Beats News

Unlearn is the long awaited fourth album of DJ and producer 2econd Class Citizen. It marks the artist's return back to the newly relaunched label Equinox Records. Their previous collaborations achieved high acclaim for their genre bending fusion of hip hop, electronica and folk music.

The new album is an exploration of an artist journeying beyond their conventional confines. It is a musical adventure peppered with vintage samples concerning the perception of reality and our struggles with conforming to a broken society.

Unlearn is the most musically accomplished work of 2econd Class Citizen to date. As one would expect the drum programming, scratching and production is on point. Several tracks feature soothingly melodic and energetic passages of jazz saxophone from Leroy Horns and electric guitar riffs provided by long term collaborator Paul Drury.

2econd Class Citizen, real name Aaron Thomason, resides in Brighton, UK. He is also a painter and visual artist fascinated with abstraction and the chaos of mixing colours. His musical approach on the new LP draws many parallels to this creative process. An original painting from the artist forms the albums striking cover.

Equinox Records is run by DJ Scientist in Germany. The Unlearn project marks the 51st release and provides the perfect launch vehicle for the dormant label to rise again. The vinyl release of Unlearn as well as the single Be Together signify the first stops in a release plan which will please fans of the label.

FEEDBACK:

"Woah! It's sounds rad! Really heavy and cinematic!"
Kid Koala

"A dark and deep dive into a world of dense and diced samples and moody muted melodies. Would sit well next to Shadow's freakier forays into fractured funk. Or Format's last psychy LP, for sure."
DJ Moneyshot of The Allergies

"I love it. The new treatments with the additional instruments sound great, especially the horns. Glad to see that Equinox is back in action. Dope cover art."
Dday One

"It sounds like 2econd Class Citizen has been at a mountaintop retreat studying and meditating and came back with some superpowers."
Buddy Peace

King Tubby and Producer Bunny ‘Striker’ Lee are intertwined in the birth of Dub Music. After discovering a mistake that made a ‘serious joke’ (more of which later...) they went on to release the first pressings of this new musical genre namely ‘Dub Music’. Tubby’s vast knowledge of electronics and Bunny’s vast catalogue of rhythms would lay the foundations of what today is taken as a standard... the Remix / Version cuts to an existing vocal tune.

Osbourne ‘King Tubby’ Ruddock was born in Kingston, Jamaica on 28th January 1941 and grew up in the High Holborn Street area of downtown Kingston. He studied electronics at Kingston’s National Technical College and also on two correspondence courses from the U.S.A... When he had qualified Tubby began repairing radios and other electrical appliances in a shack in the back yard of his mother’s home. His work in the early days included winding transformers and building amplifiers for Kingston’s Sound Systems. Tubby built his first Sound System in 1957 playing jazz and Rhythm & Blues at local weddings and birthday parties. His reputation as a man who knew and understood both electronics and music grew steadily and as the sixties drew to a close. Tubby purchased his own basic two track equipment. He installed this alongside his dub cutting machine, a homemade mixing console and his impressive collection of Jazz albums in the back bedroom of his home at 18 Dromilly Avenue which he christened his music room.

Tubby and Striker were at Treasure Isle Studio’s one day while Ruddy from Spanish Town was working with the engineer Byron Smith....

“Tubby and myself was talking when Ruddy was cutting some dub but Smithy (engineer) made a mistake through we were talking and forgot to put in the voice. It was two track recording in those days. Ruddy said ‘No Man! Make it stay! and so they cut the rhythm. When I went over to Ruddy’s that Saturday night a dance was in progress and when they played the vocal to the tune... then he said we’re going to play ‘Part Two’. They never called it ‘Version’..and then he played the rhythm track. The song was a catchy song and everybody started to sing along and the deejay started to toast so everything went down well. On Monday morning I went up and I said ‘Tubbs the mistake we made was a serious joke. It mash up Spanish Town! The people went wild. So you have to start to do that now ‘cause when the man put on the ‘Part Two’ everyone start singing this song. It played about twenty times. I said you try Tubbs!’...Well the next Saturday night now when Tubby strung up down the farm U Roy said he’s going to play ‘Part Two’ but Tubby did it different now. He started with the voice then dropped it out and let the rhythm run and then he brought in the voice in the middle and from there Tubby started to get really popular.’’
Bunny ‘Striker’ Lee

Dynamic Sounds upgraded to sixteen track recording in 1972 and Tubby purchased, again with the help of a deal brokered by Bunny Lee. The old four track equipment and the MCI console from their Studio B. The four tracks now gave him far wider scope to work with and he began to create a new musical form where the bass and drum parts were brought up while the faders allowed Tubby to ease the vocal and rhythm in and out of the mix. It was only a matter of time before Tubby’s dub plate experiments began to make it on to vinyl and the first ever long-playing King Tubby releases would feature a collection of his mixes to a selection of Strikers rhythms. So please sit back and enjoy this historic set of sounds, mixed by King Tubby and Mr Prince Phillip Smart and another set of scorcher Bunny Lee rhythms.

"In Dub Vol.1" ist die erste Collection einer Serie mit raren, klassischen und neuen Dub Exkursionen des Bob Marley & The Wailers Kataloges. Sie beinhaltet 10 Dub Remixe und die neu angefertigte Dub Version von "Lively Up Yourself" als
"Lively Up Your Dub".

Very few albums manage to unveil their roots so honestly and at the same time succeed in creating something utterly distinct. "Of All The Things" from Jazzanova is one of these albums.
Originally released in 2008 on Universal, it now gets a luxurious reissue on Sonar Kollektiv as a 3LP with pop-up gatefold cover including previously unreleased instrumentals.
This format corresponds perfectly with the elegant opulence of the music that shines even brighter eleven years after its initial release. At no time is it unclear that this album is a deep bow to soul from the 1960s and 70s as well as genres like jazz, brazil and pop music in the vein of the early Beatles.
Along these lines, "Of All The Things" is meant to be perceived as a tribute to the music that Jazzanova has been honoring affectionately in their DJ sets and which has always had a decisive influence on their own productions.
At the same time, the Jazzanova guys have been successful in casually creating elaborate musical pieces which convey a deeply contemporary vibe - not least because of the multifarious references to electronic productions.
The path to this sophomore long player, which features the contribution of over 50 studio musicians, had been laid out beginning with Jazzanova's first album "In Between" from 2002.

The pioneer producer of all things electro swing and
Balkan beats comes up with a brandnew EP full of new
tracks, remixes and edits for the likes of Boban i Marko
Markovi, Savages Y Suefo and Barefoot Basement.
The vinyl edition is limited to 250 copies, so be quick!
Ulf Lindemann aka dunkelbunt, troubadour & world
traveler is one of the pioneer producer of Balkan Beats
and Electro Swing. ..

Debut release in a new 12" series from MUSIC FOR DREAMS and mastermind KENNETH BAGER. Two brilliant and brand new tracks coming out of the flourishing Copenhagen club scene. BJARNO & JESPER RUMMENIGGE remix American singer/songwriter SHELLEY SHORT’s acoustic cover of the old folk song "COO COO BIRD" (originally done for a label compilation from HUSH RECORDINGS in 2008. A poetic and beautifully melancholic track that could be filed under deep house as well as indie dance. Backed with "I HATE HATE (SANTIGA ORIGINAL MIX)" by RAZZY BAILEY. After some serious crate digging, SANTIGA & BJARNO came across "I HATE HATE", recorded by Alabama singer/songwriter RAZZY back in 1974. Immediately falling in love with the message and hook of the song, they decided to polish it up, giving it a sun-drenched, Balearic disco-feel perfectly suited for the summer dance floor. You hear the words 'anthem' and 'tune' thrown around a lot these days, but this truly is one.

Runden is a collaboration by Martin Brugger (bass) and Simon Popp (drums), both of contemporary Jazz quintet Fazer, and neo-classical pianist Carlos Cipa. Their debut LP is a conceptual record reflecting on Minimal Music, Afrobeat, and Dub Techno of the late 90s/early 2000s.
While Cipa's solo works build on clear harmonies, for the recordings of Runden he prepared the piano to make it sound like a faintly tonal percussion instrument and his mechanical patterns contrast the syncopated drum grooves of Popp and the deep and sparse basslines of Brugger.
The musicians explore, over the course of seven tracks, the concept of circular music. Each piece is based on a four-bar-motif played in a loop and varied subtly but steadily over time, creating a sense of eternal recurrence and timelessness.
This makes Runden a meditative but demanding record, that only grows with every listen.

Microdosing is a series of compilation 12”s selected by Julienne Dessagne aka Fantastic Twins, and designed in collaboration with French visual artist Geff Pellet. Microdosing is a collective experiment aimed at helping you fighting back your modern obsession with happiness. You may deserve a nice day but the day does not need a nice you, nothing should be forced, everything is permitted. Microdosing will provide you with sonic healing weapons on regular basis and at irregular dosage. Those doses will favour psychedelic social techniques against self help tyranny, creation over soma, provoking over numbing, our outer-selves over our inner-selves. Microdosing refuses the fatality of the pleasure principle. Life is a struggle, time to embrace it. —— "My battery is low and it’s getting dark” We at Microdosing will make Opportunity’s famous last words fully ours. Some would see these as an epitaph on a black screen, we embrace them as a reclaimed fragility. Are we grains of sand wandering in space, hoping for a goal? No. We are the cosmos, the cosmos is us, unafraid of the end, unafraid of the void. Before the rise of the infinite silence, Microdosing brings you new guiding lights, white sun or black hole being a simple permutation of the kinetic rainbow. Oceanic’s “Parallel Lines Of Stripes” is a meandering mantra, an synthesised Moebius ring, a mission to your heart, that furthest star in the sky. Gilb’R’s “Cosmogonie” simply reminds us of the profound relation between spatial systems and the holy act of birth (cosmo, world and gon, conceive). The universe is a body, your body is your universe. Lucas Croon’s “Threshold Stimulus” is the soundtrack of a never ending voyage, the man is on a trip to the core sanctum. Imagine Space as a reverberation room cladded with bakelite. Losing yourself in delay repeats sometimes is the shortest way. Neuzeitliche Bodenbeläge & Sam Irl’s “Faeden” is another hymn to the umbilical chords joining us to the outer world, a black monolith of kraut acid, a pagan dance as portal to a destination only you can choose. Microdosing will be back soon with more enablers, helping to turn your petty struggles into a search for a meaning of life. The Quest lives on.

Das dritte Album "We Must Become The Pitiless Censors Of Ourselves" des amerikanischen Lo-Fi/Darkwave Künstlers John Maus aus dem Jahr 2011 ist endlich wieder auf LP erhältlich. Dieses Album verhalf John Maus zum internationalen Durchbruch! Ein Klassiker des Genres!

- Schwarze heavyweight LP in Sleeve mit MP3-Downloadkarte

Das zweite Album Love Is Real des amerikanischen Lo-Fi/Darkwave Künstlers John Maus aus dem Jahr 2007 ist endlich wieder auf LP erhältlich.

- Schwarze heavyweight LP in Sleeve mit MP3-Downloadkarte

repress

A collection of prev. unreleased cuts from ANDREI's early hip hop days (2003-8). Some big bad sample tracks with chunky hip hop beats. Two rap remixes of MF DOOM and SUPASTITION and two cuts more in the vein of CUT CHEMIST or RUCKUS ROBOTICUS full of movie samples. GAMM fans should dig this. Out on March 4 from GLENVIEW. Seriously dope. Don't sleep on this!

Swing jazz production (sax, trumpet, percussion, bass, piano) produced by Gianni Vitale (Nexy Lanton-You Too, S.M.S.-La Vie C'est Fantastique, Squeeze Up-La Isla Bonita, Jdstreams-Another Sun) and featuring Claudia Borroni, italian showgirl (Scorie, Buona La Prima, Uomini & Donne) recent star of the burlesque calendar 2011 De Nardi.

May 7th will see the inaugural release on Warm Records with a limited 10'' EP from Face + Heel. The label is but the latest extension of the Warm brand, which has been a mainstay on the London club scene for many years now. This year will see three releases on the label, all by Cardiff duo, Face + Heel. The first EP will be released on May 7th, with two tracks featured on the vinyl release (No Stars and One Hundred Years Deep), with an accompanying digital bonus track (Draggin' Your Chains).

Face + Heel consists of Luke Taylor and Sinead McMillan, whose first meeting (via Soundcloud) in early Spring 2011, followed by an eventual real-life encounter through a mutual friend, triggered an instant musical bond as the pair realised their mutual appreciation of Ricardo Villalobos, Laurie Anderson and Bill Evans (who Sinead still claims Luke is the spitting image of). Sinead's background in classical composition and her interest in live soundscapes sat well with Luke's career as a sound designer, song writer, and studio engineer, and brought an interesting mix of influences to bear on what has been an already fruitful creative partnership. Over three EP's on Warm Records in 2012, the Face + Heel universe will be presented to the world.

Following on from 'Au Seve' the undisputed soundtrack of the summer, 'Husk' will be released on January 21st through his own label Broadwalk Records.Speaking about the track Bashmore writes:
Hey this is Julio Bashmore. I'm back with a new track called Husk. Conjured from the bowels of Techno, polished with the fine gloss of New Beat and delivered to you in my usual uncompromising manner.

With its non-placed devices and hard-to-pin-down aesthetic falling between electronic and psychedelic music and the warm-hued sounds of traditional acoustic instruments, Burnt Friedman's Zokuhen ('second edition'), produced exclusively for vinyl, may be considered an extension (or second instalment) of Bokoboko (non33, released in February 2012). On this new double EP, too, the music focuses on uneven rhythms that dictate the groove for all the participating musical elements and display a formal logic to which all the instruments gladly succumb. With its even rhythm and proximity to dub reggae, the track 'Kon Ki (C2)' shows that exceptions from the rule are permitted among the six new tracks and two re-worked Bokoboko themes that round off this follow-up.

repressed !!

superwitziges nu jazz cover !!!

REPRESSED !!

Described as "Brighton's Lee Scratch Perry", reggae producer/DJ/remixer RICHIE PHOE drops his debut album on Canada's BALANCED RECORDS. Includes the out of print "BUMPY'S LAMENT", his cut from 2008 "EYES ON THE PRIZE" featuring TIPPA IRIE and "HATE TO LOVE" with EARL 16. Being repressed.

Do not complain. The legion of Excitements fans DOES exist in places near and far in this world-gone-insane so if you are ready to be recruited you're in luck. Miraculously, these workaholics of rhythm, who conquered and claimed more than fifteen countries just for the sheer thrill of it during their last tour, found a break and the action of their troubled agenda. It seemed only logical to throw their road sharpened revue into the studio to commit to wax their finest album to date entitled "Breaking The Rule".

After more than two years on the road and 200 sweat soaked performances since the release of their second LP "Sometimes Too Much Is Not Enough", this third LP certifies that the big combo from Barcelona can do whatever they please: either caress you or kick you in the stomach-or both. The steamroller rhythm section is one powerful structure pounding under searing guitars, roaring horns and all reigned over by the voice of Koko that claws at their hypnotic gyrations with wild abandon. This new Excitements bag, as expected, is THE satisfier with high voltage rhythm and soul floor shakers and lease breakers-"Everything is Better Since You're Gone", "Fire", "Hold On Together"-ripping spear-hurling R & B - "Chicken Picking" "I'd Rather Feel The Pain", "Did I Let You Down", heartbreaking ballads and mid-tempos - "Breaking The Rule", and "Take It Back" and a pair of rhythmical postcards- a tribute to what once were the noisy streets of New Orleans ("Mojo Train") and restless nights in a Havana boarding house ("Four Loves").
And do not, do not fear, inside this explosive cocktail of sonic chaos, a strange sweet harmony prevails through all and each of the grooves of the record. And as always, all wrapped up, signed, sealed and delivered with the elegantly filthy production of Mike Mariconda.

Do not complain. The legion of Excitements fans DOES exist in places near and far in this world-gone-insane so if you are ready to be recruited you're in luck. Miraculously, these workaholics of rhythm, who conquered and claimed more than fifteen countries just for the sheer thrill of it during their last tour, found a break and the action of their troubled agenda. It seemed only logical to throw their road sharpened revue into the studio to commit to wax their finest album to date entitled "Breaking The Rule".

After more than two years on the road and 200 sweat soaked performances since the release of their second LP "Sometimes Too Much Is Not Enough", this third LP certifies that the big combo from Barcelona can do whatever they please: either caress you or kick you in the stomach-or both. The steamroller rhythm section is one powerful structure pounding under searing guitars, roaring horns and all reigned over by the voice of Koko that claws at their hypnotic gyrations with wild abandon. This new Excitements bag, as expected, is THE satisfier with high voltage rhythm and soul floor shakers and lease breakers-"Everything is Better Since You're Gone", "Fire", "Hold On Together"-ripping spear-hurling R & B - "Chicken Picking" "I'd Rather Feel The Pain", "Did I Let You Down", heartbreaking ballads and mid-tempos - "Breaking The Rule", and "Take It Back" and a pair of rhythmical postcards- a tribute to what once were the noisy streets of New Orleans ("Mojo Train") and restless nights in a Havana boarding house ("Four Loves").
And do not, do not fear, inside this explosive cocktail of sonic chaos, a strange sweet harmony prevails through all and each of the grooves of the record. And as always, all wrapped up, signed, sealed and delivered with the elegantly filthy production of Mike Mariconda.

Boston beat boi Tanner Ross is finally
back, with another embodiment of his
signature take on future EFUNK. Ranging
from creamy nostalgic R&B featuring
PillowTalk, Slow Hands and Jesse Rennix
to tripped out weirdness in collaboration
with Lonely C and 80s synthesis romance
with Jules Born, the ëStraight To The Moon EPí on Double Standard will take you
from palm-fringed Miami sands to deep outer space.

Unissued On 45 This Re-edit By MOUSSE T Is Gonna Be So VERY Big At Modern & Northern Nights

Original Demo For J.BEAVERS "I need my baby"

It's an EP by Archie Pelago, a Brooklyn-based band that's played both the Mister Saturday Night and Mister Sunday parties. They're a trio of players whose lighthearted name belies the seriousness of their music. Consisting of a classically trained cellist, a classically trained saxophone player and a live programmer/DJ, they make songs that work as well on dancefloors as they do in headphones. This EP lays out their strengths perfectly: Brown Oxford swings; Alice simmers; and Frederyck Swerl pulls on the heartstrings. Handstamped by the band and the Mister guys and pressed to 150-gram vinyl with love in Brooklyn.

Housed in limited edition sleeve artwork.
After releasing the fourth "Secret Rhythms" album in collaboration with
Jaki Liebezeit, Burnt Friedman returns with a preview of his forthcoming
new solo album.

collecting orders for repress
Next Paragram release is the debut EP from the Romanian based Marcman.

Marcman's tracks are always a mixture between dancefloor moovers including groovy rhythms and big baselines. After his remix on the past release, in his Paragram debut EP he presents himself in all his stylistic bandwidth. 'Dici' combines a super bass pumping tool that make you move even in in the most remote corner of the club, while 'Arficeva' and 'Rigid' gives priority to the hypnotic effect of the groove combined with mighty dub chords.

Two tracks exclusive to this release: the one and only Badu in an irresistibly catchy do-over of the euphoric album instrumental There, also featuring veteran Malian synth freak, Cheick Tidiane Seck; and a dub by Mark Ernestus, from Rhythm & Sound. Lovely silk-screened sleeve.

Three of the deepest, freshest instrumentals from the imminent album — featuring the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble on the opener. Sound-wise, this is doubly lethal, as alive and present as vinyl gets: mixed by Mark Ernestus, mastered and cut at D&M, manufactured at Pallas.
In a silvered, silk-screened sleeve; a limited one-off.

black 7inch in stamped brown bag

The second AM, stopping in Bristol to unleash the debut recording of Gramrcy. Metalheadz meets the grooving intricacy of Shake Shakir. Bruce and Hodge ride shotgun.

This second EP collects 4 more hard to find on vinyl, early SHOES re-edits. The killer "AFRO PERCULATOR" from SHOES005 starts things off followed by "ATTA LAFTA", the dub mix of TIMMY THOMAS' "WHY CAN'T WE LIVE TOGETHER" from SHOES004 and "NAUTILUS" from the out print "RE-SOLED".