El-P Discusses His New Album, Brush With Death

Indie hip-hop producer-rapper El-P, who founded the Definitive Jux label (home to Cannibal Ox, RJD2, and Aesop Rock), gave us an exclusive preview of his new album, I'll Sleep When You're Dead, which includes collaborations with a slew of hip heavyweights including Trent Reznor, Cat Power's Chan Marshall and Mars Volta's Cedric Bixler-Zavala. The Mars Volta frontman sings on a track called "Tasmanian Pain Coaster," Marshall appears on "Poisonville Kids," and Reznor's tortured vocals are subtlely mixed into the dense soup of "Flyentology." El-P (Jaime Melone) tells us he wrote the song after a plane engine exploded during a recent flight home from Costa Rica. "Everyone was freaking out, people were praying, some people seemed ready to go," he tells us. "I found myself coming up with my own brand of religion called 'Flyentology.' "

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Song Stories

“Is It True”

Brenda Lee | 1964

As the British Invasion reached its peak in 1964, Brenda Lee went from Nashville to London to record one of her hardest-rocking hits, her perky vocal backed by a stuttering, squalling guitar. That guitar was played by session musician Jimmy Page, yet to skyrocket to fame with first the Yardbirds and then Led Zeppelin. "She said to me, 'I've come here to make a record with the British sound,'" remembered producer Mickie Most. "She felt she wouldn't get the same sound in Nashville because they're only just catching up on the British beat group sound of about six months ago."

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