Happy President’s Day everyone! In order to pay homage to our founding fathers, I thought it only right to bring some heaters into the bakery this morning.  I mean, George Washington was definitely a gangsta – dude rocked a grill made out of gold and hippopotamus ivory…Paul Wall ain’t got nothing on that.  What I have for all you fine people out there in Muffinland is some music from one of the albums that took a strangehold on the Train Station speakers this weekend. I’ll hit you up with the other selections in due course (randomly heard a grip of good albums this weekend), but for now let’s begin with Mr. Theophilus London….

Who? Well, until last week I had never heard the name Theophilus London before, but I have a feeling that we’re going to be hearing a lot about him in the near future.  Not only is Mr. London a snazzy dresser, but this 21 year old Brooklynite is putting out some neon-laced music that artfully mixes hip hop, electronica and indie-pop (hippoparonica?). Actually, only listing those three genres is probably a disservice to TL, as his Myspace pages lists influences that run the gamut from Michael Jackson and Brian Wilson to Kraftwerk and (not joking) Disney World Paris.  How Disney World Paris influences anyone to make music is beyond me, but then again I would probably list ‘Karate Kid’ as a major influence on my life, so who am I to judge…

Back to jams. 2008 saw the release of Theophilus’ first mixtape JAM!, while his latest and greatest project, This Charming Mixtape hit speakers sometime in the ’09.  For a mixtape steeped in intergalactic soul, you would think that the album art would depict an epic battle between some robots from the year 3000 (or some other similar girl-repellent imagery), but instead Theophilus chose to pay homage to Elvis Costello’s This Year’s Model artwork with the Charming cover.  Musically speaking, comparisons to Cudi are sure to be made, but I think that Theophilus leans even more eclectic and electro than the Kid – and besides I like me some Cudi so I’m all about it.  Two charming jams below for your consideration – ‘Humdrum Town’, which I have to assume is the lead single from a yet-to-be-announced debut album, and ‘Grey X Sage’ which is the track that kicks off This Charming Mixtape with its spaced out sonic minimalism. So, as always, crank those speakers and take a present-day listen to the sound of tomorrow.  Theophilus London: Train Tested. Muffin Approved.

Theophilus London – Humdrum Town

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Theophilus London – Grey X Sage

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Download This Charming Mixtape for FREE here!

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B-B-B-Bonus vid! While I have your attention, I want to remind you all that tomorrow is the release of Freeway and Jake One’s Stimulus Package album.  I don’t care if you can’t stand listening to “that damn rap music”, this purchase is worth it for the album packaging alone – peep the vid to see what I mean. Oh, and the “damn rap music” is pretty dope in this instance too…hop on over to Freeway’s Myspace for an album stream and give it a listen. Holla.

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