Cyclic Defrost Magazine |  |
- Down Review – From Here, For Anyone (Hidden Shoal Recordings)
- Various Artists – Death Before Distemper 4 Mixed by Kelpe (DC Recordings)
- Paradigm Shift Radioshow Playlist 14 Sep 09
- Mos Def – The Ecstatic (Downtown/Inertia)
| Down Review – From Here, For Anyone (Hidden Shoal Recordings) Posted: 17 Sep 2009 05:30 AM PDT
From Here, For Anyone brings together Medard Fischer and Tim Arndt and though neither have met nor spoken, they collaborate here seamlessly. Distance and impersonal connection in music construction are becoming more common and Hidden Shoal Recordings has previously ventured into this form before with City of Satellites. In the early 1990s there was a tendency to describe electronic music as “faceless”, however the warmth and heartfelt content on this recording dissolves any such critique into a strange expectation: for faces, movement and motion. This four track EP opens with variations of melodic chords soaking the upper register, and combines pristine drum and synth programming. It is quite obvious that the form is predominantly electronic, yet it has all the hallmarks of post-rock sensibility and sonic attunement. ‘Archive’ clothes itself in manipulated crowd samples before launching into a layered drum, synth and bass combination. ‘Always enough’ weaves bright tones, dub sensibility and chopped up samples in highly wrought simplicity. ‘All In’ closes the album, playing with an almost anthemic extended chord, a hybrid drum beat and chirping bright synth which builds to dominate before dissolving quickly. It is a sharp finish, but the ride is quite exhilarating. Innerversitysound |
| Various Artists – Death Before Distemper 4 Mixed by Kelpe (DC Recordings) Posted: 16 Sep 2009 06:25 PM PDT
DC Recordings aquatic beat monger Kelpe serves up the fourth installment of the Death Before Distemper series of mixed CD’s, hot on the discofies heals of The Idjut Boys mix, Kelpe dives underwater, deeper into the DC back catalogue, to produce a more downbeat mix, salvaging some long forgotten gems. Kelpe has mixed, re-edited, spliced and diced 48 tracks from the DC archives, forming unlikely hybrids between the frenzied beats of Depth Charge and Octagon Man, two sides of label owner J Saul Kane’s psyche, the more atmospheric beats of Big Two Hundred, Tom Tyler and Kelpe’s own tracks, to the cosmic pop and rock of Higamos Hogamos, and the kraut craziness of The Emperor Machine, Padded Cell and White Light Circus. What stands out is the gems from a DC golden age, under-rated in their time, and probably forgotten now, but still sounding as if they’ve come from the future. I refer to the twisted hip hop of Greedy Fingers, the highly under-rated and ignored beat experiments of J Saul Kane under the Alexanders Dark Band moniker, the future psych of The Oscillation, the skewed funk of Max Brennan’s band O.H.Krill, the cinematic soundtracks of Tom Tyler, and the electro experiments of Audible. A fresh sound approach and a dash of nostalgia make for a great late night mix, and best of all it’ll have you digging out some older DC Recordings classics from your collection. Wayne Stronell |
| Paradigm Shift Radioshow Playlist 14 Sep 09 Posted: 16 Sep 2009 06:24 PM PDT The Paradigm Shift is a weekly Monday night radio show presented by Sub Bass Snarl on Sydney radio station 2SER fm 107.3MHz – check the 2SER website for the improved live web stream! It airs Monday nights at the time of 7.30pm for 90 minutes (Australian Eastern Standard Time – GMT+10). Get in touch to send us your music (320s welcome!) – EMAIL: paradigmshift [AT] 2ser [dot] com Erik XVI – Gravitationskraften’s Stilla Vrede [Stern-Gerlachs Försök] (Highpoint Lowlife) [* = Australian Track] |
| Mos Def – The Ecstatic (Downtown/Inertia) Posted: 16 Sep 2009 06:24 PM PDT
Its been a while since Mos Def has dropped an album, but for me, his voice is still one of guiding lights in hip hop, conquering the underground in the mid 90’s, not so prolyphic in the following decade, but retaining a fresh approach to production, and a distinguished voice. Music has taken a back seat for Mos Def, venturing into the world of movies in 2000 with Spike Lee’s Bamboozled, also staring in Monsters Ball in 2001, The Italian Job remake in 2003, Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy in 2005 and the rather excellent Be Kind Rewind with Jack Black in 2008, including television work with HBO production house, and providing his voice for cult animated series The Boondocks. The Ecstatic, his fourth solo album, gets back to basics, the basics of golden age hip hop legends like A Tribe Called Quest, KRS-One and De La Soul, keeping things simple and uncomplicated. While many hip hop MC’s today rap about trivialities, Mos Def heads up the current resurgence of socially concious lyricism, featuring guest appearances from Slick Rick and Talib Kweli, and teaming up with powerhouse producers J. Dilla, Madlib, Chad Hugo from N.E.R.D. and Oh No. The Production prowess shows, with a powerful bomblastic approach, the guitar licks of the opener ‘Supermagic’, incorporating a middle-eastern theme, a recuring theme present in ‘Auditorium’, ‘Wahid’ and ‘The Embassy’, the lyrics tackling subject matter that is still an uneasy thing in the US, but Mos Def pulls it off with much skill. Straight up good time funk is also heavily represented here, ‘Twilite Speedball’, ‘Quiet Dog Bite Hard’, ‘Pretty Dancer’, ‘Revelations’, and ‘Casa Bey’ provoke images of good times gone by. The ability for Mos Def to shift between rap, singing and speech has always been a major strength, and his work on The Ecstatic reinforces this fact, and working with the producers he has, will cement this album as a classic. Fresh. Wayne Stronell |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Cyclic Defrost To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
