Let's be honest: This isn't an ideal day to be dropping new music. Kendrick Lamar's latest album, DAMN., hit streaming services late last night, and even if it weren't fantastic (it is), it would still be sucking all of the oxygen out of the room.
Still, it's Milwaukee Day (yes, that's still a thing—less of thing than it was a few years ago, but still a thing), and three of Milwaukee's most dependable music collectives have released new tracks and mixes that are well worth your time.
First up there's a new track from Nice FM's most tropical-minded DJ, Plaid Hawaii, and the Melborne-based producer Martiln. It's an uptempo, ecstasy-spiked piña colada called "Night Sky." This one was written with the weekend in mind.
Next there's a new released from the cerebral electronic collective Close Up of the Serene, though it sounds like nothing else on that roster. Tarek Sabbar's two-song single "Plastic Bags"/"8 & 14" covers a lot of ground over just two tracks, touching on krautrock, Wire-esque post-punk and minimalist club music. Sensational stuff.
And finally, the local archival hip-hop label Dope Folks has gone all out with their new mixtape called Brew City Rappin', which collects a hodge-podge of mostly forgotten Milwaukee hip-hop from the '90s, much of it culled from old cassettes. It's a labor of love even by Dope Folks standards, filled with tracks by artists recording under names like True Hustlers, E-Play Smooth, Wikkedness and DJ Wolf D—guys who weren't even written out of Milwaukee hip-hop history, because they were never really written into it in the first place. I can't even imagine how many man hours went into this one, but they've done the city a great service with it.
