It’s Friday, which means the first working week of 2013 is over — rejoice! It also means that it’s time for us to round up the 10 most noteworthy tracks of the week that’s gone by, and happily there’s some decent tunes to be had again after a pretty fallow holiday week. Specifically, there’s a hitherto unreleased Sufjan Stevens track, new Factory Floor, a bunch of interesting remixes involving everything from shoegaze to neo-R&B, Skrillex aping Burial to hilarious effect… and, yes, the depressing Azealia Banks/Angel Haze shitfight. Click through and get listening.
Sufjan Stevens — “Which One Are You?” An unreleased track from Stevens’ 2009 album The BQE — it didn’t make it onto the record because the melody apparently sounded too similar to Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s track “The Endless Enigma 1.” Stevens describes it thusly: “Sleeping Invader. Old outtake from the BQE. Could not clear melody w/ ELP publishers. The Endless Enigma of intellectual property. One person’s homage is another lawyer’s annoyance, I guess.” Indeed. Listen here.
Factory Floor — “Fall Back” Yay for new Factory Floor! It finds them moving closer to the dance floor than ever, albeit a dance floor where you do a whole lot of awkward jerking rather than smooth grooving. Just our kind of dance floor, in other words. Listen via The Quietus.
LA Vampires and Maria Minerva — “Seasons Change” (Sapphire Slows remix) Speaking of the dance floor, here’s some new 100% Silk goodness, namely a Japan-only remix of “Seasons Change” from Japanese producer Sapphire Slows, whose own work is also worth investigating. Listen to the remix here.
Octo Octa — “So Lux” …and just for good measure, here’s another new track from a 100% Silk artist, namely Brooklyn producer Octo Octa. Can we stop calling this stuff “hipster house” now? This is plain old deep house music, and it’s pretty great, actually. So there. Download it via Gorilla Vs Bear.
Slowdive — “Melon Yellow” (Heathered Pearls remix) This snuck in at the end of last week — Jakub “Heathered Pearls” Alexander remixes ’90s shoegaze luminaries Slowdive, converting a vocal sample from the original into a gorgeous wash of sound. Download it for free via Self-Titled mag.
The-Dream — “Used to Be” (Slava Club mix) And another interesting remix, this time of The-Dream’s bitter breakup lament “Used to Be.” This is a rare example of a club mix of a downtempo track that manages to retain the original’s melancholy feeling while making it dance floor-friendly. Hear it via RCRD LBL.
Eat Skull — “Space Academy” A new track from Woodsist-signed Portland noiseniks Eat Skull, and it’s pretty ace. Evan Minsker, who’s written up the track for Pitchfork, compares this to Brian Eno, and it’s not a bad comparison — it’s got the same kind of feeling as Here Come the Warm Jets, where everything including the proverbial kitchen sink goes into the mix and yet the result comes out sounding surprisingly great. You can listen here.
Angel Haze — “On the Edge” In which Angel Haze takes an almighty swing at Azealia Banks because… well, because they had a stupid fight on Twitter. Sigh. Your correspondent has already posted his thoughts about it here, and our own Judy Berman makes some excellent points here, but if you fancy adding this track to your iTunes library, you can download it here.
Azealia Banks — “No Problems” … And here’s the inevitable tit-for-tat response. Sigh. Listen at Soundcloud.
Skrillex — “Leaving” And finally, you have to hear this because it’s hilarious: Skrillex “does” Burial! It’s a bit like watching someone try to dance with hiking boots on. Listen via YouTube.