The Witzard

December Boys by Soft Peaks "It’s been a little while, but Baltimore ’s Soft Peaks are back with another EP! Three songs that were recorded a while ago, but sometimes life gets in the way. Band members went back to school, started families, and trying to find time to practice, in between dinner and putting the kids to bed," reads a rather quaint email I received from Baltimore 's Soft Peaks early Sunday morning. Its core members include lead guitarist and vocalist Jonathan Moore , second guitarist and vocalist Eben Dennis , and drummer, engineering teacher, and Hip-Hop producer John "Jumbled" Bachman , bassist Tim St. Clair , and keyboard and accordion player Michael Lambright . I've previously worked with Bachman on a number of occasions for this various publication, including a recent Scratching The Surface interview; although, to my surprise, he had never once mentioned he played drums in his own self-described "Power Pop" band during an...

homeboy sandman is the sandman by blu "I understand you've been running from the man that goes by the name of the sandman," echoes an eerie back-laid sample delicately lifted from America 's 1971 Folk Rock album track, "Sandman." It's actually the lead-off track from illusive super-producer from Blu and seasoned underground rapper Homeboy Sandman 's surprise four-track download-able EP, homeboy sandman is the sandman . While they've previously worked together on a number of non-album tracks, most notably "Atlantis," which was released on Stones Throw this past June, this marks their first cohesive long(er)-form project. homeboy sandman is the sandman EP was released with little to no release information, aside from " homeboy sandman is the sandman produced by blu " and a handful of vague Bandcamp genre tags: " hip hop , hip-hop/rap, nwc rap , Los Angeles." It's largely a Jaylib -style rapper-producer a...

Jai Paul is a painfully mysterious British-Indian singer-songwriter/ producer who's really only released 2-3 tracks since signing with XL Recordings in 2010: "BTSTU," "Jasmine," and "Flip Out" (Str8 Outta Mumbai). Paul's forward-thinking brand of Space R&B has been embraced by Drake , Beyoncé, rapper XV , and he even appeared on Big Boi 's recent solo album, Vicious Lies & Dangerous Rumors . Practically out of nowhere, during Coachella 's weekend-spanning festivities, Jai Paul quietly uploaded his long-rumored self-titled debut album/mixtape to Bandcamp . It's selling for 7 GBP's, which converts to about $10.35 or "Name Your Price" and that gets your a download folder containing 16 untitled tracks. Jai Paul CD-R kinda sounds like a mixed bag full of rough demos, fully fleshed out songs, and random skits; Track titles have been speculated to include "Baby Beats," "A Thousand Light-Years ...

the only one. by exile & blu Late last night ["early morning"] while many of us were sound asleep, Blu quietly posted a mysterious link to his Twitter handle, @HerFavColor . Turns out that very link lead zealous fans to Blu & Exile 's long-awaited, mildly forgotten follow-up to Below The Heavens (2007). give me my flowers while i can smell them was written and recorded soon thereafter, only to be hastily abandoned upon partial completion in 2009 for reasons unknown. With that said, "flowers" is a raw, un-mixed/mastered 15-track album, but since this seems to be a common practice for the man simply known as Blu ... fans should expect to see a proper, fully mixed down version of the album up for wholesale within the next few months. Nature Sounds recently re-issued 2 [rough] Blu albums from 2009 in this very fashion: Open and HerFavoriteColo(u)r . While Blu & Exile have been relatively silent since 2007, they've been far from musically in-...