best of 2007

Benga - “Emotions”
Kanye West - “Flashing Lights (Juke Jams remix)”
A Mountain of One - “Brown Piano (Studio remix)”
Bloc Party - “Where Is Home (Burial remix)”
Cibelle - “Green Grass (Mariposa remix)”

Hypnotic Brass Ensemble - “War” / “Mercury”
Hot 8 Brass Band - “Sexual Healing”
Georgia Anne Muldrow - “Requiem for Leroy”
Morgan Zarate - “M.A.B.”
Paul White - “Dragon Fly” / “A Silent Cry”
Goth-Trad - “Law”
Kool DJ Dust - “We Call It Skweee”
Justice - †
Tony Allen - “Kilode (Carl Craig remix)”
Open House - “Seven Day Weekend (Brennan Green remix)”

Sooooo positive!

Good vibes.
It just comes down to that sometimes... here's some shit that just makes me happy. I mean man it just puts a smile on my face.
Hearing the shameless new hit by Armand van Helden in a car stereo with summer outside like it was all 1987 all over again or sumtin - fact is, though, that he basically samples an original which must get the official label "slept on" amid all the day-glo, jheri-curl goo and legwarmers it's been buried under. The original singer had the impossible name Siedah Garrett so it never became a REAL hit fo'sho. Although it hella deserved it! As I said, this shit just puts a smile on my face no less no more! Freestyle records, man... That's the name of the game. Siedah's "Do You Want It Right Now" is just one in a long range of records with that eternal positivity about them; Joyce Sims "All And All", Gwen Guthrie "Nothin Goin On But the Rent" Aleem's "Confusion". Gold dust... or if not, at least silver lamé.
This brings me on to a suspicion that's been growing within me recently. We all know how it's like an all-out cliché these days to claim that the 00s are the new 80s; I mean the economy is goin through the roof, we've had our own neocon/klansman/Bushman Reagan covertly blowing up towelheads behind our back, while that nagging global warming concern is sort of postponed for the future (since hey I mean it will sort itself out won't it?) We've got yuppies and 80s kids with kids of their own, body poppin with carefree abandon. The only thing we haven't got (as much of, anyway) is crack cocaine.
But there truly is a new generation out there doing shit ra-a-w like the 80s all over again, completely careless and with no sense of tradition - just like it should be. As an example of this Imma gonna take the chance to highlight and give props to all-European cats like Hudson Mohawke, Tom Trago, Smoovth & Drums, Flogsta Danshall, Kissey Asplund, Cinnaman, Paul White old boy Mark Pritchard.

This shit is as positive as all those 80s freestyle things that Armands is ticking off. It really is as if that cliché of "the 00s being like the 80s all over" is true BUT on an even deeper level. Because this aint fashion or surface, I mean its not retro at all in the sense that it would be a rehash of sounds and looks (like that Armand tune is after all) but it is a throwback to simpler happier times in spirit, which by extension generates completely neck-breaking new looks and sounds in itself. And that's something else. That's real cool for a change.

Siedah Garrett: Do You Want It Right Now
Hudson Mohawke: Star of a Story
Hudson Mohawke: Free Mo

into 007

Some good shit from last year:
Henrik Schwarz - Imagination No Limitation
 Introspective acid house, if there is such a thing.
Arthur Russell - Springfield
 Introspective italo disco, if there is such a thing.
The Field - Over the Ice
 Extrovert IDM, if there is such a thing.
Ame - Rej
 Pop-crossover tech-house, if there is such a thing.
Kelis - Trilogy
 Hall & Oates covered by a cyborg.

Bonus tracks:
Kahil El'Zabar & Kemit Sources - Our Time Is Now (IG culture remix)
 The funk is not located in off notes, it's in the straight ones...
Ghostface Killah - Alex (Stolen Script)
 The best story telling rap in.... 5 years?
Chopp Master Flopp - Daisy Crazy
 My idea of fun!

Diss list:
Gnarls Barkley - Crazy
 Folks, you know I discovered: it's impossible to dance to this.
Amerie - Because I Love It EP
 After the earth-shattering 1 Thing, this was nuttin' but a let down.

chillin with Tip

Q-Tip is back with Live at the Renaissance (Universal)!
So, what's the album like then? It's essentially a mix between the most all-out, embracable Afro-American FM rock à la Lenny Kravitz (never thought I would write this but I mean it in a good way!), and an odd, almost inverted form of celebration of all-time, main course hip-hop staple fodder: "That's Sexy" (with Andre 3000) twists that old, worn LL Cool J-ish hip-hop hookline "something like a phenomenon" yet one more time; "Black Boy" is Pharoahe Monch's Godzilla anthem "Simon Says" turned inside out; "Shame on You" (with Stevie Wonder and Mario Winans) samples Mobb Deep's "Shook Ones" to great effect; "For the Nasty" is apex era ATCQ updated to the new millennium; "Official" is basically a live rendition of Pete Rock's gem "Once Upon a Time" from Slum Village's Fantastic vol II. And isn't "Lisa" a nod to "Mona Lisa" - both the Slick Rick version and that version were Wyclef Jean cuts butter with the Neville Brothers?
Where does the Lenny K equation come in then? Well, if Kamaal the Abstract was entirely set in the jazz club, on Live at the Renaissance Tip has sort of filtered all his hip-hop niceness through an FM radio filter instead - it's all electric guitar licks, black rock ephemera, music for transistors rather than dinner tables. And it's actually a great move - this is what Gwen Stephani's productions would have sounded like if they were targeting a more 'mature' audience, and had more of that playful grit funk attitude that we always expect from the Tip.
To sum up: This is classic Americana, painted with the widest brush, by the greatest charmer in hip-hop. Quite hard to resist, in other words. Q-tip wants to take your daughter to the drive-in, eat popcorns and giggle all night. And of course, it's friggin' impossible to refuse him that!

Q-Tip: I'm Not Gonna Have It
Q-Tip: Official

not your ordinary

One of the albums of this year will be out any day now: Aloe Blacc's Shine Through (Stones Throw). After having pursued an MC career with rap group Emanon, Aloe made a slight career change to more seriously make use of his rare singing talent, hooked up with hip-hop producer Oh No, and struck a new path as a solo artist.
On "I'm Beautiful" and his much-hyped Spanish version of John Legend's (I need to give credit here also to Jon Lucien ) "Ordinary People", Aloe makes soul music which is, put simply, Larger Than Life.
Then — more interestingly — on the album, he does something which is like an inversion of that, but which comes out as even stronger, on its own merit: Check the official website for the video to negro spiritual "Busking", and realize how this is unaffected, unpretentional music but at the same time as bold a statement as you'd be able to think of these days. Surpassing playa bragadocio and sex-crazed closet-jumping through sheer modesty and soulfulness. Aloe don't need to boast, he be killing them anyway, cos they all children — and he's the daddy.
www.myspace.com/aloeblaccmusic
www.aloeblacc.com

Aloe Blacc: I'm Beautiful
Aloe Blacc: Ordinary People (Spanish version)

I can't stop!

hehe.. one day I'm slagging off Baile Funk, the next one I'm milking the very same Cariocan titties myself!
Here's a wee mashup between (what is probably the best production by these guys ever) The Wiseguys' remix of West Street Mob's "I Can't Stop" and Bonde Do Role's "Melo Do Tabaco". Old skool in tha house!

Check Mad Decent for some other, wicked remixes.

West Street Mob meets Bonde Do Role: Wiseguys Can't Stop Smokin Tabaco (Jaa Liq mashup)

milkshake re-bottled

A little mashup of MF Doom and Kelis for y'all... exclusively put together by the enigmatic Jaa Liq.

Kelis meets Special Herbs: Black Snake Root Milkshake (Jaa Liqs it up)

for you sample fanatics out there, also check
Boz Scaggs: Low Down

going east

OK, folks, funk Carioca has been rinsed to death the last year or so, and doesn't it amount to a degree of colonialism when you get tanned Swedish brats with backslick haircuts dancing their Mastercard-toting, coke-fuelled Moet&Chandon strut to similarly coke-fuelled (hey, at least one link there!), gun-praising, bum sex-extolling, impoverished scruffy beats from the favelas?
Hey, rich European kids - try not to just hype one 'ethnic' style at a time, or be honest about it and admit that you just read about M.I.A in some fashion mag, and your DJ friends said "this is the coolest thing". The world is a big place, you know, and there are other parts of it out there!

So, here goes:
Balkan Beat Box: Bulgarian Chicks
featuring the "Bulgarian Chicks" Vlada Tomova and Kristin Espeland on vocals.
Taken from the Balkan Beat Box compilation on Essay Recordings. Check it out.

rare sh*, pt. 1

Can we speak of such a thing as rare mp3 files?
For something which is so easily duplicated, isn't that a contradiction in terms?
However, these are some files that I found being only very temporarily available at the various places I found them... The internet is often not only about being in the right place - it's ever so often also about being in the right place at the right time.
So, for a limited period only, here goes:

Omar: It's So
Sought-after also as a (promo 12") record, this is London style broken soul at its best!
Sunshine Anderson: Heard It All Before (Quantic Soul Orchestra remix)
Great tune, a real classic - here in an unbeatable, live sounding funk version by QSO. Hard to find on vinyl these days, and a bit tricky to find even online...
Amerie: 1 Thing (Siik remix)
The Siik remix is siiick! This guy made this brilliant remix but only posted it for a short while on the wonderfully eclectic step off the frankfurter.

garden of delights

Spring is in the air... New from Cut Chemist: "The Garden".
Shoutouts to 3hive audio blog!