[SONG OF THE DAY] Big Data - "See Through"

🚨🚨🚨🚨BIG 🚨DATA 🚨IS 🚨BACK 🚨🚨🚨🚨

Yo but #realtalk look how fuckin sharp the dude Alan Wilkis looks in this press photo tho! That looks like the kinda dude I'd like to have long thoughtful conversations about the future of artificial intelligence with. 

Spoiler alert: I am probably going to do this very thing and put it on this part of the internet. 

Following up his full-length debut, 2.0, we have our first sampling from 3.0, which will be out sometime this fall. "See Through" features “L1ZY” on vocals and explores the ever blurring lines between technology and reality that can be hard to navigate. Throughout the song, L1ZY becomes more obsessed with virtual reality and ends up being her preferred "reality". As Wilkis continues to carefully pour over the available #data about artificial intelligence and present some possible futures in these songs, with "See Through" he's really challenging us to take a closer look at how subjective our ever day reality actually is. “We wanted to play with the idea of seeing things from the other side and the idea that we all inhabit our own realities,” says Wilkis. “Whether real or virtual, they are always subjective.”

From the looks of the below teaser clip where Big Data is presented in the form of a smart speaker with L1ZY as Big Data's version of Amazon's Alexa, I can already sense that the themes in this album are going to be just as relevant and thought provoking as we saw in 2.0. I am personally super excited about my favorite Black Mirror pop star is back (yes I am going to try to make "black mirror pop" a thing, HUSH). 

Now if you'll excuse me I need to go purchase all of the books I've screenshot from Big Data's Instagram stories and read all of them so I am adequately prepared for our inevitable nerdy sit down. 

[Night Out] Big Data @ Bowery Ballroom (3/24/2015)

The irony was not lost on me last Tuesday night as I stood inside the Bowery Ballroom grinning ear to ear as the sweet sounds of Big Data washed over me and cheered amongst enthusiastic newcomers to the brilliance that is the work of my "broadband bud" Alan Wilkis.

(As longtime readers know, when the SKOA family chooses to champion an artist, we are in it for the long haul with them. We shout your name from the rooftops to anyone who will hear us, we celebrate every success no matter the size, and we patiently wait for the day when everyone else finally sees what we see in them: that they are some kind of awesome. A reminder: as nice as it may seem to have the bragging rights of knowing them before anyone else did, at the end of the day their success is our greatest pleasure and the most important thing to us.)

A little back story here: In early 2010, Rocko discovered this really great remix of RJD2 - "The Shining Path" which was done by none other than Mr. Alan Wilkis. After some digging we learned that he had also been working with The Kickdrums, which essentially sealed the deal for us in terms of giving him our full support. Alan proved to be a really chill dude who was even up for grabbing drinks with strangers from the internet the first time Rocko ever came to hang in NYC with the family.

I call him my "broadband bud" because other than bumping into Alan a few times at shows or the occasional bar, the extent to our friendship has been strictly digital. This is not a complaint, it's just how life is now. These days you make a brief physical connection to someone once and thanks to the power of the internet it's possible to never really shake certain people. Mind you, this isn't all THAT uncommon in the music business, but it still doesn't make the concept any less silly. In addition to the ongoing support for his many remixes and projects on the site, myself and the rest of the SKOA family have mostly exchanged a few tweets, likes, and emails over the course of our 5 year friendship. That all said, as I stood in front of him last night snapping photos feeling prouder of him than I have of my own accomplishments in the past 5 years, I couldn't help but laugh at myself and what our society has become with help from our good ol' friend technology.

As you will soon learn from hearing his debut album, 2.0, or experiencing his thought provoking live show, my broadband bud Alan shares the same conflicted feelings that I do about where we are in this new age of technology. We all want to feel connected, but there are so many complicated icky things that come with being a citizen of the internet, especially now more than ever. The Siri-esque AI that MCs Big Data's show last night was certainly not one to shy away from bringing up topics such as the data mining that is used by websites to sell products to us, claiming that they "know us" as if they were our "friends". You're probably being delivered one of those fun ads on this very page that you're reading, in fact. (Sorry.)

After the band closed out the evening with their breakout hit, "Dangerous", I queued the coat check line, enduring the incessant gushing of a new fan with unfortunately bad breath. I pondered whether to seek out Alan and congratulate him based on the newfound invalidity my relationship suddenly felt that was brought on in part by the very experience that he had been responsible for delivering that evening. I was very uneasy because I have always taken the approach to celebrate and embrace the majority of what the internet has to offer, but I worried that maybe my approach was, if I may attempt to make a pun here, dangerous, because it has slowly made so many aspects of my life such enormous gray areas, relationships included. Then I considered that whatever way I have been internetting brought me to this moment of self-reflection by means of someone who I considered an albeit casual friend, so maybe the internet couldn't be all that bad.

I ushered some girls who had been attempting to talk to me throughout the opening bands back upstairs so they could meet Alan. One actually gushed to him that she thought he was going to be the next LCD Soundsystem. It was a pretty adorable moment. After I had a brief rock mama moment with Alan, my new friends wanted wanted to make sure they could tag me in their Instagram photos so presumably we would be tied together to this one moment indefinitely on the internet (btw - I'm the one snapping photos in that photo, obvi). 

It's weird how I never even thought twice about this kind of interaction until this show, but I guess that just means that 2.0 really does sink in when you're not caught up in all of the uncontrollable hip shaking that occurs when listening to it.

If it's not clear by now, you really need to give 2.0 a spin if you haven't already over on Spotify or via the Rdio player below. You can also be amazing and pick it up on iTunes. 

[SKOA Premiere] Alan Wilkis - "Tracks and Traces" Feat. World War

The electronic pop mastermind Alan Wilkis returns and provides SKOA with the premiere of his new track "Tracks and Traces" featuring Biet Simkin aka World War off his long awaited upcoming album PRINTS set to release next Tuesday on all your favorite digital music sites (iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, etc.). This tune is another impressive piece from the upcoming collaborative album that features some of our favorite artists like The KickDrums, Paul Homes and Joywave. 

Check out the song below as well as the album's tracklist and make sure you pick up the album when it drops next week. Also, head over to Alan's Soundcloud page to check out exclusive non album cuts and remixes off the PRINTS album from the likes of RJD2, Spacebrother, The Kid Daytona & Rapper Big Pooh and more.

PRINTS Tracklisting

1. "Come and Go (feat. The KickDrums)"

2. "Stay Forever (feat. Paul Holmes)"

3. "Old-Fashioned Girl (feat. Joywave)"

4. "Tracks and Traces (feat. World War)"

[SKOA Premiere] Alan Wilkis - "Stay Forever feat. Paul Holmes (Vasili Gavre Remix)"

SKOA favorite Alan Wilkis was gracious enough to think of us to premiere NYC producer Vasili Gavre's remix of the third installment from his PRINTS series, "Stay Forever" which features vocals from Paul Holmes, who you may know from his projects The Tells or Adrienne Drake. If you have already been enjoying this track as much as we have, this reworked nugget from Gavre is a surefire way to keep you on your PRINTS love fest while we all anxiously for the next track to drop. The change up to the phrasing on the vocals will initially catch you off guard, but it encourages your ears to listen in different corners of the original that you hadn't thought to appreciate before, which is something I always love about good remixes. If you enjoyed Gavre's remix as much as I did, you should check out the band he's in called Americans In Paris. As far as what's next for the PRINTS  series, Wilkis told us that in the coming weeks that he'll be shooting a music video for "Stay Forever", so be on the lookout for that soon.

In other Wilkis-related news, he's currently wrapped up a new remix for The Hood Internet's new album and has started working on a project with Dan Armbruster of Joywave. According to Wilkis, "[The project is] still in the early stages there, but we're psyched about it!" As you can probably guess, when there are updates of any of the aforementioned news items you will be able to learn more right here.

Enjoy the "Stay Forever" remix by Vasili Gavre as well as the original and the additional remix of the song done by You & The Night & The Music in the player below. Make sure to grab any and all tracks that you like for the actual retail price of $FREE.99!

[Download] Alan Wilkis - "Wolfman"

Longtime SKOA favorite Alan Wilkis teamed up with Microsoft last month during SXSW to create a song using the sounds of SXSW and putting it all together on a Lenovo laptop. The finished product from the sponsored endeavour is the cleverly titled (as you'll learn from the video) "Wolfman". You can learn more about the project via the video above and then listen and grab the track below. I especially like how this track has a bit of a Ratatat vibe going on. The way he incorporated the sounds from walking around at SXSW is really cool. There is no way I could ever pull off something like that myself, so kudos to you, Mr. Wilkis.

Make sure you go grab PRINTS too if you haven't already.

[Download] The KickDrums Drop 'Follow The Leaders' Mixtape, Feat. A$AP Rocky, Mr. Muthafuckin' eXquire, Freddie Gibbs & More

The big homies Fitts and Tilla of the infamous KickDrums have released their long awaited mixtape, Follow The Leaders today. The mixtape features new songs from the duo following up last years release of Meet Your Ghost and collaborations with some of the blogospheres most buzzworthy artists such as A$AP Rocky, Machine Gun Kelly, Mr. Muthafuckin eXquire, Casey Veggies, Alan Wilkis, Lana Del Rey, Freddie "Gangsta" Gibbs and more. Peep out the A$AP Rocky x Lana Del Rey x KickDrums collaboration "Ridin'" that we've been bumping for the past month or so since getting an early preview of full mixtape below minus the A$AP Rocky x Lana Del Rey collab which was pulled as A$AP wanted it for his LP and and head over to Live Mixtapes to download the full release. Kickdrummmmmmmmmmmms Uh!

01. The KickDrums - Thieves In The Choir (Feat. Casey Veggies) 
02. The KickDrums - Want My Blood (Feat. DZ Deathrays & Rockie Fresh) 
03. The KickDrums - Ridin' (Feat. Lana Del Rey & A$AP Rocky) 
04. The KickDrums - My Life (Feat. Machine Gun Kelly) 
05. The KickDrums - Naked 
06. The KickDrums - The Way It Goes (Feat. Big Pooh) (Co-Prod. By Anna Yvette) 
07. The KickDrums - The Last Goodbye (Feat. YP) 
08. The KickDrums - Lights (Feat. Rebecca Jordan) 
09. The KickDrums - Traces 
10. The KickDrums - Death Wish (Feat. Mr. Muthafuckin' eXquire & Maluca) 
11. The KickDrums - Safer Than Heaven 
12. The KickDrums - Whatever You'd Like (Feat. Gilbert Forte) (Co-Prod. By Sk8beatz) 
13. The KickDrums - Come Come (Feat. Hot As Sun & Freddie Gibbs) 
14. The KickDrums - Come And Go (Alan Wilkis & The KickDrums) 

[SKOA Premiere] The Joy Formidable - "Austere (Alan Wilkis Remix)"

SKOA favorite Alan Wilkis was commissioned to crank out this killer remix for "Austere" by The Joy Formidable alongside the release of EA Sports' new SSX game. Wilkis, who was already a big fan of The Joy Formidable, told us of his approach to the remix: "I really wanted to try to bring the song into electronic territory while hopefully preserving the thrashy-rock-awesomeness of the original version." After having a listen to the track, I think that you'll agree with us that he has done just that.

Fortunately for our pal, the remix got picked up to be in one of the trailers for the game:

Can we get an atta boy for Mr. Alan Wilkis!?!? Good for him!

Our soon-to-be "video game famou"s friend was also kind enough to give us first dibbs on sharing the track with the masses, so have a listen and grab the remix below:

[SKOA Premiere] Alan Wilkis - "Come And Go (Spacebrother Remix)"

PRINTS is the season-long-mulitmedia project from SKOA favorite Alan Wilkis. The first of many collaborations that we'll be catch throughout the fall is with our dear friends The Kickdrums on the track "Come and Go", which you may have already caught a listen of on Consequence of Sound. From there you heard the RJD2 remix and then the Big Pooh & Kid Daytona remix. Today we are happy to bring the dancy remix of "Come and Go" from Jared of Innerpartysystem's side project Spacebrother that will definitely make you feel like you're floating in space.

PRINTS combines original music, artwork, remixes and videos which are all initiated by an instrumental track by Wilkis. From there, a handful of top notch collaborators including Lyrics Born, White Hinterland, Childish Gambino, and many more work with Wilkis to develop a series of tracks or "prints".

DOWNLOAD SPACEBROTHER'S "COME AND GO" REMIX HERE

Stay tuned here for more updates on the PRINTS project. You can also try to out-stalk us by heading over to the official PRINTS site for more information.