[SKOA Presents] Beats For Daze #1

Sup everyone! Your friendly neighborhood Rocko here bringing you a new project that I've been working on for the past week or so while I was gearing up to head to the bay area this week. So lemme give you a little back story, as i've been working on the Some Kind of Mixtape series with the rest of the awesome crew here at SKoA and getting super obsessed with compiling artist/producer playlist on Spotify (username: somekindofrocko. I know cheap plug.) I wanted to do something of the sort for the readers of SKoA that wasn't just contributing a few new tracks every month. So I hit up The Kibbs aka Kibbe and said, "YO I GOT DIS PROJEKT I WANT TO DROP FOR ALL THE FLY HUNNIES OUT DER" cuz I talk like that and she was like "That sounds like a super awesome idea", in her best Rock Mama voice. Note: this was all done over AIM so i'm just making shit up. But anyways after a few days of tinkering, coming up with art designs and shit, the series Beats For Daze was born.

Much like the fashion of the SKoA monthly mixture, I (and hopefully some awesome guests) will be dropping a mixtape roughly around the middle of each month of some of my favorite headnodding tracks, some classic, some freshly off the grill. So without further ado, hear is the first installment in the Beats For Daze series. I originally tried mixing the tracks together like an actual DJ session but didn't hit the expectation I was looking for. See: FAILURE. But I hope you guys enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoyed compiling it together and I hope you also discover some new artists that you haven't heard before and go out and support their shit. Because without support, how are they supposed to make more dope shit? Sell drugs? Maybe.

So on this month's installment we got classic tracks from The Budos Band, Dan The Automator's Lovage, RJD2 and pre rave/mainstream Calvin Harris and for the new shit we got tracks from recently released albums by Blockhead, Flea, Alchemist, Jeremiah Jae produced by Flying Lotus, Vacationer (thanks whoever put me on to them in a Turntable.fm session) Dark Time Sunshine and more with the addition of some unreleased tracks. So click on the artwork above to kick this session off. BTW keep a close eye on the artwork as it will change monthly and has some nice little easter egg type shit in it for video game/comics/entertainment and music lovers alike. Enjoy!

[Download] Pillowfight (Dan The Automator x Emily Wells) - "In The Afternoon"

Deltron Event II isn't the only big project from super producer Dan The Automator this year. Automator has hooked up with singer/songwriter Emily Wells for a new collaborative project called Pillowfight which also features long time Automator collaborator Kid Koala on turntables. According to Wells' website, the group came together when Kid Koala and Wells met at the Calgary Folk Fest. Koala, a friend of Dan's knew he'd been working on a "passion project" and was hoping to find a female lyricist/vocalist.  Emily went to San Francisco to write and record for three days and the rest is history. 

The two spent the next several months writing and recording and have finished their first full length album, which is set to release some time this year. Those that are familiar with Automator's projects such as the first Gorillaz album, Lovage and Handsome Boy Modeling School will feel right at home with Pillowfight. The group recently previewed the upcoming debut album at this year's SXSW festival, which you can probably find decent quality videos on YouTube.

For those of you, who do not wish to go digging through YouTube just to hear the act, fear not! You can hear the group's first single "In The Afternoon" below which is available to download on the Ioda's SXSW 2012 Sampler (FREE on Amazon/$1.99 on iTunes). Can't wait to hear more from this upcoming project, as well as Deltron Event II. Automator can we haz your project with Mike Patton, Crudo, too?