The Noodleman - Reggae Sounds 10" (BSTRD BOOTS)
Conch Records
UPCOMING: RZA - Presents Shaolin Soul Selection 3LP (SOUL TEMPLE)
Due out very soon, to pre-order please contact us at info@conch.co.nz
Dug out from the archives of Stax Records, this collection of deep soul has been personally curated by The RZA himself. Containing heavy cuts from such legends as Isaac Hayes, Booker T & The MGs, Albert King, The Emotions, and many more, it’s not hard to see the genius and ideas these songs and artists inspire, and their influence on the very history of The Wu-Tang Clan. A pinnacle as both a compilation of classic soul music, and a must-have for any Wu-Tang completionist, this is an LP set not to be missed. Legendary soul from the vaults of Stax Records that inspired the classic sound of The Wu-Tang Clan SIDE A: 1. The Mad Lads - I Forgot To Be Your Lover 2. Isaac Hayes - Joy 3. The Dramatics - In The Rain SIDE B: 1. I Could Never Be Happy 2. The Soul Children - Don’t Take My Kindness For Weakness 3. David Porter - I’m Afraid The Masquerade Is Over 4. Booker T & The MGs - Sing A Simple Song 5. Little Milton - Packed Up & Took My Mind SIDE C: 1. 24-Carat Black - Poverty’s Paradise 2. Albert King - I’ll Play The Blues For You 3. The Sweet Inspirations - All It Takes Is You & Me 4. The Emotions - As Long As I’ve Got You SIDE D: 1. William Bell - I Forgot To Be Your Lover 2. Isaac Hayes - Ike’s Mood #1 3. The Soul Children - Move Over 4. David Porter - Hang On Sloopy SIDE E: 1. Johnnie Taylor - Steal Away 2. Albert King - Cold Feet 3. The Sweet Inspirations - Why Marry 4. The Emotions - I Like It SIDE F: 1. Mel & Tim - Keep The Faith 2. Isaac Hayes - Walk On By 3. Booker T & The MGs - LA Jazz Song 4. Judy Clay - Children, Don’t Get WearyDJ Adlib - Tofu & Alter EP 12" (MELTING POT MUSIC)
Available Here
Tofu is the white cat on the front cover, Alter is the spotty one on the back. Both share their crib with DJ Adlib who is extending his Hi-Hat Club record "Haus & Garten" with this EP. "Tofu & Alter" assembles six remixes by Dexter, James Pants, Julian Dyne, TBRCK, Danny Breaks and Adlib himself. Featuring Declaime, Black Spade, Frank Nitt, The Primeridian, Panet Asia and Adi Dick on vocals. Robert Winter did the photos and Chicken George the artwork.
Track List & Soundclips:
| 01 | Been Around The World feat. Declaime (Julien Dyne Remix) | clip | ||||
| 02 | Wine feat. Black Spade & The Primeridian (DJ Adlib & TBRCK Remix) | clip | ||||
| 03 | Streets feat. Planet Asia (Dexter Remix) | clip | ||||
| 04 | Bang It Out feat. Frank Nitty (James Pants TW3 Mix) | clip | ||||
| 05 | Lordamercy (Danny Breaks Remix) | clip | ||||
| 06 | Uschi feat. Adi Dick (DJ Adlib Remix) | clip |
UPCOMING: K-Def - One Man Band LP (REDEFINITION)
Due out soon, to pre-order please contact us at info@conch.co.nz
Side A 1. Funky Fridays 2. Dark Soul 3. I'M Chillin 4. Touching Realness 5. Street Jazz Side B 1. Ghetto'S Groove 2. Soul Paper 3. K Comes Thru 4. Nj Dodgers 5. Lovely Woman 6. Watching The Clouds 7. I Seen A Blind Bat (Bonus) / All Songs Produced, Mixed And Mastered By K-Def /
The phrase "producer's producer" gets thrown around in the world of music and, quite candidly, it’s a very nebulous phrase and one difficult to accurately describe. We hear other producers mention a specific producer as inspiration, but they are never asked to further embellish what the phrase means. It’s like being asked to describe the color of water in ten words or less -not easily accomplished, but assumed everyone can do it.
K-Def’s latest endeavor on Redefinition Records, One Man Band, continues his self-reinvention combining software with his impeccable ear for music to craft –or re-craft- many familiar records using his signature style. Stevie Wonder, A Tribe Called Quest, and 24-Carat Black, to name a few, receive a face-lift while still remaining true to the original sound that forms the genesis of this project. The concept is simple: giving classic records an updated feel for new audiences to enjoy and appreciate them. K-Def is not flipping the same samples or replaying the notes and chords in a mimicking fashion as the originals, but recreating and re-interpolating them with live, unsampled sounds, which he has been honing for years now. K is producing other producer’s records and, in turn, putting his special touch on it. He is taking the art of digging and music appreciation and applying it to the world of software by using technology for our audio delight. The intricacy of each record oozes with care and an attention to detail that becomes immediately apparent with the initial bars of the first song.
Herein lies the simple genius that makes K-Def a “producer’s producer.” The years spent crafting classics, listening to records, and absorbing sounds has allowed him to develop his own sonic tapestry, which is best exemplified here on this excellent record. He re-orchestrates another composer’s classic record and develops movements, crescendos, and transitions that would leave any music connoisseur grinning from ear-to-ear. “Funky Fridays” epitomizes the strides K-Def has made en route to remodeling his sound with the marriage of his production prowess and technology. This gem defines the project and raises the bar for other producers paying homage to those whose shoulders they now stand. Within K-Def’s boastful canon of hit records, “Funky Fridays” stands as an opus that deserves its rightful spot, if for nothing more than marking a new level in which he has successfully attained, daring to stretch the boundaries of Hip Hop music.
Words may never be able to accurately describe the phrase “producer’s producer” due to ambiguous nature of the verbiage, and maybe words were never meant to. However, K-Def’s One Man Band allows for a musical definition to fully emerge and take shape, transcending the verbal world and taking root in a sonic one. Here, our senses take over and allow the music to do what it was meant to do: live, breathe, and morph into something beyond explanation, a true redefinition.
FaltyDL - Hardcourage (NINJA TUNE)
Available here on CD, here on 2LP+MP3
Welcome if you will, to the coming of age of FaltyDL, AKA Drew Lustman. A producer who's already carved out a name as one of the most exciting talents to emerge in electronic music of late, he's released albums on Planet Mu, supported Radiohead (and topped Thom Yorke's office playlist,) as well as remixed the XX, Scuba and Mount Kimbie - to name but a few. He also has his own label, Blueberry Records, in collaboration with which Ninja Tune presents 'Hardcourage.'
'Hardcourage' is the NYC-based Lustman's masterpiece: an electronic opus inspired by love and crafted with renewed intent and dedication. Lustman often makes mention of attempting to channel the music in his head, to allow it to pour forth direct from his subconscious. In 'Hardcourage' it seems he's succeeded. The music here feels incredibly natural, the songs taking the most perfect of shapes, their emotive rise and swell both subtle and immensely powerful.
Halfway through making the album, Lustman fell in love - the object of his affections rapidly becoming his muse. He's been very lucky in more ways than one: 'Hardcourage' is full of uplift, energy and purpose - it genuinely feels like all the best parts of falling in love.
The album's opener 'Stay, I'm Changed' is much more than just a track that happens to come first, it genuinely opens the album, setting the tone and enticing the listener in to the self-contained world within. From its initially tentative, horn-like synths, it gradually grows in urgency, drama and emotional depth.
Second single 'She Sleeps' is the only vocal track on the album, featuring a brilliant, haunting turn from The Friendly Fires' Ed Macfarlane. The pair bonded over a shared love for garage music, (ironically, garage being the sound Falty has moved away from on the album.) The collaboration feels instinctive and inspired, two minds meeting to make a song with a purity and vulnerability not often found in electronic music.
‘Finally Some Shit/ The Rain Stopped’ feels like the blues lifting. Its pattering drums bring to mind rain against a windowpane, the driving bassline is like renewed resolve captured in music. ‘Hardcourage’ is about ‘when things are in Limbo and having the courage to carry on,’ says Lustman, and nowhere is that more in evidence than here.
The album’s first single ‘Straight and Arrow’ summarises the musical direction Lustman has taken with ‘Hardcourage.’ His move away from a US take on garage has resulted in a masterful brand of atmospheric, soul-drenched house and electronica. As you'd expect, Falty has applied as much vision to the album's close as he has its beginning. 'Bells' has a strong claim to be electronica's greatest love song. Like the clouds parting, the heart leaping, the world seeming to chime with happiness, it's the perfect end to the perfect declaration of love.
‘I didn't make this album with the intent of sharing all of it,’ Lustman has said. That’s obviously served him well. Luckily for us, share it he has.
Track List & Soundclips:
| 01 | Stay I'm Changed | clip | ||||
| 02 | She Sleeps | clip | ||||
| 03 | Straight & Arrow | clip | ||||
| 04 | Uncea | clip | ||||
| 05 | For Karme | clip | ||||
| 06 | Finally Some Shit / The Rain Stopped | clip | ||||
| 07 | Kenny Rolls One | clip | ||||
| 08 | Korben Dallas | clip | ||||
| 09 | Re Assimilate | clip | ||||
| 10 | Bells | clip |
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Drew Lustman aka FaltyDL was born and grew up in New Haven, Connecticut. It’s a place best known as the home of top Ivy League establishment Yale University. Other than that, Lustman explains “it’s a big ghetto.” The young Lustman found himself bouncing between these two worlds, not entirely comfortable in either. “i was a shitty student,” he explains. “I barely graduated, did a lot of drugs, and ended up in rehab at 16/17. Music was my way to get out of it.” He started off playing in jazz and rock bands, but by 19 he’d decided to go it alone and named himself FaltyDL.
There followed a few years of intensive music making interpersed with attempts to find a home for what he was making. Eventually Mike Paradinas of the legendary Planet Mu said he’d release the young producer’s records, “a huge moment,” Falty remembers. Shortly after, he relocated to New York and it was here that his musical career really took off. “My good friend Boxcutter advised me to the slow the BPM down to like 130BPM and was sending me a lot of garage-influenced stuff like Horsepower and El-B, and I started making "Love is a Liability."” Since then, Lustman has looked to expand and evolve his signature sound over two albums, an EP and three singles for the label. In addition, he has released an afrobeat-inspired 12”, “Mean Streets Pt 1” with Loefah’s Swamp81 label, a single on Ramp backed with a remix from Jamie XX and begun releasing collaborations with Machinedrum online. An in-demand remixer, he has made versions for the likes of Seun Kuti (Fela’s son), Mount Kimbie, The XX, Scuba, Photek, Anthony Shake Shakir and others. Recently he supported Radiohead in New York and topped Thom Yorke’s office playlist. In additon to all this, he set up his own label, Blueberry Records, named for both the fruit and the Blueberry Hill he used to climb near his grandmother’s house.
But if FaltyDL was known for his own twisting of the garage template (a music which had crossed the Atlantic, mutated, and now come back to be twisted again) his new music signals another change. “I've moved completely away from that sound,” he says. “Production-wise it’s the best thing I've ever done. It’s about getting sounds I hear out of my head onto the software/synths I’m writing on. Filtering through the sounds in my subconcious. This is the closest I've ever got." Partly the changes are down to that old black magic, love. Lustman met his girlfriend mid-way through the writing of the record (shortly after signing to that cupid amongst labels, Ninja Tune!) and she “became my muse. I didn't make this album with the intention of sharing all of it. Of course some of it, but most was made for one person in particular.” And, more than anything else, that honesty and intimacy shines through.
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