“Dead Tongues” is one of the group’s demos that FatCat is showing off at present. This ravaging two-minute blast is a jolt of kinetic energy that highlights a bright future for Silver Arm.

Here come the summer anthems—Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” and Empire of the Sun’s “Alive” are already getting plenty of airplay, and now there’s “Dumb Disco Ideas” by DFA artist Holy Ghost! Check out the recent Red Bull Academy film, “12 Years of DFA Too Old to Be New, Too New to Be Classic”, about the label (home of LCD Soundsystem, YACHT and Holy Ghost!)  Their credo is basically that all music is dance music, if it’s any good.

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You may recognize Ruffins from his recurring role on HBO’s Treme, but you should really know him first for his trumpet. Ruffins plays the brassy, sing-songey, “play it from the bottom of your heart” style that is the trademark of NOLA’s great trumpeters, including most obviously Louis Armstrong and Louis Prima. And like the many great New Orleans musicians before him, Ruffins celebrates the city’s heritage in every note he blows and word he sings. We Partyin’ Traditional Style releases next Tuesday, 28 May, via Basin Street Records, and features a plethora of NOLA faves, including “Careless Love”, “Jeepers Creepers”, the Armstrong classic “When It’s Sleepy Time Down South”, and of course, this track “When the Saints Go Marching In” that we proudly premiere for you today.

Don’t let anyone steer you wrong. Despite the fact that it’s an excellent album, Kendrick Lamar’s breakout LP good kid, m.A.A.d city was not the best rap record released last year. That distinction goes to the unexpected and sublime team-up between Dungeon Family-associated rapper Killer Mike and rapper/producer/former Def Jux label head El-P, the El-P produced Killer Mike album R.A.P. Music. Though they only rapped on one track together on that record, the project was a standout chiefly for their remarkable (and somewhat unlikely) chemistry. For that reason, it’s impossible to not be excited about their newest collaboration, a duo called Run the Jewels that features the two sharing rapping duties (and El-P wielding some typically monster production, naturally). First full song leak from the album “Get It” (a snippet of a song called “Banana Clipper was released a few weeks previous) shows the two in vicious quotable mode (El: “My name is Jaime Meline / I’m not chasing the green, I’m taking it”, Mike: “Mike’ll fuck a rapper’s life up like Monique did to Precious”) and they relentlessly try to one-up one another while sounding like two friends genuinely happy to be working together. They trade bars in classic style, and it’s rare to hear two modern rappers work so well together—so much the better, then, that Fool’s Gold will be releasing the group’s full-length LP for free this summer.