The first offering from DJ Shadow's Cali-Tex imprint in over 3 1/2 years features Dayton, Ohio's Stone Coal White. Perhaps the most underground act in a scene that was already vastly subterranean, bassist Melvin Payne, guitarist Tommy Mundy, and drummer Joey "Lobo" Rodrick released their sound from the deepest chasm of the black experience. Channeling Vietnam nightmares, grass, LSD, unhinged sexuality, poverty, and violence, Stone Coal White created a spiritual sound that was uniquely their own.
Some will recognize 'You Know' from the black-psych mix bible Chains & Black Exhaust, but as the group's two 45s exist in single digit quantities, only a handful have heard the rest of this Ho Chi Min City-damaged oeuvre. Their two 45s have been bolstered with four previously unissued tracks found in the basement of a now-condemned motorcycle gang hideout. Along with never before seen photos, this vastly unheard slice of gritty, hazed-out Ohio psych rock finally gets it's due beyond the cranked out bikers it was originally intended for.
Due out this August, to pre-order please contact us on info@conch.co.nz
It's been a long time coming….the inevitable Paul White Rap album! 4 years of carving out his own psychedelic (mainly instrumental) niche on the UK’s One Handed Music imprint, a lot of people have been asking when this was going to happen. Loaded with shining appearances from the cream of current underground MC’s, Guilty Simpson, Marv Won, Danny Brown, Tranqill (Ruling on one of Paul White’s rudest beats to date), Homeboy Sandman, Nancy Elizabeth, Moe Pope and the crown prince of UK Hip Hop, Jehst,. There are also plenty of whacked out instrumentals and skits to keep the beat-heds heady.
UK producer leads transatlantic talent on a freewheeling hip-hop adventure.
“We don’t know where we’re going but we sure make a lot of noise getting there!” - so goes the tongue-in-cheek opening to Rapping With Paul White, the gifted South Londoner’s first full-length vocal project. It’s another left turn after last year’s intriguing Paul White & The Purple Brain excursion into prog and psych-rock and deserves to establish its mastermind as one of the most versatile and individual producers working today.
Paul White first made his name with 2009’s instrumental opus The Strange Dreams of Paul White which led Diplo to declare “I’m his biggest fan” and The Independent to label him “a 21st century DJ Shadow”. While included in the ‘beats scene’ alongside Hudson Mohawke, Flying Lotus and others, Paul White’s hip-hop sensibility has always been at the forefront, which partly explains why his 2010 podcast for LA’s Stones Throw Records racked up 300,000 downloads in just a few weeks and alerted a new audience to the young Brit.
All this meant that assembling some of his favourite MCs was the easy part. Stones Throw artist Guilty Simpson appears twice, his grim warnings perfectly matching the sparse, brooding production on lead single Trust. Gap-toothed, mohawked Danny Brown is one of rap’s rising stars – a recent signing to A-Trak’s Fool’s Gold label, his lewd punchlines top White’s exuberant production on the not-safe-for-work One Of Life’s Pleasures. There’s humour in New Yorker Homeboy Sandman’s turn too, as one of hip-hop’s most likeable lyricists recounts his cultural missteps during a trip to London over a quintessential Paul White track.
It’s not all Americans on the mic: Jehst shows why he’s one of the UK’s most respected MCs on Indigo Glow, and One-Handed Music label mate Tranqill lays waste to Rotten Apples in the album’s grittiest moment. And how may hip-hop records feature a folk singer from Wigan, Nancy Elizabeth, laughing her way through a bizarre Edward Lear poem? There’s plenty for fans of Paul’s instrumental work too: from waltzing drum machines to medieval vocoders, the interludes are as compelling as the vocal tracks.
He might not “know where we’re going”, but with work commenced on projects with five of the artists featured here and a new live show in which he sings, plays keys, drums and drum machines alongside label mate Mo Kolours, it’s the “getting there” that’ll be worth watching...
Track List & Sound Clips:
As much spiritual adherents of black sounds as they were of black Islam, Father’s Children was born in the dirt and grime of Washington, D.C., and incubated in local producer Robert Hosea Williams’ less-than-immaculate suburban beltway garage. Hailing from the Adams-Morgan neighborhood, in 1973 Nick Smith, Billy Sumler, and Ted “Skeet” Carpenter created a lost document of gritty soul, concerned with its own time and place, stripped of the L.A. gloss that permeated the the group’s own 1979 “debut” for Mercury. Unreleased until now, Father’s Children’s true freshman offering is an amalgam of sunny vocal group harmonies, fuzzguitar solos, shimmering keys, bubbling percussion, spiritual prophecy, and dub experiments. Who’s Gonna Save The World gets the full Numero treatment, with extensive notes and scores of unpublished photos. Deluxe LP edition includes the bonus 45, “Linda Movement” b/w “Intellect” (the latter side not on the the CD).
If indeed "you blows who you is," as Louis Armstrong once famously said, then Stephen Bruner's bass is a mainline to the soul of a man whose DNA was transcribed from the stars onto staff paper. His Flying Lotus-produced debut, The Golden Age of Apocalypse, offers both stone-cold skill and uncanny astrality, picking up where the pair left off on 2010's Cosmogramma and further distilling the jazz current running through that landmark Lotus release. A longtime contributor to others' albums, Bruner, aka Thundercat, is accompanied by an impressive cast ranging from Erykah Badu to members of Sa-Ra and J*DaVeY, to pianist Austin Peralta and his own Grammy-winning brother, drummer Ronald Bruner, Jr. Still, the end result is unmistakably a Thundercat record -- a lush and magical document combining classic jazz fusion, futurist electronic strains and timeless musical seeking.
A native of South Los Angeles, Bruner found his instrument at the age of 4. That made him a late-bloomer in the house of Ronald, Sr., who drummed with the Temptations among others. His first bass was a black Harmony, and he practiced to the Ninja Turtles soundtrack until pops played him Jaco Pastorius. School was a blur of lessons, sessions and waking up for zero periods. At 15, he scored a hit in Germany as part of the short-lived boy band No Curfew. At 16, he toured Japan with soul man Leon Ware and joined thrash legends Suicidal Tendencies (he's still their bassist). More road and studio time followed, with everyone from Stanley Clarke to Snoop Dogg to Eric Benét. Eventually the name Thundercat stuck, a reference to the cartoon he's loved since childhood and an extension of Bruner's wide-eyed, vibrant, often superhuman approach to his craft. As one writer put it, he's "a mutant jazz cat," nuff said.
Spanning a cosmic stew of players, locations and times, The Golden Age of Apocalypse was years in the making even though Bruner had never planned on releasing his own music. But Lotus spurred him on, and each song became a journey. There's the ebullient "Daylight," a soft whirl of bluesy piano, New Age synth, snapping beats and warm bass. There's "Walkin'," an upbeat soul strutter powered by Bruner's digitally distorted plucks. There are raw, improvised numbers like "Jamboree" and virtuosic bass pileups like "Fleer Ultra." One of the album's most stunning moments arrives with a spacious cover of George Duke's "For Love I Come," a taut beauty spangled with crystalline harp and keys. Bringing this string of divinely unexpected moments to a moody and cinematic close is "Return to the Journey." There, Bruner sings, "Time will pass us by," but listeners needn't worry. Inside of this space, time really isn't a thing.
Tracklisting :
01. HooooooO
02. Daylight
03. Fleer Ultra
04. Is It Love?
05. For Love I Come
06. It Really Doesn't Matter to You
07. Jamboree
08. Boat Cruise
09. Seasons
10. Goldenboy
11. Walkin'
12. Mystery Machine (The Golden Age of Apocalypse)
13. Return to the Journey
Residing in the 16th District of Paris, Project Tempo is a mysterious duo of DJs with a passion for 80s funk, boogie and soul. The slo-mo, friendly vibe in their DJ sets led them to create a series of re-edits which, after appearing on some well respected DJ forums, have steadily gained momentum and support from a hugely diverse range of DJs. The king of the edit himself Greg Wilson, plus other big hitters in the disco scene like Ashley Beedle and Dimitri From Paris are among those who have shown their appreciation for the Project Tempo reworks and featured them in their DJ sets. Now Project Tempo material is available for the first time on VERY limited vinyl only release for demonstration purposes only. "Get Up And Clap Your Hands" chops up Gwen McCrae's early 80s boogie-soul anthem "Funky Sensation", creating something new and teasing for the dancefloor. On the flipside we have what sounds like the kings of mid 80s Brit-soul, Loose Ends, although with the "Rue 52" title, maybe it's Manchester's own 52nd Street.
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