New IG Culture album, featuring ID4 Windz, John Robinson and Bilal Salaam. This is Ltd to 1000 copies and comes in a heavy gatefold sleeve. TIP!! With ‘Soulful Shanghai’ IG draws a lineage directly from the civil values of jazz musicians like Harry Whitaker’s Black Renaissance and Roy Ayers’ We Live In Brooklyn, to present day music styles via the rhythms of hip hop, electro, house, and other drum machine oriented genres. “I’m an OG,” says IG. “It feels right to me to link the music from musicians like Harry Whitaker, Gil Scott Heron, and the Mizells. They should be household names, but the younger generation don’t necessarily know who these people are.” Musically, ‘Soulful Shanghai’ mixes it all up while still making sense. Selected vocalists ID 4 Windz and John Robinson, both of east coast hip hop duo Scienz Of Life, Georgia Anne Muldrow conspirator Eagle Nebula, and New Jersey residents Bilal Salaam and K Banger lock IG’s skewed beats together. The hip hop swagger is punctuated by plenty of live jazz tracks, with dedications to the Mizell brothers and Harry Whitaker keeping the swing spiritual. Perhaps the centre-piece of the album is the live rework of ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’, with a 2012 lyrical update by Niles ‘Asheber’ Hailstones, reminding us that images of riots stay the same, and they keep happening round the world, round the clock, from decade to decade. “The same issues are still relevant today,” IG says. “That’s why we did an update of ‘Revolution’. Same shit, different year. The sense of community and social values from that music is something I respect. At this stage in the game, if I’ve not got something to say then I shouldn’t be doing music, cause it’s not about the money.” IG isn’t anachronistic though, and he’s quite happy to use the Internet to link up with like-minded artists across the Atlantic. New possibilities and opportunities are always to be embraced, and as the world gets smaller, it seems the same issues affect us all, as the sample of a newsreader on the track ‘Core Exit’ demonstrates. IG Culture has been releasing music and albums since the early 90’s - that’s over two decades of craft under his belt. He’s no stranger to anyone familiar with groups like New Sector Movements and Quango, a multitude of hip hop and broken beat projects and labels like Mainsqueeze. IG’s blend is about more than the craft though. It’s about why music is important to society, and why we’re moved by it. Soulful Shanghai is a continuation of jazz and the civil rights of Black Jazz and Strata East. It’s a continuation of the spiritual funk of the Mizell brothers and the spoken word of Gil Scott Heron. It’s a descendant of hip hop and the resistance of the Zulu Nation, a distant cousin of techno and Juan Atkins’ deep space explorations. “Soulful shanghai is a place you navigate, hopefully you find It somehow,” IG concludes. Keep on searching.
"Alone Together" will be released on 2 LP set as well as CD, to pre-order please contact us at info@conch.co.nz
Karriem Riggins is best known as a jazz drummer and hip-hop producer for artists like Common, Slum Village, Talib Kweli and The Roots, but he doesn’t categorize himself as anything but an artist. He advises younger musicians to do the same.
“You don’t have to put yourself in a box…there’s so many different ways to go,” Riggins says. A student of late jazz bassist Ray Brown, he tours with another Brown protégé, Grammy Award winner Diana Krall. In 2011, he collaborated with former Beatle Paul McCartney in concert and on Kisses on the Bottom, McCartney’s first studio release in five years. Names of some of the jazz artists he’s backed reads like the genre’s hall of fame - Hank Jones, Oscar Peterson, Milt Jackson, Donald Byrd and Ron Carter.
But on his solo debut Alone Together, set for an October 23 release on Stones Throw Records, Riggins plants himself firmly as a hip-hop producer with a 34-track instrumental odyssey through nearly every influence on his career thus far. The project was inspired by much of the music he was creating while living in Los Angeles, and also by the love of his son and family.
Now residing in his native Detroit, Riggins is back where it all began. “I feel like I can really breath and stay inspired here, and I have room to set up my lab and be creative,” he says. This is the rationale behind the title Alone Together, taken from a jazz standard written by Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz that begin with the words, “Alone together, above the crowd.”
“Coming back to the machines, I feel like I can really express myself,” Riggins says. “This is the way that I express my rhythms.”
Machines, however, are just one way he expresses his rhythms. Midway through the album, the track “Water” is interrupted by a vocal snippet where the speaker places Riggins “right at the intersection of hip-hop and jazz.” Alone Together is that intersection; it’s the jazz music he’s played professionally since the age of 19, and it’s crafting beats like “Africa” on an MPC5000 while touring throughout Eastern Europe and Russia.
“I need the balance,” Riggins says, of working with the likes of Krall and McCartney, and also being able to go back to the studio and create hip-hop. “Without that, I couldn’t be who I am.”
Songs on Alone Together range from 14 seconds to a little over three minutes, and are the essence of man vs. machine. When Riggins channels Elvin Jones on the album’s climax and tribute to his longtime friend, “J Dilla the Greatest,” his tools are a Gretsch drum kit, the Fender Rhodes and an MPC3000. As versed as he is in jazz and pop, the machines will always be at the root – until the next thing.
“There’s always something new to figure out,” he says. “That’s the blessing in it.”
JONWAYNE AND MONO/POLY ANNOUNCE AUGUST 2012 DEBUT NZ TOUR
A STONES THROW/BRAINFEEDER SPECIAL - JONWAYNE AND MONO/POLY
On the 2nd and 3rd of August Los Angeles Jonwayne (Stones Throw/Alpha Pup) and Mono/Poly (Brainfeeder, Planet Mu, Warp) make their New Zealand debut, with two exclusive highly anticipated shows in Wellington and Auckland.
Two of the leading lights of the new wave of Low End Theory associated beats artists to emerge out of California in recent years, Jonwayne and Mono/Poly will be supported by a shimmering collection of progressive local producer and DJ talent, underscoring the global vitality of the movement theyre both become so central to.
Newly associated with Stones Throw Records, Jonwayne produces idiosyncratic, blunted beat music, sometimes pairing it with verbose yet slick West Coast microphone prowess. Sitting on a perfectly formed collection of Alpha Pup Records and Stone Throw Records released EPs, albums and an acclaimed series of mixtapes, Jonwayne is in peak form.
More established, musical genre polymath Mono/Poly has been releasing music which mixes celestial textures with sub aquatic bass pressure and hard edged drums for several years now. Along the way he has attracted support from Brainfeeder, Planet Mu and Warp Records as well as nods of affirmation from Radiohead, Erykah Badu and Jay Scarlett (1Xtra).
Due to release new albums this year, Jonwayne and Mono/Poly are two incredible talents, both sitting on the cusp of global recognition. On the 2nd and 3rd of August, catch them in concert at two intimate shows. Chances are you wont get another chance to see these talents this close up.
TOUR DATES
Thursday 2nd August, Havana Bar, WellingtonJonwayne and Mono/Poly w/ local support from St Eden (Chch) Kamandi and Marek. Tickets available from UnderTheRadar.co.nz & Good As Gold (Limited to 120 only)
Friday 3rd August, Khuja Lounge, AucklandJonwayne and Mono/Poly w/ local support from Christoph El Truento, Julien Dyne, Mr Mime, Milo B and KXVGXN Tickets available from UnderTheRadar.co.nz Real Groovy & Conch Records
Due out soon, to pre-order please contact us at info@conch.co.nz
Eglo Records' Fatima and Funkineven once again collaborate, proving to be an unstoppable force with an original take on contempoary UK soul and dance music. Fatima's universal approach to Funkineven's tilted West London swing creates a chemistry and understanding reminicent of the greats that came before them.
Tracklisting
1. Phoneline
2. West 2 East
3. 90's
4. 90's Reflex
Track List & Soundclips:
1. Jayson Brothers – Drop Back
2. Jayson Brothers – North & Pulask
3. Creative Swing Alliance – Yeah!
4. Pablo Valentino – Like it was ’99
After the more experimental vibes of Latecomers last release on MCDE, they are back to bringing you straight up dancefloor material on MCDE1209.
Jayson Brothers “Drop Back” has been a hidden gem in Danilo`s sets for quite some time already, and we are happy to finally release it alongside the storming “North & Pulaski”.
And on the Bside, Creative Swing Alliance are back on MCDE with their trademark House grooves, bringing us some deep goodness prefectly suited for those Basement sessions we love so much.
Last but not least, Pablo Valentino also delivers a solo joint, another stable of Motor City Drum Ensemble`s recordbag since he first played “Like it was `99″ on Tim Sweeney`s Beats in Space.
New IG Culture album, featuring ID4 Windz, John Robinson and Bilal Salaam. This is Ltd to 1000 copies and comes in a heavy gatefold sleeve. TIP!!
With ‘Soulful Shanghai’ IG draws a lineage directly from the civil values of jazz musicians like Harry Whitaker’s Black Renaissance and Roy Ayers’ We Live In Brooklyn, to present day music styles via the rhythms of hip hop, electro, house, and other drum machine oriented genres.
“I’m an OG,” says IG. “It feels right to me to link the music from musicians like Harry Whitaker, Gil Scott Heron, and the Mizells. They should be household names, but the younger generation don’t necessarily know who these people are.”
Musically, ‘Soulful Shanghai’ mixes it all up while still making sense. Selected vocalists ID 4 Windz and John Robinson, both of east coast hip hop duo Scienz Of Life, Georgia Anne Muldrow conspirator Eagle Nebula, and New Jersey residents Bilal Salaam and K Banger lock IG’s skewed beats together. The hip hop swagger is punctuated by plenty of live jazz tracks, with dedications to the Mizell brothers and Harry Whitaker keeping the swing spiritual. Perhaps the centre-piece of the album is the live rework of ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’, with a 2012 lyrical update by Niles ‘Asheber’ Hailstones, reminding us that images of riots stay the same, and they keep happening round the world, round the clock, from decade to decade.
“The same issues are still relevant today,” IG says. “That’s why we did an update of ‘Revolution’. Same shit, different year. The sense of community and social values from that music is something I respect. At this stage in the game, if I’ve not got something to say then I shouldn’t be doing music, cause it’s not about the money.”
IG isn’t anachronistic though, and he’s quite happy to use the Internet to link up with like-minded artists across the Atlantic. New possibilities and opportunities are always to be embraced, and as the world gets smaller, it seems the same issues affect us all, as the sample of a newsreader on the track ‘Core Exit’ demonstrates.
IG Culture has been releasing music and albums since the early 90’s - that’s over two decades of craft under his belt. He’s no stranger to anyone familiar with groups like New Sector Movements and Quango, a multitude of hip hop and broken beat projects and labels like Mainsqueeze. IG’s blend is about more than the craft though. It’s about why music is important to society, and why we’re moved by it.
Soulful Shanghai is a continuation of jazz and the civil rights of Black Jazz and Strata East. It’s a continuation of the spiritual funk of the Mizell brothers and the spoken word of Gil Scott Heron. It’s a descendant of hip hop and the resistance of the Zulu Nation, a distant cousin of techno and Juan Atkins’ deep space explorations. “Soulful shanghai is a place you navigate, hopefully you find It somehow,” IG concludes. Keep on searching.
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