Creds

Segsy winter sounds. You, vino, the Mrs and dancing indoors.

This month is mix of glitch, jazz, garage rock, indie, hip-hop and folk.

Before I give a run down of the albums, I have to pay my respects to Guru, MC from Gang Starr, who sadly lost his fight with cancer. Gang Starr’s music was always original during an era when hip-hop was going through a wave of commercialisation and many rappers were churning out cliché, stereotypical rap to cater for the masses.

For me Gang Starr have always shared ranks with thought-led outfits such as A Tribe Called Quest, Public Enemy, Run DMC, Wu-Tang Clan, The Roots and The Beasties. Guru’s mellow rhymes were always complimented with DJ Premier’s grade-A production skills; distinctive jazz sampling made their sound as unique and recognizable as Dr. Dre’s whiney, west-coat, G-Funk backed beats.

Mass Appeal is a sample of Guru and Gang Starr’s finest:

The HD version is better for viewing.

From the old skool we move to the more contemporary sounds of edIT, a.k.a Edward Ma: an electric producer from L.A.

edIT’s album, Crying Over Pros for No Reason, is an ambient mix of electronic, down-tempo, hip-hop beats. Uniqueness is supplied by edIT’s signature injection of glitch: a form of digital scratching or creation of sound texture.

I love listening to this album whilst working or doing something that requires complete immersion. It’s beat pace is fast, whilst the ambient sampling is calming. Crying Over Pro’s for No Reason is not a new album, but it’s just appeared on my radar. It’s worth a listen and one my favourite tracks is Ltlp:

Moving away from hip-hop, I’ve been sampling a new delight that has come from Ninja Tune: Black Sands by Bonobo.

I was waiting for this album since December last year and I wasn’t let down; Black Sands made my holiday beach walks even more enjoyable. This latest Bonobo offering sounds less funky, but more gracious, melancholic and bold. A definite slow wake album, it’s the one you listen to on the tube, on the way to work. Strength giving, courageous symphonies:

From melancholy to revolt and metallic, hypnotic sounds. I’ve been listening to Nice Face’s Immer Etwas album, bought to us by Scared Bones Records.

Photo props: mbvmusic

This album shakes everything up and it’s a nice slice of garage rock that acts as contrast to everything else that I listen to. It’s grungy, punky, dark and some would say it’s not massively original, but I don’t think it’s trying to reinvent the wheel. It’s what you’d expect from good punk record: good thrashy rifts, some fuzz and shouting from a guy wearing a wife-beater.

It’s gained good reviews everywhere, so give it a whirl. My favourite track on the album is Situation Is Facing Utter Annihilation, what’s yours?

To end on lighter notes, two albums from Tru Thoughts have proved to be this month’s happy records: 4 by The Bamboos and Tru Thoughts’ Shapes 10:01.

“4” is textbook contemporary funk and it’s exactly what you would expect from The Bamboos. Over the last month this has become the album I cook to in the kitchen. Funky beats compliment the rhythms set by staple organ and brass across all tracks. Soulful vocals overlay the precise production on some tracks, whilst others are pure, unadulterated instrumentals.

Photo props: Groovysessions

And finally…

If you don’t buy any albums from Tru Thought’s solo artists I would strongly suggest the Shapes compilation as it provides a good sample of all the latest tracks from the entire Tru Thoughts crew.

Photo props: mp3passion

This recent edition of Shapes contains lots of influence from Azaxx, Qauntic, Lizzy Parks and Kylie Auldist. It’s quite a domestic album, but I would think that because I don’t normally favour compilations; nonetheless, tracks such as Tell it Like You Mean It (Quantic) have kept me pleasantly distracted due to experimental, but effective mixing of Latin sounds with electronic synths and beats.

More tips to come in June, but in the meantime let me know what’s made you tap your pen this month?

Is blip.fm slowly losing the battle?

I also started researching DJ Shadow, apparently he’s quite big in Poland — I had no idea!

Poszanowanie!

- Trip-Hop beats are just ace
- Reportage style photos on all the album covers that look like they’ve been taken with a rangefinder or some old Kodak Chrome
- Retro typeface used for his logo

Hear him on all of the usual suspects, Lastfm et al.

Everything from UE, SEO and good design have been addressed very well. I had my music downloaded to my desktop and uploaded to iTunes in next to no time.

Purchasing aside, I seriously recommend all offerings from Nasha Records.

Also those of you who are into eastern electro are probably no strangers to Chase and Status and their track Eastern Jam. Did you know the original hindi sample was taken from a song on the soundtrack of Devdas, a very popular Bollywood movie? Found that out this weekend, pointless trivia I know.

Hectic!

Not too long ago I was watching a TV program about Freeganism and Freegans, it was a Cutting Edge style show, not quite sure what channel it was on. It got me thinking…

The web is turning people into Digital Freegans, people who use the webs’ free resources as alternatives to traditional paid for sources of information, entertainment and applications.
 
People often ask me about the longevity of social media. With so many brands jumping on the bandwagon, will social media end up on the pile of communication methods that people become dismissive of?
 
Brian Solis tweeted one of his findings recently: “Only 16% of consumers trust corporate blogs”, stats like these possibly support the sceptical question raised above. There are many brands embracing blogging, social media etc. The problem is they’re probably not “doing it right”, and they’re probably not working to deliver any value to the audiences or communities they wish to interact with.
 
I believe we’re heading towards to the second evolution in social media/marketing, the most helpful brands are the ones that will carry on growing. Everyone in the social media business, at some same stage probably talks to their clients about delivering value exchanges and listening to audiences. I think there’s another magic ingredient that should be added to the mix, it’s called innovation!
 
Not only should brands be working hard to deliver value to the public, they should also be working to deliver value in the most innovative way possible. In time this will mean going beyond blogging and actually delivering personal B2C responses via mediums such as video, and this is where platforms like Seesmic deliver real beneficial functionality.
 
With so much useful content available on the web, the successful brands appear to be the ones that have taken an extra step forward and delivered value in innovative ways.
 
Take for example Gary Vaynerchucks’ Wine library TV, it was one of the first blogs of its kind and even now with so many wine review websites, forms, blogs and TV shows it is still as popular as ever.
 
His success can be accredited to his full length, online TV shows, which are all free to watch (true freegan feast) and secondly his content delivery is innovative in comparison to other wine review shows.
 
He makes wine accessible and easy to understand through his style of presenting. Let’s face it we’re all normally use to out of touch, snoty characters who keep droning on about the South of France, Gary changes all this with informal style of presenting and humour.  

So…whilst it is important to build relationships with key influencers and interest led communities, it is also important to provide something for the growing number “Digital Freegans” who occasionally may require something that a brand could deliver, thus making that initial connection.

The Audio Freegans

  
The music industry and its artists claim that they have been the victims of music piracy and attribute this to declines in financial growth.
 
What they call piracy should be seen as digital freeganism, which empowers the consumer. P2P exchanges and bitorrent websites have given people limitless access to music they have never had.
 
This movement has turned people into more informed music critics, that are more likely to invest further into quality artists. We’re heading towards an era where an artist can no-longer release an album with two good songs and fill the rest of the album up with crap! Sorry to be blunt it’s just the way it is. With so much good music freely accessible, nobody in their right mind will continue to pay for mediocre material.
 
If people are downloading music for free, the next most profitable revenue stream for the music industry resides with live performances, merchandise, special edition TV appearances and guest journalism. In order for these opportunities to arise artists need to turn themselves into brands.
 
This movement will require some give and take, artists and labels and will need to become more lenient towards downloading and see it as a brand building activity, which allows people to become more familiar with them. By feeding the freeganism, or at least not trying to stamp it out, artists can aid efforts of gradually turning themselves into brands with multiple revenue streams.

I’ve stumbled upon Mac DJAY, easy to use DJ software for Mac OSX. It is very cool indeed as it imports all your music from iTunes and lets you record your own mixes.

The software easy to use for amateurs (like me) and it has features for the pro’s too. I sense a few house parties brewing!