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Dig This! School of Seven Bells

FREE DOWNLOAD: School of Seven Bells, "Connjur"

Rhythm and harmony! They’re the first things you hear on “Iamundernodisguise,” the opening track on School of Seven Bells’ debut, Alpinisms: a rolling drumbeat marshals a hint of rhumba in the bassline, while sisters Alejandra and Claudia Deheza speak-sing the word-sounds like a two-part Eastern Orthodox choir. Soon enough, the chorus brings the hook and the result is left-field electronic pop; but it’s the confident mix of beats and voices that defines the song.

[Click the "Continue Reading..." link to listen to a playlist featuring the music discussed in this post.]

Dig This! San Quinn

FREE MP3 DOWNLOAD: San Quinn, "Devotion"

The Bay Area hip-hop scene is among the most compartmentalized in the nation. There are hundreds if not thousands of young producers, rappers and promoters who manage to make a decent living without ever having to leave Northern California.  In this vast, thriving and largely underground scene, San Quinn is a legend. He started out in the early '90s with fellow SF emcee JT the Bigga Figga and has continued to be a major player ever since -- first as a young rapper on the Priority label and then independently under his Done Deal label. Over those 16 years, Quinn has had his hand in nearly every major hip-hop movement to come out of the Bay. He terse flow and gruff voice are instantly recognizable, and his finely detailed vignettes on life in San Francisco’s Fillmore district are among the most compelling narrative raps to emerge from the West Coast. His most recent album, From a Boy to a Man, continues in this fine tradition. Quinn has also been fortunate to score one of the biggest hits of his career this fall with “SF Anthem.”  We recently sat down with the legend to discuss life, art and Bay Area pride.

Dig This! Curumin

FREE MP3 DOWNLOAD: Curumin, "Compacto"

Curumin is the Quannum artist who shouldn't be. On a Bay Area label of underground rappers, the young man born Luciano Nakata Albuquerque is a Brazilian multi-instrumentalist who doesn't rap and is, in many ways, an old-fashioned songwriter. But when Quannum co-founders Blackalicious toured Brazil in 2004, Curumin's manager slipped his first album, Achados e Perdidos, into their hands, and the group listened. What they heard seriously impressed them: a young man who had Stevie Wonder on the brain, James Brown in the beats and Jorge Ben in the melodies. Shortly after, they signed him.

Two things drive Curumin: a powerful nostalgia for the simplicity of childhood and a voracious appetite for new sounds. JapanPopShow, his second album, is a vintage-era masterpiece. But, for all its diverse influences -- Brazilian pop, soul, funk and reggae  -- it's also a complete musical universe. There are no loose threads. And given how beautifully textured the album is, perhaps it's not surprising he's a Quannum artist -- any hip-hop producer would want to sample these songs. (In fact, several rappers guest on the album.) We caught up with Rhapsody's Dig This! artist in early November, and asked him about all the usual stuff -- the album's name, his inspirations -- but we got a lot more: meditations on youth, our modern world, and what tradition means in the age of globalization.

[Click the "Continue Reading..." link to listen to a playlist featuring the music discussed in this post.]

Dig This! School of Seven Bells, Curumin, San Quinn

Welcome to the November 2008 version of Dig This! Every month, Rhapsody’s editorial staff will introduce you to a few artists you may not know, give you a chance to check out their music, and present them in their own words -- watch this space for upcoming features on the individual artists. Oh, and we’ll throw you some free downloads from them, too.

This month in Dig This!:
Curumin, a Brazilian of Spanish-Japanese descent who fell in love with American hip-hop and Jorge Ben at the same time.

San Quinn, an underground rap legend in the Bay Area, prolific and celebrated locally, but only now starting to break out on the national stage.

School of Seven Bells, a Brooklyn trio that combines gorgeous harmonies, a world of rhythms and some ecstatic studio sense to create beautiful psychedelic pop jams.

[Click the "Continue Reading..." link to listen to a playlist featuring the music discussed in this post.]

Dig This! The Dutchess & The Duke

Folk-rock that harkens back to the mid-‘60s isn’t a new direction for music. But Seattle duo, the Dutchess & the Duke, aren’t all that predisposed to the glow of the new. Lifelong friends Jesse Lortz and Kimberly Morrisson lived through their twenties chasing a youthful energy in a long line of surf, garage and punk-rock bands. They have also come out on the other side of 30 with an expertise in two-part harmonies, acoustic guitar- and tambourine-driven songs that bear the tight construction of Stones and Dylan classics, and personal biographies that make for some interesting points and counterpoints. In under 30 relatively lo-fi recorded minutes, their debut, She’s the Dutchess, He’s the Duke, shows off songwriting chops and an empathetic vision of life gained from experience. And while experience isn’t necessarily a new direction, it’s always worth gaining. This was the undercurrent to the conversation Rhapsody began with Lortz and Morrisson in Seattle and finished in New York, soon after the Dutchess & the Duke played the Rhapsody Rocks NYC party earlier this October.

Dig This! Lykke Li

FREE MP3 DOWNLOAD: Lykke Li, "Breaking Up (John Hill Remix)"

Her songs may hit the sweet and sensitive chords, but Lykke Li is not a woman to be messed with. The Swedish indie songbird is one of Rhapsody's Dig This! artists for October, and we got a chance to talk to the feisty singer-songwriter about her debut album and that Victoria's Secret ad ("this thing about sellouts is bullsh*t"), while she got the chance to clear the air about her real feelings on Madonna (ahem, definitely not an influence, people).

[Click the "Continue Reading..." link for the rest of the interview.]

Dig This! Lykke Li, the Dutchess & the Duke, the Mole

Welcome to the October 2008 version of Dig This! Every month, Rhapsody’s editorial staff will introduce you to some artists you may not know, give you a chance to check out their music, and present them in their own words -- watch this space for upcoming features on the individual artists. Oh, and we’ll throw you some free downloads from them, too.

This month in Dig This!:
The Dutchess & the Duke, a couple of kids from Seattle, Washington, who play acoustic guitars and harmonize on tunes that evoke classic mid-‘60s folk-rock, even as they sound utterly modern.

Lykke Li, a young woman from Stockholm, Sweden, whose modern indie-pop is by turns futuristic (dig those electronics), retro (listen to those girl-group song-structures) and quirky as all get-out.

The Mole, an electronic-music producer who came to prominence on Canada’s west coast, but whose melodic yet minimal dance music now fits in perfectly with his adopted hometown of Berlin.