After an inexcusably long hiatus, the Duke drops some fresh gems on y’all. Detroit House, Hip Hop, Raw Roots music from Africa to the Caribbean? It’s all here:
John Roberts//White Chez-N-Trent//All about You Bookworms//African Rhythms Donaeo//Riot Music (Shy FX Mix) Marcé//Ca Ca Ye (Frankie Francis Edit) Georgia Ann Muldrow//Jina Langu Ni Afrika (my Name Is Afrika) Brittany Bosco//Black Keys Will – I – Am//Money Pal Joey//Breakin’ Necks House Shoes//The Makings Georgia & Dudley//Shine On Dabrye//I’m Missing You Reggie B//Spoken Lenny Flying Lotus//Quakes Jay Electronica//Exhibit A (Transformations) Fatima//Higher Black Joy Edits//Edit 10 Red Earth Collective ft. Manasseh//Hard Times Dub Vincent Taylor//Living A Lie Connie Bell//Vampires Midnite//Enter Nneka//Africans Baloji//Karibou Ye Bintou
As I opened my front door to a spine-chillingly cold blast of Arctic air this morning I found myself thinking ‘When the rass is this winter going to end?’ Thankfully, the warmth and wellness of an equatorial existence was closer than I’d imagined as my inbox opened and a warm breeze carried news of the next Sofrito Tropical Warehouse bash!
Those that know tend to know about Sofrito’s functions, their heavyweight bills, heavier dubplates and contrastingly light-footed crowds have brought them much attention on these shores and beyond. Add to that a scorching release schedule and a propensity for rooting out excitingly unknown locations for their events and you have all the information required to confirm your attendance at their next session.
March the 6th is a big one, here’s the blurb:
“For our first party of 2010 we are very proud to present an exclusive DJ appearance from QUANTIC alongside many special guests!
Taking control of an amazing new two room warehouse space in the heart of Dalston, we’ll be playing the best in hot and heavy Tropical sounds in a costeño style!
We are bringing together the peerless Family Atlantica (featuring Luzmira Zerpa and Jack Yglesias) and Quantic to present the heaviest Vallenato and cumbia sounds in an exclusive live set that you won’t be able to see anywhere else! The raw sound of the Caribbean coast, bringing together Afro-Venezualan sounds and the folkore of Colombia.
All this alongside a live set from Afro Latin masters Drymbago, DJ action from Quantic himself and the Sofrito Soundsystem plus some special guests!
Tickets are £10 in advance (plus £1 booking fee)”
So there you have it. Cheat winter and get your heat on. In the meantime, here’s a mix lovingly sculpted by the soft hand of Sofrito, taking in rhythms from Colombia, Benin, Trinidad, Angola as well as an exclusive track from Quantic’s Sonido del Valle project…
Shuanise is on the brink of big things. Having first heard her word way back in March on the low-slung Jazz cut ‘Masudesante Naima’ (courtesy Eglo Records), we at Heads High have been steadily impressed with her sweet yet slanted vocal stylings. Her recently unveiled ‘Voice Of Reason’ E.P. (UpMyAlley Records) is being warmly received by those who know and judging by the strength of her catalogue thus far, we’re in store from some serious blessings in 2010.
The thing you first notice about Shuanise is how nice she is. We played a long game of voicemail Tennis before finally getting to talk and even the rays of sunshine in my mailbox told me that I was in the presence of goodness, and not that fake-it-for-the-cameras kind either. She’s the real deal….
The beginning is a good place to start. Like me, Shuanise spent her formative years North of the Thames border. Unlike me, she had managed to live in Nigeria and the deep south of the U.S. (Texas) before she even got there. Being a Pan-Africanist at heart, I couldn’t help but ask about her Nigerian roots and how they effected her introduction to music:
‘Music has always been around me in some way…I wanted to be like my Grandpa when I was younger so picking up instruments was the natural thing for me to do. My Grandpa was a businessman raising six kids In Ibadun…having music around was important to him. Music always brought out another side of my Grandpa, like he was in another world. He played the talking drums, Udu, and an old Middle Eastern Lute. He changed the way I thought about music. It was no longer just something coming out of the speakers but all around me, made with anything…I learnt a lot from just being back home and that’s where I really started to understand what music was. Things are done in a different way out there and life is different, my heritage has always had a thumb on what I make but more recently it has had an effect on what I make and do more than at any other point.’
Deep. I wanted an expansion though. What’s different about Nigeria?
‘I found Nigeria very different to the U.K. The people, hardships, politics, the lessons. Conditions and surroundings are things that motivate people to play certain music or write a certain song. If you think back to old Africans that were brought to America, it was the surroundings and the conditions that dictated the type of music they made…but no matter what condition one is in, Ibos, Hausas and Yorubas have songs for every situation. They speak through their music. In some situations you can see how much of a life-saver music can be.’
Getting back to the here and now, those vibes have been channelled into heavily Jazz infused Soul explorations. Listen to any one of Shuanise’s cuts and you feel the unmistakeable pulse of Jazz, both in her distinctive vocal delivery, and in the sonic canvas on which she paints.
‘Jazz makes me feel very welcome and at home, ‘Kind of Blue’ was the album that opened me up to discover other Jazz
artists and learn more about the way Jazz is played. It inspired me to try a lot of different structures.
Jazz has been very influential to me….It’s changed the way i think about and make music.’
Luckily, she’s in good company when it comes to experimenting with new forms and structures, Jazz or otherwise. Eglo Records has been her home for the past year or so and their exploratory musical aesthetic has given her the freedom she needs to create. Nestling in amongst the Orchestro-Jazz-Two-Step (a new genre didn’t you know) of Floating Points, the retro futurism of Funkineven 1956 and the astral-plane harmonics of the one Fatima, Shuanise has carved herself a creative niche from which to explore.
‘Eglo is family. They believe in the music they bring to peoples’ attention. They push boundaries and are not afraid to be a little different from the rest. Everyone at Eglo has something different to bring but they still work well as a unit. I like to experiment
with sounds and Eglo are open to it, they support what they like to the fullest.’
I’m a bit old-school. I think its nice when our creativity has a purpose (click here for a deeper explanation). What is it that Shuanise aims to achieve with the beauty she’s creating?
‘…[I want to] make people think about each other more, think about what we do and how it affects others, appreciate our journeys and respect each other and where we live…..’
And where can we expect that beauty to surface next? Eglo is due to drop an EP of Shuanise’s wares. If you can’t wait for that then in the meantime Portformat’s ‘Repeat Factor’ LP features two gems from the lady herself plus guest appearances from Georgia & Dudley amongst others…..heat! Of course, ‘Voice of Reason’ is out right now so click here to cop it.
Ever the team player, Shuanise also asked us to remind you that you can pick up Funkineven and Fatima’s ‘Kleer EP’ now on Eglo…..there, told you she was nice…..we are too so here’s her Masudasante Naima for free – just make sure you support if you like what you hear!
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We’re feelin Amede, so much so we went to the trouble of interviewing him not too many moons ago. That was around the time of his Flat 17 Ep release….since then he’s been busy. Busy enough to put together a 24 track album AND start his own blog charged with pointing us in the direction of music we should know about…the brother’s not playing.
He sent us Soundscapes last week and I’ve been bumping select cuts ever since. My favourite so far is Herbs, which he’s let us pass on to you below. Don’t stop there though, if you do you’ll be 23 tracks short of a full album. A significant amount. Click here to make the jump to Amede’s new blog where you can find the missing beats…
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I hate Twitter. That living your life online ish isn’t for me. Tucking self-promotion between tweets about how good your Cornflakes taste and how you feel about sitting on a bus in traffic jars my spirit….I still use it though. And as much as it pains me to say it, I have to admit its not all bad because it’s thanks to a tweet from the Brownswood BPM that I found out about Bookworms.
His bumpy yet hypnotic re-imagining of Mi Ami’s African Rhythms is currently smacking up the real and virtual worlds and his dense, unreleased dubs have rumbled their way onto the playlist of Ms Mary Ann Hobbs more than once over the past year. With our current wave of hot beat producers, you’d be forgiven for thinking Mr Worms is yet another fresh-faced talent jostling for position in the Bass Music marketplace….not so. He’s been doing this for a minute.
“…since around the year 2000, I was 17 years old…making beats on PlayStation recording to boom-box. The first music I ever let anyone hear was a couple Bjork remixes I uploaded to this old website called bjorkremixweb. This was around 2000. Then I produced and worked with some punk and hard-core bands who met through friends from high school. I also made beats for a couple mc’s from around the way. Around 2003 I got really into making my own beats and instrumentals, mostly because other people were too hard to work with…I guess you could say it was a natural progression.”
Although other artists proved hard to work with, it would seem Bookworms has no problems making friends with different genres. Listen to any one of his original productions or remix efforts and you’ll hear traces of Punk/Rock, Hip Hop, Detroit Techno,Disco, Dubstep and Experimental Electronica all present, all correct and all somehow managing to compliment one another.
I need to know more about the San Francisco scene. There’s some hot music out there and by the looks of Bookworms’ discography, he’s busy remixing a lot of it. Lemonade are a San Fran based band who have been getting some hype this side of the water recently and sure enough, who do we find on their ‘RemixTape’…
“My ex girlfriend used to work at a used-clothing store in SF with the Callan from Lemonade, so we knew each other from around SF and going to shows. They’re cool dudes, we talked about it at a show and they sent me the files to remix ”
Talking to Bookworms it soon transpires that many of his links are a direct result of long nights spent listening to loud music on herbal foundations. Take the Solos label that’s put out his version of African Rhythms as a case in point.
“Solos is on some crazy shit, it’s electronic music. It’s all across the board. I met Roche at a warehouse party Solos was throwing in Berkeley, I wanted to smoke and he was rolling a blunt, so we smoked and then I gave him a CD. A week or so later he asked me if I wanted to put some music out with Solos. The rest is history.”
Probing further, I discover that sadly, not all of Bookworms night-time trips have such a happy ending
“…back in about 2006 I went to Big Sur, California for this weird show where San Francisco bands Tussle, Brookhaven, Lemonade and the Drift were playing. Now Big Sur is way out in the woods and nature so I was a bit out of my element and it was hella dark….to cut a long story short I end up jumping off a motor home into the darkness and spraining my ankle really bad outside the show…not a good way to end the night…”
We feel you on that one…moving on to happier times we’ll focus on the music, or rather how Bookworms would like it to be received.
“I would like people to listen to my music on headphones while riding around a medieval city on Tron light -bikes. I am trying to expose parallels between sounds and samples and styles of music. I hope to share that with others.”
Shared it he has. Sounds to me that he’s read a little too much Sci Fi though. Well I guess with a name like Bookworms you can’t fault the brother for hitting the books…
“I like Simple Takes A Wife by Langston Hughes… anything by Isaac Asimov and [I read] lots of Sci-Fi end of the world stuff when I was younger..Reading helps me come up with names for songs…sometimes.”
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Finest Dearest – Slow Going (Bookworms Rmx) Brookhaven – Something Must Remain Of Us (Bookworms Rmx) Brookhaven – Static In The Valley (Bookworms Rmx) Mi Ami - How Can I (Bookworms Rmx) Mi Ami – African Rhythms (Bookworms Rmx) Lemonade - Sunchips (Bookworms Rmx)
LP’s, EP’s and singles
Bookworm Kills (Demo cassette)
The Hidden Staircase LP (Solos Records)
Mandarine Hits CD (Expel Records)
Folks: Remixes (Self released)
African Rhythms CD (Solos Records)
Yeah I know, this should have been posted last Friday but it’s been hectic times at Heads High HQ. I could have done it yesterday but I promised myself I’d take one whole day off the LCD and actually interact with real people ALL day. It was nice. I’ll do it again someday….
Anyway, here’s the missing selection. One of those ones that I wasn’t too happy with when I recorded it but listened back and was pleasantly surprised…A little rags in places but the rawness is the realness. Enjoy….
Dark Knight // Mutant Funk Bookworms // African Rhythms Zomby // One Foot Ahead Of The Other Silkie // Spark Red // I Should Tell Your Mama On Ya Baatin // Marvelous Jimmy Castor Bunch // It’s Just Begun (Larry Levan Mix) Holzer & Kamura // Pure Love Players Association // Let Your Body Go Don Armandos Second Avenue Rhumba Band // Deputy Of Love Fallout // The Morning After Martyn // For Lost Relatives F // Epilogue (Ramadanman Mix) Kode 9 & The Space Ape // Do You See What I See Elemental // Talk
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