Loefah Mix On Rinse FM

THIS [rightclickandsave]Instra:mental show off Rinse features a great mix from Loefah. Starts at about 41 minutes into the show. Tracklist =

footcrab vip - addison groove (dub)
tc - kryptic minds (dub)
tired light - instra:mental (darkestral)
beacon - ramadanman (dub)
claptrap - joe (hessle)
level crossing - joe (hessle)
tweaked - shortstuff - (dub)
IRL - girl unit -(night slugs)
work doc - addison groove (dub)
work it - addison groove (swamp 81)
hot raw sex - jimmy edger/instra:mental rmx (?)
battle scene - addison groove (dub)
sexual - addison groove (swamp 81)
woo vs glut - sx x ramadanman (dub)
work them - ramadanman (swamp 81)
glut - ramadanman (hemlock)
fall short - ramadanman (swamp 81)
tempest - ramadanman (hemlock)
Because You - faltyDL (panet mu)
night hunter - fis t (serial 502)

Got to take your hat off to Loefah, Swamp 81 is a great label both in terms of its music and look:



I would like to see Loe DJing again after hearing this mix, can imagine the drums absolutely pounding and the little samples triggering crowd ''RAYYYYY''s like nobody's business. Stand outs for me so far: Girl Unit ''Irl'' (those evil sounding synths), Addison Groove ''Sexual'' (little rhodes line that reminds me of super mario or sonic or something - SOMETHING sexual, anyway) and ''Work Them'' vs. ''Woo''. You can see the connection between Woo riddim and what Loefah used to do very easily. Most of the music on this mix is nothing like the half-step Loefah has always been so associated with (on account of making the best half step tunes around for a couple of years), and has quite a different feel to doomy mooded classics like ''Mud'' and ''Ruffage''. But actually, again, the links are clear - minimalist bass and beats with a sprinkling of vocal samples (from US hip-hop) makes up a large part of the mix. Almost like mid-late 80's style boom-bap beats have given way to the spiralling madness of electro/hip-house and all that stuff that led to bleep-n-bass/hardcore/jungle. Not making a direct comparison but... Anyway, good stuff. Big ups to Hessle Audio, Night Slugs and Hemlock putting out this kind of stuff. It's pretty ''tracky'' stuff I suppose, can imagine it being used for mixing in a similar way to jacking house/techno.

Apparently Loefah dropped this tune at DMZ, which makes me want to see him even more:

Beyonce - Video Phone [Extended Remix] ft Lady GaGa - Music Video Online

Yeah I know - Beyonce and Lady Gaga. But honestly, it won't make you want to wank with a cheese grater (the video will make you want to do something nasty to some swiss cheese though). The beat is by Bangladesh, who also produced ''A Milli''. I'll have a look at some of his other tunes and post up anything decent on here maybe.

P.S.

Optimum has alerted me to Bangladesh being behind this certified club banger



So I had to post it up.

R.I.P. Baatin

Was in Amsterdam last weekend and caught Benji B and Pharoah Monch in Oosterpark. Good news for Pharoah fans - he's doing his new album entirely with Alchemist. Very Bad news about Baatin, though. A tragic end to a (sometimes) tragic life - apparently he had schizophrenia and was living on the streets for a year or so before he was welcomed back into the Slum Village fold very recently. I think 'Cloud Nine' was probably Baatin's (as well as S.V's) comeback single.

I thought/think that 'Cloud Nine' could have blown up this summer, a summer sunburst of clattering cymbals and toms, soulful harmonies, mournful brass and joyous piano, not to mention a performance by S.V themselves (T3, Elzhi and Baatin, if I'm not mistaken?) full of an appropriate energy and swagger (not to mention quotables for days (''frontin' like they diamonds when they cubic zirconias'', for example). The MCs on 'Cloud Nine' exhibit the same quality that made them so perfect for Dilla's sultry, thumping, hypnotic beats on 'Fantastic' vol. 1 and 2 - the ability to FIT in with the beat, an innate understanding of the rhythmic role a rapper plays over a particular rhythm. All those little pauses and breaths and hiccupy stop/starts on the Dilla stuff, and the almost incantatory chanting and back and forth interplay between the MCs - these intimately replicated the stuttering, syncopated swing of Dilla's beats, their hypnotic bump, the misty/foggy quality of the samples. And on 'Cloud Nine', while the replication of rhythm is largely restricted to the characteristic 'thinkin' bout ya, thinkin' bout ya', the delivery is all excitement and enthusiasm, quite dissimilar from the majority of S.V. material I've heard, and fitting the concept of being high on love (for a girl/for music...) to a tee.

Now, you could hardly say that S.V. were the best lyricists in Hip-Hop (not that their lyrics were BAD), but in an underground where obsession with lyrical content often makes people forget the importance of voice/flow (that's 'flow' not in the sense of thousands of multisyllabic words, though that can fall under it), Slum Village's best work is a potent reminder of the voice as rhythmic instrument. It is this characteristic of their music which, along with Dilla's boom-bap + filtered jazz-loops, that made them the heir to ATCQ in a lot of people's eyes/ears. Listening to 'Cloud Nine' it seems obvious to me that there was life after Dilla for them, and presumably there'll be life after Baatin for them too... but still, R.I.P.

Thinking of doing a top 20 favourite dilla beats in the future, but not sure about it. For now, look out for Slum Village's new album 'Villa Manifesto' (22nd September) and DL 'Cloud Nine' legally so my dream of predicting a shock summer hit can come about 3 downloads closer to a reality!