Fool, the 'tongue in cheek' self-ironic entitled third album, is another tour de force in Kasper Bjørke's signature production style - this time wrapped up as a concept album to be released on Fool's day April 1, 2012 on CD and vinyl. The versatile Copenhagen producer and DJ follows up on his successful sophomore solo album from 2010 'Standing on top of Utopia' that reached high acclaim from the international press and indie blogosphere.
On the final part of the Fokuz 050 series we have someone who could be described as a veteran in the Fokuz camp. Brother brings the quality as expected with a beatifull piece of music called 'Manna'. It's all about the subtle jazzy vibes on this one. Although Brother isn't the artist getting the most exposure, he proves again that he is definitely a force to be reckoned with.
'This Morning' is the highly anticipated release by dynamic duo 'Hybrid Minds' who already had support from some of the biggest names in the scene. Rolling drums, sensuous chords and a groovy bassline! The track also features Canadian producer/vocalist 'Grimm' adding his vocal flavour to this piece of topnotch production.
Up and away / To your journey to the sun / Drink your rocket juice / Fly away (Hey, Shooter).
High up in the skies, amongst the clouds, Rocket Juice & The Moon was born. Literally. It happened back in 2008, when Damon Albarn, Flea and Tony Allen convened on the same Lagos flight, to play and exchange musical ideas in that city as part of the Africa Express collective. Relishing a shared enthusiasm for one another's work, and bonding immediately, there and then the triumvirate laid down the blueprint for Rocket Juice.
Still, more than a year passed before conditions were set for three weeks together at Albarn's West London studio, recording and refining two-dozen startlingly out and deeply funky instrumental grooves. The next stage was to invite onboard some extremely talented friends, with further sessions in Dallas, New York, Chicago and Paris... Erykah Badu, no less, queen of contemporary soul. Three companions from Africa Express: Malian singer Fatoumata Diawara, whose debut album has topped World Music charts since its release last Autumn; her multi-talented compatriot Cheick Tidiane Seck, whose prodigious keyboardism has lit up releases by artists ranging from Youssou N'Dour to Hank Jones; the young, Ghanaian rapper M.anifest, quizzically existential, switching seamlessly between Twi and English. And the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, long-time stalwarts in the Honest Jon's set-up — since one of the team discovered them busking near the shop in Portobello Road, on his lunchbreak — with a second album for the label due in May... Finally, the tracks were dispatched for mixing to Berlin, to be meticulously honed, polished and envenomed by Mark Ernestus, one half of the legendary Basic Channel and Rhythm & Sound partnerships.
The result is Rocket Juice & The Moon — out March 26, 2012, on Honest Jon's Records — a triumphant exploration and proliferation of kinetic Afro-funk rhythms: organic, exuberant, communal music-making, evidenced by the project's live debut on stage as part of the Honest Jon's Chop Up in late 2011, which hit London, Marseille, Dublin, and Cork to such great acclaim (witness the flurry of smart-phone film-clips uploaded in the days thereafter).
From the inaugural bars — that absurdly funky slice of instructional timekeeping, 1-2-3-4-5-6 — the liquid pulse of Fela Kuti's classic recordings drives the action through a suite of 18 shape-shifting compositions. The greatest drummer in the world has never sounded so good as he does here. His intricate cross-patterns jostle and lock with Flea's nimble, rumbling bass riffs. Joined by Seck on There and Extinguished — 'when you dispose of something burning, be sure it's out' — Albarn's keyboards spray synth fusillades up top, over, and under... splicing into the mess of wires running between the freaked Afro-disco of William Onyeabor and the space-jazz-moog of Sun Ra. The HBE brings extra intensity and drama to Leave-Taking — likewise Flea's trumpet to Rotary Connection — teasing out the haunting melody coiled in the mix.
Where the best of vintage Afrobeat sides sustained their concentrated energies over the course of sprawling, marathon jams, RJ & TM manages something altogether different: the group bottles the idiom into capsules of funk... and real songs. Beautifully buoyed by Erykah Badu's unmistakable vocals, Hey, Shooter brilliantly traverses metaphysical spaceways sans any semblance of noodling. Lolo and Follow-Fashion — featuring the open-hearted sensuality of Diawara's singing, M.anifest's quick, brawny science, and more brass blasts — play like its musical cousins or codas. Indeed, the album's shrewd sequencing creates the composite effect of tracks working both individually or within the context of an extended song-cycle.
The lovely ballad, Poison, is bittersweet and ruminative: 'If you're looking for love, beware the signs / They will paralyze you one by one / Poison, it will only break your heart.' Down-tempo and dubby, Check Out and Worries amplify the range of styles and moods. And by the time of Fatherless — a chugging Afro blues that evokes John Lee Hooker lost in Lagos, one gets the sneaking suspicion there's very little outside the reach of this collective's inventive musical grasp.
There is, in fact, a palpable openness pervading Rocket Juice & The Moon — the sense of a limber willingness to follow creative impulse — right down to how the group acquired its name. When Ogunajo Ademola — the Lagotian commissioned to do the album's cover artwork — dubbed his submission 'Rocket Juice & The Moon', it quickly morphed into the formal name of the project, like trying to hold onto mercury.
Surely, the stars above also approved.
It's with the arrival of Looping State Of Mind that you finally realise that, for The Field's ambient techno explorer Axel Willner, the loop never stops. While fans and critics alike point to 2007's phenomenal debut From Here We Go Sublime - included in Pitchfork's Top 100 albums of the 2000s - and 2009's equally stirring follow up Yesterday & Today as standalone points of the Swede's music; it becomes clear that they appear as mere snapshots of what, for the producer, is a continual cycle of revolutions.
Das formidable Porträt der Reggae-Ikone ist in der 10-Track LP-Vinyl-Edition wieder neu aufgelegt! - Lincoln Barrington "Sugar" Minott (25. Mai 1956 - 10. Juli 2010) war einer der ganz großen jamaikanischen Künstler, ein Sänger mit unnachahmlicher Stimme, Produzent und Soundsystembetreiber. Er begann als 13-jähriger Teenager im Trio The African Brothers, 1974 ging er zu Studio One, wo seine Solokarriere startete, er gründete sein eigenes Label Black Roots und feierte schließlich im Jahr 1981 den Top 5-Hit "Good Thing Going" in den englischen Charts.
Top Canadian DJ Todd Omotani enlists the amazing vocalist Jaidene Veda for his debut release on Amenti Music, a fine deep house outing reminiscent of Mood II Swing. The EP features none other than the legendary Charles Webster on two excellent remixes! Receiving major support from Jimpster, Osunlade, Atjazz, Danny Krivit, Mark Farina, Fred Everything, Blaze, Pepe Bradock & many others.
After the huge success of PAVO"s 2009 release on Fusion "Communicate" this Dutch hardstyle master is back with this brand new creation! Two outstanding hardstyle bombs are offered on this 12": "BACK IN TIME" and "CLASSIC"... hard poundin" kickdrums, twisted edits and phat melody lines make both tracks top notch crowd pleasers.
Rising star in hardstyle land THE MACHINE presents his first release on TREMBLE TRACKS! This young talented bloke from the Czech Republic alreday excited us with his cool release "The Mist" on the Italian top imprint Ipnotika and we are pleased that he signed this powerful hardstyle release on Tremble Tracks.
With releases on Moon Harbour, Curl Curl, Railyard and his Poker Flat debut "The Whisper Had It" last year, Simon Flower is one of New Zealand's top exports. Now he's back with two more slabs of irrepressible dancefloor action, complete with a slow burning deep-techno remix by Berlin's own Efdemin. "Phosphenes" is a pacy, chemically induced affair into the darker eschews of Flower's production techniques.
Kickin' jumpstyle 3-tracker by new talents on the block: DEFEKT & ANDY B... presented on the well respected TREMBLE TRACKS imprint! Square kickin' bassdrums, phat synth lines, freaky edits and oldschool sample use make this an absolute must have for all jumpers out there. Already severely hammered by loads of top djs so grab your stock now!
The second GIZMANIA-X release! Cool jumpstyle production by DJ GIZMO in co-operation with rising star SYMASTIC...On the a-side the massive DIGITAL PUNK REMIX of 'Pump up the bass', and again this top producer (well known for his releases on Tremble Tracks) shows his amazing skills...
THREE DRIVES released GREECE 2000 in 1997 and this huge trance bomb became an instant classic which was & is supported by just about anyone & everyone, ask any trance jock for
his or hers all time top 10 and you defeinitely find GREECE 2000 in it.....no the mention the immense pile of compilations featuring GREECE 2000..... literarily millions of compilations
worldwide incorporates this timeless gem...
Awesome hardcore to industrial hardcore sampler on WISHCRAFT RECORDS! Headliner of this phat 12" is the A1 track DIRTY DANCE WHORES by DJ PARTYRAISER & SCRAPEFACE which is already featured on the new THUNDERDOME 2006 compilation and gets hammered by loads of top djs like TIEUM, PARTYRAISER, DARKCONTROLLER, LENNY DEE and many more!
Shadow Play, the brand new label owned by Parisian artist Le Loup and his partner Pura, drops its second release courtesy of the bossman himself alongside Chris Carrier. The two men got together in the studio and cooked up some tasty goodness. The first of four tracks on this release is the intergalactic opus 'Phoenix Lights', which works off serene pads that transport you out into the cosmos, along with a warm, soothing bassline and electronic chirps and bleeps. 'Research Programm (Outro)' takes us into more obscure realms, as Chris Carrier and Le Loup sample a scientific vocal and create a mesmerising bed of sounds underneath it. On the flip we kick off with 'Clouds Reflection', another track which features a sample from an old instructional video. This track has minimal composition, with dreamy astral pads, shuffling beats and a grumbling low end. In the second half Chris and Le Loup introduce more twinkling FX, to engage and hypnotise you... To bring the EP to a close we're presented with 'V-Shape', which begins with a layer of clever drum programming aimed straight at the hips. Once you're moving get ready for the juicy bassline, and a sultry top end that grips you and gripping progression. The perfect to end an utterly fresh EP...
Spinning Plates is back for another long overdue release, and this time it comes in the form of a split EP featuring returning artist Andy Rantzen and Laccy with two tracks each. The vinyl only release comes with very special screen-printed silkscreen artwork and is pressed on meaty 180g vinyl for an extra warm and deep sound. Andy Rantzen is a Sydney based artist who appeared on this label's superb second release. The '98%' track from it was used by Sonja Moonear in her Cocoon Mix CD shared with Carl Craig, and Andy is also well-known as part of the duo Itch-E and Scratch-E along with Paul Mac. He assumes that alias here for a remix of 'The Dial'. Laccy aka Pascal Sturmer is a young but talented artist who regularly finds himself behind the decks at cult clubs like Berlin's Club de Visionaire and the Spaced parties in London. A friend of label A&R Bruno Schmidt, he just released on Francesco del Garda's label Timeless, is a real underground head with a bottomless well of knowledge when it comes to cult sounds and scenes and is signed to the top Crisalida agency.
The unstoppable Spaziale Recordings set their sights on an absolute Paradise Garage classic from 1982 - the much sought after and instantly recognisable ‘Together Forever’ by Exodus. This fully licensed, remastered reissue comes housed in a full picture sleeve and contains a killer DEF Mix from Stefano Ritteri alongside the original extended vocal and dub versions.
Bursting with passion, ‘Together Forever’ is a record that was destined for greatness. A Larry Levan favourite, and for good reason. Produced by Errol Mattis and featuring one of the most sampled vocals in house music, there’s a triple threat of plucked basslines, clavinet power and joyful horns backed with the kind of percussion that ignites a rarely witnessed tribal energy within. It’s had crowds in fits of frenzies ever since its release and every collection deserves this gem nestled within it.
As well as the original extended vocal and dub versions, Stefano Ritteri steps up to add his own special touch, giving it some proto house power. He echoes and manipulates those fiery vocals, introducing each element gradually from the acid tinged topline to the layers of drum machine heat, gradually building the suspense to pure fever pitch.
