Gritty. Raw. Confident.  All three of those equate to Invincible. She is a commando on the microphone and this up-coming release with Detroit power-house producer, Waajeed is nothing less than HOT. Detroit Summer was premiered as an exclusive on Hot 97 with Peter Rosenburg.  Thankfully something else on YouTube about Detroit other than “It’s So Cold in the D”.

All jokes aside, this track knocks and takes me back to a day in hip hop where the lyrics were as equally important as the track itself.  Detroit Summer paints a picture with sound. It is a perfect blend of  Invincible’s lyrics and Waajeed’s beat. There is a reason why I f*$ks with my man Waajeed and this track is one of those reasons.

We have all heard newscasters tell stories on/about Detroit; corruption, desolation. We surely remember Kilpatrick and will not forget little Aiyana Jones.

“A block party unites in spots where the shots are fired.”

Even in that desolation and destruction there is a community. Invincible and Waajeed “represent the future” of “urban renewal” in the hot Detroit Summer.

I am with Invincible when she asks:

“When did freedom ever come about from askin’ a Pharoah?”

This track is a first hand account of life in the ‘D’, from what it is, to the road of what it could be. The Detroit Summer single drops August 10th. Stay tuned for a full-length album from Invincible and Waajeed to be released in 2011.

Crystal Fighters – In The Summer

Crystal Fighters is a relatively new group emerging more and more in the UK dance/electro music scene. Gaining steam last year from a couple singles, their lined up to play at a lot of summer festivals across the pond. But that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy their latest, very appropriately titled In The Summer. Now, this is the first I’m hearing of the band, and among the dissonance of electro, bass and vocals that start the song  In The Summer hit me as a pretty interesting experience. Crystal Fighters also describe themselves as incorporating elements of Basque music, something I’m not at all familiar with but that’s not something you hear every day. ‘Basque country’ is a particular region that encompasses Spain and southern France. Entranced by Basque folklore and music, Crystal Fighters apparently also got their name from part of a Basque opera. Anyway, connoisseur on Basque or not, check out this band, with their debut album yet to drop Crystal Fighters are bringin’ it this summer.

Photo part of Complex June/July

M.I.A. – Steppin’ Up

Here we go, M.I.A. with another new track.  This one is confirmed to be on her latest album, /\/\/\Y/\ and looks to be her third single after Born Free and XXXO. Steppin’ Up doesn’t sound like a banger at first, but within a few second the beat builds to something more familiar with her previous work with its own original twists of course. Maya brings the power power tools, drills, fireworks? and the tribal drum beat down hard on this one. From the past few tracks that we have seen from 2010′s M.I.A. this seems to be the best so far. And maybe that sounds familiar from the last post about a new M.I.A track, but the way I see it, getting better with every new song isn’t a bad thing at all.

/\/\/\Y/\ Tracklisting:

1. The Message
2. Steppin’ Up
3. XXXO
4. Teqkilla
5. Lovalot
6. Story Told
7. It Takes a Muscle
8. It Iz What It Iz
9. Born Free
10. Meds and Feds
11. Tell Me Why
12. Space

(And right now there are rumors of bonus tracks of course on the album’s different editions, yet to be confirmed tracks include Internet Connection, Illygirl, Caps Lock and Believer)

Major Lazer feat. Busy Signal and M.I.A- Sound of Siren

Another M.I.A blog post? You’re either rolling your eyes by now or just got excited to hear the latest to get one up on everyone else on the internet…  Though this isn’t strictly M.I.A but Major Lazer’s latest from their upcoming EP this summer. Blasting that dancehall with Jamaican artist Busy Signal with hook vocals by M.I.A, Major Lazer gets us ready for another hitlist of jams to look forward to this summer hopefully since I’m definitely feelin Sound of Siren, which also seems like it’s hyping up M.I.A too among other things.

Also now, Major Lazer has become a favorite of mine ever since Hold the Line dropped some time last year, though it feels so much longer. But to get new releases from the collaborative Major Lazer AND M.I.A this summer (assuming everything drops on time)?

Yeah, get ready to get down.

I’ve been holding back on introducing Home Brew to the Couchsessions massive, mostly because I was scared that nothing I’d write about them could actually do them enough justice. However, I will bite the bullet and plough ahead with this introduction of my favourite New Zealand group, Home Brew.

I first got introduced to Home Brew through one of my good friends who had introduced me to Haz, Home Brew’s beatmaker/producer back in 2008. After being roped into being the sober driver to Haz’s house on many occasions, Haz and I found ourselves having many late night conversations about new music, and discovering our shared love and obsession of the Japanese Jazz-Hop scene. I was soon being played a bunch of Home Brew tracks, of which I instantly fell in love with. It’s safe to say my subsequent love affair with all things Home Brew started from that point forward.

The first full piece of work from Home Brew I heard, was their 2008 Last Week EP, which sees the 7 track EP giving their take on their daily lives during one week from Monday- Friday. Their refreshingly honest and brutal take on boozing, smoking and living on welfare, the EP is bound to provide you with a few laughs yet still providing the balance of insightful rhymes. One of my favourite tracks off this EP is Saturday, produced by Truent from Koru Licks which I posted last week.

You can dowload the full Last Week EP from their bandcamp here

They soon after released another free download, Summer Ale of which their track Under The Shade comes off, of which a pretty epic story lies behind. Home Brew applied and got rejected for government music video funding. Instead of wallowing in self pity, they pulled off one of the most inventive marketing campaigns ever and released a series of v logs chronicling their hilarious efforts to fundraise money to make a video, all leading up to a fundraiser gig that happened on April 17th. Their campaign made it on to national news, got widespread support from prominent NZ industry goers and their fundraiser gig (of which another NZ Couchsessions favourite, David Dallas made an appearance on the mic) brought out almost every Auckland residing NZ artist, DJ and their manager.

In my opinion, Home Brew have been able to garner such a big following here because one, they’re hilarious, as seen by the video above, and two, they are simply so brutally honest and authentic in their music and who they portray themselves to be, they manage to woo you in effortlessly whilst giving you dope rhymes and beats to match with an authentic NZ twist. The Kiwi references may be rife but their tales of being broke and drunk, yet young and still full of aspirations, yet not quite clear on the path to take, are all too universal.

Below are a few of my favourite Home Brew tracks but I highly recommend heading over to their bandcamp and downloading all their releases for free.

Home Brew- Chicken Chowmein off Summer Ale

Home Brew- Tell The Children off their Vintage EP

Home Brew- Same Sh*t, Different Day off Taste Test

When my good friend Haz told me last year about his “bro’s band” Koru Licks and how dope they were, I had no idea how much I’d be kicking myself for taking six months to finally give their music a listen. After a bit of down time last week, I took him up on his advice and tracked down their recently released self- titled EP. I love nothing more than a live band feel to tracks, and they blend their obvious love of Jazz, Soul, Hip Hop and Funk extremely well. I will let them introduce themselves.

“Fresh new band from the jazzy underground of the Auckland music scene. This bunch of musical time travellers fall back to the swinging, sample-based era of golden hip hop, funk, latin and jazz – but all live and direct. Koru Licks is an ensemble that regenerate the feeling of dope, organic soul music with a team of talent ridden players.”

Ben Trinick – Drums
Abe Pai – Bass
B Mynor – Guitar / Keys
Truent – Turntable
Miso Shiru – MPC
Mikey Rockwell – Vocals / Percussion

It’s safe to say this EP and their other tracks on their bandcamp have been on high rotation the last week and Koru Licks can definitely join the ranks of Julien Dyne, Electric Wire Hustle, and Lewis Mc Callum as proof that New Zealand has definitely got soul.

Below are my two favourite tracks from the EP, but you can download their whole EP free here

I’m not quite sure what draws people more to Connan Mockasin, his infectious high-pitched dreamy vocals, or his innate ability to make being cooky, seem completely normal. His quirkiness continues to fuel my fascination with him and it only worsened in recent months when he dropped his debut album last month titled, Please Turn Me Into The Snat.

Hailing from Wellington, New Zealand, Connan (Connan Hosford) made a name for himself as the frontman for the band Connan and the Mockasins in 2006. After establishing a staunch indie following in England and playing CMJ in 2007, the band went their separate ways and he decided to branch out on his own. He recorded his debut solo record, Please Turn Me Into The Snat over 18 months between studios in London and New Zealand. I can’t find a way to describe this album any other way than brilliantly odd. But brilliant nevertheless. With the sudden surge in popularity of that “dream-pop” sound, Connan’s album is a refreshingly unique take on the sound and is well worth the listen.

Below is the video for his second single off the album, Its Choade My Dear

Listen to his album here
Conan’s tumblr

Hollie Smith and Bulletproof – If You Fall

So my four week holiday has come to an end and I am feeling like I am only just starting to recover from SXSW now. It’s my second day back home and I have realised A LOT of dope things have been brewing since I have been gone, so it’s catch up time!

So I came home and stumbled across a few new tracks by prominent NZ artists that have been released by a NZ music magazine called Rip It Up and to my delight a Hollie Smith collaboration with NZ Drum n Bass lord Bulletproof was waiting for me, and believe me when I say this track goes hard! If you are a fan of the UK scene or Drum n Bass and Dubstep in general, this is a must have. Hollie’s vocals lend themselves seamlessly to this downtempo Drum n Bass track, I’m really hoping she takes on more collabs like this in the near future.

I’m not going to pretend to know much about Kiely Williams’ career. I know about 3LW and The Cheetah Girls, but I couldn’t name you any of their songs or tell you anything about them (aside from the fact that Cheetah Girls is a Disney concoction).

The only reason I even really know who she is, is because everyone was talking about the video for her single “Spectacular.” So being intrigued at the hot mess I was hearing about, I decided to watch.

I’m wondering if I should just have let this one go…because now I’m mad. Really mad.

Like a lot of pop music sung by female “singers”, “Spectacular” is a feminist’s nightmare. The song tells the story about one girl’s night on the town that turns into a sex romp she can barely remember. Perhaps she just drank way too much. Perhaps the man she met at the bar drugged her. It’s not really clear. However, the lyrics (which completely contradict themselves by talking about what she remembers then saying she blacked out) don’t really seem to see the gravity of the situation. Including whether or not her partner used a condom (“What he did to me last night felt so good. It must have been on drugs. I hope he used a rubber. Or I’ma be in trouble”). In the chorus, she sings “the sex was spectacular” about 100 times, (which doesn’t make any sense because if you were blacked out how would you know whether or not the sex was even that good?)

The video just adds to what is already an awful song. We see the pop singer getting ready to go out, then walking down the street in broad daylight, dressed in an outfit straight out of “Hookers R Us” (handcuffs included). She goes to a club (that is apparently open at noon), meets the guy, goes home with him and you can probably figure out the rest. This then jumps to her leaving his place in a hurry (while he lies bare assed in a way no man EVER would lie in a bed) after which she proceeds to do the “walk of shame” home. In between the storyline scenes, Miss Williams has a dance number that consists of her bumping and grinding a wall and a very large rock.

I want to also address Kiely Williams’ responses to criticism of her song and video. Somewhere there was mention of how she was just “acting” and that no one criticizes Lady Gaga or Beyonce for killing people in “Telephone.” In her little “Hey it’s me world” YouTube diary (called kielyTV), Kiely talks about how sometimes a song is just a song and it doesn’t always have a greater meaning. She also talks about how, while she still believes in girl power and following your dreams, she knows a lot of female 20-somethings who go out, get too drunk and go home with some guy whose name they don’t know or remember. In her coy, acting-school trained voice she says “It’s not my idea of a perfect Saturday night, no…but (head tilt) it does happen. A lot. Aaand maybe it’s something we all do need to talk about.” With a few more head tilts and small smirks, she finishes off by saying “Don’t shoot the messenger.”

There is so much here, I don’t even know where to begin.

Kiely Williams is a perfect example of how, while women may be able to vote, have a job and even (MAYBE) be openly sexually active, we have progressed very little. (Personally, I group most female pop singers into this category, so don’t feel bad Kiely). Why is it wrong that she was formerly a Cheetah Girl who is now acting like a “full grown woman”? Because, while she may have “grown up”, her audience has not. There will be pre-teen fans of her show who will be singing lyrics like “Last I remember I was face down. Ass up. Clothes off, broke off…” These girls will hear this song and, in dealing with their own budding sexualities, will think that not remembering sex means it must have been good. And it’s not just the women I’m concerned about.

A few months ago, when Beyonce and Lady Gaga’s video “Videophone” came out, I went on a Twitter rant. At some stage, I made the comment that, after this song, women couldn’t get mad at men for videotaping them dancing in a club, especially if the song was playing at the same time. Not saying that all men do this, but there are many who do. So with this video, my fear is that some men (especially young ones) will see this and think it’s OK to get a girl drunk and/or drug her till she blacks out. Just read some of the comments male fans have left on her response video.

Kiely’s lax and aloof response tells me that she either doesn’t know what this song means or more likely (since she knows so much about “girl power”), doesn’t care. However, I’m sure the victims of date rape do care. It’s hard enough to prove date rape, and with pop singers (purposefully or not) promoting it, it will make it harder for women to want to come forward. Also, the fact that in a time when abortion and HIV/AIDS are serious hot button issues, do you really want to be nonchalantly telling young people  that you can’t remember if the guy used a condom? What do you think that says?

Kiely Williams doesn’t want us to shoot the messenger. However, that proves problematic when the messenger is the face that we are seeing singing and acting out the lyrics. She is not relaying something between two parties. She is recreating something that, for many women who have gone through it, is a traumatic experience. And she is using it to make a career.

Criticizing that is not shooting the messenger. It is voicing an opinion on a serious problem.

(P.S. Go check out @ThroatChopU’s video rant on the subject. He says what I was thinking too.)

Kidz in the Hall feat. Just Blaze & Colin Munroe – Take Over the World

New music from hip-hop duo Kidz in the Hall. They are about to come out with a new album, Land of Make Believe, due March 9th, but I’m feeling this new leak featuring Just Blaze and singer Colin Munroe. The Canadian singer, who also released his own Flashing Lights mix+cover a few years ago, is also coming out with a 2010 release, Don’t Think Less of Me as well. Check ‘em both out!

Colin Munroe - I Want Those Flashing Lights

Before I get into who this soul sister pictured above is, let me briefly introduce myself. Whilst living in Mexico at the beginning of 2008, I was scouring the net for info on SXSW parties to attend and stumbled across The Couch Sessions and LOVED the site. Stone and I then began exchanging party info for SXSW via Twitter,I then met both Stone and Marcus at SXSW and we kicked it at several showcases. Of anyone I had ever met while living up in the Northern Hemisphere, these two were the only people I met who knew of and were fans of New Zealand artists, its safe to say I was impressed. Almost a year on and a few attempts to get me contributing to the site, I finally gave in, seeing it as an opportunity to showcase some amazingly dope music from my part of the world that generally gets slept on overseas.

So what better way to kick it off then posting on one of my favourite New Zealand artists, the beautiful Hollie Smith.

Hollie Smith has one of those voices that 20 years from now, you could hear her on a track and just know its her, it’s that powerful and that distinctive.  After releasing an EP in 2003 and working with prominent NZ artists such as Fat Freddys Drop and Solaa, she burst onto the scene in 2007 with her brilliant and highly acclaimed debut album Long Player, which went on to go double platinum in NZ, no easy feat I must say. A few years later and with the unfortunate folding of her deal with the legendary Blue Note label behind her, she is back with a vengeance awaiting the release of her sophomore album titled Humour and the Misfortune of Others which is to be released on March 15. The lead single is titled Mamma, which is now accompanied by this recently released dope music video. If this single is any indication of what we are to expect from the album, all others step aside, because 2010 may just become the property of Miss Hollie Smith.

The Drums are a new band from Brooklyn, by way of Florida, who sound like they were plucked off a sunny California beach circa 1953. The four fresh-faced NYC transplants, led by childhood best friends Jonathan Pierce and Jacob Graham, are getting some serious buzz right now. They’ve have become my latest obsession too, thanks in part to the infectious first single “Let’s Go Surfing.”

Originally released late last year, the song is the ultimate cure to the winter blues. It’s three minutes of shimmery danceable pop riding on a wave of handclaps, Dick Dale basslines, and the catchiest whistling since Peter Bjorn and John. This is the sound of summer romance and sand in between your toes, all youthful abandon and nostalgic wonder. Like Beach Blanket Bingo re-imagined with art school kids and LES hipsters.

The Drums are already being hailed as one of the best bands to watch in 2010, gaining comparisons to everyone from The Beach Boys to Joy Division. They appear this month on the cover of NME and just released their newest single “Best Friend” a few days ago on the BBC. The band’s EP Summertime! is out now and a full-length album is expected later this year (as well as a tour with Florence of Florence and the Machine).