VIDEO: Suff Daddy – Hi-Hat Club Vol. 2

This video showcases some snippets from the upcoming Suff Daddy record, Hi-Hat Club Vol. 2, due for release via Melting Pot Music on 4th September. The video contains the tracks; Chinatown Chill, Up In This Muthafucka, Now That You’re Mine and Daddy.

Suff Daddy really is Europe’s unsung hip-hop hero. He’s a prolific beat-maker out of Germany who has worked with the likes of Miles Bonny, Oddisse, Kissey Asplund and Flomega – but this is purely a solo project focusing on a fresh boom-bap-style sound for 2009. If you’re not familiar with Suff Daddy, well, then you’ve got some catching up to do! If you have a penchant for 7-inch vinyl, then there’s been an array of tasty treats released over the past few years, so check out the MPM site for more details on that. Definitely one of Europe’s finest beat-makers.

Tracklisting:

Side A
01. Up In This Muthafucka
02. Andros
03. Now That You’re Mine
04. Chinatown Chill
05. The Paper
06. Vices
07. Daddy
08. Join The Club
09. D.I. Luv
10. Anti Swagger

Side B
01. Like That
02. Creepin
03. S.Ex. (Suff Experiment)
04. Isley Interlude
05. Sip Liquor
06. High Life
07. One For Rawls
08. Suff In China
09. Chocolate Mountain
10. Lottahydro

mp3: Suff Daddy – Psycho (Gunshot) Remix

VIDEO: Neurosonics Audiomedical Laboratory

This video was written and directed by a guy called Chris Cairns and the full info can be found here. It’s pretty damn amazing and features members from two UK hip-hop groups, namely; The Scratch Perverts and Foreign Beggars. You may recognise the faces (or heads!) of; Shlomo, Prime Cuts, Orifice Vulgatron, Metropolis, Tony Vegas, Dr. Syntax, Stig and Plus One. Not really got much more to tell you bout it, but then I’m happy to let the video do the talking on this one!

mp3: Foreign Beggars – Hit That Gash (DJ Primecuts’ Itchy Naaan Re-Rub)

GIG: Music Fan First Album Launch

Tuesday 25th August saw the London album launch for Music Fan First by the incredible soul singer Eric Roberson. It was hosted at Traffic Bar in Holborn, London in conjunction with the SoulBeautiful crew. Added DJ support was from one of my favourite producers, Eric Lau, and it was a fantastic night indeed!

Went down to the venue with Sam from Dekata Project around 9pm and the place was buzzing. It got pretty packed in there, but it was a good choice of venue and the atmosphere was really chilled. People were generally pretty laid back and very friendly – Sam even had one request to have a photo taken of his Doshiwa t-shirt! I managed to have a brief chat with the ultra-cool Eric Lau, a genuinely nice guy. I’m still eagerly anticipating some new material from Eric, but he did manage to make my evening with a fantastic (albeit brief) answer to my question, “what was your influence for New Territories (his debut LP)?”, Eric answered very frankly, “Slum Village with singers.” It made a hell of a lot of sense! I can deliberate my thoughts over 1200 words to try and convey some feeling, but it took Mr Lau a whole four words to sum it all up beautifully! Also saw the delightful Amelia from the excellent site PutMeOnIt – was good to finally cross paths in the ‘real’ world.

Eric Roberson finally made it on stage with an acoustic guitarist as accompaniment. What was immediately apparent was the warmth Eric had – a good personality, someone who could clearly enjoy himself and wasn’t afraid to laugh at his own expense either. I think this instantly endeared him to the crowd. So, after sharing a few jokes and interactions with the crowd, Eric spoke briefly about the album and then proceeded to perform some of the tracks. Now I may not have always followed the neo-soul genre as closely as others, but I’m being serious when I say that I haven’t heard a male voice of that calibre since Glenn Lewis circa 2002!

Was also good to see there was a healthy level of dedicated fans present, flying their colours through the medium of impromptu backing vocals! It was a good night that concluded with a freestyle song where by Eric asked for a few random words from the crowd that he could incorporate into the freestyle. I think we ended up with; toothpaste, Africa and psychiatrist. Got to give Mr Roberson his props – he came up with a wicked ditty bout taking an African girl back to the States and her going crazy – it was really good. Then there was cake. No really. It had the (above) album artwork printed on it! So people ate cake, bought CDs and Eric signed them.

It was a good night and a fantastic showcase of one amazing voice and individual. A truly decent person representing independent artists and giving the listeners what they so wanted. I’ve heard the album and it’s brilliant – a genre defying neo-soul record, if that makes sense – a most enjoyable listen indeed! Well produced and made of much substance. Pick up Music Fan First now via iTunes (including bonus track) and on traditional CD too.

Tracklisting:

01. The Newness
02. The Hunger feat. W. Ellingston Felton
03. A Tale Of Two feat. Ben O’Neill And Michelle Thompson
04. Borrow You
05. Dealing feat. Lalah Hathaway
06. Still
07. How Could She Do It
08. Further feat. T3 Of Slum Village
09. The Power That Kisses Hold
10. Howard Girls feat. Brandon Hines, Geno Young And Aaron Abernathy
11. Weekend Getaway
12. She
13. Wanna Believe It Again feat. Wayna
14. Bad For Me
15. Breakitdown
16. Pave A New Road
17. Celebrate feat. Sy Smith (Bonus)

mp3: Eric Roberson – Borrow You

VIDEO: Flying Lotus – Infinitum

Check out this short viral clip to celebrate the release of L.A. EP 3 x 3 by Flying Lotus, out now both digitally and on vinyl via WARP Records.

These days Flying Lotus needs no introduction, but the hip-hop-cum-electronica ‘beats’ producer has dropped another seven wicked tracks (eight via iTunes!) on this release, including re-works by Dimlite, Take and Breakage. Most definitely worth getting your grubby little mitts on! Also worth getting 1 x 3 and 2 x 3, if you don’t have them already, and obviously the actual Los Angeles album too – it’s a masterpiece.

Tracklisting:

01. Infinitum (Dimlite’s Re-finitum)
02. Comet – MatthewDavid
03. Endless White
04. Parisian Goldfish (Take Remix)
05. Spin Cycles
06. Testament (Breakage’s Bill’s Suit Mix)
07. Auntie’s Harp (Rebekah Raff Remix)
08. Riot (Take Rmx) (Digital Bonus Track)

mp3: Flying Lotus – Parisian Goldfish (Take Remix)

PODCAST: Jus Like Music Volume 35

It’s here, Volume 35 of the Jus Like Music podcast! Had a recent incident which involved a burglary and the loss of a laptop and external hard drive – hence the delay in creating a new podcast. Anyway, nearly back to normality at JLM HQ, so here’s the new release featuring some stellar tracks from the likes of; Souleance, Hudson Mohawke, Little Dragon, Mayer Hawthorne and Zomby. It’s a real mixture, as always, going from latin flavours to hip-hop beats and beyond.

Podcast RSS feed URL

Volume 35 tracklisting:

01. Quantic & his Combo Barbaro – Undelivered Letter
02. Souleance – One Step
03. Hudson Mohawke – Rising 5
04. Gangsta Red – I Should Tell Ya Momma on You (Alex Nut’s Dees Nuts RMX)
05. Little Dragon – My Step
06. St Liquor-ish – Hater
07. 14KT – Hello.
08. Mayer Hawthorne – The Ills
09. Dipak Chand – Love
10. Robert Glasper – 4eva (Jeej Edit)
11. Anti-Pop Consortium – Volcano (Four Tet Remix)
12. Juice Aleem – First Lesson (Rude Kid Remix)
13. 2562 – Love In Outer Space
14. Ital Tek – Massive Error
15. Flying Lotus – Parisian Goldfish (Take Remix)
16. Zomby – Digital Fauna
17. Mount Kimbie – At Least

Please consume!

mp3: Souleance – One Step

Robert Glasper – Double-Booked

Robert Glasper returns with his third full album on the legendary Blue Note record label. Due for release on 25th August, Double-Booked is an incredible jazz album, but this time there’s a bit of a twist. The album seemingly comes as two records rolled into one; tracks one through to six are by The Robert Glasper Trio, whilst tracks seven to twelve are under the guise of The Robert Glasper Experiment. In Robert Glasper‘s own words, “most people, if they have different bands, they do separate albums, but I felt I’d be making more of a statement if I put it all on one joint.” The Trio deliver that trademark Glasper piano-jazz magic, but The Experiment seizes an opportunity for Robert Glasper to air some more left-field sounding material featuring appearances by artists such as Bilal and Mos Def.

Tracklisting:

The Robert Glasper Trio
01. Intro
02. No Worries
03. Yes I’m Country (And That’s Ok)
04. Downtime
05. 59 South
06. Think of One
The Robert Glasper Experiment
07. 4eva
08. Butterfly
09. Festival
10. For You
11. All Matter
12. Open Mind

The album kicks off with a voice-mail message Intro which explains the album’s title. Basically it sounds like Robert Glasper managed to book two gigs on the same night, one for the trio and one for the experiment! Then it’s straight into No Worries – a ridiculously beautiful instrumental piano jazz track. One thing that became immediately apparent, when listening to both parts of this album, was the tight percussive arrangements and rhythms. Now, don’t get me wrong, Robert’s all about the piano and he is one extremely talented pianist, but it just struck me how brilliant the rhythms were – it’s the epitome of what jazz means to me, both tight, yet loose at the same time. When I think of contemporary jazz pianists, I think of Esbjorn Svensson (RIP) and Neil Cowley, two immensely gifted musicians who have had added their own twists to the genre – but Robert Glasper is a real enigma, in a way. Robert Glasper navigates his musical ear between styles and genres like it doesn’t matter, and that’s just the point, it doesn’t matter!

Yes I’m Country (And That’s OK) is another exquisite example of the breadth of sound and style used by The Robert Glasper Trio. Energetic stanzas constructed with delicate components. Expressive melodies flowing into hypnotic hits and crashes – it’s organised chaos in the most blissful fashion. It gives the impression of swooping you up off your feet and taking you along for the musical ride – it’s impossible to ignore the passion in the music. Downtime emits with such verve that you might think the piano itself is singing to you, and I think that in a way it really is. Downtempo sections with a focus on double bass allow time to absorb more of the atmosphere, before riding back into the piano melody. 59 South takes the journey a step further with its combination of intricate piano and busy percussion, before an immaculate version of Thelonious Monk’s Think of One concludes The Robert Glasper Trio section. A wondrous five track selection of some of the finest contemporary jazz you’re likely to hear all year.

The Robert Glasper Experiment starts with the track 4eva. It’s a hard-kicking neo-jazz/soul piece with Mos Def on the mic. It acts as a brief introduction track before slipping into Butterfly (originally by Herbie Hancock) with its infectious steady rhythm and vocoder vocal section (don’t worry, I don’t mean like T-Pain, this is vocoder, not auto-tune!). There’s something quite deep about this track, both in substance and feeling. The rhodes keys, deep bassline and frenetic rhythms combine well with the vocal effects to create a smooth and intriguing listening experience.

Festival is the longest track on the album at just over 10 minutes long. Eerie piano gently enters with spaced out brass as the rhythm gradually builds and the overall pace gains momentum. This track is all about build ups and crashes, recoveries and dashes. But it’s definitely not messy, as the aforementioned description may suggest – no, this is very together. It’s raw, but deliberate, and as such is quite pure in a certain sense. I, for one, am very grateful Robert has taken his work in such a direction. It’s very expressive, but most importantly it sounds good and really seems to connect with the listener. Conversely, For You is the shortest track (minus intros) on the album at just over 2 minutes long. It sees a return of the vocoder style vocal, delivered in an understated manner and combined with a downtempo jazz beat and soft keys – echoes of neo-soul, with a jazz sensuality.

The penultimate track is All Matter, a piano driven song with simply divine vocals from Bilal – genuinely makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. It’s typical Bilal, and I say that in the most complimentary way possible, because the guy is amazing. Bilal + Robert Glasper, it really does just make so much sense! The vocals and the music match each other with a distinct amount of mutual respect and vigour. The final track is Open Mind, a very spiritual tune with Bilal on vocals once more. It’s very deep and a perfect outro to such an album, crammed with sounds from multiple spectrums.

mp3: Robert Glasper – All Matter

This album is incredible. It’s so obvious that music IS Robert Glasper – there’s so much of this individual in his music, although admittedly I think you’re going to need to hear this album to realise exactly what I mean. A gifted person indeed – I am so thankful for his vision and efforts. Robert Glasper transcends genre and rules, to an extent, and still produces something so dynamic and complete. There are essences of hip-hop, neo-soul and (obviously) jazz throughout, but there is at no point any ‘bleeding’ of styles, no noticeable moments of transition (apart from between the obvious and clearly marked two sections of the album). Gifted beyond his years, it’s clear to see why Blue Note have so much faith in him – this album should delight any jazz fan and I expect to see a huge reaction to it when it drops next week.