Anyway, remember back in the late-ninties, early 00s, when DJ Shadow rained supreme, and that UNKLE shit was everything you were listening to? Weren't you sad when he parted ways with James Lavelle? Me too, me too.
The good news, there's some new UNKLE that's really great, and the Trentemoller remix of new track THE ANSWER is big. Take a listen here:
There's a radio rip floating around in cyberspace of some new Joy Orbison. There's an upcoming release on Hotflush, the tracks are Jels and the one you can hear below is Wade In.
Really feeling this track, but still, I have to say, and I hate being this guy, but where's the tune that captures the blissed out place of Hyph Mngo? I guess it's a compliment that I want "more of the same", but what I do love about Wade In is the hard edge of the tune. If this is a direction he's going to explore, I'm very cool with that as well.
Tokimonsta remix above is sick! It's got that nutty percussive feel, with big synths, and forward momentum -- doesn't suffer from that occasional "lazy confused beat" feel that some of the LA beatmakers sometimes fall into. I also love that I have NO idea what's being said. But it sounds important!
Why a 9 month old track from LORN? Well, first, that stringy-synth lick (or whatever it is) is gorgeous. And the track smolders with funk and tension, which nicely counteracts the melodic and ethereal bits. Plus, it has a strangely 1980s feel to me, the texture of that unrelating 16th note bassline sounds slightly new wave to me, only you don't think twice about it in this track. And the drums are sick.
Another BRAINFEEDER relative, DAEDELUS is blowing my mind all the time. Track has a brisk feel, somehow it reminds me of a beatmaker version of Stereolab. Loving sampled music these days too. Too many musicians starting to use "out of the box" crap they bought.
I've been sick as a dog for the last few weeks with bronchitis, it's been pretty unpleasant, so haven't had a chance to blog in a while. I'm gonna have to keep this one short too, got a lot of catching up on things to do.
Some new tunes posted on Skream's SOUNDCLOUD page.
Here's the new remix of GETTING NOWHERE, from the new Magnetic Man album. The original is a gorgeous, near perfect example of how bass music, when the emphasis isn't on insane mid-range wobbling, can really support gorgeous vocals.
I'm not the biggest fan of this remix, it seems a bit hastily put together, but the tension in the drums is nice, and there are some nice ideas here.
On the other hand, DEMENTED, a new track, demonstrates the best way to make a wobbler -- keep it funky, combine techno and dub influences, and let the thing thud it's way into your brain:
Skream's got a knack for writing great tracks on the 25th of December (apparently, his massive hit MIDNIGHT REQUEST LINE was written on this very day a number of years ago), and XMAS DAY SWAGGER is a great classic dubstepper -- although, it deserves a better title -- haha.
Now if only we could convince Skream to remove the track identifiers -- it's so distracting -- I'd sooner hear a lower quality track to get a feel for a tune than constantly be reminded of the webpage I'm on.
This is especially true for FNKONOMIKA. An autonomic-style track, it has a great sub, and cool piano chords, if only the track ident's didn't break the mood, I could fully rant about how fucking sick this track is!
Take a listen to it anyway -- post your comments, and maybe try to convince Ollie to lose the audio watermarks.
Alright, so I'm sick as a dog, and I just finished this quick blog note about the new Kanye/Jay-Z collabo, and I quickly check my Twitter before planning on hitting the bed and sleeping the day away.
What do I find?
Free grime instrumentals!
Courtesy of S-X, via Elijah Butterz on Twitter, these are some big beats, with very original production. Check out the staccato quasi-classical structure that trickles over top the funky 10.28AM. 09102 is a big, bouncy, blustering club-banger, while BURIAL is a dark, deep track, with a bit of a reggae influence on it's off-beat chord hits. TAKE TIME is a gorgeous slow, mellower track, that could easily be fitted with a gorgeous female vocalist.
And while I have a suggestion for the Butterz people -- have a contest for MCs and vocalists to submit their work over these tracks, and give away the best works -- I have to say, 2011 is shaping up to be the year that I am really digging just listening to the instrumentals. I don't know what it is, but so far, the stuff I'm hearing from Butterz (as well as Terror Danjah's Harddrive imprint) have got me feeling like this is the year that grime is coming back to the forefront, at least to my ears.
Lemme know if you think I'm right -- get the free beats here --
Kanye and Jay-Z teaming up to give us Hard As a Motherfucker -- HAM -- from their upcoming album, WATCH THE THRONE, due out March 1st.
Not sure I understand why the food reference, but whatever, this first track slaughters!
Big sub bass, 808-styles, provides the low end, with skittering high hats, and a really pissed off Kanye kicking off the track. Then comes a full-on operatic chorus, with a great string loop, followed by the next verse from Jigga.
Tight track. Check it out, but you may have to be logged in to Facebook to hear it:
