Onomatopoeia's Best Music of 2013

Welcome to Onomatopoeia’s year-end best of 2013, a calendar year that seemingly followed the popular trends of 2012 and saw the music industry continue to focus on R&B and bridging the gap between commercial and underground sensibilities. As always I tired to present my point of view and offer an alternative to the increasingly limited choices being presented to us by the recording industry; some of my selections will be obvious while others may come as a surprise. It is with some hope that you will walk away with at least one new listening experience when the clock turns midnight and we begin 2014, let me know if that's the case.  

CONTINUE TO LIST...

Video: ceo - "Whorehouse"

After sharing former Tough Alliance member Eric Berglund’s latest single under the ceo moniker last month, titled “Whorehouse” we are happy to follow things up today with the video. LP number two, titled WONDERLAND is due out this February. 

Listen: The Neighbourhood – “Silver”

LA band The Neighbourhood have been splitting their time between touring and recording a new LP by the name of #000000 & #FFFFFF, and our first taste of the project comes via the calming “Silver.”

Download: Clams Casino – “Instrumentals Mixtape 3”

NJ's beat making baddass ClamsCasino ends the year with Instrumentals Mixtape 3! Much like the last two mixtapes this third installment includes pretty much everything the producer has been involved with since dropping his second mixtape in June of 2012. What that means is thirteen tracks of which three are unreleased. Mike has also stated that this will be the last in the series but in my opinion that’s a bold statement that might be difficult to follow as forever is a very long time. DOWNLOAD

Video: Party Supplies - "(Searching For) A Crazy Love (Dancing All Alone)"

2013 was a busy year for Party Supplies, outside of producing the recent Blue Chips 2 mixtape with Action Bronson, the Party Supplies project went from a solo affair to a duo and with that Justin Nealis and Sean Mahon released their debut, the Tough Love LP back August. Check out the new video by Jordan Levine for "(Searching For) A Crazy Love (Dancing All Alone)” off the LP.

Video: EMA – “Satellites”

Following 2011’s excellent debut solo LP, Erika M. Anderson Aka EMA, is gearing up to release the follow up to Past Life Martyred Saints this spring with her sophomore LP called The Future's Void. The record will be released via Matador and City Slang and you can now listen to the first taste from the album, an instantly captivating track called "Satellites", below. Directed by EMA and Leif Shackelford

Video: Childish Gambino – “3005”

Mr. Entertainment aka Donald Glover, aka Childish Gambino, dropped the official music video for the track “3005″ off of his upcoming album Because the Internet. The visuals feature the emcee going around and around on a ferris wheel with a teddy bear as his date. Look for Childish Gambino’s sophomore label effort to drop on Tuesday, December 10th. You can head over to itunes to stream it now or like many fans look for the leaked copy that dropped last week before you buy an official copy.

Listen: Warpaint – “Biggy”

We already shared Warpaint’s first single from their upcoming self-titled LP back in October, today we are treated with a second song by the name of "Biggy" which you can stream below and download for free for the next 24 hours. Look for the full album to drop on January 21 in the U.S. via Rough Trade and some anticipated visuals from video master Chris Cunningham.

Listen: Big Baby Gandhi – “Debut” Full LP Stream

As planned one of my favorite emcee’s, Big Baby Gandhi,  is officially calling it quits today with the release of his first official LP titled Debut. The Queens native has gone on record many times in the last year plus that it didn’t make sense for him to continue recording without the proper financial support from a record label and touring; as a result, he made the tough decision to finish up his final album, Debut, and to move onto the next phase of his musical career, focusing on producing for other artists.

You can stream the full album now below and buy it for nine dollars. All twelve tracks were produced by the twenty three-year-old Big Baby except for “Green Card” which was produced by VERY RVRE. Engineering duties fell on Steel Tipped Dove and Hot Sugar amongst others while guest vocals come courtesy of TECLA and SAVVY.

For those of you who missed 2012’s awesome and often hilarious No1 2 Look Up 2, you can still grab it HERE for free, and you most certainly should because it’s full of gems that I still blast through my speakers on the regular.

Video: Daft Punk – “Behind The Helmets” & "Instant Crush"

A handful of Daft Punk goodies to share this morning starting off with a five minute documentary of sorts presented by Mixmag and Olmeca Tequila that looks at the conception, design and development of Daft Punk’s iconic helmets. Special effects guru Tony Gardner of Alterian Inc. goes into quite a bit of detail about what it took to get the helmets together  generously sharing original concept art, insight into  inspirations, and some of the technical obstacles encountered along the way. Like many long time Daft Punk fans I’ve read my fair share about how the helmets came about and how they run but this is easily the most informative and fun one out there at the moment.

We follow things up with the latest set of visuals from the Random Access Memories LP. The Julian Casablancas fronted “Instant Crush” see's a tragic love story taking place after hours at a museum bringing back memories of 80’s film Mannequin or perhaps even more recently Night At the Museum.