The Witzard

CREDIT: Greg Gardner (SOURCE: Buenaventura Records) Controller 7 is a Berkeley, California-based producer, who makes self-described "beats, mostly sample-based cut-and-paste type stuff." C7 spent his early years spinning G.I. Joes off of his Sesame Street record player, playing in the mud, and falling face first off his bike. After spending some quality time memorizing the lyrics to Run-D.M.C.'s "You Be Illin,'" air drumming to mid-80's jams on MTV, and becoming obsessed with dubbing tapes, he started playing the drums in 1988. Fast-forward to a number of years later, Controller 7 had honed in his technique and started making rough demo tapes, one of which just so happened to fall into the hands of sole—then, one of the founders of anticon.—and by 1998-99, things were starting to take shape. Controller 7 has since worked with the like sof sole, Sage Francis, Third Sight, Atmosphere, Themselves (doseone & JEL.) Deep Puddle Dynamics, and Sixtoo. He ...

By now, it's fairly widely known that Hemlock Ernst is the rapping alter-ego of Future Islands erratically-dancing frontman, Samuel "Sam" T. Herring. Herring is/was, also, a member of The Snails (as Sammy Snail,) Art Lord & The Self-Portraits, and Trouble Knows Me with Otis Jackson, Jr. AKA Madlib. Sam Herring has been an active member of Baltimore, Maryland-based Future Islands since 2006, but has, supposedly been emceeing for decades prior to joining the beloved Indie Rock/Synth-Pop quartet. Herring has been doing guest verses on other Hip-Hop/Rap artists and producers tracks as Hemlock Ernst for quite a few years now and has appeared alongside everyone from Height Keech to Busdriver. Ernst first came in contact with LA-based producer Kenny Segal while working on "Souvenir" from R.A.P. Ferreira FKA milo/scallops hotel's 2015 album, So The Flies Don't Come. It appears as though Ernst & Segal have secretly been chipping away at completing a ...

About two weeks ago, ruby yacht makers guild (AKA ruby yacht ) quietly unveiled their group album/label comp. 37 GEMS . It features the rhyming and beat-making talents of R.A.P. Ferreira FKA milo & scallops hotel , SB The Moor, Pink Navel , safari al, Eldon Somers , Kenny Segal, and E L U C I D . Now, ruby yacht have, seemingly, added yet another extremely talented character to their ever-growing roster: Hemlock Ernst ! Ernst is the rapping alias of Future Islands' frontman and life-long Hip-Hop supporter, Samuel "Sam" T. Herring . " Sam was rapping long before he joined a band and it's all he's really ever wanted to do... it's more than "occasional" for him... it's just that his sh*t blew up on a totaaally different tip and he's been riding that out like one of the best to ever do it," safari al (@s_afari_al) Tweeted Wednesday morning. Herring has been featured on Hip-Hop tracks billed as "Hemlock Ernst" alon...

Last we heard from Dan "Height" Keech , he was prepping his 2018 E-40 & B-Legit-style double-mic sonic assault, Computer Rocker , on his very own imprint, Cold Rhymes Records , with partner-in-rhyme, MISTER as a "Featured Emcee" throughout." Prior to Computer Rocker , Height and his crew unleashed THERE ISN'T VERY MICH TIME: 14 ICE-COLD DEVASTATORS FROM COLD RHYMES RECORDS , which boasted choice cuts from their 2018 release schedule: Height -produced Stories of A Made Up Year from Darko The Super , Speak N' Eye's Cypher At The Gates of Dawn, and Kate Ferencz 's What Was The World , as well as Param Anand Singh's Psychic Arpeggiator, 808's & Milkshakes from Desperate Band Appreciation Society (Darko & Harvey Cliff MC,) Vans_Westly 's Bubble Boy , HEIGHT KEECH 1000: The Tightest Songs 2000-2018, ialive 's Don't Do Nothing —one of our personal Favorite Albums of 2018—Year of The Darko Hosted By: Height Keech, ...

united vizion by Gould '72 united vizion is the first release from the artist formerly known as all these fingers AKA âtƒ . Since 2008, the mysterious Detroit -based producer and beat-maker released 50 full-length projects, as well as various EP's, singles, etc. and worked with the likes of Bishop Nehru , Darko The Super, The Hell Hole Store , Hemlock Ernst, Infinity Frequencies , Jack Wilson, Mr. Muthaf**kin' eXquire , and Yzal The Praxis. Just this past March, all these fingers uploaded his 50TH and final release as âtƒ , 悪い受信 . Along with 悪い受信 's digital and cassette release, âtƒ shared an extremely heart-felt note to all of his fans and supporters, which you can read in-full at the bottom of this very post. Now, just a few mere months later, âtƒ has returned under a brand new recording alias, Gould '72 , with the aforementioned united vizion . When compared against his past work as all these fingers/âtƒ , Gould '72 is far more instrument-based than H...

717 (part I) by Mugwampers Mugwampers are a Hip-Hop crew, collective, art-house, etc. hailing from Livingston, Scotland consisting of founding members, emcee SaIGO and producer 'i's . Over the course of the last few months, Mugwampers have unleashed a collection of "warm-up" projects, including 'i's failure.to.communicate and feature-filled .and then there was flowers and SaIGO 's 'i's -produced spoken word project, ANOTHER TIME MAYBE . . Now, Mugwampers have returned with their first official long-form project, 717 (Part I.) A sprawling 5-track EP with sonic benchmarks and Bandcamp tags ranging from Electronic to Hip-Hop/Rap , Metal to Spoken Word , Abstract Hip-Hop to Ambient , Plunderphonics to Screamo . 717 EP1 is the first in a series of three planned EP's Mugwampers have recently recorded, which will each focus on various styles and sub-genres of Hip-Hop . Ahead of 717 (Part I) SaIGO & 'i's unleashed a mus...

Mugwampers are a Scottish Hip-Hop crew consisting of beat-maker and producer Chris McCormick AKA 'i's and emcee Aaron Bonnar AKA SaIGO and collectively hailing from Livingston, Scotland. Although, they have yet to release a proper full-length collaborative project, SaIGO & 'i's been communicating through social media since 2014, working together, actively recording material, and earnestly started building their brand last Fall. 'i's has quietly released an album entitled failure.to.communicate and a 6-track compilation EP dubbed .and then there was flowers under the Mugwampers banner/Bandcamp page within just the last two months. Nestled amongst a who's-who of featured guests including billy woods, s.al AKA Ruby Yacht's Safari Al, Uncommon Nasa, and cunabear, 'i's & SaIGO slipped out their first collaborative track attributed to Mugwampers, "white liez," on .and then there was flowers. However, I can positively assure you, Mug...

Baltimore-based singer, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and web/multi-media designer Emily Scott has recently released her second, aptly-titled Pale Spring EP2. Wenker is a classically-trained pianist and has been tickling the ivory keys since she was five. She mostly played Beethoven & Chopin for the better part of her musical upbringing and took guitar lessons in high school, but always felt like she was "bad at it." It took several years, but Emily Scott says she had to essentially un-learn everything she had amassed during her classical training in order to be able to make her own music. It wasn't until Scott met frequent collaborator and fiance Drew Scott about two and a half years ago that she learned how to use ProTools and attained a new outlook on the world of music-making and production. Since first meeting Scott, Emily Scott has recorded and released two now-removed Anna Notte albums (her rapping alter-ego) and two EP's-worth of "genre-fluid...

"Hello, I'm âtƒ (AKA all these fingers ) and I make beats and play music. There's a lot of dudes who have influenced me as a producer, but these are probably the ones I owe the most to... in particular, these records," Michigan -based producer all these fingers wrote within a recent email. I actually believe I met âtƒ through my buddy and frequent collaborator Darko The Super —they've collaborated on a few albums, as both Darko The Super & all these fingers and Doc Fingers . âtƒ has self-released a whopping 52 albums, mixtapes, cassettes, EP's, beat tapes, and digi-singles on his personal Bandcamp page since 2011. He's collaborated with the likes of Darko The Super , Mr. Muthaf**kin' eXquire, and Future Islands frontman Sam Herring 's rapping alter-ego Hemlock Ernst , as well as creating remixes for Roc Marciano , Sean Price, Beastie Boys , Nas, Raekwon , Biggie, and Slick Rick . all these fingers' latest Super Mario Kart -inspire...

I recently heard about rapper-producer Drew Scott after fellow Baltimore beat-maker John "Jumbled" Bachman shared his latest single from then-unreleased ILL VESSEL, Hemlock Ernst, Eze Jackson & 83cutlass-featuring "Porcelain." I immediately reached out to Drew Scott, simply on the strength of "Porcelain," and we quickly began emailing back and forth. Before too long, he sent me a pre-release copy of said album, ILL VESSEL along with this fitting, extremely descriptive statement: "So, it's kind of a solo album/collaborative project I've been working on for about three years in-between the last BLACKSAGE album and Luvadocious with Al Rogers, Jr. Predominantly Baltimore artists, aside from PT Burnem (Richmond, VA,) Mike East (Rhode Island,) and Jaws That Bite (Detroit.) I did almost all of the beats, aside from contributions from Berlin-based producer Owen Ross , the Jumbled-produced track, the Mike East-produced track, and collaborating wi...