Rapdragons is an incredibly cool rap group here in Baltimore. They pick stellar samples, their rhymes are infectious, they don’t take themselves too seriously, and they simply know how to have a good time.

Their forthcoming record “Featuring Baltimore” samples a ton of Baltimore bands, including: Weekends, The Agrarians, The Art Department, Mr. Moccasin, Lo Moda to name a few. It’s an interesting concept and this is a record to look out for. You gotta dig the Baltimore love.

For their microshow, Greg and Nick had the idea to, instead of using a sampler, bring in the people who performed the samples originally to play live on top of the beats. Jeff and Cory from Secret Mountains, Dustin Wong from Ponytail, Aran K from AK Slaughter and Sam from Future Islands are a few of the guests.

This set was perfect for our first spring-ish microshow. We know you’ll enjoy this set as much as we all did last night.

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Mosno’s record produced by Paul Mercer is dropping next month and I had the pleasure of mastering it. It’s a great mix of middle eastern, world and alt. rock. There are some pretty stellar guests including Acacia Sears and Seeno on vocals, Charmaine Nokuri on trumpet and Kristen Jones on cello.

Let the music speak for itself. Here are two of my favorites:

Melissa Undone

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Be With (f/ Seeno)

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Last Thursday, Secret Mountains stopped in for a microshow. We first heard them when they shared a stage with Kadman and Cotton Jones a few months back and we’d been looking forward to their visit to Mobtown for quite a while. Somehow they fit 5 of their 6 members on to our 6′x10′ faux stage. They stripped down their usual show, re-arranged their songs and pulled together a breathtaking set of old and new originals and wonderfully selected covers.

Kelly seduced the crowd with her haunting voice. Chris held everything together playing impeccably on a small Gretch kit complete with shakers and other various toys. Jake played the MicroKorg, banjo and concertina. Cory played what I call the “crying guitar” as well as bass on one track. And Jeff drew us in with his contrastingly dark guitar playing.

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DC’s Caverns will be releasing their new EP next week. This record is a progression in both dynamics and layers from their previous efforts. And if you listen carefully, you’ll hear some vocoder!

Our neighbors, J. Robbins and Chris Freeland recorded it and I mastered it. This record will be the first of many EPs on the Aural Slate Recordings imprint. In a time when the record label seems more and more irrelevant, I feel like what Greg is doing with his label actually makes sense. Small, easily digestible slices of music. There you have it. The record drops next Friday ($5 CD and $4 digital download). And there’s also a Frodus cover that rips.

Enjoy these two samples. I had a great time working with these guys – band and label alike. Listen to the snare in Arctic Phantoms. It’s incredible.

Arctic Phantoms

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I. Fight. Vampires

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