support of his newest studio album: Home. Taking place at Village Underground on 14th March, Nosaj’s performance will be the first in a new series of events going down under the arches of the inimitable East London venue.

AMON TOBIN HITS LONDON TO PERFORM ISAM 2.0

The avant-garde beat wizard to bring his mind-noodling live experience to the Hammersmith Apollo

Amon Tobin has never been one to make music for the masses. He’s more a composer than producer, more electronic wizard than DJ. His melting pot of progressive sounds – drawing on breakbeats, 2-step, film-noir jazz, minimal house glitches with some David Lynch-esque weirdness thrown in for good measure – have always set him apart from the current EDM trend. Now, Tobin is set to perform the last UK show of his revolutionary ISAM 2.0 tour at the Hammersmith Apollo. I’m yet to experience this audiovisual spectacle myself but, by all accounts, it’s mind-blowing.