.Evolving Music.

Inspired Flight. This band has a sound that is hard to describe. And yet, looking at the artists they list as influences on their MySpace page, their sound just makes sense. They’ve really learned how to incorporate some of the subtle and intangible things that make those musicians great musicians.

Their bio says it well. “Rooted in hip-hop and dipping into elements of indie rock, downtempo, dub and dance, Inspired Flight is taking your pre-conceived notion of what a band and DJ are and merging them into something new and quite hypnotizing.” Though their sound clearly incorporates a myriad of different elements, including vocals, keyboards, other exotic instruments, and laptops, this band is made up of just two people -  master turntablist, OpenOptics, and accomplished guitarist/songwriter, Chavez. To learn a little more about their respective musical backgrounds and inspiration, click here.

The duo wants you to join their remix contest, powered by MixMatchMusic. Go on. Have a long hard listen to their song, “It Always Takes,” feel it, breath it, internalize it. (This, by the way, is easy to do because the song is beautiful. It has a haunting melody and something generally mesmerizing about it.) Then, take it apart and re-envision it as your own. Add, subtract, multiply, magnify, simplify, or otherwise modify the song to your liking.

To do so, you can download the stems (for free) and use your own software to remix them, OR if you want to keep things even simpler, click on the MixMaker button and make your mix online. Most importantly, UPLOAD your remix so that you can get credit for your masterpiece! Other people can listen to it, vote on it and share it.

This remix contest runs until January 31st, 2010 and Inspired Flight will choose their favorite submission. The lucky winner will be the featured bonus track on their album, coming in March 2010. Nice! Oh ya, and you’ll also get a limited edition T-shirt and poster, as well as an Eyeball HD Webcam from Blue Microphones. Read the complete contest rules here.

Go. Be inspired!

When you approach a decade between albums, especially in a genre as fluid and fickle as Hip-Hop, you run the risk of falling into irrelevance. Hieroglyphics Imperium’s Souls of Mischief, however, isn’t worried about perception. They’re worried about putting out what they consider quality music on their time schedule.

This isn’t to say that the past nine years have been absent of new music for the crew. Opio and A-Plus have both released solo albums and Tajai has remained consistently busy with solo and collaboration projects. After the 2003 release of Hieroglyphic’s sophomore album, Full Circle, the rumors of a new Souls of Mischief album kept building, but nothing seemed to surface. Even after an early 2009 interview where Opio and Tajai mentioned plans for a new song for download every week from Hiero Imperium, the only news of new Souls was more rumor. After such a long hiatus, it wasn’t surprising to see the release date for the long-awaited album pushed from November 10th to December 2nd.

It’s worth the wait.

Sporting cover art from renowned artist Steven Lopez, Montezuma’s Revenge drops today and should provide a healthy reminder of why this crew has retained credibility and a solid fan base despite the lack of regular releases in the flavor of the month hip-hop industry. Cover art isn’t the only place they brought in talent though, and the results are fantastic.

You only need a minimum of knowledge of Hip-Hop to have heard the name Prince Paul. Over the past 20 years, he has carved out a spot as one of the innovators, creators and most well-known producers in the industry. He has participated in groups from the ’80s pioneer Stetsasonic to the horrorcore originators, the Gravediggaz. With Paul announced as the primary producer for the album, it was anyone’s guess what direction the sound might head towards.

Prince Paul has chosen to take the backbone of the Souls of Mischief sound and amplify it with his personal flourish. The heavy basslines, creeping melodies, kicked back beats and slick guitar and string loops the Hiero crew members favor are all here, combined with catchy hooks, clever samples and seamless production in vintage Paul fashion. The resulting tracks are audio canvases that provide Tajai, Opio, Phesto, and A-Plus room to roam lyrically while sounding completely at home. Under Paul’s production, the group finds a consistency and energy missing from their solo efforts and reminiscent of the debut album.

“Postal” offers a lush string background and uptempo beat as the group raps about heartbreak and break-up, effortlessly making a down topic into a head-nodder. “Proper Aim”’s addictive and naked bass line follows the one rapper at a time format and makes a good introductory track to new listeners still attempting to attach voice to group member. “Dead Man Walking” utilizes the constant keys and scales of West Coast rap to back lyrics dealing with vengeance and the street.

“Home Game” is an old-school cruising track with music, weed, driving and women as focus, lyrics finding the blend of relaxed flow and taut tempo. The album closer “LaLaLa” features quick back and forth between the group members over a drum and guitar sample combination and interspersed tambourines. The quick jigsaw exposes the chemistry of these four, never missing a beat or word between complex rhyme schemes and multiple voices.

And in between all of these songs? Tracks that show Prince Paul boosting the rich history of sound and style native to Souls of Mischief while letting Souls of Mischief effortlessly demonstrate the tenacity, chemistry and complexity of lyricism that has been their calling card since ‘93. This one could be around for a while too.

“Don’t wait is just a song about going out, finding a girl and dancing with her. Living life and having a good time. With everybody. Together. We don’t think that just because we have a reggae feel in some of our music that we should preach righteousness, sing about smoking ganja, or pretend to be Bob Marley. Enough people do that already. It’s just a pop song.” -- The Beautiful Girls

Now that’s a refreshingly honest and unapologetic introduction to what is indeed a catchy poppy song with a reggae feel. It’s called “Don’t Wait.” Have a listen:

The Beautiful Girls hail from Australia and are indeed beautiful, albeit not female. The sound they create is an electric harmony of rock, reggae, pop and folk, which at times sounds a lot like the boys from the softer surfer-singer-songwriter corner (most notably Jack Johnson, to whom lead singer Mat McHugh bears a striking resemblance), and at other times sounds much less soft…

The rootsy carefree sound of “Don’t Wait’ will get you grooving in no time.

Weezer is preparing for the drop of their new album Raditude, set to be released on November 3rd, by teasing fans with a 33 second trailer of the music video for the album’s first single “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To.”

Raditude, said to be named by The Office’s Rainn Wilson,  is a follow up to the band’s June 2008 Red Album.  It is another disc to fall on Weezer’s catchy, pop-punk side, as opposed to their more mellow, thoughtful albums like the Blue Album.  Goofy track titles like “I’m Your Daddy” and “Tired of Sex” have listeners expecting some pretty good-humored songs.

“(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To” was leaked onto the internet this summer when Walmart.com posted the song up for purchase 9 days before its original release date.  Weezer officially released the track two days later.

The video for the song was directed by Mark Webb,  director of (500) Days of Summer (sweet!) as well as many other music videos, and stars Cloverfield’s Odette Yustman.  It will premier on Babelgum but for now check out the teaser trailer:

The idea of combining indie rock darlings Conor Oberst, Mike Mogis, Jim James, and M. Ward, conceived in 2004, finally came to fruition yesterday with the release of The Monsters of Folk’s self-titled album. The fifteen track disc defeats the old adage, often applied to super-groups, of the sum being less than its parts.

The four artists, each already having their own successes with bands Bright Eyes, My Morning Jacket, and She & Him, highlight the best in each other. All four players share songwriting and vocal duties, and no one artist steals the spotlight completely; however, Oberst’s trademark sound does permeate most of the songs. His distinctive wordplay lyrics and jaunty folk-rock are predominant.

James’ past work with many different genres and influences in his band My Morning Jacket comes through on the trip-hop opening song “Dear God (Sincerely M.O.F.),” and the funk inspired “Losin Yo Head.” The evocative harmonies typical of Ward and Oberst are pervasive. And Mogis, originally of Oberst’s band Bright Eyes, plays a more minor role in the forefront of the album, but was major behind the scenes working as producer.

All four artists brought their best to the table, and created a disc of enjoyable, catchy folk tunes.

{For the music I was listening to in July, click here.}

Well, once again I’m a bit tardy and we have the music I was listening to in August being posted on the first day of September. But, better late than never, and the August music, while a bit late, is pretty spectacular. The August iPod update covers 94 songs from 7 artists (yes, a lot of full album downloads this month), and stayed largely (and surprisingly) away from Hip-Hop. So, without further ado, here’s what I’m hearing lately.

As Tall As Lions, You Can’t Take it With You: Having been kicking around in various formats since 2001, ATAL has released their third album. The band, originally from New York but recording a good portion of work in Chicago, flirts with rock, Indie and folk in darker soundscapes. The sometimes low, sometimes high or falsetto voice of lead singer Dan Nigro works with lyrics often dealing with depression or anxiety over brooding tracks. Through all of these songs, a feeling of being trapped somehow persists, with snips of guitar rifts floating through deep bass lines or horns whispering in the background. But despite this, the melancholy at times reaches crescendos that speak of freedom through misery. At other points, ATAL is a runaway train of energy on a track like “In Case of Rapture,” where the drums keep a frenetic pace. Don’t Sleep On: “Sixes and Sevens,” “We’s Been Waitin,” and “Home Is Where You’re Happy”

Beats Antique, Tribal Derivations: Fusing old and new, Beats Antique uses World and specifically Eastern-inspired music while adapting it to Western downtempo, glitch and hip-hop. Indian chants, thick stand-up bass, lightly picked harps, sitars and other string instruments are thrown in the pot with tablas and hand drums, frequently to be sprinkled with drum machines and electronic effects. The result is an album with driving, lounging or club music. In some cases you can imagine the hookah smoke drifting around you as dancers move slowly to the tunes, while in others you can imagine a dark lounge. On “Derivation,” they take portion of melody from “Summertime,” and pepper it with a digeridoo and deep drums. If you’re a fan of World music, this is an album for you. Don’t Sleep On: “Derivation,” “Intertwine,” and “Discovered.”

Fruit Bats, The Ruminant Band: After working on the fringes of music, Eric D. Johnson, the frontman of the Fruit Bats, signed with Sub Pop in 2002 and have been labeled by music publications as “Zoology Rock,” “Boot-Gazer,” and “rustic pop.” The Ruminant Band is their 5th studio release and offers a sunny panoply of pastoral and easy to listen to (which is not the same as easy listening) rock tracks that feel like they could have come out of another era. Up-beat acoustic guitars back moving guitar riffs, piano dances playfully across the spectrum and Johnson’s voice, high and plaintive, is reminiscent of some of Led Zeppelin’s tracks. The tracks are on the shorter side, content to bring the listener along, get the idea across and move onto something else without brooding on one sound. An upbeat album perfect for a ride or camping trip, early mornings in the sunshine and dusty backroads. Don’t Sleep On: “Beautiful Morning Light,” “Primitive Man,” and “Singing Joy to the World.”

M.R. Shajarian, Night Silence Desert: Where Beats Antique took traditional music and mixed it with new themes, M.R. Shajarian stays strictly classic here in his World music. The tracks are light on percussion and heavy on atmosphere, with songs that feel as if they’re literally drifting away into the night of a desert. The instrumentation is skilled, an almost Middle East Béla Fleck sound permeating many of the tracks. Don’t Sleep On: “Silence of the Night (Sokout-e-Shab),” “Rain (Baroun),” and “Setar Instrumental (Torgheh)”

The Morning Benders, Talking Through Tin Cans: Berkeley natives The Morning Benders, who recently garnered “Best Of” for a local band in the yearly San Francisco round up are a pleasant mixture of rock and Indie pop without trying to be too much of either. The songs are laid back and pleasant melodically. Simple drums, guitars, a Rhodes and tambourines paint a picture of sunny California in much the same way the Beach Boys did, but with urban flare and a nod to slightly less-polished pop. Like the Shins without the depression, The Morning Benders are a group to keep an eye out for over the next few years. Don’t Sleep On: “Waiting for a War,” “Boarded Doors,” and “Wasted Time.”

Oumou Sangare, Seya: Hailing from Mali, Sangare weaves traditional African hunting songs with lyrics of social criticism attacking the position of women and marriage in the society, among others. Seya is her first album release since 2004 and it is full of sound. The rhythms and melodies of her native land meet superbly with her voice which is smooth and slightly musky. The arrangements are lively and moving, and as her voice soars over the songs, you don’t need to speak her language to hear her emotion. Don’t Sleep On: “Kounadya,” “Senkele Te Sira,” and “Wele Wele Wintou.”

Owl City, Maybe I’m Dreaming/Ocean Eyes: Adam Young is the one man behind Owl City. He started making music to combat insomnia, and the tracks carry an energized dreaminess that speaks to the line between dusk and dawn. Fans of Postal Service will recognize his electric and synth symphonies, while fans of Death Cab for Cutie and Postal Service will find in Young an eerily identical voice to Ben Gibbons. Young is soothing, his melodies are light and sound pure, and his balance between sweet sentimentality and sad longing creates almost a joyous balance between joy and pain. For some, these tracks might be too syrupy, but for others, a slightly more electronic and upbeat Postal Service will be just the delivery they need. Maybe I’m Dreaming is a 2008 release and Ocean Eyes from 2009. Don’t Sleep On: “Fireflies,” (video below), “The Technicolor Phase,” and “On the Wing.”

Brooklyn-based band Dirty Projectors have been releasing albums since 2002, but until this year, have been largely seen as too conceptual and highbrow to be listenable. Frontman, Dave Longstreth, is a Yale grad with a propensity for the inventive and experimental. Past albums include ornate interpretations of Black Flag songs, theatrical orchestral pieces, and inspiration from just about every musical genre you can imagine.

Their June release, Bitte Orca, does not break from their pattern of imaginative tracks, drawing inspiration from all different styles; it is, however, their first album to seem like a cohesive set, with a sound accessible to a much broader audience. The songs are still intricate enough to keep a listener’s interest, but do not lose them in overly abstract departures, as in the past.

Earlier this year, Dirty Projectors also collaborated with David Byrne on Dark Was the Night, a compilation album put out by Red Hot AIDS Benefit Series and produced by Aaron and Bryce Dessner of the band The National. Their track, “Knotty Pine,” is lead by bright acoustic guitars and the driving harmonies of the band’s female vocalists, Amber Coffman, Angel Deradoorian, and Haley Dekle; and the Talking Heads tinge can be clearly heard.

The band is set to release a new EP, entitled “Temecula Sunrise,” next month. Only time will tell if Dirty Projectors will continue with their approachable art-pop rock sound or head back to the unpredictable world of experimental rock.

After thirteen years playing with Celtic-punk band Flogging Molly, bassist Nathen Maxwell has put out an album from his solo side-project, Nathen Maxwell & The Original Bunny Gang. Teaming up with his drummer father, who goes by the name maxwellvision, their 10-track disc, White Rabbit, was released last week.

Surprisingly enough, Maxwell’s album does not fit into a punk rock nor Celtic genre at all. Instead, it is an acoustic album with reggae and folk influences, much more delicate sounding than anything Flogging Molly has ever released. Maxwell explains that he grew up listening to reggae and was inspired to put his heartfelt lyrics to reggae’s softer sound. His lyrics range from topics of politics, in “Chief of a Nation” and “Working for the Man,” to the feelings that come along with new love, in “Love Outlaw” and “Love You Mad”; but all songs share Maxwell’s earnest singing.

Maxwell is the first to warn Flogging Molly fans not to expect what they’re used to; and conversely, tells people who are not fans of the punk band to give him a shot. And as for Flogging Molly’s status, the band is still alive and well but has decreased its touring schedule for the year, allowing Maxwell time to work on this project.

I received an email today announcing the release of Bayani Redux. When I saw this, I was under the impression that we were going to get a release of B-sides and remixes for the sophomore album by Seattle based Blue Scholars, Bayani. For anyone who has followed Evolving Music for a length of time, you’ve seen the concert reviews and album reviews for the duo of Sabzi and Geologic (aka Prometheus Brown.) And yet, I still find trouble reconciling myself with how talented they are and how little mass exposure they have. Granted, some of the best music falls through the cracks and gets chewed up by the massive grinder of the music industry, but I hold out hope that the word of mouth on some of the best underground artists will reach surface and flip the industry on its head.

I feel like the music industry is caught in a bad dream. That dream where you keep running, turning corners, opening doors, all to get away from something, and yet you can’t. Every time I turn on the television or flip through the radio dial, it’s like I’m opening a door in the dream and finding myself in the same place, listening to recycled music from the past twenty years, sometimes infused with a new trick like auto-tune, sometimes not. But people keep buying, and therefore, labels will keep re-packaging. This is an old rant of mine, but one that came back to the surface after reading the release details for the second coming of Bayani.

When Rawkus Records released Bayani on June 12th, 2007, it was the second album from the duo and one that promised an enormous amount of future material based solely on the progression of the artists between it and their eponymous debut. However, in reading the re-release article, I come to find that only 20,000 copies of it have sold. That’s 10,000 per year in the two since its release, which averages out to about 28 albums per day. That’s not too bad, until you think about the fact that Flo-Rida probably averaged 28 single downloads per minute for his crap and the current iTunes chart topper is Miley Cyrus.

What do you need to do to expose people to good, quality music these days? 2007’s Bayani is a far stronger album than Kanye West’s 808s and Heartbreak, yet that went Platinum with 1,000,000 sold in just three months and we’re talking two years later at 20,000 for a better hip-hop CD. Is it the lyrics? Are lyrics with depth and intelligence, as pushed out by Geologic and the majority of his underground counterparts, too much for radio listeners? Is it that any variety making a beat sound like something you haven’t heard in every Top 10 song for the past 5 years is frightening? Personally, I’m not sure. But what I can tell you is that while Kanye West walks around making an ass out of himself with all of the money the pop-hypnotized public gives to him, quality artists like the Blue Scholars are trying to figure out where the inspiration for and money to produce their next album will come from.

So do yourself a favor. Turn off the radio, stop watching MTV, and do something other than Shazam the latest club track you heard last night while you were drunk off your ass. Check out Indiefeed, your local independent record store or any vast number of music blogs and resources online and find something new, something different, and in many cases, something more artistic.

Bayani Redux comes out with three previously unreleased tracks on September 1st.