martina topley-bird - hours away

i saw this single a few years back and it wasn't really the type of cdsingle i would buy, even though i knew damn well who martina topley-bird was. she has a great voice and i like quite a lot of the music that she's outputted but frankly when i looking into bins after singles, i do want to have a number of remixes on it. "need one" is a three tracker with the main track at hand, a single specific b-side and a remix.

fabien waltham's name wasn't known for me until i remembered that he had a remix under his belt of madonna's "the power of good-bye" that was brilliant. it was drum & bass and even though i saw his name along with topley-bird on the credit list of production of the original track, i was still expecting drum & bass. sadly this was not the case but it was a great version where the track has been grittied up.

but i am a sucker for a good bassline and some dreamy atmosphere, basically anything shoegazy without taking it to wanky territories. "hours away" is a great song and the vocal arrangement and the reverbed out sounds has been enjoyed from my side. sometimes taking a gamble on a single pays off even it's not what you expected.

listen here (youtube)

ng3 - tell me (club mix)

another example of a track that i liked from hearing it on radio or on telly back in '02 and i know it was because of three reasons. first of all because the video was quite good, even though the idea was sort reminiscent of a sugababes video and especially the video for puretone's "addicted to bass". secondly because of herbie crichlow was affiliated with the song and also produced the song (along with partner in crime ari lehtonen who used the moniker eric le tennen on this project).

thirdly and most imporantly is that it was quite a catchy track and had alot of attitude with but it went without saying as the combination crichlow & lehtinen was quite the hitmakers, on the more commercial eurodance-leaning edge. they formed a production group called dreamstate and ng3 was part of their stable. sound wise ng3 was somewhat based in hiphop and r&b but with beats that sounded more like eurodance and trance at 95bpm. strangely though it doesn't actually sound like the late '00 style of hiphop and r&b with that exact formula as this was too polished.

for example the original actually uses the kind of soca or dancehall type swing and tempo but there is a more specific hiphop-oriented remix done as dreamstate. here it's at half the tempo, most of the elements have been stripped down and it's just drums, bass, vocals and then a big epic synthy hook. even at this rendition it doesn't really sound like those records from the later era but i never cared for those tracks and neither this remix either.

i was always geared towards the two house remixes on the cdsingle and german act silverboys and swedish producer jonas hagman. the former does a great filtertastic funky house mix but i had problems with this version because i think they handled the vocal poorly and it can't even be salvaged with editing. hagman's versions are just billed as club mix and dub mix respectively and i think i still don't know why, just going by the sound of the remixes.

they have little to no relation musically beyond the use of the vocals but i loved them on the first listen. hagman's remixes is driven by this catchy tom-loop and a very fake acidline that does everything right. it creates a whole load of tension and never really releases it a typical circuit type way because this remix is very in tuned with the american circuit sound of the 90's. difference being that it doesn't go to the epic extent that you got in those anthemic tracks and remixes. i do love this version but when i had the problems of fitting this into the sets i was playing so it became a personal pleasure. utterly banging though.

soul II soul - move me no mountain (dum dum dub)

first time i heard this was through ron trent and his appearance on amoeba records' what's in my bag. he picked the record at hand and trent talked about buying it for joey negro aka dave lee's remixes. suitably the good folks at amoeba record decided to play one of the remixes and they chose the dub over the main club mix. the difference between them are the latter plays very straight and "houses" up the original where as dave lee went for his on the dub.

apart from some key sounds, one line of vocal and the bassline this track is all dave lee. i got hooked to it through the vibraphone-sounding hook that was heard right off the bat in the amoeba video. when i heard it on headphones i however realised that the real star of the track is the bassline. even with a stunning musical base with great drums & percussion and nice keys, it's the bassline that matters.

from the start you hear it about a minute in when it's all stripped down to a heavy tr-808 kick after a luscious building intro. the round murmur moves through the bottom end and after a while it's even backed up with some played bass. however the key moment was when i heard the track in my headphones a few days ago and it just reached the breakdown.

there it goes from murmuring to booming as lee just cranks it up a few notches and lets the bassline loose and every little movement sounds grandiose. i fell in love with the track at that point and i had even played the track in a set a few times. sometimes you really feel the impact when you are one with the music and the outside world isn't bothering you.

listen here (youtube)

humate - breed (summer of '89 remix)

for this one i was given a heads up when it was released and even then people said that don't bother with the original, head straight for the acidy summer of '89 remix. the part about it including a whole load of acid almost sealed the deal for me but it having a sort of a late 80's housey throwback sound also meant a lot. especially as i was quite into the hugg & pepp remix of "in and out". which basically did the same thing but was more balls deep into the nostalgic factor, to put it bluntly.

the original isn't by any means a bad track and infact listening to it now i can hear it's appeal and the way the distorted techno house sound worked well with the vocal. it was sort of a mix between the humate's own gee shock remix of his '00 single "choose life" and "vivid", the prior humate single. i still favour the summer of '89 remix of it over the original and part of why it works is that doesn't sound like a complete throwback track.

when this track was released i tried to used words like chicago and sound of trax or dj international and the likes when i was describing this track. on one occasion i was given a swift reprimand from my friend alon klein in that this doesn't sound like chicago at all and if anything it's more mancunian. even then it's done through another filter of modern aestethics and production techniques that throws the argument of "chicago" or manchester out of the window.

i do however associate it with summer and not because it says so in the title but because it was included into my soundtrack of the summers of '05 and '06. that acidy bassline and groove was such a delight to listen to on warm summer days and you felt every motion of the phasing effects that was used. i loved those warm pads that compilemented the acid wiggle and the lethargic vocal.

after every start of the listen i did wait for the moment where the resonance of the acid increased as it was going into this small breakdown. after the that small drop there is a section where the it all goes haywire in all the right ways. the percussion sounds more wilder, the vocal is chopped up and the resonance of the acid is increased even more.

to be fair this follows suit of the original which is also built in a similar way but the difference is the execution and the sound. instead of wibbly acid you hear distorted sounds, affected to lfo, wobbling around. then when it's had that moment it goes back into the groove that you heard in the first half of the track until it fades down and ends. lovely track.

buy here (junodownload)

lucca - towers

my introduction to lucie kvasnicová aka dj lucca came through paul van dyk as the umek remix of "mirage" was heavily cained. soon after heard chris cowie's remix and preferred it to that but i quite liked the works coming from this czech dj & producer. it was a mix of funky techno and quite popular big room sound and also the not quite trance but not quite techno sound. in the beginning it did sound a bit like cowie's brand of techno as they collaborated on a few records but the sound was changed further on and i started to lose interest in the music.

not because it stopped sounding like chris cowie but it started to go into the direction of say deadmau5 and "8th note tech-house" and the "trendhouse" of the mid and late noughties. needless to say i was never a fan of that sound and spent way to much time trying to knock some sense into people using the world electro in the wrong context. after a while, i want to say that i stopped caring about the loss of the descriptions of that genre, but if you've read my blog prior you would know that is bullshit. i still yammer on about what real such and such genre is even though it's isn't as didactic like in this entry.

regardless of that i do try to focus my protest by focusing on good music by the persons at hand and i have a few favourites by lucca. "mirage" i've already mentioned but also "t-gnosia", "manila" and this track "towers". came out on kvasnicová's own sound of acapulco label and is a stunning driving funky techno groove. it's great set buildup material and constructed with it's the layer upon layer technique.

starts with a muddy bassline, a kick and a faint percussion loop and it goes on from there. it does use quite livid percussive elements that does what bring to mind that latin loop techno sound of the early 00's but the focus is shifted to the bassline and the groove. as the bassline gets more defined with additional layers, the track also seem to set the direction that it's not up top where the action is.

there isn't a missed point in this track in where the small drops makes sense. the two bigger breaks builds the right amount of tension and gives out some release even though it continues building on. great stuff.

buy here (junodownload)

nekta - history is pearshaped (swell session's vip mix)

i came across this one through swell session/andreas saag's myspace back in the day where he had some microsite constructed on his space where it was built like a jukebox. some of the tracks had a lot of descriptions and the likes on his productions and it was fun reading the information and factoids and all that jazz. being that my mind cling on to this kind of useless knowledge and knowing how to search for it otherwise is what built this blog more or less.

none the less the factoid for this remix is that saag was asked by infracom! to remix either this song by nekta or jhelisa's "freedom's land" and in the end, both was given a remix treatment. saag took a liking to the original and set out to do a housey version of track that was quite jazzy but had a strong balearic groove. the other interesting information was that saag was also given some additional vocals from nathalie schäfer that was recorded on request.

they can be heard on the tail end on the song where you can hear schäfer adlibbing and harmonising a bit to the rhythm. luckily with the internet archive i was able to retrieve all this information again, i may remember some things but i had it mixed up with the info about another remix done by andreas saag. with regards to this remix i really loved the summery tone to the song and that really thick and round bassline.

saag implemented most of the sounds from the original as he loved it redid the drum track and added a different bump to it. the guitar and strings have been worked into the mix but the jazzy trumpet has been removed. the keyboards was also redone in saag's own style as he knows his way around the keys and likes to work in the played element of the keyboards.

one thing though is that i've noticed and especially looking on soundcloud and blogs over the last couple of years is that these kind of specific house remixes aren't as favoured if there is something more balearic. i really think in a modern context people would go for the original than the remix. it's slower and need for that 125bpm type bump isn't as needed as it used to be, or i'm maybe just talking out of my arse on this thing.

what stifles the original is that it doesn't have the mixability like the saag's remix but you could easily fix that with some looping. for me though? i prefer this remix over the original as i think it's better and has more ideas cleverly executed and such.

buy here (junodownload)

santos - gimme da mike (electrochemie lk remix)

this comes off the single for santos' "i'm not homesick" which has "gimme da mike" as a b-side. there was a few other remixes ordered up the for the single by lee coombes and genius cru but they appear elsewhere, besides i'll take thomas schumacher's elektrochemie lk remix over them any day. also featured on the track is rapper everest who also appeared on dino lenny's "i feel stereo" from the same time. there you could hear him redo melle mel's famous lines from the guestverse of chaka khan's "i feel for you".

santos' works this glitchy offbeat loop throughout the song and the effect is a bumpy rhythm and it's quite funky when a four on the floor is strapped on together with a bassline. for schumacher however it's a case of focusing on that off beat rhythm and working a broken beat rhythm according to the swing of that groove. it's also coupled together with shuffled percussion that on a glance just sounds frantic, but this why i feel in love with this version.

in most respects organized chaos, especially when locked down to the same tempo, is much more fun that just the occacional crazy section. it does have to be interesting throughout and schumacher sorts this out with fills and some changes but also a great bassline that squelches in all of the right moments. downright proper.

pauline kamusewu - runnin' out of gaz (markus enochson's bang-the-galore mix)

with this one i bought swedish singer pauline kamusewu's second single "answer" more or less because i was interested in markus enochson's remix of "runnin' out of gaz". i had heard both songs prior but i didn't like "answer" that much or at least compared to the previous single. both of them were early motown/'60s pop-pastiches in the fullest rights with snares on each beat and a big horn arrangement.

markus enochon's take on "runnin' out of gaz" interested me mostly because as mentioned before that i liked the song but i was also a big fan of his works in general. on this one enochson gets down to business fast works a sturdy rhythm and less than a minute in you hear kamusewu's vocal and the bassline from the original.

along with it there is some keys that plays long chords or rhythm work during the verses but goes into some tiny extravagances a bit into the song. fact is that most of the elements from the original appear in enochson's remix but it's just translated into a different genre and that it's all toned down a bit. in general an incredibly well made remix and you get that masters at work-ish vibe that enochson used to work in his soulful house days.

buy here (itunes)

slow train soul - trail of dawn

first time i heard about slow train soul was through "naturally" which i heard on some lounge compilation and i liked it quite a bit. the act consists of morten hansen aka varano which i'm a big fan of and michelle nichol aka lady z whom i've never heard of prior to hearing the song. a few months after hearing the compilation i saw the cdsingles for "naturally" and "in the black of the night" in one of stockholms record stores and i grabbed them both.

i thought it was fitting as both used the same artwork but stylised differently as it was based of a photo of the act where it's been reduced to contours.  "naturally" uses a white background and black contours and "in the black of the night" has it vice versa, probably with the song title in mind. in terms of the title tracks i'll take "naturally" over the latter but "in the the black of the night" also came with a mighty b-side which i fell in love with on the first listen.

"trail of dawn", which is also included on the album called "illegal cargo", is an ode to clubbing and tells the feeling of the end of a really good night. it quite an epic and goes through some emotions and stages and i really like how it starts almost melancholic with these gorgeous but sad strings. this feeling changes a bit as the drums and a really resonant bassline appears in the picture and it sets the stage for lady z's vocals.

nichols also feels a bit melancholic in her delivery but her words aren't of sadness but more joyous and the words are about all the fun that the night of dancing has brought. this juxtaposition is interesting and it's emphasised as the phrase "now that the music's over, turn on the bright white light" becomes a mantra of sorts after the verses are finished. somewhere in the back of the mind of clubbers everywhere you never want a really good night out to end.

all of these emotion are given a brilliant soundtracking to by varano and lady z (and guests fred portelli & vezio bacci) which provides ups and downs with strings, lovely drums & percussion and a bassline that hits hard.

buy here (itunes)

boxsaga - robot blues

some years ago i found the cdsingle for boxsaga's "positive sweat" and i don't remember on what strength i picked it up. probably because it was a four tracker ep and at the time i was quite into the concept of those releases, if it was specific songs for that release. also because the track duration was printed on the cardboard cover and out of the four track, the shortest track clocked in at 5:35 and that is the title track.

on the other end of that "robot blues" is the longest track of the release and it's also fastest and it seems a bit out of place compared to the other tracks. like the rest of the track it employs some of the buzzing saws and the warm synth sounds along with the use of drumbreaks and generated drum sounds. but the structure of the track and the tempo is different and you feel that nick phillips aka boxsaga just threw the rules out of the window for this track.

the buildup for it is one of those just goes to the extremities without ever launching into that moment or a drop. you hear it go on and there are even a few key breaks where it's expected for things to happen but you'll be hard pressed to hear it. the most substantial thing that happens during the break four minutes into the song is that the it changes from breakbeats to four on a floor. almost the same scenario happens six minutes in where it breakdown a bit, probably for mixing purposes.

regardless of stucture, it's an amazing rollercoaster of a track and it it much to the dj at hand how to use it. the logical thing is to have it as an ender as sounds like one but it can also be used as intro if you follow it up with something equally pacey and on the go. midset will be trickier but here the with good use the breaks well and you will have a quality transition tool. for me i like it most as a whole entity but i've used it mostly as an intro.

xzique - outside looking in (down)

hidden behind the name xzique is one of many projects of antonia lucas, davin snell & kevin swain and their collective history goes back to the mid 90's. i actually thought of doing a short summary of their artist history respectivly but it wouldn't be concise at all, more like essay-length. out of character for someone like me i will not do that for this time, you will have to do your discogs lurking yourself.

i remember hearing this one first on steve lawler's outing on global undergrounds mixseries nubreed where lawler played the more stripped down and less vocal sub project remix. i was quite into that and thought it was the original mix until i got my hands on the single and found out that something was off in the titling. the chances are that labels got mixed up and since this happens in dance music it's just a case of having that in mind.

the track at hand is a driving progressive house cut with tribal undertones and it really goes for that dark feel with sweeping pads and sounds. while it is a capital try and it what a lot of progressive house was trying to do in the early noughties, i don't think dark is what i would describe this track the sub project remix, does it more effectivly. there most the vibrant funky percussion and atmospheric layers are removed and lucas' vocals are reduced to just the spoken hook.

however it does also remove some of the brilliance that the original and i am saying this as someone who's played the sub project remix the most of these two. "outside looking in" has quite a few layers and i really like how they made it all work. it seems almost to busy at times but it's builds brilliantly with tension and release and lucas' vocals, both sung and spoken really work as a part of that. banging.

buy here (junodownload)

natacha atlas - amulet (16b remix)

as far as "amulet" goes that has been one my favourite natacha atlas songs since i discovered her songs on compilations but for this remix it was a whole different ordeal. my thought might be failing me but when i stumbled upon it i wasn't on either a natacha atlas or a omid "16b" nourizadeh kick, it was through random turn of events.

upon hearing it the first time i was distraught with the little use of the atlas' vocals but i really liked the tune at hand so i stopped caring about that. i saw the potential instantly with a interesting beginning with a long beatless section which then goes into full force as the first kick comes in. basically perfect setstarter material and at the time i discovered it i was playing more house material and deeper houser even this isn't that deep.

16b's remix feels like a whole new entity with some random vocal samples from the original but on a closer listen you notice that nourizadeh used the bassline and the chords from the song. the big difference is that they are slowed down and that they are refitted from a raï rhythm to a house groove. the bassline which sounds like it's been replayed with a double bass is also a big part of why i took a big liking to the remix. the other element is all the plucked strings and the lovely moodful pads.

buy here (junodownload)

pepe deluxé - girl! (jori hulkkonen house of boy mix)

another song or track that i've discovered when purchasing random cd-singles without having a clue on the song at hand. in this case the cosign was on of finland's finest doing a remix and i was quite into the works of hulkkonen at the time and still am. for this single it was doing the house-remix for the floors as the original was a sort of swanky breakbeat tune.

fact is that the original has it's je ne se qouai but i think the vocal and track doesn't glue together and this is why i don't think it's anything special. pepe deluxé lifted an intro from american rhythm and blues acts the president's "girl you cheated on me" from the album "5-10-15-20-25-30 years of love". it's a bluesy opener with a churchy organ going about in the background and tony boyd talking about a lover who's cheated on him with some harmonising at points.

after that it goes of into a quite a bumping soul number with a bassline that pepe deluxé replayed but hulkkonen took another route for bassline, vocals and melody. the vocal was reformatted a bit to to be most streamlined and letting the words "cheating me" be the punchline of sorts. the track at hand is a textbook example of hulkkonen's funky grooves that builds slowly and impacts heavily.

buy here (catskills webshop)

system 7 - sal del mar

was planning to do an entry on system 7's more paceful tracks and from this album both the starter and ender are quite nice but this track comes in my mind every once a while. "seventh wave" as an album was introduced to me by a mate that was into the psychadelic side of trance but liked the sounds of system 7. in general they are an act that i know of and their different phases but i've always been into their heads down trancy sounds.

you certainly hear that "sal del mar" is a system 7 production by the sounds used even if the choice of pace and groove hasn't been that prominent since the earlier days of the act. in general they were quite known for collaborations but this comes from a time when the output consisted of mostly giraudy and hillage on their own.

it's spacious house music that sounds like hiroshi watanabe's dreamy works as kaito through the filters of that early west coast deep house sound from dubtribe soundsystem and the likes. the feeling of entrancing motions is strong even where a really groovy bassline is the dominant force. with a solid base below there is a whole lot going on up top and if isn't hillage's long sweeping guitar sounds that form as pads, it's giruady's keys and synths. lovely track

buy here (junodownload)

looptroop rockers - hårt mot hårt (with cleo)

as mentioned before looptroop was in the making of releasing a new record and if "fuel" was the starting point for the english album then "hårt mot hårt" is the first outing in swedish. officially this is the first looptroop song released in their own native language and it is one of the best yet. not shy from delving into the difficult topics whether it's social inequality, rasism or police brutality with this song it's about social issues. feminism and genderroles is the main topic at hand but it also talks about encouraging people to rise from the social situation and break free of the norms at hand.

embee created a really trotting beat with a strong backbeat and halftime feel where it's made to fit the screwed down sample of kapten röd's "1.000.000 nollor". over the bassheavy rhythm cosm.i.c., supreme and promoe is on their usual high point in their lyrical game and flow. but the song is stolen by cleo, the guest on the track, who also happens to be one of the best rappers in sweden and one of my favourite emcees.

i've even mentioned that fact before but hearing also cleo in swedish is in another light as i think in most cases, rappers and artists cause the most effect in their native tongue or at least the language they speak regularly. cleo goes off hard about the desire for a more equal society but also an less sexist field of music and not ever wanting to hear things like: "being good for a girl" or the likes. the key point in the song is in the transition between promoe to cleo and this is also where the song intentionally gets stolen by cleo.

promoe starts on a small rant about women should not be judged by their gender and mentioning that they do twice the work and get less paid. alluding to if the difference in salaries between genders but also counting domestic labour which is unpaid and in most cases harder. here cleo interrupts promoe and sets it straight and goes straight off the bat about how she is sick of men keep on trying to be the spokesperson for women. after that it's straight up murderous in lyrics and delivery and once again proves who reigns on top of the swedish rapgame.

buy here (itunes)

mandy reid - tornado

this one comes from my "rebellious" phase of being sick of epic trance's formulaic persistence with overblown leadlines and breakdowns. basically trackstructures that was clinging on to the tried and tested '99 era epic trance model where it was focus on melodies. where as it should be focus on the groove and in some way to be entrancing, even on a hypothetical degree.

i don't know why i went down on that route as "tornado" is still playing the same game as some of those track but the difference that it had a groove. there is no big focus on a melody but it does include a long pad sequence in the breakdown. also the main melodic element is employed through a stab melody that reeks of mid 90's techno like dave clarke's red series. the influences of tech-trance of the marco v dominated era was that kind of surefire but groovy techno.

as the pace of techtrance or trance in general shifted down from the 140 bpm down to 134 bpm or even lower as in this case where it's 132 bpm, the focus within the rhythm changed. "tornado" for instance sounds very house-influenced even though you can hear the traces of epic trance and marco v-style techtrance. the bassline really carries the track throughout and it's one of those where it's impossible not to be affected to it.

for me i used to bang it out quite a bit in sets and in some cases i would mix it out before the breakdown if i was in that mood but i cannot really faulter it as it has a purpose. besides b-side "noise 4 fun" had a similar styling to it but it was a bit faster and a bit techier, but i thought the groove in "tornado" was stronger.

buy here (junodownload)

vanessa liftig - where the in and out will go

first time i heard of vanessa liftig was through embee's "not tonite" and as mentioned prior i was transfixed with that voice and eventually i started to look for more material from liftig. also did so with liftig's band mates elsa esmeralda and mimi terres but i think i have mentioned that before also, along with yukimi nagano. it has to be something with the water in gothenberg for to have produced so many great young soul and jazz singers.

liftig has done a lot of music since that time but it has been little that have wowed me but i did know of an album being released in '04 but i had problems locating it and having a listen prior to it being digitzed. all i knew of the full length "when will is silent" from 2004 was that it was rooted in jazz and folk. there was a write up with good reviews on the recordlabels website but the songs that was available on the times i've been on the search has not been to my taste.

after listening to it in full a while ago i would have to say that it is a patchy album with many ideas being presented but not everything being to my taste, well at this time. chances are that i would have reacted differently when i was on my big norah jones phase about 8-10 years ago. i would have probably swallowed the album hook, line and sinker and it would have been another album to parade in people's faces about "look how diverse my music taste is".

i used to actually do that a lot when people pointed out that i mainly listened to untz-untz-untz music and i would respond with that "i also like system of a down and this and that band, sarah mclachlan, norah jones, this and that hiphop artist and etc etc". the point to mention adult contemporary music like mclachlan and jones was to say "i too have a mature side in my music".

never the less as i went through the album at large i did have some favourites and they were songs that didn't sounds so standard singer/songwriter:y. now i don't slate the music when i say that but it's a little to clean cut at times. "a stone to take home" starts very plain but as the song progresses there's a heavy blues moment in the second half of the song. "when the in and out will go" also is like that at to an extent but the arrangement is different.

the music feel like a melancholic dream as the guitar pushes forward and the drums are very suggestive and reactive in their quaint nature. all along this cello is countering the rhythm as it flows free and makes a splash when it cuts through the motions. random reviewal bullshit writeup aside i love this song and it's structure in the same way i love jessica lauren's "swamp thing". basically somewhat trippy or dreamy and suggestive music

buy here (7digital)

silicone soul - the poisoner's diary (ewan pearson instrumental)

during the middle of the noughties soma records pulled out a few singles that was eighties influenced to say the least. singles & remixes from from the labelrosters flagship artists like silicone soul and slam but also ewan pearson that was quite connected to the label, the already quite retro-leaning vector lovers but also my robot friend that was tied to the label for a short while.

the third single from second album "staring into space" was "the poisoner's diary" and featured stuart gray from the band viva stereo on vocals. now that doesn't really matter as i couldn't stand gray's vocal on pearson's remix or silicone soul's original for that matter. this remix was one of my favourite tunes of 2005 and i used to bang it out in each set that it worked in. it came at the right time in my taste of music as i was going through my italo phase at the time.

you would find play beginner's stuff like "the chase", cowley stuff and accessible italo disco with some kick.  then eventually i would slide into house and techno material that was either influenced or in that mindset and then work in something like this track. the brilliance lies within the drive of the track and it's synth programming where it used silicone soul's ideas and melodies and shifted them and also gave them some progression.

buy here (soma webshop)

adam f & lil' mo - where's my...?

a few days ago i had the bassline of "where's my" in my head and i remembered how good this song was. since it came out in 2001 the first time i heard it was around the time of it's release and it had the sound of the club bangers of the time so i became a fan of it. with regards to adam f, i knew that the prior output was almost strictly drum & bass as i knew of "circles" and the likes. the news had also come out after "stand clear" or "smash something" that adam f was to do a straight up hiphop album.

for lil' mo it was one of the rising stars in the r&b and hip-hop scene and you had hits like "superwoman part II" with fabolous and the horrific "put it on me" by ja rule. note is that i'm not taking a shit on the latter since i don't want to kick someone when they are down but i did not like that like that song and i heard it everywhere that year. however "where's my...?" wasn't something that i heard in the plentyful but it's a great club banger with lil' mo excelling in the flow of the verses, to the extent that it's less sung and more rapped.

in context of "where's my...?" then "superwoman part II" is a good idea to mention since they are sonical cousins but then again i think there is another song that has to be mentioned. basically the impact of timbaland's production on aaliyah's "try again" was monumental on what was r&b and hiphop during the turn of the century along with productions of darkchild & shake'spere.

adam f took the idea of "try again" and jacked it up on steroids and instead of that waggly bassline with a moderate squelch you get a heavy buzz. the effect is fastmoving lfo controlled sawtooths pushing it to limit in the lower midrange. one would have to say that extent of using such typical sounds & aestethics for the timeperiod on "where's my...?" and on the rest of the album is dating it. however the song and the album in general holds up well with the incredibly crisp production and sans one questionable guest appearence it's a well recommended in general.

buy here (itunes)

jessica lauren four - swamp thing

as i went through some of the tracks that i've favourited on soundcloud i noticed that a preview of release by the jessica lauren four was part of them and i had forgotten about it. my memory might fail me but i was quite up on the three tracks previewed and was looking forward to the album, but it just slipped out my conciousness. never the less it's never too late to appreciate good music and by the time i had my re-listen to the preview i noticed that the album alluded to was released and "swamp thing" comes from it.

usually i would write that "i discovered jessica lauren through this or on such and such track or project" but i've already written this twice in this blog already. so i will get down to the nitty in terms of the selftitled album and with a few listens i quite like it. it's fusion jazz that draws influences from all sorts of places including lauren's dabs in dance music which also has it's telltale signs.

the music is very percussive and rhythm driven and jessica lauren's keyboards and piano often stands either majestic on top of the rhythm or floating with the bass & drums. jocelyn brown also makes an appearance on the album with two songs being graced by those rich divine vocals. i do prefer "happiness train" over "i believe" but only because i think the percussion is given too much of a role in the wrong places. "i believe" is a strong ballad but it should have been just keys, bass, light drums and the guitar that also comes in.

another highlight is album starter "white mountain" that was part of the single release and it was the combination of heavy rhythms and lauren's broad piano lamenting it's brilliance. however it is "swamp thing" that tickle my aural tastebuds with its broad bassline and lauren's beautiful keys playing really long notes. the tempo is set to slower and it almost sounds like a meditative piece set in the context of "western music".

what comes to mind as well of that type is the king britt remix of tony scott's "hare krishna" for the second edition of verve's remixed.only you have less hippie-esque associations and more headknoding action with the elements all providing something to bob to, in a moderate tempo that is. equally awesome though.

buy here (freestyle records webshop)