Killer new music blog Your Standard Life has put up a piece about me and my new record. Check it out, and while you’re at it, flip through the dude Jason’s website and bear witness to the strength of music knowledge.

Thanks to all the college Djs that are playing It’s Free, But It’s Not Cheap. This morning I woke up, and, checking the CMJ Charts, saw that I have gained a footing onto the Hip-Hop Top 20. Thanks to anyone that’s called in and requested Antimc It’s Free, But It’s Not Cheap on your local college station, please keep it up, and a huge thanks again to Terrorbird Media for pumping it in folks’ ears.

Antimc (think Anti-MC aka Matthew Alsberg) is a producer with a great love for his synthesizers. He doesn’t love them in the ‘utilizes a lot’ kinda way (though he does), but he actually cares for them in the deepest meaning of the word. Within an Antimc song, you can hear Alsberg caressing, teasing and giving those playful little spanks (you know, the ones that keep a relationship interesting) to his wide array of synthesizers and keyboards, and his music responds with sexy grins to each loving touch. As well as contributing live instrumentation and exotic samples to his sound, the L.A. producer crafts a well realized and polished combination of electro-pop, post-rock and dancefloor-ready hip-hop. For mic duties, Antimc has enlisted scatter-brained indie-hop emcee Busdriver, hyped Canadian rapper Cadence Weapon and Bay Area true-hop mic-smith Saafir as well as Anthony Anzalone of the Mean Reds, Andrew Broder of Fog and Mark Mitchell of Clue to Kalo with mixed results. Busdriver and Broder fit the sound the best and are highlights of the album. Personally, I dig Antimc’s solo tracks the most (which goes as well for his previous work with Radioinactive), which easily show the promising producer and musician’s keen ear for catchy melodies, head-nodding beats and welcomed playfulness. - Michael Ardaiolo

Los Angeles producer Antimc sidelined ths solo debut to work with rapper Radioinactive on 2004’s Free Kamal, which had something of an anything goes attitude to hip-hop production; Radioinactive’s technophobic lyrics found themselves over disco-funk, flamenco guitars, electro, whatever Antimc could drum up. It’s Free is less focused, more exploratory, a producer’s album, and Antimc is making further inquiries into his own interests and influences. So It’s Free is his calling card. “What Were We So Afraid Of?” has a twee-rock bedroomtronic bounce to it, plus the gall to quote the main riff of Reel 2 Real’s jock jam “I Like to Move It.” Less successful, “Cesspool City” puts stuttering drum machines and Mean Red Anthony Anzalone’s emocore rants (”I don’t wanna be, no fucking man!”) in service of a guilt-ridden rap-Metal mishap. But if there’s a common thread to the genre-hopping, it’s Antimc’s decision to leave no tone usual, no instrument without rhythmic consequences. The guitars on multi-part rock opener “Ten Days Out” sound like trumpets, while Busdriver’s gravelly science-gone-wrong warbling does double duty on “Bellies Full of Rain,” dominating as both rhythm and bassline. On indie-folk number “The Nogoodnick,” flat syncopated white noise scratches across the pan, while snare drum clicks patter out 16th notes in response deep in the mix. The hard driving electro beat of “Canadian Dream” grows busy and languishes to compliment guest rapper Cadence Weapon’s remarkable on-the-dime flow control. Antimc’s sound bank may be (cough) cheap, but no matter. This is expert detailwork - felt first, heard later. - Nick Sylvester

Having long left behind the slightest notion of being a hip-hop label (in the same way that most records on Anticon weren’t so hip-hop either), Mush releases the first full-length by long time office aficionado Matt Alsberg. So rather than wax on what the record is not, it is better to celebrate what it is. Opener “Ten Days Out” is a vintage listening techno selection, the scrappy little brother of anything off those Artificial Intelligence comps from the mid-’90s. Alsberg maintains gritty analog sound throughout, but shapes it into skinny guitar riffs on screamer “Cesspool City” with singer Anthony Anzalone or twitchy rhythmic skittering for emcee Cadence Weapon to brush over - á la Beans without the willfully obtuse lyrics. He probably pushers farther than need be with the spangled electro-folk of “The Nogoodnick,” but it’s all feisty and frolicking fun - presuming one finds old Warp Records releases fun rather than incorrigible. We’ll assume the former in readers of this mag. FOUR STARS - Jack Real

I’ll be back on stage for Tuesdays at Cinespace in Hollywood with Busdriver. As usual my buds Them Jeans (Jason Stewart) and Kid Millionaire (Steve Aoki) will be spinning in the main room, and the young man Dj Dan-Oh will be holding it down in the show room after we play.

DEC 05 - LOS ANGELES, CA - CINESPACE

It’s Free But It’s Not Cheap is the solo debut from Antimc, a Los Angeles-based producer. The white dude rockin’ a throwback Ramones concert style t-shirt in the accompanying press sure doesn’t look like your typical hip-hop producer, and he doesn’t sound like it either. Antimc brings influences from all sorts of genres and uses elements from those combined with slick — and very ambitious — beats to mold the nine songs that comprise the album. When you have guys like the unbelievable Canadian MC Cadence Weapon, Epitaph’s Busdriver (who has a new full-length coming early in 2007), Andrew Broder of Fog and Mark Mitchell of Clue To Kalo appearing on your songs, then you know Antimc is on the cusp of something special and people within the industry are taking notice. What I love most about Antimc is that while he is a hip-hop producer, he doesn’t let that label restrict him from dabbling in other genres and leaving the world of hip-hop behind for extended periods of time, even entire songs. All of that is evident in album opening “Ten Days Out.” Fasten your seat belt as Antimc takes you on a nearly seven-minute ride of hip-hop fused with a groovin’ rock vibe. Pay particular attention to the guitar work, because it is fuckin’ sick. (Is that a warped version of the music they used to play in the bonus stage of Sonic and Hedgehog when you and Tails collected mad coins? I really think it is.) Six of the nine tracks feature guest vocalists and walk the gauntlet from reggae-infused hip-hop, straight hip-hop, what I would call borderline punk rock and even a total alternative indie-pop song. Like I said earlier, Antimc completely ignores boundaries that others often adhere to and the listeners enjoy the spoils. The most surprising of the bunch has to be “The Nogoodnick,” which features Fog singing about “a nomadic addict” who is well beyond down on his luck. It’s far closer to a lost Neutral Milk Hotel song than it is to something that you’d expect to find here. You are hearing chimes, bells and xylophones, and almost no bass to speak of. This is a great song that leaves me wondering just how this collaboration came to be, and whether we’ll see more songs like this in Antimc’s future. Anthony Anzalone of the Mean Reds handles the vocals on the aforementioned “punk” tune, “Cesspool City.” The word raw is thrown around a lot when it comes to music, more specifically in regards to hip-hop and punk. Half the time you have a crystal clean beat with a rapper who has a raspy voice and you end up having people touting how raw it is. These people need to hear “Cesspool City” to get an understanding what raw music actually sounds like. Anzalone’s vocal style and the killer combative beat that Antimc paired with it literally sound like the musical equivalent to a brutally gruesome beatdown. Check out a sample of these disturbing lyrics: “All the shit I see/Cesspool city/All the shit I see/Cesspool City/All dicks are lined up hard and ready to fuck/Tell that there whore to piss on your chest/Tell the fuckin’ whore to piss on your chest.” See what I mean? It’s absolutely visceral. It’s on the instrumental tracks where Antimc gets a forum where he really has a chance to shine. “What Were So Afraid Of?” reminds me a bit of a topsy-turvy DJ Danger Mouse’s work with the Gorillaz, where the emphasis is on happiness as opposed to gloom. There are even elements of happycore dance in the background. The scattered use of varying styles of drum machines is a cool touch. “This is my whore report/You are the spoils/We are the victors/We like vicars/In charge of you vics/My job implies I take advantage (doesn’t it?)/I’m a fast talker/ I’m an active savage/It ain’t so bad but it ain’t all good/rappers talk shit but they ain’t all hood.” I couldn’t possibly end this review without talking about the incomparable Cadence Weapon — featured on “Canadian Dream” — with the above sample of his lyrics, which rival anybody going right now . I’ve resigned myself to knowing that I can’t break the rules and put Breaking Kayfabe or any individual songs off Cadence’s album on the year-end list, so I am happy to say that Antimc has given me a loophole to give props to one of my greatest discoveries of 2006. The beats were great on Cadence’s album, but what Antimc has concocted here would challenge any of the joints off Breaking Kayfabe. If these two ever made an album together it could be magic. The whimsical words “Or I may just dream … my life away … Or I may just dream … my life away,” are distantly repeated by Clue to Kalo as the album closes in a very fitting climax to the robust trip that is It’s Free But It’s Not Cheap. Antimc gave me nothing I ever would have expected and everything I could have wanted at the same time. It’s one of the more musically eclectic experiences I have ever had.

While the name isn’t all that great but the guest rhyming spots on Antimc’s record, It’s Free, But It’s Not Cheap is impressive. Anyone who thinks that Cadence Weapon and Busdriver need to be on a single album automatically gets a thumbs up from me. Antimc is a lifelong LA resident and producer. The kid has a great knack for melding “traditional drum programming, world-influenced samples along with live instrumentation.” - K.

Check out the album profile on Analog Giant

Antimc began his climb up music’s ladder through work with Radioinactive and playing as a member of Boom Bip’s live band, but the lifetime native of LA has since risen to prominence as an artist in his own right. Known for his infusions of crisp hip-hop, thrashing post-rock, and intricate jazz rhythms, his debut album It’s Free But It’s Not Cheap is the stuff leftfield imprint Mush Records goes wild for. A little accessible, a little eccentric, and definitely a producer to watch in 2007. - Jennifer Marston

Check out the rest of the album profile on XLR8R.com

Dan believes that I ought to love Cadence Weapon; I think my taste in hip-hop is not that sophisticated, sadly. But he is giving him — and me — another chance by putting this track by Antimc in the list, because Cadence is featured on it. The background is pretty neat; I’m not sure what it is that’s making that noise, but I’m pretty sure my old Casio had it as one of its 99 “instruments.” I also like to hear some solid Canadian hip-hop, since our reputation on that front is so lame. And this is solid, to be sure; more experimental than my usual tastes, but something that should be checked out. I particularly like the chorus.