REWIND: …FSTR STRNGR

Every Friday, we hit rewind to visit one of our older playlists. The following is one of our favorites from the Loudcrowd vaults — our “Bangers” playlist brims with tracks from the Toronto-based duo Mstrkrft, as well as some of their peers. Of course, Mstrkrft were not the progenitors of their revved-up sound. Jesse Keeler and Al-P helped to bring the heady, heavy sound once affiliated with the Ed Banger label to the whole world. Check their playlist on Loudcrowd every Thursday this month — and if you’re lucky you can win one of their gold hockey masks as loot!

Their 2006 album The Looks was a wildly (and deservedly) popular party-starter. The Mstrkrft songs here hail from the duo’s more serious and hip-hop flavored new album Fist of God, a record whose album cover is composed of body parts. Heavy drums, crazy synths and guest vocals fromt he likes of E-40 and Ghostface Killah make up for quite a serious party. The biggest influence on Fist Of God was the legendary house producer and all around party-starter Armand Van Helden, who advised them throughout the recording of the album.

On this playlist of bangers you’ll also hear A-Trak, who is among the most award-winning-est DJs of all time. At 15, he was the youngest to ever win a DJ-battling world championship, and later the first to win five world championship competitions (all that before he turned 18)!

And of course the bang bang titans Justice. (If you’ve not heard of them, the rock you’ve been living under must have excellent soundprofing.) When asked by Radio 1 DJ Annie Mac, Justice’s Xavier de Rosnay explained that “DVNO” stands for “Divino,” elaborating that “in every suburb of the world, there’s always a nightclub called El Divino… where you have to wear a white shirt to get in.” I love that, especially because it doesn’t really make any sense.

Listen up for HRDR BTTR FSTR STRNGR on Loudcrowd every Thursday in May.

—DJ Yeti