Viva La Hip Hop

Michal Menert

Colorado-based Michal Menert comes from a complex musical background of guitar, keyboards, and a variety of other instruments, giving him a unique approach to composition. Menert co-produced the debut Pretty Lights album, Taking Up Your Precious Time, with Derek Vincent Smith. He has since released his first solo album, Dreaming of a Bigger Life in spring of 2010, and dropped the much-lauded 27 track mega-LP, Even If It Isn’t Right, in April 2012. His sound combines obscure vintage samples from both Eastern European and Western vinyl with rich analog synthesis and organic hard hitting beats; a fusion of yesterday’s elements and tomorrow’s ideas.

Mux Mool

“I know it’s electronic music,” Brian Lindgren says, “but sometimes I feel like an old-timey traveling musician with an M-Audio Trigger Finger instead of a guitar.” As Mux Mool, Lindgren has been criss-crossing the country by himself for years, collecting records, loops, and samples, and rocking parties in towns both large and boondock-small. Lindgren is a self-confessed nerd to the bone, an incurable doodler, a Star Trek: The Next Generation fan; he lives on energy drinks and barely sleeps, spending his days working on music and his nights absorbing Internet memes by the hard-drive load. Mux Mool’s homespun electro hip-hop is the product of an introverted mind, an extroverted imagination, and a bottomless cultural appetite.

Lindgren’s life in music began in Minnesota with a cheap toy sampling keyboard (“I remember being so fascinated by how much a sound changed when you dropped it down several octaves”). Flash forward a few years (and more than a few keyboards), and the teenage Lindgren began recreating his favorite sounds—Dilla’s stutter-step beats, classic video-game music, abstract electronic noise—using software and digital effects, glazing them with tape hiss and vinyl static. An early Mux Mool track, the slinky strut of “Lost and Found,” was discovered by Moodgadget Records and released on their Rorschach Suite compilation, eventually finding its way onto iTunes’ Best of 2006 Electronic list. A string of EPs, tracks, and remixes followed, including the song-a-day project Drum EP, the grimy talkbox anthem “Night Court” on the Ghostly International/[Adult Swim] comp Ghostly Swim in 2007, and the Ritalin-fueled “Ballad of Gloria Featherbottom” on 2009’s Moodgadget-curated Nocturnal Suite on Ghostly. Mux Mool’s 2010 full-length debut, SKULLTASTE, is the culmination of years of toil and experimentation, gathering Lindgren’s myriad talents and obsessions into one gloriously sprawling document&183;

As for where he got that name, Lindgren offers up an oddly telling story: he was dubbed Mux Mool by a band he admired, after he posted a blog on MySpace soliciting fans to submit names for his project. “Mux is short for ‘multiplexing,’ which is the streaming of many types of information through one channel,” he explains, “and Chac-Mool is an ancient Meso-American statue of a reclining man.” A technologically complex breed of synthesis and a timeless piece of indigenous art. Sounds about right.

Mikey Thunder

Thunder spins a genre blending,bassdriven-partyrock-electrocrunk-futurefunk.With 16 years in the game,he’s mastered the art of improvisation with an uncanny ability to work with and rework the vibe of the party with precision.Mikey learned his chops in the diverse music scene of Burlington Vermont where he gained a love and appreciation for all types of music and immersed himself into dj culture. In the fall of 1999,Mikey relocated to the mountains of Jackson Hole where he was soon kidnapped by Michael Franti and Spearhead for the Stay Human Tour.After opening for Spearhead in Jackson Hole,Thunder was handpicked by Michael Franti to open the rest of the tour where he mixed beats into their sets,during set break,and scratched with their beatboxer,Radioactive.
After the Spearhead tour Mikey relocated to Boulder and continued to pursue his musical career.He has shared stages with some of the biggest names in hip hop and electronic music including Jurassic 5,Digable Planets,Del The Funky Homosapien,Arrested Development,Guru,Big Daddy Kane,Blackalicious,Crown City Rockers Lyrics Born,People Under The Stairs,One Self,The Alkaholiks,Dead Prez,Jedi Mind Tricks,M.O.P., The Clipse,2 Live Crew,Swollen Members,Method Man,Redman,Z-Trip,JBoogie,Fort Knox Five,Bassnectar,Glitch Mob,Anasia,Panty Raid,Vibe Squad,Prefuse73,Random Rab,Alex B,Savoy,Particle,Boombox,Disco Biscuits,and the End of Tour After Party for Jack Johnson & Ben Harper at Red Rocks.At that time Thunder also was an Atari playing stuntman DJ in the band Sonar.The band shared the stage with the Wailers at the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City,the String Cheese Incident,and played Hightimes Magazine’s SXSW party,and the Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam.
In the fall of 2009 Mikey joined the Pretty Lights team,opened for over 30 shows on their tours and performed cuts on the Making Up a Changing Mind EP,released in 2010.Thunder is currently Pretty Lights Music’s DJ.
His favorite place to play is during sunrise on a old Chinese junk pirate ship by the trash fence on an ancient seabed drinking champagne and eating bacon with friends.