Foniks

MySpace has been a disaster for the music industry and arguably the entire listening public. Any tramp with a computer and mix software can spew his filthy music on the unsuspecting masses without the threat of a public haranguing, and this is terrifying. But there are the DJ scene veterans, like LA-based Foniks, who are truly pushing boundaries and building monolithic albums on a foundation of vinyl.

Foniks is a glich-hop madman, throwing sample upon sample into clean and entertaining tracks. The songs maintain a progression within themselves where many DJs moving in a similar vein tend to have the right ideas, but none of the technique to make a coherent track. His upcoming debut release, Melons, is an 8-bit, beaty romp à la Bonobo or Prefuse 73, and it will no doubt turn heads when it drops this spring.

He goes by Foniks, but ironically this album contains few spoken words, just cutting-edge sounds, grabbing hold of what is happening on the progressive ends of electronica and hip-hop. It’s relaxing, witty, and dripping with fantastic production. Think of this as the kind of music that will soon break up conversations at a party with an inevitable, “Who is this?” - www.mattbsimon.com