Here Comes a New Challenger II: Turbo!

I know I'm a little late announcing this but...
Game Music 4 All (in association with Scrub Club Records and EMPulse Records) has released a fantastic album, a sequel to the first round of battle...

HERE COMES A NEW CHALLENGER II: TURBO!

If you haven't heard about it, let me give you the low-down: Last year, Here Comes a New Challenger pitted chiptunes and VGMusic artists against nerdcore hip hop artists to create a collaboration that spanned multiple genres and brought together communities who previously did not have proper connection to one another. The experiment was to get everybody working on the same side, and boy did it work (results: HERE)!

This time, the list has been expanded. More artists from both fronts have joined the fray, and the battle rages on. Chiptunes, vgmusic, nerd rap... you name it. If it's nerdy, it's on this album in some form or another. And with a list of artists as big as this... how can you not download this album?

Some of my favorite artists on this album:
Superpowerless (catchiest chiptunes artist from the UK, period.)
Conyeezy (rapper from the midwest who is a total nerd and music tech junkie)
Epic 1 (awesome nerd rap from Florida)
Norwegian Recycling (one of the coolest mashup artists I've ever listened to)
illgill (nerd rapper from Los Angeles who let me crash on his floor and do a show in his apartment)
DJ Snyder (producer and turntablist that most people know from Metamystics Inc.)
Videogame Orchestra (wicked chiptunes)
Category (UK rapper that I met at the first show I did)
Legendary Wizard (that's me! Of course I made an appearance on this album!)
AtariMatt (my partner in crime, chiptunes artist from Texas)

Oh, and did I mention it's free, too? That's right. Game Music 4 All is all about the spread of music, getting the music from somebody's thought process to the recording studio (be that in a professional studio or someone's parent's basement or a closet), from the studio to the internet, from the internet to your computer, and from there... well, that's when you plug in and listen.

The site is designed very well too, with options for Story Mode, Adventure Modes, and... well, I'll just let you find out! It's probably the most wicked design for an album I've seen yet.

So what are you waiting for?

You should be listening to this album, and here's everything you need to know to do so:
HCNC2:T OFFICIAL PAGE

Additional links:
Game Music 4 All
Scrub Club Records
EMPulse Records

Track of the week -- Groundhog Emcees

A track of the week that has no direct download? I apologize, but I don't have proper hosting and so I'm bringing you to the album itself, but it's worth downloading the entire album because it is fantastic. It's free, too, so don't get in a hissy fit because you have to lose a little bit of space on your computer. This album is epic, as is the track.

One of the best ways to hear new artists is, as I have mentioned previously, to catch them on a track with another artist you already listen to. As I have been expanding my horizons as much as I can recently I have found collaborations to be the best creations in the world.

A track that consistently blows me away right now, with artists I had not heard before:

Groundhog Emcees off of Touch's album Dead Words, available FOR FREE on Hand'Solo Records.

Groundhog Emcees features Touch, AC the Ace, Max Prime, Advice, Epic, Planit, Whatevski, and Lexington.

Artists from all across the board are here, bringing forth their rhyme stylings and different flows to create an epic closing track to one of my favorite Canadian hip hop albums. You can catch this track for free, so don't miss it. I can't express how important collaboration tracks are for networking and finding new listeners.

DOWNLOAD THE ALBUM
HAND'SOLO RECORDS OFFICIAL PAGE

Quick Collaboration Trees.

I'm always on the lookout for artists or albums I have never heard before, and the easiest way to find things is through collaboration searching. No doubt I've heard a lot of music through word of mouth and just by simply stumbling across things, but there's nothing that gets me to an album more quickly than hearing a great guest spot on an album.
Here's my latest download/discovery spree:

Epic > Kay the Aquanaut > K the I > etc., etc.

Not that I hadn't heard of K the I before, listening to Epic caused me to stumble across his album when I was browsing What.cd. K the I? I heard that fool on Train Rawbers first, fantastic album.

Noah23 > Gregory Pepper > Wormhole > Barracuda > etc., etc.

I've been expanding my mind. Every time I hear a great collaboration, I go find whatever I can from the guest on the track and download everything I can. Sometimes I come up empty-handed, sometimes it's a gem. I just follow artists, song titles, and whatever else comes my way until I discover new music. Everything is entangled together in a massive and ingenious web. Take advantage of that.

Keep working together, it's how a lot of us find out about you.

Hand'Solo Records Presents.... THE MOTHERLOAD

The info below the picture is exactly as it was written on the original page, because I certainly didn't want to do a re-write of it, as it's fairly well-said already. Here it is; The Motherboard's online community has come together to create a massive track, an 8-minute earful of different sounds, different styles, and some very unique artists. 12 Emcees, 13 Producers, 1 extremely epic song. Hand'Solo Records is distributing it, so you can hop on over to their page to download it by clicking the links later in this post. Read about the music here, or you can read it there. Either way, don't miss this one, it really is fantastic, and with constant switches in emcees, beats, and styles, it doesn't get tedious, as most 8 minute songs tend to be. I highly recommend it. It doesn't get much better than this and I coudln't get it off my playlist if I tried.
This is the best hip hop track of 2009, and damn, that bar is set pretty high. Who can beat it?
The Motherboard, a forum of like-minded musical experimentalists, have finalized their first single and now Hand’Solo Records prepares to release their new song into the ether for mass consumption. Features Hand’Solo regulars Noah 23 and Selfhelp as well as new friends to the fold like Nomar Slevik, Th’ Mole, Debmaster, Wormhole, Strange Powers, and more.

www.handsolorecords.com/motherload

Credits:

0:00-0:52 - beat by Myn Dwun, raps by Wormhole & Th’ Mole
1:03-1:49 - beat by DJ 0.000001 & C Money Burns, raps by Noah23
2:06-2:54 - beat by Nomar Slevik, raps by Demune
3:05-3:47 - beat by Hobs Sputnik, raps by Anubis5
3:53-4:27 - beat by Thee Anomalous Nicholai, raps by Hobs Sputnik
4:35-5:19 - beat by MFBoat, raps by geneva.b & MFBoat
5:24-6:07 - beat by Lostsatellite, raps by Selfhelp
6:14-7:09 - beat by Wormhole & Th’ Mole, raps by Lxor
7:22-8:08 - beat by Debmaster, raps by Myn Dwun

Live MPC samples during intro/transitions/outro by Strange Powers.
Executive produced, edited and mixed by Th’ Mole.
Mastered by Nomar Slevik.
Cover Art by CAPS3.

Distributed by Hand’Solo Records. handsolorecords.com

The Motherboard, 2009. secretcloud.com/motherboard damotherboard.blogspot.com

What the critics are saying:

"FUCK YEAH!" - Strange Powers
“I’m proud of it.” - Th’ Mole
“This piece of music is one of the better 8+ minutes of my life”. - CAPS3
“I love the cover.” - Nomar Slevik
"Who in the hell was the last Emcee... that was a great closer!!!" - Demune
"Good work people. I want to hear this on mushrooms!" - Noah 23
"Maybe I am crazy..." - Selfhelp