August 30th, 2010 by niwa | posted in albums, beats, download, downtempo, free music, funk, hiphop, jazz, release, soul | no comments »

With all the DAW’s, plugins and cheap (2ndhand) hardware around, nowadays when you say you ‘make music’ people tend to expect your home to be filled with gear and computers. Well, less is still more and creativity often thrives better when faced with limitations than with endless possibilities. A fact that IV The Polymath (from Buffalo, NY) shows on his full-length release “Drum Machines Have No Soul” which was primarily made with 2 turntables and a sampler.

IV submitted his release through e-mail to us and, after checking his background info, I had my reservations when I read that he’d been a multi-instrumentalist (playing drums, bass, piano and guitar). When it comes to downtempo or instrumental hiphop I like it straight-up and rough, and a lot of multi-instrumentalists within the genre tend to focus more on the technical side of the music-making process in stead of just doing something that actually sounds good.

Ofcourse we listen to every submission we get from beginning to end, regardless of whether it’s fit for the site. It turns out that drum machines do have soul and IV knows how to squeeze it out of them. “Drum Machines Have No Soul” is an oldschool styled sample-driven downtempo release, disregarding every criteria coined by the new class of beats (it has to be madly shuffled, the sampled should be freakishly cut, side-chaining is a must, etc). It has the groove of 40 Winks, the looping feel of Sharpshooters and the soul of Bonobo.

Throw all these boom bap drums, breakbeats, lush samples, nice cuts and slick basslines together and you get a bonafide late-night chiller that takes you back to summer park nights in the late 90′s. You can get the release at Bandcamp for whatever price you see fit. If you do decide to actually buy it, keep in mind that 10% of your money will go to a good cause.

In the meanwhile, check out this vid of IV The Polymath doing a one-hand jam on his mpc:

August 27th, 2010 by niwa | posted in beats, download, electronic, free music, funk, jazz, release, soul | no comments »

It’s friday, almost 6pm and I bet every single one of you is counting the seconds ’till the weekend kicks in. What better way to get in the party vibe than with some…. disco?!? That’s right, I said it, disco. Ofcourse the 70′s have long gone and we’re already good on our way into the high-tech era, but that doesn’t mean we’re all electronic beings who only have 2 feelings: 1 and 0. We need love too, and Clause Four says that you can “Be The One”.

Brilliance and beauty are often disguised in simplicity but Clause Four takes no effort to hide those facets to us in his 5-track EP called “Be The One”. Apart from the 5th track which sounds like the Rah Band after a bad acid trip (gorgeous but scary), everything’s based on soulful disco. And I mean that in a good way.

What do you get when you take a couple of 70s dance tracks and loop/cut them heavily with some drums and synths on top? Bliss in the form of lush vocals, heavy bass, big snares and a groove that’ll kill the dancefloor straight. It’s got everything: synth stabs, slapped bass sounds and conga’s that’ll make Gloria Estefan jealous.

The title track ‘Be The One’ and ‘Can’t You See’ are but straight up disco, while ‘Come Back To Me’ is soulful and ‘Original Wackoff’ sounds like Daft Punk on downers.

Import the EP through Rush Hour or get the 192kbps mp3s for free. While you’re getting your Paypal right, check out ‘Be The One’ below.

CLAUSE FOUR Be the One by thenapking

August 24th, 2010 by niwa | posted in albums, beats, download, downtempo, free music, hiphop, jazz, soul, triphop | 1 comment »

Highpoint Lowlife Records released Depakote‘s 2nd album last week, called “The Gummo Album”. I’m writing this while I’m having my first listen, so let’s go!

Back to basics, that’s what “The Gummo Album” is, a collection of 19 under-3-minute instrumental beats that leans on hip hop’s golden era.  It kind of reminds me of the days the bedroom-producer’s weren’t lunging at the forefront much, and handed out beat-cd’s at concert to anyone who said he/she could rap. And listening to it from that point of view, I’m really enjoying it.

The thing that strikes me the most about this album are the cut up soulful loops. From beginning to end they all convey the same kind of feeling, something which can be a real bitch when you take all your samples from at least a dozen different 60s/70s records. I’m assuming the vocal cuts are taken from the movie “Gummo” (haven’t seen it in years), and they make up for really nice intro’s.

For more than 75 percent of the tracks you could easily say they’re hiphop that’s nudging downtempo. To the end of the release it gets a bit more electronic and experimental, and the whole thing starts and ends with sound collage’ish treats.

Although the album is pretty solid, it does have a couple of downsides. Soundwise, the mix between drums and samples is nice, but the overall feel is a bit damp. It comes close to that gritty sampled sound that guys like Suff Daddy and Onra have, but it’s just not there. As for the drums, the sampled loops are pretty groovy but the drum programming lacks a bit of swing. For some part that’s a matter of taste, but it tends to get a bit tedious after 15 minutes. The more experimental tracks near the end of the album are very promising, but just don’t do it for me.

In conclusion, “Gummo” is an album that can compete with it’s peers, but it will rather take bronze than gold. One thing that’s for sure though is that you should keep Depakote in check, I’m expecting his next release to be big.

Get Depakote – The Gummo Album here.

August 21st, 2010 by niwa | posted in funk, jazz, soul, video | no comments »

Word.

August 18th, 2010 by niwa | posted in albums, beats, downtempo, electronic, hiphop, release, soul | no comments »

I thought I only knew Exile from his dope track on the 2007 “Artdontsleep” compilation, the album “Boy Meets World” which he produced for Fashawn and ofcourse Emanon. That thought was probably my biggest fail from this century because after checking his production array I realized I’ve got a shitload of album and EP’s he’s worked on.  His solo album “Radio” hasn’t been delivered yet, but I do have the 2010 remix-release called “Radio AM/FM”. And damn that’s wild!

ATTENTION! This album contains remixes and featurings by:

Samyiam – Free The Robots – Knxwledge – Take – Clutchy Hopkins – DJ Day – Take – Aloe Blacc – Blame One – Evidence – Muhsinah – Blu – Eligh & The Grouch – Fashawn and many more.

The roster of collaborations and remixes gives you exactly what you would expect from these names. Experimental beats, dope MC’s and vocalists and a lot of funny radio-excerpt intro’s to all tracks.  There’s soulful tracks like ‘Stay Here ft. Muhsinah’,  ‘So We Can Move ft. Coss & Aloe Blacc’ and ‘In Love (Milo1 remix)’. Abstract beat bangers are provided by Samyiam’s  and Free The Robots’ ‘Population Control’ remixes, and Take’s take on ‘Your Summer Song’. Ofcourse we can’t forget the complementary hip hop  gems: ‘Love Line ft. Blu’, ‘It’s Coming Down ft. Alchemist & Evidence’  and the ‘Mega Mix ft Fashawn, Blame One, Big Tone & ADaD’.

Oh and that 80′s synthfunk remix by Ruckazoid is just crazy! Can’t believe it’s a 2010 track.

If you’re familiar with Exile’s beats you know every track (even the remixes) is swinging, banging and grooving. I’m positive that this remix album will definitely make beat-lovers outside of the hiphop-scene highly aware of Exile. If they also recognize the roots of their other favorite artists, that’s just a nice extra: boom.. bap.. boom.. bap.

As an added bonus Dirty Science put up a bonus album of 320kbps remixes that didn’t make “AM/FM”. Talk about not wasting potential! Get the bonus album here.

It should be easy to find this album at your favorite (online) music dealer. While your browsing, check out Take‘s remix of ‘Your Summer Song’ and a little video of Exile doing his live beat-pounding

Exile- Summer Sun ( TAKE aka SWEATSON KLANK rmx) by TAKE