The Witzard

Danger Mouse & Black Thought (CREDIT: UNCANNY, George Muncey & Elliott Elder) Danger Mouse (Brian Burton) & Black Thought (Tariq Trotter) have been long-time friends and infrequent collaborators. Long before The Roots/The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon emcee ever issued a proper solo effort (now, we're up to Streams of Thought, Vol. 3,) there had been rumblings of a collaborative effort with Danger Mouse cleverly titled Dangerous Thoughts . By most accounts now found online, that was around 2005-06 with The Roots steadily releasing Game Theory, Rising Down, How I Got Over, undun, and ...And Then You Shoot Your Cousin in the years since. They became the house band for Fallon's Late Night with Jimmy Fallon in 2009 and transitioned along with him to The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in 2014. Danger Mouse has been far from inactive himself since 2005-06, releasing The Mouse & The Mask & Occult Hymn EP as DANGERMDOOM with MF DOOM, St. Elsewhere ...

Broken Bells (@broken_bells) have been teasing something since about August with cryptic black-and-white in-studio Polaroid -esque photos , some dated as far back as 7/26/18. Broken Bells is, of course, the collaborative duo of James Mercer & Brian Burton . Mercer is the long-time frontman of The Shins/Flake Music and Burton is also, known as super-producer Danger Mouse ; who has worked with everyone from MF DOOM (DANGERDOOM) to The Black Keys , A$AP Rocky to Parquet Courts , and likely, most famously, as Gnarls Barkley with Cee-Lo . Since initially forming in 2008-09, Broken Bells have released two full-lengths, 2010's Broken Bells and 2014's After The Disco , as well as a 2011 EP dubbed Meyrin Fields and a number of non-album singles. Honestly, we, here at The Witzard , personally, favor Broken Bells' self-titled 2010 debut, but their entire cannon of music is phenomenal! Lest we forget, Broken Bells courted a then-relatively unknown Christina Hendricks (...

Self-described husband, dad, crate-digger, beard cultivator, and Flea Market Funk founder DJ Prestige heroically recounted "Bug Juice" as "pure Funk with no option on Soundcloud for the Funk genre, this may be the record that makes them put Funk in there, seriously. This instrumental is heavy, and J-Zone's drum break towards the end solidifies this as one of our faves of 2016." J-Zone & Pablo Martin are currently holed up in the studio readying their "Bug JUice" 7-inch EP for September with a full-length album to likely follow as soon as October or November. J-Zone's own on-site govillaingo.com biography additionally notes that he's currently "also preparing for the roll out of SuperBlack," yet another super-group formed with the likes of legendary De La Soul-affiliated producer Prince Paul and American TV producer, filmmaker, writer, and The White Mandingos member Sacha Jenkins. "Um, I pretty much think of myself as like ...

" The Du-Rites finally drop a full song to check out. "Bug Juice" now on Soundcloud (who are a bunch of squares a bunch of squares and simps for not having a "Funk" option in their genre drop[-down] menu, but "Trap" is available). To hear: my website link in bio - newest post or soundcloud.com/thedurites . 7-inch single later next month; album late Fall," multi-instrumentalist and Hip-Hop producer Jay "J-Zone" Mumford wrote within a recent aptly-titled @jzonedontig Instagram post. Still hot on the heels of his latest solo album, Fish-n-Grits , which is made up of a gaggle of limited edition vinyl-only 7-inch releases dating as far back as 2014 and new material, J-Zone has readied "probably the closest to what [he] aspired to in my Funk-drenched 80's childhood" in the form of a newly-minted 2-man Funk band, fittingly titled The Du-Rites . J-Zone is currently preparing a 7-inch Funk instrumental EP with his lon...

After what even most die-hard Shins fans would consider a pretty lackluster album attempt, frontman James Mercer has reunited with producer-buddy Danger Mouse aka Brian Burton to write and record a new Broken Bells album, After The Disco . Broken Bells (1) was essentially Mercer's "solo" debut and once again, he's comfortably playing the Run-D.M.C. to Danger Mouse 's Rick Rubin ; who seems to play best with others, ie: Gnarls Barkley , Gorillaz, The Black Keys , Beck, Portugal. The Man , etc. Lead single "Holding On for Life," which was previously included within an album teaser, has been self-described by Burton as a mix between late 1980-90's Dr. Dre or Ice Cube and Bee Gees -style falsetto. After The Disco will become available this upcoming January 14th and will feature micro-appearances from Nate Walcott (Bright Eyes) on horns, Daniel Lupi -orchestrated string arrangements, man-made drum machine fills by Brian Burton himself, and...