The Witzard

"someone did a mash up album of @qotsa vocals over various music i've made and it's kind of awesome. thanks for this weird gift @boototom," el-p (@therealelp) wrote within an enthusiastic April 3, 2018 Tweet. To be honest, I hadn't heard about ToToM's El-Q album either, until El-P Tweeted about it, but once I delved in and started listening, I thoroughly enjoyed it! ToToM is the production alias of Paris-based "bastard pirate producer" Thomas Boivin; after a bit of investigative journalism, I was able to get in direct contact with the mysterious producer himself. ToToM has been constructing genre-eschewing mash-ups AKA bootlegs AKA "Bastard Pop" since about 2005-06 and readily lists DJ Zebra, Nine Inch Nails, La Phaze, and LCD Soundsystem amongst his greatest sources of influence. He's released collaborative mash-up albums with SpareElbowSkin, Fissunix & Colatron (B.I.M.A.) MichMash, Shoefiti, MsMiep, and La Phaze, as well as on...

Guilty Simpson is a seasoned Motor City street-worn, hard as nails emcee, yet quite surprisingly, one of the most genuine, nicest artists I've ever encountered during my 5+ years running The Witzard . Simpson has quietly released a number of nearly flawless albums produced by Madlib , Oh No, Apollo Brown , an ill-fated and ultimately, scrapped album co-produced by J Dilla & Mr. Porter , a 6-song EP recorded with Small Professor, and most recently, my absolute favorite album of 2015, Detroit's Son helmed by Australian producer, Katalyst . I would almost personally attest, as a long-time Guilty Simpson fan and Stones Throw supporter, that his collective non-album material is arguably just as strong, if not even stronger, than his crop of full-length albums; throughout the course of his sprawling 25-year career, Guilty has unleashed acclaimed one-offs with the likes of the late great Dilla , who somehow managed to clear samples of James Brown and The Beatles, Jazz-mi...

"We thought "Take Me Out" [2004] was very cool, and wouldn't it be nice to say hello when they came to Los Angeles ," Sparks frontman Russell Mael recently lamented to Domino Records concerning his newly-minted band with younger brother Ron and the entirety of Scottish Dance-Punk band Franz Ferdinand . "We met and decided then it would be great to do something together. We put forward a couple demos, one was "Piss Off." But they got swept up by everything, and it didn't happen at the time," Mael continued. Legend has it that FFS didn't fully reconvene until Coachella 2013 when Ron & Russell Mael ended up bumping into a tooth-aching Alex Kapranos frantically in search of a local dentist that they unanimously decided a "10-year gestation period for this idea was long enough." FFS' self-titled Domino Records debut was recorded late last year during a marathon 15-day recording stint, wherein the 6-man band...