Pitchfork

In preparation for the March 20 release of El-P's I'll Sleep When You're Dead (about which he spilled the beans to Pitchfork here) on Def Jux, the label head/producer/MC has offered up the first MP3 from the album: "Smithereens (Stop Cryin)". And no, it has nothing to do with this band.

Flutes, saxophones, and helicopter noises pass in and out of dense electronic textures in the kind of mix that's been El-P's signature, but from which we thought he had been trying to distance himself. Then again, dude did collaborate with Trent Reznor on this album.

Between this song's title and the references to "Mayor Doomberg," there's probably a manifesto on the modern landscape of New York in here somewhere, but it's a little hard to make it out.