breakbeat era - ultra obscene

this was roni size & dj die's poppy sideproject, if you want to look at it cynicly, it was a way for the full cycle boys to get paid. this kind of clean cut drum & bass songs with female vocals beyond the jungle style of wailing a few pieces would continue with in 2001 with decoder & substance's kosheen project. anyhow i quite like this track, drums are good, bassline is a sleek one and leoeni laws does good on the mic.


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the real tuesday weld - i love the rain (acid rain mix)

like two years ago or so mate of mine had this cd he bought for a banco de gaia remix of midival punditz and he sent over that and this and i liked it but it wasn't until the summer when it was somewhat hot and i was out walking and just listening to random stuff in the mp3player and right when this came on it started to rain lightly but it was this weird feeling about the cosmos being very synced up.

juno sample

charlie hunter quartet - day is done (feat. norah jones)

discovered this after hearing norah on wax poetic's angels, mate of mine told me once that the bass in the intro was not made from a bass, but from a guitar since charlie hunter use this 8string thing and the lowest string is almost bass like. found that hard to believe but i guess it's true, good song anyhow, the sax solo is nice and moody.

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thomas bangalter - outrage

if you pop this record on and you get the feeling that it's pissed over something, then that's just bullshit. essentially, this one is just a very driving beat and a white noise sample lightly getting tweaked and modulated over the course of the track. bangalter a very subtle pad in the first half and then also subtle boosting the bass frequencies in the second half. pure brilliance really

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pat metheny group - slip away

play this to any fan of modern house music and you will undoubtedly get the response of this is where nick holder got the sample for 'summer daze'. he took some loops from the beginning and reshaped it into his thing. the original packs some swelling grooves and a killer guitar solo and the the humming of the melody.

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earl hooker - i feel good

i got this from chezlubakov's excellent blog where he showcases his love of the seven inch record and the ammount of gold you can find on them. this is an instrumental cover of the famous james brown track and since it's rocking speed it's nice to play.

funki porcini - the great drive by (bent's zorba mix)

the original is this mellow dark downtempo affair with jazz drums and big spooky strings, bent regrooves a bit, emphasising the original bassline a bit more and rocks this mellow drumgroove and then adds nice acidy bits. well done remix on this one

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krayzie bone - hard time hustlin (feat. sade)

i remember first hearing this and it was the sade sample that got me hooked. the use of 'feel no pain' is extraordinary, the sparse instrumental give a great backdrop for krayzie bone whose flow is bananas like usual. the trademarked temposwitches is employed well on this and his singing is nicely done aswell

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the latin kings - halva inne (feat. godde)

this is from the first album and it's a straight up westcoast cut. godde works the first part of the track with a nate dogg like swagger and dogge goes on the romance tip but still working the playful stees that he always had in the first album.

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a guy called gerald - fever (hotter than georgia asphalt remix)

fever was a nice soulful d&b cut by gerald simpson and vocals by wendy page, gerald handed the material over to sheffield technolegends black dog for rework and creates a track that gives the original a serious run for it's money. they did so by cutting the tempo down to half and giving the track a soul makeover, it was not that much of a slam dunk to do so but it's simplicity and how they used wendy's vocals & gerald's melodies and giving them bigger emphasis is amazing.

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