July 22nd, 2010 by niwa | posted in albums, beats, download, downtempo, electronic, free music, funk, jazz, review, triphop | no comments »
For more than 5 long years he was one of my IRC counterparts, chatting away deep into the night, discussing everything from school and relationships to politics and drugs. And ofcourse we swapped music, loads of it. Our own tracks and WIP’s, but also anything we thought was worth listening to and spreading to others.
Suddenly changes occured, almost simultaneously. We hit our 20s, MP3 encoding became popular, old-fashioned tracker applications were replaced with midi sequencers and with the emergance of broadband internet the PC/Amiga music scene died and was reborn in the form of netlabels. I’ve never spoken to him anymore and only rarely did his name pop up on the net. People fade away, thus is life and it’s quite possible he’s forgotten all about me and the other online guys. But I have something better than pictures to remember him by: I’ve got his music.
As he and I once did over a decade ago, I now share music with you on this blog. And it doesn’t seem more than fair that I share his music with you. This is Vae a.k.a. Aleksi Virta with “Meets Torsti At The Space Lounge”.
Now Vae wasn’t revered for his skillz in a tracker as much as he was praised for his ability to put just the correct samples and grooves together in any DAW to create something incredible, a fact which is evident on this little 35 minute album which was released through Monotonik.
The ‘Outer Edge Intro’ immediately sets the tone for the album. Spaced out dubby fx, percussion and groovy drums are accompanied with a freaked-out cinematic vocal bit. ‘Nebulae Herb’ continues on the same tip, doing it’s name justice by adding a badass Hammond-like groove and a 60s space-age synth solo. If you listen closely you can hear how a wild cut-up ‘Next Level remix‘ by Show & A.G. forms the basis for this track. Crazy!
Exiting the Nebulae we find ourselves on a beach reminiscent of the Caribbean, apart from the fact that we’re on Mars. Imagine a band playing their organs and Hohners in the red sands to a Southern-American groove. When you’re done slowly swaying your hips, the ‘Gavrila Nebula’ interlude prepares you for the insane jazzyness of ‘The Giant Catch 22′. Easily a candidate for Mark Farina’s “Mushroom Jazz” compilations, this hardcore 90s instrumental hiphop track has it all: walking basslines, jazzy rides, thick beats and harsh piano hits.
After this we’re up for some serious dub (without the stepping) on “Whirlwind Pistols Dub”. Grab your dreadlock-wig from the top shelf and toke up, it’s 4:20. More instrumentalism and short solo’s on this bass-heavy track. Irie! Irie Daily! But it isn’t until Vae goes total latin on “O Tema De Viagem Especial” that he presents his grandeur. Shakers, guitars, horns, organs, drumfills, flute, xylophone, everything is just there. When you’re just getting fired up he throws in a massive funk drumbreak to totally break you loose.
With the ‘Art Of Far’ interlude Aleksi exits the party and ventures back into space, showing off some drum programming that the stutter-boys that are now hype would be jealous of. It’s just a little taste to get us in the mood for the final track, but we’re not there yet. First ‘Dragons’ must be slain on a bombastic breakbeat track which would be in A. Skillz’s top 10 if he ever heard it. If there’s another remake of Shaft, this will be the soundtrack to a heavy fighting scene.
Being almost near the end of the space journey, Vae goes DJ Krush on ‘True Dwelling Place’. Raw beats, heavy bassline and abstract pads are key. Add a little sound fx here and there and it’s done. ‘Princess Melodiae’ sounds like the title reads: beautiful but dangerous. Starting off with moody melodics the track suddenly transforms into a beat and sample mash-up that could fit perfectly in a Flying Lotus set. At the moment you’re comfortably set in that groove, the beast is unleashed and out comes a dark hard synthy breakbeat ending. Going out with a bang was never so true.
You can get the separate tracks at archive.org or download everything in the pack I’ve uploaded at MegaUpload (link updated) or zShare.
As added bonus you can check out an interview with Vae at Imaginary Planet and listen to/download a rework I did of his 2000 track ‘Beige Amme’ below.
Vae – Beige Amme (What’s That In My Sink remix)
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
RSS feed