The birth of a genre is a rare thing. In this day and age, most new concepts are simply a bridge of two pre-existing ideas with a teeny little hyphen. With Brooklyn’s Previously On Lost, an epic and original genre is born: Recap Rock.

And Taking Tiger Mountain has an exclusive download courtesy of the band.

Previously On Lost spent the 4th season of Lost writing tunes inspired by each episode after they aired. Now that the show is done for the season, they’ve taken the full set of songs, which veer wildly all over the musical map, on tour. The music itself is a weird concoction: spastic indie rock with a definite Frank Zappa haze of weird. The vocals are an odd layered falsetto and have a kitchen sink approach to the instrumentation. There’s a definite feeling that reminds me of the beautiful chaos of The Unicorns, except, you know, all the lyrics are about Lost.

Which makes it ten times more awesome.

Songs like “Be My Constant”, “We’re Goin’ Home” and “The Island Won’t Let You Die” might give a clue to the episodes they correlate to. The lyrics are funny and sometimes just beautifully tic through the events of an episode in an almost linear manner with cheeky commentary. This, as a massive fan of the show, often just puts a big old smile on my face. You can’t beat the cop-show opening bongos and sappy keyboard on “The Ballad of Sayid Jarrah” tied with the lyrics:

“There he is on the back nine / with a 7 iron in his fist / money in the bank and a smile on his face, just hope that you’re not on his list / he’s armed to the teeth and a gun and effective hair spray / you may have picked the right club / but you’ve stumbled into murder on the fairway”

And that’s right before the sax comes in. If you’ve seen the episode in question (S04, E03 - The Economist, air date 02.14.08), it’s a pretty concise encapsulation of the show in question. Except when they get to the breakdancing bit at the end of the song. Trust me, just give a listen.

For those in the Los Angeles area, they’re in the midst of their mini-California tour with a show tonight at Spaceland, taking the stage at 8:30pm. Thursday 8/21 is the night I’d suggest you catch, as they’re playing the entirety of their Season 4 show at the Knitting Factory.

If you can’t make the shows, please take a listen to the exclusive download that the guys in Previously On Lost were kind enough to give me:

Previously On Lost - Gotta Take Your Meds

This song was written for episode 10 of season 4: “Something Nice Back Home” and features some amazing campy synth action and cowbell.

What more could you ask for?

If you do love it, you can buy their album The Tale of Season 4 and the Oceanic 6 from iTunes:

SHOWS

08/20 - Spaceland - 2906 Sunset Blvd at the intersection of Sunset and Parkman Ave.
Cover - $8
Set time - 8:30, opening for The Atma 9:30pm, Venus Illuminato 10:30p, Olin and the Moon 11:30p

08/21 - The Knitting Factory - 7021 Hollywood Blvd.
Cover $10
Show starts at 7:30

HIT THE JUMP FOR 2 LIVE PREVIOUSLY ON LOST VIDEOS

The good folks at Pitchfork TV are hosting 2 Player Production’s documentary on the 8-bit scene Reformat The Planet for a brief week. The film launched on Friday, Aug 15th, so you’ve got 6 days left to view it.

Click below to stream the whole film:

In honor of their 8-bit love, here’s 3 of my all-time favorite chiptunes:

Covox - Dubslide

Sabrepulse - Famicom Connection

Firebrand Boy - Such Great Heighs (Cover)

Firebrand Boy’s cover of The Postal Service’s Such Great Heights stands not only as one of the best chiptunes around, but also as one of the better covers ever created.

I’ll buy that copy of LSDJ someday…

This Thursday, August 14th the 4th annual I Am 8-Bit show returns to Los Angeles. Y’all know my unbridled love for all that is 8-bit, and this collective is a fine showcase of art inspired by the vintage aesthetic. Last year’s show was an event I planned to hit up, but only saw it in photos afterward. It looked like an event worth attending.

This year, it’ll be hosted at the World of Wonder Storefront Gallery, which is at 6500 Sunset Blvd (map here). The fantastic Computer Jay and the previously-unknown-to-me DJ R Rated will be performing and booze will be provided. Opening night festivities will run from 8 pm to midnight, Thursday August 14th. Should you miss the event, the show will run through September 8th.

For the show, they commissioned a fantastic set of 4 spot gloss flyers by one of my all-time favorite artists Scott C. Should you feel, you can cut them up and make your own vintage cardboard arcade. Wonderful.

Click each for a full view of the fliers:

I’m not quick to crown anyone with a title, let alone someone I don’t really know. Secondly, it’s never good to name anyone as the saving grace of hip-hop, as it’s difficult to save anything that, en masse, isn’t in the mood to be saved. Since the birth of the movement, the salvation of hip-hop has been a low priority.

But, along comes Wale and within a few listens, I’m suddenly thinking to against those lines. I downloaded the new Mixtape About Nothing, honestly based on the curiosity at what lunatic would really theme a mixtape after Seinfeld. After the opening few tracks, I’ve got those flutters in my ear that remind the first time I heard Mos Def’s Black On Both Sides, with the slick palatable production and intelligent rhymes. The Mixtape About Nothing itself is a solid work of art, that found itself getting multiple plays over the course of last weekend. He’s smart, without being too aloof. Production choices, like the use of Justice’s D.A.N.C.E as the backing on last year’s 100 Miles and Running shows a smart touch that’ll just make his wider appeal that much more apparent.

I’ve had a pretty love/hate relationship with the last 5+ years of hip-hop, each year offering me less and less that genuinely appealed to my ear. Both production choices and lyrical styles just veered away from my real taste. Lately, production’s been a factor in my drifting off; moving away from a reliance on pricey samples took a little of the soul and swing away from much of the music. It’s cheesy, but I’m a sucker for just a well-aged snare sample. Well, From start to finish both The Mixtape About Nothing and 100 Miles And Running are slick, fun, and smart…a combination just not so often found in hip-hop these days. The choices of backing tracks are amazing, his lyrics are consistently interesting and at times, incredibly insightful (The Kramer). Hell, I’m even entranced by the purposeful contextualization of Seinfeld clips.

Wale is on his way up. Given that the man has produced a few mixtapes that are better than most people’s debut albums in another 6 months, he’ll be someone you’ll struggle to not constantly read blog posts about.

Enjoy his last two mixtapes, which are available as free, digital downloads:

Wale - 100 Miles and Running

Wale - The Mixtape About Nothing

HIT THE JUMP FOR A SELECTION OF WALE YOUTUBE CLIPS THAT YOU COULD FIND YOURSELF JUST BY GOOGLING

RSS feeds are out. Now we have what everyone loves to hate: a Twitter Feed!

Yes, I’ll now be contributing to the wonderful website with a mysterious profit model in hopes of promoting this wonderful musicblog. Subscribe to the OFFICIAL Taking Tiger Mountain feed to get updates on when new blog posts go up, recycled links from other more frequently updated music sites, and quite possibly, my musings about the chicken burrito I had for dinner tonight. (I ordered it without sour cream, it was good, and I ate it alone…glad that’s out of the way.)

Click the link below to find the new limb of Taking Tiger Mountain:

Oh yeah, I’m bringing the BLINK tag back, too. Just so ya know.