Hip-Hop News

Repress!

For those who know, Bambooman is one of the most sought-after, probing, and distinctive voices in UK electronic music right now.

The Yorkshire-born producer's catalogue builds into an aural mosaic, comprising everything from scrunched up hip-hop to techno deviance, all delivered with an impish sense of individuality.
'Whispers' certainly resonates. It's a lengthy, bucolic work, an album of great breadth but also one of sustained mood – think those hazy summer evenings when shadows stretch out across the road, and autumn lingers around the corner.

This new album has a dusty, organic, and decidedly personal feel, much more at home with Jon Hassel's 'fourth world' aesthetic than the club.

The results are also imbued with an incredible sense of mystery, with Bambooman's productions frequently being shot through with a hallucinatory sense of the uncanny. Entirely self-composed, 'Whispers' utilises "lots of field recordings that I've collected over the last few years, while within the tracks you can find lots of the instruments, percussion, bells and whistles that have been gathered throughout my life."

In certain ways 'Whispers' is entirely autobiographical: Bambooman reaches back to his varied alter egos, to the ambient releases, art commissions, and soundtrack projects that litter his discography. The cover art was even pieced together by Oliver Pitt – of Glasgow group Golden Teacher – who was an early ally in the producer's sonic quest.

Stylistically 'Whispers' veers from avant hip-hop of Flying Lotus to the theoried composition of Terry Riley, from the future-forward percussive energy of Battles to the ever-evolving electronics of Mark Pritchard. It's a record marks by a fiercely independent spirit, but also by a close-knit cast of collaborators.

King Kashmere takes a starring turn, following the pair's collision on the recent 'SUPERGOD' EP.

Each vocal is recorded, chopped up and then spliced across the album, with Elsa Hewitt also making a number of appearances and re-appearances.
credits

New 3 Track 12" release from Chunky complete with a 2 track 7" with 2 vinyl only tracks bundled for Swamp 81 sublabel, 81. Mastered at Metropolis

Gritty & raw tight funk breaks, with Hammond organs, electric pianos, exotic instruments, razor sharp guitar lines & nasty thick bass lines. All recorded live to tape with vintage tube studio gear.

DJ Krush commemorates his 25th anniversary with Kiseki, a brand new collaborative album which reaffirms his status as Japan's original beat master. There's every-thing we've come to expect from the man, heavy breaks with fierce raps, serene soundscapes and seamless pro-duction. All tracks produced by DJ Krush. Disc One

Little is known about this south pacific recluse. Far from his australian hometown, he now evolves close to trees, birds and spirits of Meganesia's remote Coral Sea. Abstract, Electronica, Dub, Lo-Fi, Ambient, Downtempo, Ethnic field Musics or experimental hip-hop... qualify the analog music of this
australian musician is a difficult exercise. Oceania, his last album under the alias of Tropical Hi-Fi, will be soon available on vinyl on UK imprint Emotional.
Cover painting by Tokio aoyama

Little is known about this south pacific recluse. Far from his australian hometown, he now evolves close to trees, birds and spirits of Meganesia's remote Coral Sea. Abstract, Electronica, Dub, Lo-Fi, Ambient, Downtempo, Ethnic field Musics or experimental hip-hop... qualify the analog music of this
australian musician is a difficult exercise. Oceania, his last album under the alias of Tropical Hi-Fi, will be soon available on vinyl on UK imprint Emotional.
Cover painting by Tokio aoyama

The visionary talents of multi-instrumentalist Zach Witness have sprouted full life in this world, lending his sonic touch to the bulk of Erykah Badu's latest album, But You Caint Use My Phone (Motown Records). This project was brought to life with Erykah Badu at the Badudio and World Witness Studios in Zach Witness' hometown, Dallas, Texas. This project put him on a unique trajectory, harnessing his intricately designed fusion
productions into the periphery of an entirely new audience around the world. His forthcoming debut EP, Electric Revival: Rise of an Outkast Nation, is the first project to find the light of day after this expansion phase, initially created as a birthday gift to Zach Witness' friend and collaborator, André 3000.
The catalyst behind the creation of Electric Revival has a very specific initiation point. During the recordings for But You Caint Use My Phone, Erykah Badu called on André 3000 for collaborative assistance. This would result in the album's last track, Hello,' created at the home studio Zach Witness has lived in his whole life. This moment in time compelled Zach Witness to create an offering for André 3000, and this was in the
form of an entire body of music.
Electric Revival takes on the stories of the lives entangled around
society's most crippling and hopeless of situations. The social and
political intentions of the EP paints a very defined purpose in this context.
Experience the transformative sounds of Zach Witness and his debut manifesto.

Continuing his luscious ambient beat explorations in jazz, post-Dilla hip hop and leftfield electronica Asta Hiroki produces a stunning instrumental piece in 'Channels' and cleverly enlists the help of forward-thinking producer/vocalist Suzi Analogue (Never Normal Records, Fresh Selects) to contribute the vocals on the emotive 'Vulnerable'.

In-demand as both a producer and a vocal artist, Ms. Analogue brings a neo soul twist à la Erykah Badu to Asta's gorgeous arrangement. Lyrically focusing on shedding the various masks people wear and allowing oneself to be completely themselves, she showcases all the attributes that have made her a favourite of online press like FACT, The Fader, Okayplayer, Paper Mag. It's a perfect match of styles from these two artists with the tune carrying a liberating and relevant message in today's image-focused world.

'Channels' is a jazzed-out slice of leftfield hip hop and electronica, taking cues from the likes of Robert Glasper, Bonobo and Shigeto. As per its name it perfectly captures the meditative and ever-moving nature of water with no 2 bars the same throughout. Powerful low end frequencies underpin the beautiful flowing keys work and fluttering organic percussion to keep it ever-evolving and exerting a calming influence on the listener.

REPRESSED !

'Dark Days & Canapés' is Ghostpoet's most defining album to date. A stunning and stimulating return, this is a record that captures the sense of unease felt by so many in recent times.

Obaro Ejimiwe's latest Ghostpoet offering is swampy and delirious, with wiry post-punk and distorted electro threads woven through his signature vocals. - The Line of Best Fit

Indie Retail Deluxe LP features gatefold heavyweight vinyl on white vinyl - Limited Edition x 200

Hyperdub + Warp Records artists Babyfather and GAIKA rework two 18+ tracks from their second album 'Collect'.

Hyperdub's Dean Blunt, a category-rejecting artist and an art-pop provocateur tackles 'Drama' under his Babyfather guise, looping a low slung swagger beat under the vocals of DJ Escrow and Samia Mirza.

Warp Records multi-disciplined South London artist GAIKA rips apart Glow into a discordant sub-low bassline drone, pitching Samia's vocal as slow as can go, harsh high pitch tones and field recordings.

One of the strongest things we've heard from the divisive producer.' - boomkat

Strictly limited to just 200 dinked white labels - One for the collectors.

A record about broken dreams and lost hopes, breathing an atmosphere of harrowing gloom and disturbing bitterness. Very limited batch!

Charlie Abbott delivers an exquisite Producer EP for BRRWD.

RRWD is a label collaboration between Ta-ku/ repeat pattern & Jakarta Records.

Lapalux veroeffentlicht sein drittes Album auf Flying Lotus' Label Brainfeeder!

Lapalux veröffentlicht Ende Juni sein drittes Album, - Ruinism , auf Flying Lotus' Label Brainfeeder. Sein letztes Album, - Lustmore , war z.T. inspiriert vom Konzept der Hypnagogie, dem auch - Wachdenken genannten Bewusstseinszustand, der beim Einschlafen und/oder Erwachen auftreten kann. Auf - Ruinism setzt der britische Produzent nun seine Entdeckungsreise fort und erforscht diesmal den sogar ominöseren Schwebezustand zwischen Leben und Tod. In diesem Bereich, wo sich das Endliche und das Unendliche vermischen, ist Lapalux zu Hause - auf - Ruinism mehr als zuvor. Auf seinem neuen Album benutzt er zum ersten Mal in seiner Karriere ausschließlich Hardware und echte Instrumente, er hat Synthesizer und Drum-Versatzstücke aufgenommen und erneut gesampled, gepitcht, verbogen und miteinander verschmolzen, - until it was ruined , bevor er die völlig entstellten Samples aus dem mittlerweile entstandenen Trümmerhaufen barg und erneut versuchte, diese in etwas Kohärentes zu verwandeln, wie er selbst beschreibt. Mit Marielle Tepper als Kreativdirektorin auf - Ruinism , wird die LP als hervorragende und streng limitierte Deluxe-Doppelvinyl-Ausgabe erscheinen, die in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Pariser Atelier - Impremerie du Marais entstand.

In 2017, the musical term electronic' is nearly obsolete given the ubiquity of computerized processes in producing music. Even so, the prevailing assumption is that musicians working under this broad umbrella must be inspired by concepts equally as electrified as their equipment. Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith has demonstrated in her still-blooming discography that this notion couldn't be further from the truth, and that more often than not, rich worlds of synthesized
sound are born from deep reverence of the natural world. Smith (who by no coincidence, cites naturalist David Attenborough as a contemporary muse) has embodied such an appreciation on
The Kid in as direct and sincere a way as possible by sonically charting the phases of life itself.
The album, which punctually follows up her 2016 breakthrough EARS, chronicles four defining cognitive and emotional stages of the human lifespan across four sides of a double LP.
The first side takes us through the confused astonishment of a newborn, unaware of itself, existing in an unwitting nirvana. Smith's music has always woven a youthful thread befitting of the
aforementioned subject. Here she articulates it in signature fashion on the track An Intention,' which serves not only as a soaring spire on The Kid, but on her entire output. There is playfulness here, but it's elevated by an undertone of gravity into something compelling and majestic that is fast becoming Smith's watermark. The emotional focus of side two is the vital but underreported moment in early youth when we cross the threshold into self awareness. The subject is profound enough to fill an entire album, but rarely makes its way into a single track, indicating Smith's ambition to broach subtler and deeper subjects than the average composer. This side offers up another highlight in the form of In The World But Not Of The World' which serves its subject well with epiphanic, climbing strings and decidedly noisy textures over a near-Bollywood low end pulse.

Side three emphasizes a feeling of being confirmed enough in one's own identity to begin giving back to the formative forces of one's upbringing, which is arguably the duty that all great artists
aim to fulfill. This side ends with the exploratory album cut Who I Am & Why I Am Where I Am' recorded in a single take without overdubs on the rare EMS Synthi 100 synthesizer. This humble
piece of sound design serves as a contrast to side four's verdant orchestral moments, all written and arranged for the EU-based Stargaze quartet by Smith herself. This final side represents a
return to pure being, the kind of wisdom and peace that eludes most of us until the autumn of life. On To Feel Your Best' this concept is voiced in the bittersweet refrain one day I'll wake up
and you won't be there' which Smith intended to be a grateful acknowledgement of life rather than a melancholy resentment of loss. The song has both effects depending on the mood of the
listener, and both interpretations are equally moving.
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith belongs to an ilk of modern musicians who are defined by their commitment to creating experiential albums despite the singles-oriented habits of modern listeners,
and here she represents her kind proudly. The subjects on The Kid are not simple to convey, and yet through both emotional tone and lyrical content, Smith does just that. There is a similar
gravity to both birth and death, and rarely is that correlation as accurately and enthusiastically mapped as it is here.

Alan Watts, another logical inspiration of Smith's, once expounded that people record themselves to confirm their own existence, and as such, echoes and resonance are reminders that we are alive. You're not there unless you're recorded,' Watts muses, if you shout, and it doesn't come back and echo, it didn't happen.' The Kid speaks to this idea directly. As Kaitlyn Aurelia
Smith explores her existence through music, she guides us in gleefully contemplating our own.

Paul Blackford returns to CPU this time donning a 7" downtempo tip. Light Years vinyl takes 2 of the highlights from the accompanying digital LP, all of which demonstrate his versatility in expressing his hip hop and funk influences from an electronic music perspective.

On first pass you might think you are listening to Nightmares on Wax, but without the heavy sampling as Blackford favours creating his sounds from scratch. Comparisons to Photek's Hidden Camera can be made in terms of atmosphere but keeping things within a slower trip hop framework.

Light Years is for chilling out, but there's a strong temptation to mix hip-hop vocals over the top due to the LP's solid instrumental foundations.

All original organic groove trip hop coming out of Cincinnati Ohio. Analog recorded, hard hitting vintage funk drums, thick grooving bass lines, meticulous guitar riffs, soulful electric piano's & Hammond organs create an original soundscape of emotion & groove. This music (we feel) is in a class of it's own. We are not trying to duplicate a sound of yesteryear but explore a distinct natural sound of our own. In 2016 Grimez brought some of Cincinnati's best musicians in the studio to record raw analog recordings using vintage gear. Guitarist Brad Myers currently has a phenomenal jazz cd out Prime Numbers.' Organ/Keyboard prodigy, J-SKillZ, is a frequent session musician for Hi-Tek. Tim Hensley is the drummer for The Cliftones, a reggae band that is touring and receiving well deserved national notoriety. The remaining musicians all have degrees in Jazz and perform in many shows throughout Cincinnati.

While preparing for my radio show about a year ago, I put a kite out to the kids that I was looking for some heat to play. This kid sent me a 20 second clip of a work in progress. It was sublime. He kept sending beats per my request. It was exciting how consistently good the shit was. Blissful, downtempo escapism. His production took me somewhere else, in a time where a retreat from the increasingly stressful day to day is more than welcomed. That first track he sent, Huey', starts off Balloons, Wowflower's debut LP on Street Corner Music, just as it started the dialogue between the two of us. The Street Corner faithfuls will not be disappointed. This shit is fantastic.' -House Shoes

Million selling album originally released in 1999 on Jive Records - this is a 12 track double LP reissue on 180gm black vinyl with a download code. Includes At The River' & I See You Baby'.

Second album from one of the most popular artists on
Berlin's fine Project Mooncircle label!
Late night music from the back seat. 'Are You Anywhere', sophomore album from Tokyo based UK native submerse blends early 90's slow-jams and instrumental hip hop wrapped in smooth DX7 keys hybridized with his own unique sound. 'Are You Anywhere' is the second full length release from submerse on Project: Mooncircle with features from fellow Tokyo based
beat maker fitz ambro$e. Are You Anywhere' comes out worldwide on limited green colored vinyl (including download code).

Next up on All My Thoughts is eight cuts of warm fuzz from U-I.

A split release on Nation's sublabel, Kode. Two exclusive tracks from Black Meteoric Star and D'Marc Cantu. These songs will never be released anywhere else. 250 copies only.
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D'Marc Cantu's RDDS is an abstract production where Hip Hop Meets electronix. A rare, unique document of class and sickness.

Black Meteoric Star closes the release with an homage to a legendary NYC neo film...

TCP (The Cat Production) is the umbrella under that phineas produces some sort of beats. The archives are early pruductions that are now released by certain:dubs with its own series, that represent the roots of his productions in the sound of hip hop culture.

In Flagranti releasing a collaboration project with Ayakamay a contemporary conceptual artist living in New York City. Remixes by Das Komplex & Mytron.

Superb melt of World Music and trip Hop. Mental Instrumental, sweet and deep.

Ocean Parkway, the new sublabel from Brooklyn's Names You Can Trust, launches with a deep dive! Drawing inspiration from sounds as varied as Tortoise and Trentmøller, Lavender Lagoon eschews traditional genre cliches, blending sampled drums and synth patches to paint an electronic collage inspired by the lush, organic flow of nature. The A-Side presents an optimistic tryptic: a boy hunting for butterflies, dogs swimming in suburban pools, and the smell of spring rain. But flip it over to Side B and a darker realm is revealed — one in which the cold physics of outerspace reign supreme, and the heavy computerized rhythms take control.

- 180 GRAM AUDIOPHILE VINYL
- GATEFOLD SLEEVE
- BRAND NEW ALBUM
- FEATURING THE HIT SINGLES HUMAN' AND MARILYN MONROE'
- NUMBER 1 IN US ELECTRONIC ITUNES CHART AND TOP 5 IN ELECTRONIC CHARTS AROUND THE GLOBE
- LIMITED EDITION OF 1.000 COPIES ON WHITE IVORY VINYL

ISON is the debut album of Iranian-born Dutch artist Sevdaliza. After releasing her latest Edison nominated visual masterpiece HUMAN, and her acclaimed short film The Formula', next to worldly known
3D experiences for That Other Girl' and Marilyn Monroe', Sevdaliza is defining art with her mystical audio-visual experiences.

So far Sevdaliza already amassed millions of plays on Youtube and Spotify. She recently collaborated with A$AP Ferg and was also featured on Parisian producer STWO's latest single Haunted'.

As much as ISON is about the human experience, it is mostly about Sevdaliza returning to her spirit guided by past lives. By following her intuition, her unconscious guided her on a path which one present form might never reproduce. All the knowledge that is not of the senses, not of the intellect, not of the heart but is the property that belongs to the deepest aspect of your being.' ISON is an experience of that being.

Sevdaliza's melancholic visceral voice floats over beds of thumping trip hop dubs, married with classical harmonies and cutting strings setting an enigma. Rhythmic tensions build slowly into chaotic climaxes. ISON has been described as genre- bending', drawing on various genres.

Her writing, influenced by intuition and experiences in past lives, has a philosophical questioning character, subjects like spirit diversification and perception of emotion are strongly present. Divine energies blend harmonically within. Sevdaliza plays with the simulation of lives that can hardly be distinguished from truth. Creating a reality where everything is possible. To Sevdaliza, expression comes forward in designing every detail in sound and imagery.

The moving artwork of ISON was sculptured by the incredible
Sarah Sitkin. The limited edition is pressed on White Ivory vinyl and will be individually numbered.

L One is a young Munich Hip Hop beat smith and a lover of drum computers. With only 24 years, he already has a considerable discography as producer. Including projects such as ATP's "C'est La Vie Or What" (2016 on Bumm Clack) as well as Weltuntergäng's "Dogmatikers Elfen" (2014 on Tieftonkultur). As a part of Akere and Manufaktur, he also ventured into new genres in the recent years and provided new approaches to TripHop and Dubstep.

Special Remarks: brown marbled vinyl

Written, produced, arranged and engineered by Joseph Longo III Pal Joey Music aka Earth People

New York finest Joseph Longo III (aka Pal Joey / Earth People) presents an excursions into deep &
soulful house, downbeats and electronica.

After making us wait almost two decades for new solo material before last year's "Saudade", Steve Cobby is back in the blink of an eye with his second LP in as many years, once again on his own Declasse imprint. I suspect self-releasing suits Mr Cobby, and "Everliving" sees him embrace the creative freedom it allows. The fourteen immersive and expansive cuts are spread lovingly across three LPs rather than cramped onto a double, allowing each track the time and space to grow and evolve at its own pace. The result is an LP which entirely envelops you within its own sonic world, beguiling your senses with hypnotic keys, lilting rhythms, gentle guitars and pan global sounds. More electronic than its predecessor, "Everliving" delves deeper, gradually easing you into a trance like state through repetition and an expert understanding of space. So far the release has been met with universal praise from the likes of Dave Harvey, Phil Mison, Richard Norris and Peter Kruder, and really, who are we to disagree Superb

Hip Hop instrumentals in a Western Movie State Of Mind !

* Includes a DIN A2long poster inside the 12" sleeve with edition number and music download code

* Rogue Style 1 EP is an international homage to b-boy culture, where the worlds of breakbeat music and breakdance collide. Sinistarr (USA), Kiat (Singapore), Kabuki (Germany) and HomeSick (Canada) are connected in many ways, now they lay bare their hip-hop roots and give something back with a fresh take through the eyes of drum & bass and juke/footwork. Here is what they have to say:

Sinistarr: "As a teenager I grew up as a b-boy, dancing anywhere I could: schools, parks, festivals, you name it, my crew was there with cardboard and a speaker. I eventually got deeper into DJing and making music and learned to bring a sound that's not just for the crowds and the purists, but also for all the dancers!"

Kiat: "Hip Hop has taught me to keep evolving, to explore new forms in all my art. Progression is the key to evolution. -- I met Sinistarr online thru myspace and we had a musical connection which led to our first collaboration 'Black Diamonds' which is still one of my personal favourite tunes I've been fortunate to be part of it's creation. With Kabuki, i've always been a fan of his work since his 'Makai' alias on No U-Turn, despite meeting him only recently thru the label.I've always known him to be constantly progressing his ideas in his music which I respect alot."

Kabuki: "B-boy culture has always been a strong influence on how I pursued my art, mainly because of its DIY ethos and attitude of perfecting your craft. Incidentally these were also the aspects that drew me to Jungle when I first discovered it in the nineties. -- I'm happy to rub shoulders with Kiat, Sinistarr and HomeSick on this release, as I'm a fan of their music foremost, but also because we became friends through the music."

HomeSick: "I was only a child in the 90s and as a result I feel like my understanding of b-boy culture was experienced second hand thanks to 90s/early 2000s hip hop music. I appreciate the parallels I can see with footwork culture, particularly the similarities to the community mentality of break dancing. -- I know Sinistarr through booking him for our local party night in Alberta, Canada called Percolate. Our city must have left an impression on him because a year later he made the move here from Detroit. Had the pleasure of hosting him as a room mate for a little over half a year, the home was a very potent creative space during this time. Kabuki hit me up a few years ago and we very quickly got to sharing tracks and collaborating together. Mans a master of production and a super important part of the global scene."

The idea for a reminiscence of b-boy culture stem from label owner Booga:

"Why am I interested in this so much I grew up in East Germany and as the movie "Beat Street" premiered in 1985 over here I was age 13 and blown away by the energy, the music, the wit, the style - everything in this movie was better than everyday life in Leipzig. So I started saving for a cassette recorder and taped music shows from West German radio and prepared tapes for school disco gigs to the hope somebody would do the "robot" to Arthur Baker "Breaker's Revenge". Unfortunately that never worked out hahaha. But I was hooked since then and as the wall came down in 1989 I travelled to West Berlin just to buy the Beats, Breaks and Scratches 1-4 vinyl box by Simon Harris. The fascination for breakbeats never stopped and before I discovered Jungle around '94 I was down with the British cut up house thing from the likes of Marrs, Krush and Coldcut as another form of breakbeat music. The "do it yourself" spirit from hip hop culture inspired me to start a local website called breaks.org in 2000 to locally promote the drum and bass scene with emerging producers, djs and mcs for a wider audience and I threw in some interviews with Storm, Kabuki, Rob Playford, Klute and John B. That turnt into a multi author blog called itsyours.info in 2004 which still exists - that is where I had the pleasure to introduce Kiat and Ash in 2007. All these years I was listening and playing drum and bass tunes when the occasional "bboy tune" came up, some were obvious like Alex Reece "B-Boy Flavour", Lemon D "B Boyz", Commix "Change" and some were not so much self-explanatory like Digital & Spirits "Phantom Force" and the remixes by T-Power & Codeine or Fracture's Astrophonica Edit - but I felt the hidden force of breakdancing nevertheless. With the Rogue Style series I have the first class opportunity to ask established and new Defrostatica artists to present a current interpretation of b-boy culture. This is a dream coming true."

Plexus Records & Meyso present M.A.J.. This is the first full length effort by French producer Meyso, after a bunch of projects and collaborations including productions for Lomepal, Fixpen Sill, Equipto, Sameer Ahmad and more!
Meyso first appeared on Plexus Records cassette project from 2013, then on the Kapla album on the same label with Mr Hone, Maodea and Oteest. He's been since producing for several French and Belgian rappers and started to be the DJ on tour
for famous French rapper Lomepal. On M.A.J., Meyso confirms his skills and delivers a very rich and dense album.
Influenced at first by producers such as Dilla, Madlib and Dj Shadow, he develops now his own modern approach of beatmaking, incorporating elements of trap and electronic music. With guests such as Caballero, JeanJass, Veerus or Ndobo Emma, the album balances between deep instrumentals made of rare vinyl samples and some catchy rap and soulful tracks.
This LP comes in a limited edition of 500 copies, all hand-numbered and pressed on
180gr, 12''x12'' insert included. Original art is a painting made by Natosito.