I can find relatively little out about Glyphs, other than they’re from London, and that their music ranges from soulful bass through folktronica to straight up 808 beats, clicks and whirrs. It’s refreshingly different from a lot of currently en mode processed and formulaic production, by-products of the success of songwritery dubstep out there. Which is wicked and all. But I like Glyphs’ first EP for its different direction; it’s not trying too hard at all:
This should be the start of something excellent. And you can download their EP for free by clicking on the link above.
Elswhere, lovely workmate of mine, Lucy, pointed me in the direction of this Old School Garage revivalist tune by Submerse called ‘Hold It Down’. Just love it, and it’s got a S.P.Y. vibe running through it that attracted me so much to ‘By Your Side’.
Mogwai’s new album Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will is streaming on Rolling Stone’s website. More greatness from one of the best Scottish electronic groups of all time. Listen here:
Unquote’s tune from late 2010 passed me by until I heard Crissy Criss play it on 1Xtra earlier in the new year. This song reminds me of Hot Flush boss Scuba’s work in its really restrained build up and totally absent drop.
The other record that’s had me swooning in the past week is Sepalcure’s Fleur EP. All four tracks are brilliant but the eponymous title tune is a cut above. Listen below and then buy it from all good retailers, such as this one:
Hyperdub’s first of the new year has dropped and it strikes me as indicative of where a lot of bass-heads are turning for 2011 - more Night Slugs than Digital Mystikz, Kode9 has enlisted the warped Rn’B and Juke turns of Morgan Zarate. B-Side ‘Buy Bye’ is a beautiful mess of deep gurgling kick drums, scratches and samples that remind these ears of that urgent-sounding BBC News intro. No? Just me then. Third track ‘SP’ lies more safely in Hyperdub territory with ace sounding console game riffs. Opener ‘Hookid’ tops the whole pile though, making this an essential release that I had to cop immediately.
The title of Brodinski’s free mixtape The Best of Everything: Volume II is enough to warrant its addition to your music library. The pop-satire that the mixtape’s name suggests is not lost in the songs themselves, eclectic tongue-in-cheek remixes of singles that you’d expect to hear on a Now, That’s What I Call Music (I think they’re just called Now, now) compilation. He’s enlisted the help of French siren-mongers BeatauCue to strip Rihanna’s ‘Hard’ to it’s bare bones and build it back up with screwface synths; Cassie’s ‘Me & U’ gets a makeover from Brenmar; the pick of the lot is French Fries’ Harmonimix-restyling of Amerie’s ‘One Thing’, which has been getting airtime from the likes of Oneman, on his Rinse show. It’s magic:
Finally, to one of this blog’s ‘Turning Heads’ feature focuses - Hackman. If Jamie XX’s vocal warping exercise on Adele’s ‘Rolling in the Deep’ split opinion, then here’s a straight Funky groove we can all agree on in ‘Made Up My Mind’. I could be wrong, but I’m about 99% sure that it is Adele’s sampled vocal on this track, and my girlfriend also assures me it’s her on the flip ‘Bam Bam’ too. It’s available on PTN (sometime home of Doc Daneeka, T Williams, Westbeech). Go and get it and stuff.
Apologies for the hugantic break in posts. My internet broke for a month, it’s as simple as that really, and I felt awkward going over to friends’ flats to ‘write a blog post’. If I ever do that, turn me away like the stray I’ve become.
Anyway, first of all I don’t know what in god’s name Rough Trade are doing putting Anna Calvi’s release as their ‘Album of the Month’. Swayed by their establishment’s good name, I actually bought the thing and ended up giving it away, such a fright it was. However I did do a good bit of business buying the Ikonika record from 2010, Contact, Love, Want, Have - something of an epic quadrilogy of a title. Standout tracks include ‘Yoshimitsu’, which I really hope as the image below suggests, is inspired by the SoulCalibur character of the same name. It probably is, because the whole album is obsessed with console/arcade games in the tradition of Scott Pilgrim vs The World and other such things. Highly recommended.
Moving on to the True Tiger record, ‘Slang Like This’. I just wanted to put this up because it has a wicked video. “This one’s a banger, release your anger..” I wish I talked more like this as well.
Looking forwards, the purchase of 2011 so far has to go to the Jam City release, Magic Drops. All three tracks are particularly sick, none more than B-Side ‘2 Hot’, a slamming juke tune that will have venues’ ceilings dripping with hard-earned condensation. It will also get joggers jogging - I actually embarked on a pathetic 30 minute jog the other day and found the most energising artists to listen to were Jam City and Hudson Mohawke. Weird.
Back from New Year Holiday break; it was badass. To wing my way into the new year, here’s a couple of tunes that have been the soundtrack to my journeys down the slopes of Italy’s Madonna di Campiglio. This first tune leaps out of Breach’s ‘Fatherless’, its a heoooge track called ‘When I Dip’, forthcoming on Loefah’s Swamp 81 label. This one’s for the Red slopes, picking up speed.
This next one is ‘HYLI’ by Dark0, who has featured previously on this blog’s Turning Heads feature. An outrageous vocal, and a trademark chilled delivery from the Midlands-based producer makes for the ideal Blue slope soundtrack. Wish this would get a release…
For the Black slopes, if you’re a complete downhill wimp like me, you want a track that’s going to calm you in the face of otherwise horrifying adversity. What better than George Lenton’s reimagining of Al Green’s ‘Simply Beautiful’? Not much, that’s what.
For the latest installment in a series that has featured up-and-coming dubstep connoisseur Dark0 and Leeds’ Funky tyro, Hackman, I’ve caught up with eclectic electronica producer Blacksmif, the moniker of London-based-and-bred Yemi Olagbaiye. His expansive sound has resulted in attention and support from the likes of Sinden on Kiss, and personally, I think his tracks have been getting better and better. I’m happy to say I know Yemi from my school and University days and wanted to take the opportunity to get him to divulge a bit about the genesis of the Blacksmif project, which has taken him from behind the decks to the studio in his various guises:
“Blacksmif has been going for many years but under a few aliases (some with worse sounding names than others)” says Yemi. “It all started with the DJ alias of Mega4 back in 2005 when I used to run a club night in Leeds called Jungle Jam. I soon realised how pants the name was so I decided to change it to something a bit less… well no actually, a bit more pants - Jeff Bass. It was sort of to mark my crossover from DJing to producing. I was doing a little less Drum&Bass and a lot more Jungle at this point too. Jeff Bass carried on switching between both worlds but after leaving uni.”
“I’d been DJing Jungle out in clubs around Leeds but producing dubstep and a other more experimental electronica stuff both up North and in London. When I finally found my feet with music production (establishing my own intrinsic sound more) I thought it would be quite fitting to cement this with a completely new name.”
The strength of Blacksmif, much as his name suggests, lies in Yemi’s ability to carefully forge and meld a host of genres, melodies and instruments into one signature sonic formula. Manipulated samples at the heart of standout tracks TLC and M.A.N.D.Y. resonate over crackling vinyl effects and combine with synthesised hooks. Yemi was good enough to give me an insight into the gear he uses to weave his magic:
“Mostly just the old laptop I’m afraid. Not very exciting. I use Reason 4.0 & Cubase SX3 combined, with an Edirol PCR-M30 keyboard for sequencing, and an E-Mu Tracker Pre Audio Interface for some sampling instruments (guitars, piano, vox etc), all listened to on my Beyerdynamic DT 770 PROs - a pretty cheap set-up but it gets the job done. I’ve got my sights set on a few MPCs.”
“I get my samples from just about anywhere. Mostly, slightly less known tracks that are already heavily sampled so it’s often quite hard to know where the origins of it all are. I use a lot of stuff from artists like Jaga Jazzist, Bonobo, Daedelus, Skalpel, Cinematic Orchestra, Hexstatic. Basically, anything jazz/electronica-oriented. Mostly sultry synths and magical melodies but occasionally I throw in the odd drum fill for good measure.”
He expresses it modestly and apologetically in a way that a lot of predominantly non-analogue artists often do, but “the old laptop” has played weapon of choice for an overwhelming number of the most progressive and genre-redefining artists of 2010 across the musical spectrum, whether you like your Flying Lotus, Salem, Rustie, T. Williams, Bashmore or Mount Kimbie. Yemi looks forward to a productive 2011 that will see Blacksmif’s first physical release and potential collaborations on the cards:
“Nothing set in stone just yet but I am looking to release an small EP called ‘The Beat That My Ears Skipped’ once I find the time outside of my hectic day job in Business Development to actually get off my arse and start promoting it/figuring out how you go about releasing stuff (not a clue). Could probably do with working a little harder on getting some more of my stuff out there too but again, no time. I’m also quite keen to do some collaboration work. I think it could really help me grow as an artist and a producer. I’ll find the time to do all this one day, don’t worry. For the meantime, I think the closest people can get to seeing me live is… well hearing me live by asking me politely if I can send them some of my tunes for themselves to play out in clubs.”
Here’s a mix of his biggest tunes to date, lovingly crafted by the Blacksmif himself:
The Japanese War Effort, so casually a-mentioned in my last post has put across a mix filled with songs from the past year. It touches on some big recognisable tracks, and shines a light on some local, eclectic Scottish talent too.
It’s got some Darkstar, Rustie and all sorts in it; I’m actually quite desperate to know what the last track on it is… he’s elusively missed out a tracklisting. My own cheeky remix of his excellent ‘Ribbit’ is featured somewhere towards the end too - big ups! A mishmash, sideways and generally unconventional look at the year that was, through the eyes of someone who likes his music messy.
SPR003 is on the way from Raffertie’s Super imprint. It features the talents of Randomer, along with Adverse and Fife. You can expect what I like to naively identify as ‘ghostbuster synths’ and zapping pads aplenty over tribal beats. The second track ‘Five’ is particularly wonderful, strategically littered as it is with random yelpings. More of this please, Super.
Sticking with the bass music, the other thing I can’t get enough of right now is ‘The Light’ by I.D. and featuring the vocal talents of Rider Shafique. This blends a kind of Roots Manuva deliver with a deep expanding bass presence. Buy it on bandcamp from the Bass Music Blog people, legends that they are.
Edinburgh’s Gerry Loves Records have rapidly carved a very reputable niche for themselves in releasing uncompromising tracks from some of the most experimental indie-friendly electronic talent across Scotland, aligning themselves with artists like Yahweh, The Japanese War Effort and Debutant.
Their latest release is - again - killer. Boasting tracks from four emerging and distinctive leftfield artists, their split EP is unashamedly diverse and hangs together simply in connecting different players from an embryonic progressive movement in Scotland’s musical continuum. Each track is very different, taking the listener from the looping and overtly political harmonies of Wounded Knee’s ‘Tomlinson Rant’ to the indulgent glitches and pops of Rickie McNeill’s track, ‘Part of You That Meant To Go On Living’, under his Fox Gut Daata monicker.
It’s nothing new to say that, for a majority of vinyl enthusiasts, a substantial part of the kick you get out of this is in the product - the look and feel of the record, the sleeve and artwork - and few labels pay the attention to aesthetic as Andy and Paddy, the brains behind the operation. Their previous Yahweh / Trapped In Kansas split single was lovingly wrapped in vintage-y stitched cloth, and looks stellar. This badboy comes ‘in a 10-page newspaper cover, specially printed with artwork by all the artists’, which, let’s be honest, is just plain wicked.
If that’s not enough, when you buy the album you can download exclusive digital-only remixes of each of the artists’ tracks, by one of the other artists. Does that make sense? I hope it makes sense.
Anyway, the point is the whole bundle’s a steal at £7 and showcases a heap of music that you’re not going to hear anywhere else. Buy it here.
