Those Norwegians are a defunct Norwegian house/disco group who made a name for themselves on the defunct Paper Recordings in the mid to late 90s and also counted one of the current stalwarts of the cosmic disco/beard scene Rune Lindbæk amongst their members. This track featured on their album Kaminzky Park, which was released in 1997 to much acclaim. The sample they used on this one is strangely familiar but I can't put finger on it at the moment, so if you know then please do tell. This is one of those tracks that immediately grabs you with its uplifting vocal, meandering groove and spacey effects that make for an almost perfect warm-up record - could be big for the summer months ahead...well for me at least.
I'm outnerding myself tonight on the spotting samples front. Normally I am utter rubbish as I remember all my tunes by the colour of the record sleeves and not by the names of the records themselves, which is a bit odd. I'm more likely to describe a record's cover to you in a nightclub if you ask me what the name of a track is than be able to tell you who produced it and what it is called but tonight something has obviously come over me as I've not only remembered both the names of the tracks but also the sleeve designs, I'll take double nerd points thank you.
Anyway the sadly departed Lisa 'Left Eye' Lopes' The Block Party, which is a party tune and then some, samples a very small bit of the drums before the break on the Earth, Wind and Fire's immaculate Drum Song, which as I'm sure you'll agree is quite a clever piece of sampling by whoever produced the track for mad Lisa. Both records are great and deserve a neighbour-awakening blast over your system. Go on.
One of my favourite artists talking on Karmaloop TV. Mike Giant is a seriously talented guy and an artist that I respect tremendously and his clothing line is one of the freshest about at the moment. One of the things that I want most in life is a Mike Giant tattoo but he's retired from that line of work now, which leaves my skin untouched although I do have an idea at the moment that I am toying with and sketching...we'll see. Check the line and buy some of his books from here.
The Quiet Village album dropped this past week to mass hysteria and tears of joy from beards across the globe. Now it is no secret that Quiet Village is basically Matt Edwards and Joel Martin's re-edit project and I found it quite funny that people on a certain 'spotters board got their panties in a bunch because they weren't all original tracks. We all know that Too High To Move is basically Janis Ian Fly Too High with a vocal stuck onto it and here is another original for you to cast your ears over.
Pacific Rhythm is in fact an edit of Ryuichi Sakamoto & The Kakutougi Sessions' You're A Friend To Me off Summer Nerves, which is an album well worth buying if you haven't already. Big favourite with my mom funnily enough who the more balearic records and DJs I listen to the more I realise that her collection is firmly rooted in the sand-between-your-toes section. I can't really tell you which one is better as they're so similar but Joel and Martin have definitely done just about enough to warrant it a place on their superb album.
The people at Ghostly just might have lost their minds. They've decided to make their latest compilation Adult Swim available to download for free, yep absolutely no coin whatsoever. It includes tracks by Dabrye, Matthew Dear, Osborne, Kill Memory Crash and a few staples from the illustrious label. It's proof if ever that music is becoming more and more of just a marketing tool for producers so they can get more gigs. Most labels nowadays don't pay you upfront for your records but rather pay you out of the profits made from sales, if any. Gone are the days when a single selling ten to twenty thousand copies was good business but rather nowadays if you shift a thousand you've done well, so doing things like this to get more exposure for your artists can't be anything but a good thing.
TRACKLISTING
01 Michna - Triple Chrome Dipped 02 Dabrye – Temper 03 The Chap – Carlos Walter Wendy Stanley 04 Dark Party – Active 05 Tycho – Cascade (Live Version) 06 JDSY – All Shapes 07 Deastro – Light Powered 08 Matthew Dear – R+S 09 FLYamSAM – The Offbeat 10 Cepia – Ithaca 11 Aeroc – Idiom 12 The Reflecting Skin – Traffickers 13 School of Seven Bells – Chain 14 Ben Benjamin – Squirmy Sign Language 15 Kill Memory Crash – Hit + Run 16 Osborne – Wait A Minute 17 Milosh – Then It Happened 18 10:32 – Blue Little 19 Mux Mool – Night Court
Bomb It is the explosive new documentary from award-winning director Jon Reiss investigating the most subversive and controversial art form currently shaping international youth culture: graffiti. Through interviews and guerilla footage of graffiti writers in action on 5 continents, BOMB IT tells the story of graffiti from its origins in prehistoric cave paintings thru its notorious explosion in New York City during the 70's and 80's, then follows the flames as they paint the globe. Featuring old school legends and current favorites such as Taki 183, Cornbread, Stay High 149, T-Kid, Cope 2, Zephyr, Revs, Os Gemeos, KET, Chino, Shepard Fairey, Revok, and Mear One. This cutting edge documentary tracks down today's most innovative and pervasive street artists as they battle for control over the urban visual landscape. You'll never look at public space the same way again.
This is quite simply the funk record! I first heard it when Richard Sen from Padded Cell stuck it on his Beatsinspace mix a while back and the moment I heard it kick in I knew that I simply had to have it, and everywhere that I played it during my time in the UK I was guaranteed to have someone come charging over asking, and in some cases demanding, what it the name of it was. You can play Funky Music absolutely anywhere and it will go off, this is my get out of jail record and even though I have a lot of those in my bag when I play out, this is the one that I go for first each and every time. The whole record is bad-ass and apparently has had a lot of influence over a wide-range of dance music producers judging by how many producers pay homage to it in their grooves and it is easy to see why with its killer combo of keys, horns and drums augmented by heartfelt strings and wonderful choruses. This is a record that every record collection needs and in the weeks to come I'll probably end up sticking up the rest of the album. This shit is banging!
After going through an intense period of Bloggrrhea I've been a bit stuck for ideas for posts this past week but today I've decided to go with three tracks with War as the title gleamed from my over-flowing record collection. I've officially run out of shelving and a trip to IKEA beckons.
First up is the magnificent Hypnotic Brass Ensemble who are made up of eight brothers and have supported the likes of Mos Def, Erykah Badu, Maxwell and their father, Phil Cohran who was once a member of the fabled Sun Ra Arkestra and who, lets face it, win all the cosmic points. Do yourself a favour and read books like Space Is The Place: The Lives and Times of Sun Ra and read a decent account of what is practically the impossible, trying to explain the idiosyncrasies of the great man. War came out on a very limited 10" and had taste-makers around the world salivating at its charms. This along with, Jupiter and Brass In Africa, which is their version of Johnny Pate's Shaft In Africa has just enough swing to get even the most linear of floors grooving and are absolutely essential in my book, and with both of their albums available on iTunes you should invest the cash.
Here they are in their dressing room sketching something out with Mos Def.
What I know about Matty G I could write on the back of a stamp with a fuck-off thick black marker. Apparently he's American and is from Santa Cruz north of here. I'll be the first to admit that I'm a dabbler in dubstep and no more, I tend to go for the records that have a reggae-skank to them and this ticks all the right boxes. It kind of reminds me a bit of a Peter Tosh record and I used to play the great man's record Legalize It to death after my older sister introduced it to me when I was 14 or so. I was pretty, ahem, green back in those days, so it proved to be the ultimate soundtrack to my friends and my naive brand of militancy back in the day - basically we walked around wearing t-shirts that said "Adihash". I'm not even sure if we can categorize War as dubstep but regardless of whatever pigeon-hole it falls into, all I know is that I am well and truly enamoured with both its message and whoomping bass! Great record.
This is a little documentary that I found that sort of explains what dubstep is.
The sadly-departed Edwin Starr is well and truly a legend. Originally a member of The Future Tones he ended up living in Detroit in the 60s and 70s and recorded, pretty much like everyone else, for Tamla Motown. War, which originated as a Temptations album track was allegedly recorded in one take and remains till this day the anti-war anthem and when the US invaded Iraq for a second time Laurent Garnier used this to devastating effect at the Electric Chair after having played the a cappella of Saul Williams' Not In My Name and as you can imagine the entire place went absolutely mental. You all know the record but with this being a time of economic downturn and recession brought upon by a government's capitalist and morally reprehensible ideals it makes War as relevant as it ever was. The one thing that irks me most is that of the people who voted to go to war not one of them has or has had a son or daughter on the front-line. Chickenhawks each and every single last one of them.
Animal Collective are a group of friends from Baltimore, MD who are currently taking their experimental take on rock music to new levels from their New York bunker. They count Panda Bear amongst their members who released the spell-binding Person Pitch, which sounds like the best collaborative album that Brian Eno, Kevin Shiells and Brian Wilson never recorded. It is an album that works as a whole much in the way that Lucky Pierre's Hypnogogia does. It is one of those records where individual tracks don't make as much sense as the album as a whole. I can't really fault it in all truth. Animal Collective make some of the most interesting music around and if you haven't already fallen for their many charms then I'd suggest you seek their work out.
Anyway, I'm digressing. I've chosen Peacebone remixed by Pantha Du Prince aka Hendrik Weber who I know very little about beyond his album The Bliss, which was a bit hit and miss but on this remix he has taken the best out of the track and added a minimal groove that makes it one of the best tracks from the genre that I have heard in a long time. As per usual I'm advocating for you to play this loud.
I'm a Cape Town boy who has been around the world and back and still hasn't found a place that I truly want to settle. I've written for numerous publications about all sorts of elements of popular culture. I'm a recordhound constantly on the search for "the perfect beat" and have come close a few times. I have far too many pairs of shoes and not enough pairs of pants unfortunately.
If you own any of these tracks and want me to remove them or you just want to get in contact for whatever reason then e-mail me at marc.kets[at]kumo-music.com.
