RBMA has been in town in NYC this month. Unfortunately I've been too busy with life to go to their events (and I'm also a wallflower so I avoid dance parties) and the one thing I was thinking of going to with Lee Scratch Perry is now sold out. Oh well! Life moves on.
I did come across this nifty RBMA video which is about DFA Records in NYC. When the Rapture came out with "House of Jealous Lovers" about 10 years ago I did buy the album coz I thought I'd like it. I didn't unfortunately and its one of those CDs that's gotten quite dusty over the years. So I'm not really a DFA fan, but some of the tunes in the video sound quite nifty so maybe I'll check out some of the artists who are mentioned. Anyway this is a great little film that's very well-made, and is quite funny as well. I think what really makes this film work is the hilarious editing. Enjoy.
Film and music! My two favourite things! d
Just heard about this fella today, I think. Actually, let me put it this way -- I don't recall having heard of him before. I'm talking about Jai Paul, a young producer out of West London (see pic above for exact location) who became prominent about two years ago. I heard a track by him today in a mix by Four Tet and looked him up. There's not much official by him out, but the few things I've heard have been pretty intriguing. He's signed to XL now and hasn't really done much, but hopefully something'll come out soon (look around and you can find copies of leaked tracks online).
Here's the track that got him noticed, including being sampled by Drake:
And here's the track that put me onto him, as heard in the Four Tet mix:
Really like the vibe of his music, I have to say, I hope future things are as good as these two tracks are.
Peeps, if any of you were digging that Classix track you can hear a stream of their whole album at NPR. I've been listening to it this morning and am finding it rather enjoyable. Def worth a listen if you like sunshiney dance music.
A nice coincidence this morning -- for the last few days I'd been thinking about doing a post on music suitable for the nice weather we're having around here (70 degrees F, no clouds, sun-dappled streets, the smell of cut grass, and the sound of birds chirping and kids playing -- I like!), thenthe Guardian went and did a potential summer tunes round-up. To be honest, I wasn't that impressed by most of the tracks, but there were two I'm going to highlight in a bit. Also came across another Guardian article that led me to this next track, which is very very good and has a great video to boot. Never heard of this song until today and it gets me wondering about all the good music I'm not hearing, despite my efforts! This is possibly too "pop" for a lot of the sites I frequent, but it's great! The article, by the way, is about youngsters making dance music. I don't really care about age as long as the tunes are good. Here's Duke Dumont, and a great video that celebrates the simple act of dancing like a loon:
Here's one of the tracks that really stood out to me from the Guardian's summer tunes round-up. Again, never heard of anyone involved, but that sometimes come with summer music territory. Got a bit of an 80's thing going on I think:
Jessie Ware's an artist I came across a few months ago and have been listening to quite a lot of. First saw her on Jools but immediately dismissed her as just another English soul wannabe -- there's a lot of them that show up on Jools, and then you never hear about them again. I was wrong about her though, her album Devotion ended up on a lot of best-of-2012 lists and I ended up checking it out right after she played a cheap, not sold-out, show in DC. Bah! I liked the album after hearing it a few times -- to me, it's a continuation in the line of British dance-soul that goes back to Massive Attack and Soul II Soul, though it's more on the soul than the dance side; the sound is very contemporary without being gimmicky. The track I'm going to put up though, is slightly different, in that it's more of a dance track -- not totally surprising as Ware started out doing vocals for dance acts. Also, this video got lots of dancing in it too!
She's still worth checking out even if that track isn't totally to your taste -- I don't believe it really gives a good idea of the music found on her album.
Now, for me, nice weather and reggae just go hand in hand. I heard this track on 6 music the other day and knew I'd have to find out more about the artist and stick it up on this blog. It's by Roland Alphonso, who turns out to have been a founding member of the Skatalites, a classic Jamaican act from the first ska era.
I'll be keeping my eyes open for a Roland Alphonso compilation of some sort now, as music like that and driving around in a car in nice weather go together like ... cheese and cucumbers. Well, that reggae vibe got me thinking about reggae legend, Horace Andy. Here's one of my favourite songs, Skylarking:
Well, this is already a mad long post, so feel free to stop now. If you'd like to go on cos you're just chilling with some juice on your balcony, I'm going to link to a few more good summery tracks. If you're too busy for it then carry on wit ya.
Lumidee - Never Leave You
I still really like this from a while back. It was hard to hear overtly dancey stuff here back then.
Every now and then someone asks me what I've been listening to. I'm not
sure how to answer. For the last couple years I've been listening to a
lot of mixes found online. So I guess I could answer by saying "mixes"
but that doesn't as exciting as "oh this great new band blah blah". But
hey these mixes ARE good. And its one of the best new ways to find new
artists and tunes.
A few months ago Fahad wrote
a bit about Disclosure. They're a dance act from the UK of two
brothers. Somewhere in the last few months they got quite big in the
dance scene and are now crossing over (perhaps?). Let's see if they
reach Daft Punk crossover-levels. Anyway, I've been listening to their XLR8R mix since it went up in December. It has joined my list of favourite mixes that I listen to on repeat. It is very, very good.
And here are some of tunes I wanna highlight from that mix:
This
is a really lovely, smooth tune. It has a nice laidback, warm summery feel to it.
Let's put in the always great 'unclassifiable' section. This is Leon Vynehall - "Untitled017":
I love the bassline in this one. This is Native
Soul feat. Trey Washington - "A New Day (Spencer Parker's a Gun for
Hire Remix)", a nice tune that pays homage to Jamaican influences in
dance music. Apparently the original track came out in 1998?
This one is
Jhelisa - "Friendly Pressure (From Midnight Mix)". Some nice garage
sounds here, and it also makes me think of nice warm sunny days, like
the Leon Vynehall track (maybe that's because I'm looking out on a sunny
day). Anyway here it is:
I could keep highlighting tunes from their mix, but I'm gonna
end with this stomper. Get up and dance! Yes go on. At least tap your
foot. Here's a remix of Disclosure's "Latch" by Zed Bias. Zed Bias is a
helluva cool name by the way.
A few months ago I watched and reviewed a short documentary by Resident Advisor that was about the Detroit music scene, part of their 'Real Scenes' series.
Earlier today RA released another short documentary that focuses on the music of a city, and this one's about NYC. I thought this latest effort by them was quite revealing in many ways. First, what I liked most was the beginning where subjects are talking about how hard it is to make it in New York; how hard it is to get by and make ends meet while still trying to find time to be creative and make things. I can relate to this 1000%, as that's my life. I've been in NY for nearly 4.5 years now and I'm still struggling just to survive here, while also trying somehow to be creative and make films and things. Being a creative person and trying to make films/music/art is hard enough, add on top of that struggles to pay rent and bills and spending most of your hours at a job instead of on what you really want to do, makes it all immensely more difficult. This RA video is one of the few things I've seen where people really discuss these things in-depth.
Another aspect I liked about the video is that it discusses gentrification a bit. I'm not a clubber and party-goer (for all sorts of reasons) but I've been to some clubs and parties out in Williamsburg, which is kind of where the latest club scene has been for the last few years. The film talks about how lots of places got shut down in Manhattan due to extremely expensive and ever-increasing rents. An article I happened to also come across today (which for some reason is in the NY Post), talks about this, in which I learned venues like the Bowery Poetry Club are now shut down. I've been there a couple times, and I just think, what's gonna replace these places, and where are people going to go now? At the end of the RA film the subjects are optimistic about cycles of change and how there's always new things. However, Dope Jams shut down at the end of January, and I of course had just learned about it a couple weeks beforehand but wasn't able to get to it before its doors closed. I was so excited to learn about a record shop selling loads of house but now its gone, and as these spaces disappear, its a huge loss to the city and to communities. But I guess the folks in the RA video are right, there is always something new around the corner.
One thing that did bug me about RA Real Scenes: New York is that almost all the subjects were white males, save for a couple of brown men. I think we all know that NYC and the house scene is certainly more diverse than that. I guess this oversight by the filmmakers however is also reflective perhaps of how the scene is seen.
I was in Michigan this past weekend and stopped by one of my favourite haunts from the old days, Dearborn Music. It's one of the few independent record stores left in the area and even then it's about a 20 minute drive from my parents' house. Went a bit nuts after having ample time to look around and bought way too much stuff, some of which is bound to be disappointing when I finally get around to listening to it (already put 'Jazzmatazz Vol. 1' and Motor City Drum Ensemble's DJ Kicks mix on my imaginary For Sale list). If I remember to I'll update the blog when I listen to some of these new buys, starting now.
First record I listened to after my spree is the debut EP byTNGHT -- a duo I put on the blog not too long ago. The EP was available and pretty cheap so I got it and it's pretty good. Bugg'n is still a standout, as is the following track, which will sound crap unless you have good speakers or headphones:
I went to a concert a couple of weeks ago that I never got around to reviewing. It was Bonobo with support from Shigeto at the Black Cat, and it was a great show. I like live electronic music, especially when it's not just someone hitting play on a laptop. A previous high had been seeing Four Tet live at U street music hall, and this show was almost as good. The Black Cat is a decent venue in my opinion, even though it's pretty basic. The nice thing is that the shows are cheap, and while this one was sold out I managed to buy tickets for slightly under face value just by showing up on the night and waiting for people who had spares. That despite the fact that fools were trying to sell tix for $100 on Craigslist! I'm still confused as to how Bonobo got so popular but apparently his last album, Black Sands, did very well in the States, so there you go.
Shigeto started up in a very discreet way -- I wasn't the only one to wonder when he'd come on stage and started playing as he just seemed to appear out of the haze, looking as if he'd been there the whole time, playing, while we thought we were just listening to pre-show music. He's out of Ann Arbor, MI, and he's on the Ghostly label, and I like him already. At first it seemed like he might just play from a laptop but he had more equipment up there and really got into what he was doing; after a couple of tracks he jumped onto a drum-set and accompanied the machines himself:
Bonobo were excellent. They came with a full live band, played a lengthy set, and the crowd was really into it to boot. Things slowed down a bit in the middle of the set but soon picked up again. The show overall just had a really fun, energetic vibe to it, and I also felt quite cool being there -- like I was in a really good soulful loungey venue and not just at the Black Cat!
