>recent remixes from Dutty Artz stalwart Lamin Fofana.
_both remixes out now on Grizzly and Diskotopia

Jay Weed
On The Nile EP
GRIZZLY009
March 2011
http://bit.ly/nk6m5u

>

Visionist
Rock The Flock EP
DSK003
July 2011
http://bit.ly/nOX8Eh

Tomorrow, I’m kicking off my Sunday morning radio show on WFMU! All summer long, 9am to noon – I’ll be playing music, noise, and whatnots on WFMU 91.1 and 90.1 MHz FM. For the past couple of years, I provided extra oils to keep Rupture’s Mudd Up! wheels greased proper, all the while filling in, co-operating, and board-opping for everyone from Rob Weisberg to Glen Jones, and now I got a three-hour spot on the longest running freeform, independent community radio station in the United States! The show doesn’t have a name, and for now we’re just calling it Lamin. If you have a good name suggestion, let’s hear it! As for a description, let’s just say we’re staying true to WFMU’s commitment to unstructured-format broadcasting. Go here to stream my last Sunday morning broadcast.

This would be so incredible if the world wasn’t so insane. Still, an awesome video by Megaforce.

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Here’s something that deserves it’s own post, but the way things are going it doesn’t look like that will happen. So here it is “The World Needs Change” by Clams Casino, from his Instrumental Mixtape – which is quite amazing.

Proper visual for the first single off HAVEN, the forthcoming debut album from Copenhagen-based producer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and homie CHLLNGR. We’ve been looking forward to this for a while! Slow, unhurried rhythms, subs whirring beautifully, and smart, astral synth stabs slow danced in a magical forest hours outside the Danish kapital.

Filmed in a Danish forest two hours outside of Copenhagen, Ask for is the first single released for the debut album HAVEN due out in July on Green Owl. Bjorn Stig Hansen and Steven Jess Borth II had only one bright light and one camera to make this happen in a period of two summer nights.

Downliners Sekt – “All I Can Hear Now” from Meet the Decline [downliner-sekt, 2011]

˙∆˙∆˙∆˙∆˙∆˙∆˙

This group prefers to leave their identities and backgrounds abstract.
They have been described by reviewers as a group of unique “possibly Spanish” artists creating their own blend of electronic and rock music.
All their work is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License for anyone to have and share freely http://downliners-sekt.com

If you ask nicely they will probably let you use their music in derivative works.

DJ Quik – “Fire And Brimstone” from The Book of David (2010 Mad Science)

Here’s what I was listening to, as I read Tally post about fresh and exciting new Dutty Artz gear; the opening track from that other legendary producer/rapper from Compton, California DJ Quik. Undoubtedly, one of the most underrated rappers/producers, Quik is without question one of the greatest producers. Super talented, adventurous, and unafraid to experiment with with bugged-out rhythms and structures. If you dig “Fire And Brimstone,” definitely don’t sleep on his new album The Book of David, or his last collaboration with Kurupt BlaQKout or Trauma or any of his early album. Get it how you live!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here’s a video from Dutty Artz family and habitual transnational/borderless bass collaborationist Maga Bo. Filmed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the beautifully shot video for the track “Gondar” which from Maga Bo’s most recent release Ransom EP out now on Senseless Records. Not only providing a glimpse into Bo’s recording process and collaboration with the two Ethiopian musicians – masinqo player Eritbu “Solomon” Agegnehu and singer Entenesh Wassié, we are treated with some wonderful Addis ambiance, plus some beautiful girls dancing to the traditional Azmari song, which Bo laced up/reinforced with some dancehall-like riddim! Stream to the entire Ransom EP on Bandcamp – with remixes from Filastine, Timeblind, Teleseen, Pacheko, and Fletcher.

It also goes without saying that Bo is repping Dutty Artz extra hard in this one! We’ve some some incredible gear coming your way soon too.

Grouper – “Alien Observer”

Last week, Portland, Oregon based musician Liz Harris, better known as Grouper released two separate incredible albums, Alien Observer & Dream Loss, wrapped together as A I A. Preview the striking Wurlitzer pulses and sweet drones title track from Alien Observer above. A I A is beautiful, strange, and unsettling; harsh, heavy drones & dark, delicate tones; songs about aliens and ghosts & loves lost and love yet to happen. Liz Harris also made a series of rare east coast live appearances, one of which was at Brklyn’s Glasslands last Saturday. Harris gave such a mesmerizing performance, the crowd was pin drop silent and so attentive you could hear the sound from the venue two doors down bleeding into Glasslands.

Harris describing her new albums: “Dream Loss is a collection of older songs, mostly written before a hard time. Alien Observer, for the most part, is made of songs recorded after that time. Each has a song that belongs thematically on the other, a seam stitching them together. Both albums… explore otherness. Being an other to one’s own self, to other humans; ghosts and aliens, both literal and metaphorical; and other worlds to escape to (beneath the water, in the sky). Thinking about people who have died…

The process of making these albums reacquainted me with what I want to explore in music: friction, exploration of something large and outside of me, describing and traveling to intangible objects and places, unseen movements and connections between people and spaces. Songs that move on their own, that have an autonomous monstrous quality, songs from another world.”

This one dropped on Numbers. last year, but this video made my afternoon. #dancers #rewind

Cyril Braithwaite ca. 1960

In a recent Jamaica Gleaner article (for the Japanese translation click here), writer Howard Campbell refers to me referring to the recently passed sound system operator Cyril “Count C” Braithwaite as an “unsung hero” in Jamaican popular culture. Looking back, I have to clarify that his praises have been sung from Ken Boothe to King Sporty—both of whom claim Count C as their mentor. It’s just hard, I believe, to adequately sing the significance of a soundman who never left his community in over 60 years. The ephemeral nature of a few quotes and newspaper articles do not do justice to the lasting influence of a man like Cyril Braithwaite. Indeed, sound men like Count C don’t just shake the earth with sound, they shake the status quo with their social and cultural power.

Count C cemented his status in his West Kingston community, and in Jamaican music and cultural history, when he launched the Count C Sound System in 1947. Radio was nonexistent and, even when it did arrive in Jamaica in the late 1950s, few in West Kingston could afford either the box or the pay-as-you-go service. In times like these a sound man like Count C really was royalty. His was a small sound (a few horns and an over-sized, 5ft+ speaker, familiarly called a ‘house of joy’), but he was tough. Count C would never back down from a challenge, even when Duke Reid and the “big dogs” arrived on the scene.

Almost more than the music, it was Count C’s commitment and connection to his West Kingston community that stands out. Cyril Braithwaite was born in the 1920s into a family residing in Back-O-Wall, the West Kingston area which became the center of Jamaica’s nascent political power struggle during the transition to independence. Back-O-Wall was subsequently razed in 1963 to make way for the Tivoli Gardens housing scheme. Cyril Braithwaite died January 26, 2011, a resident of 6 Wellington Street,  just a stone’s throw from Tivoli. (Indeed, when the Wednesday night/Thursday morning street dance, Passa Passa, used to be held just outside Tivoli on Spanishtown Road, Count C lived so close he could claim to have attended every single one.) Decades after Back-O-Wall was transformed into Tivoli Gardens, the infamous focus of the manhunt for Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke for much of 2010, current residents still find themselves in a struggle with authorities despite the passage of time and the fact that Dudus was caught last June.

Wellington Street is relatively short and narrow, with just enough room for a moving vehicle to slide by another parked to the side. About 100 yards long, bordered by Charles Street on one end and North Street on the other, Wellington Street is more like a lane. In this area, Count C was the first to own a television, a car (which he would trade out whenever a new one caught his fancy) and a two-story home (which Hurricane Gilbert brought down to one in 1998).

Fast forward to February 2011.  The security forces patrolling the area at night in their jeeps had to squeeze by the line of cars that brought out the people from uptown and downtown for Count C’s ‘set up’, a Jamaican celebration traditionally held the night before the funeral. Count C’s set up involved the earth shaking frequencies of Exodus Nuclear Sound System (which was started by Count C’s son Father Romie), a photo slide show and enough rum, beer, soup and curried chicken to feed neighbors, friends and family as well as friends of neighbors, friends and family.

Father Romie (2nd fr L) and Gary Exodus (R) with members of Exodus Nuclear in Count C's West Kingston yard, Feb 2011

Father Romie, the oldest of Count C’s 17 children, says, “West Kingston was a place where kids could run loose. They would go into the market, take the country people’s things, gamble. Most of my friends dead out now. They gambled, thiefed, picked up a gun and end up in a coffin. Count C’s kids didn’t do that. That’s why I have to love my father.”

By all accounts, Count C, aka the Wizard of the West, was a tough man. Romie says Count C led a “rough life”. Count C’s grandson, Gary Exodus, thanks C for teaching him “how to be a no-nonsense person”. In black and white photos from years gone by beamed in front of the deejay booth that night, Count C looked the part of a convincing street tough. The dead pan stare perched on a muscular neck portrayed a relaxed physical readiness that oozed “tough” without even saying a word. This was colonial Jamaica. In the 50s and 60s, the era of rude boys, dancehall crashers and budding downtown political violence, toughness was a virtue.

But toughness alone could only get you so far, and perhaps straight to jail or the cemetery. Cyril Braithwaite had bigger things in mind.

I first met Count C in 2007, the same year I started studying at the University of the West Indies in Kingston. Zeke Stern of Green Lion Crew had done an interview with Count C in 2006 and I followed up when I got to town. I knew Count C had outlasted ‘vintage’ contemporaries like Duke Reid, Sir Coxsone and Sir Nick. I was not aware of the breadth of his influence or the depth of his connection to his community.

Count C at his yard in 2009 (photo courtesy of Roy Sweetland)

The last time I saw Count C alive was in early 2009 when I visited with Roy Sweetland – “photographer extraordinaire”. (If my word isn’t enough, Tarrus Riley wants you take his.) Roy’s photos capture Count C in a new light. Now into his 80s, the deadpan stare is still clearly there, along with the relaxed readiness. This time though, the two-dimensional black-and-white photos from his youth have been replaced by a colorful, multi-dimensional man confident in his own experience. A few snippets…

On slackness: “I rebuke those things”. On music: “Music keep me alive til now”. On sound systems: “Sound systems really make the people unite.” No longer physically dominating, Count C was regal nonetheless.

Further interviews with Count C in 2007 and 2008 provided the basis of a forthcoming article in the 2011 July/Aug issue of Wax Poetics. I had wished he would be able to read the article, hold the magazine in his hands, appreciate how his influence and example extended and extends beyond Wellington Street.

Although Count C has passed, the Braithwaite cultural lineage is by no means over. Father Romie’s sound system, Exodus Nuclear, was of the earth shattering type when it was launched in 1986 and still plays out regularly. Father Romie has also hosted much of Vybz Kartel’s prolific recording over the last couple years at the studio Romie built next to his home in Kingston’s Havendale neighborhood. And Gary Exodus runs the Exodus dubplate studio, a social and creative hub where sounds from Paris to Poughkeepsie load up on musical ammunition with the hope that they will follow in the footsteps of the Wizard of the West, representing for their communities and making the impossible seem possible.

Shabazz Palaces “An Echo from the Hosts That Profess Infinitum” from the upcoming album Black Up on Sub Pop Records. Considering how heavy we’ve been listening to the first two EPs, and how hungry we are for new Shabazz, this is obviously some some great news! A glimpse of things to come “An Echo from the Hosts That Profess Infinitum,” densely textured poems and verses delivered with that signature measured cadence, swirling and chewed up synths and samples, ridiculous beats and more mbira solos!  Looking forward to seeing Shabazz Palaces at SXSW this week. It will be very interesting, even if they’re only giving abbreviated performances!

Tendai , Dougie, and Ishmael

FACT mix 222: Urban Tribe

While Carl Craig and Derrick May were preparing to headline the show at Manhattan’s very fancy District 36 night club last month – to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Planet E label, their fellow #313 legend/producer Stingray (real name Sherard Ingram) unleashed this monstrosity in the form of a new Urban Tribe mix on Fact Mag! We have been jamming to this for weeks, and  it’s only getting fresher with each listen. Indeed this is one of the best in the long-running series (the King Midas Sound was my favorite last year.) In their words: this is serious, serious shit, and we recommend that you listen to it LOUD, ideally while driving round your city at night. Don’t have a car? Get one. Nuff said!

Shackleton – Deadman King Midas Sound Death Dub

Kevin Martin / King Midas Sound twists one of Sam Shackleton’s extremely warm cuts, we first heard this on Fabric 55. Here, Kevin Martin removed Shackleton’s congas and made some very wise decisions, including adding KMS’s Kiki Hitomi’s gorgeous voice (which has a phantasmal presence here!), and also focusing/thickening Shackleton’s orange and brown tones. The result is remarkable.  I’ve listened to this one countless times, but today at dusk, walking home – I walked past an older woman who flashed me a gold-tooth smile, and this never sounded more beautiful!

Ali Hassan Kuban – Bettitogor Agil

Ali Hassan Kuban was a Nubian singer, bandleader, and producer from the south of Egypt/north of Sudan, a “region is revered as a link between black Africa, the Middle East, and the Mediterranean.” His family moved to Cairo when he was young, and as a teenager he performed traditional Nubian songs at weddings. He released several albums in the 1980s and ’90s, updating traditional Nubian rhythms into powerful party songs. “Bettitogor Agil” is from his 1991 album Walk Like A Nubian, recorded in Berlin and produced by Sabah Habas Mustapha (a Brit, real name Colin Bass of pro-rock band Camel and some other weird whirled music projects.)

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Here is a mono radio rip from a live DJ mix on WFMU a couple of weeks back. It’s jam packed with unreleased, exclusive killer Shadetek tracks! The tracklist is a little rough, but the unreleased joints – opening track “NIC U” and “Pterodactyl” are gleaming freshness not to be slept on!  Look out for his Dutty House EP coming out Tuesday!

TRACKLIST

Matt Shadetek – NIC U
Matt Shadetek – This Is Love
Matt Shadetek – Pterodactyl
Contakt – Not Forgotten
??? Dubbel Dutch Remix
Matt Shadetek & Lamin Fofana – Sunshine City
Black Ryno – Nuh Take Talk (Matt Shadetek Remix)
Matt Shadetek – Delta
Kingdom – Bust Broke
Mayster & Contakt – Korak
??? Secret Agent Gel Rimix
Maxwell D – Going Away
SBTRKT & Sampha – Evening Glow
Matt Shadetek & DJ /rupture – Sunset B35
Chief Boima – Techno Rumba (DJ /rupture & Matt Shadetek Remix)