Friday Free for All: Pools + Freeway + Girl Talk

Pools – “Innertubes” Mix

Breathe a sigh of relief. You made it, Los Angeles.

The chill of those 50 degree evenings are but a distant memory and it is time for us to put collectively away our hoodies for safekeeping for another 8 months.

The arrival of Coachella foretells the dawn of another season of pool parties, weekend barbecues, and way too many options every weekend.

Just in time, the duo fittingly known as Pools (comprised of Thee Mike B & DJ Morse Code) have released the perfect soundtrack for your warm weather chilled vibe situation with their “Innertubes” mix.

The mix features 20 original productions by Pools (plus a few hilarious interludes by Barry White) which can also be downloaded as an hour long mix or individually to mix into your own sets this summer.

This will no doubt be the soundtrack to many car rides out to Indio over the next couple of weekends.

Girl Talk + Freeway – “Broken Ankles” EP

On the opposite side of the chilled end of the spectrum that Pools inhabits there’s mash-up maestro, Girl Talk who returns this week with Philadelphia-based rapper Freeway to drop the “Broken Ankles” EP.

Don’t expect the mash-up medley bonanza you’ve come to expect from Girl Talk, but there’s still plenty of bombast packed into this 6-track EP.

DOWNLOAD HERE

You won’t find random Pixies samples or the hook to “Tiny Dancer” dropping in the middle of Freeway’s concrete-tough rhymes, instead “Broken Ankles” finds Greg Gillis behind the boards, working in the realm of hip-hop producers like Just Blaze and Swizz Beatz and doing a pretty good job at it.

Hopefully this collaboration heralds a new direction for Girl Talk and the beginning of a new age of relevance for Freeway (who’s always been one of the more slept on rappers around). But, if nothing else, this project spawned the best music video of 2014.

(warning: this video is full of cartoony ultra-violence and if you’re sensitive about that kind of stuff)