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Neon City (1991) Director: Monte Markham Starring: Michael Ironside, Lyle Alzado, Vanity, Juliet Landau, Valerie Wildman, Nick Klar, Richard Sanders Available on Blu-ray 11/14 If murderous renegades don’t get them, poisonous clouds or deadly sunbursts will! The year is 2053. The atmosphere is lethal and people are literally fighting for survival. When iron-eyed bounty hunter Harry M. Stark has to transport a tough and sexy lady outlaw to another jurisdiction—they’re in for the ride of their lives. Harry, his beautiful prisoner and six unwitting civilians board an armored transport vehicle driven by an ex-con ... Read more...

In every pop culture era, there are always a handful of artists who just plain make sense for what’s going on in music. Zhu may have gotten his actual start a couple years ago, but his unique, melancholy style of electronic music made the post-edm landscape of 2016 the ideal time to release his debut album, Generationwhy.

A series of dreamlike soundscapes encapsulate the full breadth of the Los Angeles DJ/producer’s first studio-length effort. Without resigning himself to any particular genre, he manages to seamlessly blend elements of house, hip-hop, jazz and rock in a way that doesn’t come across as forced. Even the prominence of instrumental samples from song to song seems genuine; for the most part each arrangement consists of only what it needs to with little added for filler.

Only a few entries on the Generationwhy’s tracklist belong to singles that Zhu shared...

Los Angeles producer and master of non-marketing Zhu had begun to release songs from his debut album, Generationwhy, all the way back in February – but he’s had this one, titled “Palm of My Hand,” on the back burner far longer, having dropped it in his sets for over a year now.

The track begins with a melancholy electric guitar solo before Zhu’s own vocals share the arrangement with a series of other instrumental samples. A female voice speaking in French accompanies a violin melody at the end of the track, making it one of the artist’s more acoustically rich productions.

Zhu opened his BBC Radio 1 debut last year with “Palm of My Hand” – in addition to using it in numerous live sets throughout his 2015 tours. The single has seen negligible changes, if any between now and then, which means that he’s held onto it specifically to...

Zhu‘s highly anticipated debut album has finally received a concrete release date this week. Titled Generationwhy, the producer’s first full length work is due out on July 29 via Columbia Records, and will follow up his critically acclaimed Genesis Series Ep from last year.

To coincide with the announcement, Zhu dropped a trailer for an upcoming short film that will accompany the new album this summer. The trailer features a cryptic totalitarian storyline that will no doubt leave fans wanting more.

Generationwhy is available for pre-order now on iTunes, Amazon and Google Play, and fans who purchase the album before its release date will have instant access to the tracks “In The Morning,” the title track “Generationwhy,” and the Skrillex and They collab “Working For It.”

In a short time, Zhu has established himself as one of dance music’s most forward thinking producers, and his first full studio...

With both weekends of Coachella 2016 in the rearview mirror, there are now twice as many contenders for best set of the festival. For our money, Zhu‘s week 1 performance still easily ranks among the top five, due in no small part to inventive edits and reworks like his remix of Faithless’ 1995 trance classic “Insomnia.”

As with much of Zhu’s work, the “Insomnia” remix he dropped during his week 1 performance synthesizes elements of house music and bass music without fitting neatly into any single category. The instantly recognizable synth lead of the original is punctuated with 808 drum rolls that don’t sound anywhere near as forced as you might imagine, and as can be seen in the above video, the whole of the arrangement was well received by festival goers.

Zhu‘s made proven a force to be reckoned with since the launch of his project two years ago, and...

The Edm blogosphere is still buzzing after several of the epoch-making performances that took place during week 1 of Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. You might recall our own glowing review of Zhu‘s genre-bending set at the Sahara Tent – but even we didn’t quite catch what many are speculating was the release date for his upcoming album.

At the very end of his dreamlike live set, the screen behind Zhu displayed the date July 29th, 2016. While there has been no outright announcement indicating the significance of the date, it’s far enough out after the end of the Neon City tour for him to make whatever finishing touches the speculative album would need.

Album or no album, Zhu‘s well on his way to making the 2016 festival season a major one for his career. He’ll be back to play week 2 of Coachella this next weekend, and fans...

If you ask yourself which Edm artists are most likely to survive the Edm apocalypse that’s on our scene’s forecast this year – and you’re honest with yourself – chances are Zhu will come to mind. His heavily instrumental, genres-be-damned fusion between hip-hop and house music somehow boldly defies the status quo while retaining uncanny mass appeal. Case in point: His Coachella Weekend 1 2016 performance.

A producer whose shadowy marketing mystique lends itself to his enigmatic blend of styles, Zhu kicked off his Neon City tour with a set at Coachella’s Sahara Tent this weekend that carries the listener on a seamless journey. In addition to fan favorites like “Faded” and his Skrillex collaboration, “Working For It,” the mix really picks up steam when ’90s rap group Bone Thugs-n-Harmony and Trombone Shorty came onstage to assist in his performance of “Hold Up, Wait A Minute.”

Fortunately for those who...

There was no question that Zhu‘s Neon City tour date announcements would accompany new music. As promised, the master of non-marketing has revealed the dates along with his first release since the Genesis Series.

“In the Morning” is Zhu to the T. A dissonant piano progression bleeds into a foreboding house groove balanced by polarized melodies on the high and low ends, and chilling vocal musings inject a measure of attitude into the arrangement.

Meanwhile, the music video itself makes the track more subversive than anything the cryptic artist has put out since 2014’s “Cocaine Model.” Not-so-subliminal imagery which borders on sexual and even perhaps menstrual themes add a layer of controversy to the already unsettling tone of the song.

If we know Zhu like we think we know him, “In the Morning” will be but the first of many releases leading up to his tour. The full list...

The master of non-marketing is up to his old tricks again. It wasn’t all that long ago that members of the electronic music community found themselves fervently speculating on what Zhu‘s Genesis Series could entail, and now the mysterious producer has gone to similar lengths to promote his Neon City tour.

The only information released to the public took the form of a cyberpunk-style rendering with only the words “Neon City” across the top and “Spring 2016” across the bottom. However, a visit to Zhu’s website reveals that its entire layout has been converted to a countdown animation with the page title reading “Neon City Tour.”

Seeing as how as of this writing the countdown will end in just under six days, the artist’s fans can reasonably expect him to release a list of tour dates on Wednesday, February 24th.

Of course, as with Zhu‘s presentation of the Genesis Series,...