Forget head-nodding because this is just off. Not just off the grid but off everything, like catching an eel in a barrel. Synth, bleeps, bass, drums, it’s all just bouncing off the walls on “Brun” for 30 minutes. Actually I can’t really say anything more about it than that it’s kinda like what psychedelic was for rock music, but for beats. Sortof…

If you like freaked-out beats with weird synths and samples you should try it. And even if you don’t like that you should try it anyway, even if it’s only to help me figure out if this guy is borderline genius or just plain out of his mind.

Get it for free at Bandcamp.

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)

So you like Flying Lotus, Take, Nosaj Thing, Floating Points, Dorian Concept, Daedelus, Gaslamp Killer, etc etc etc? Then you probably have already seen them live. Ofcourse that’s a blast, but wouldn’t some new names spice up the line-up of your favourite festival? Then enjoy the video’s below, download “Forget And Remember” and buy “Polyshufflez” plus the remix album. When you’re done with that, show CF some love and hassle your (local) organisers to book this guy. Madness!

Can’t really say much about this collection. It’s SirOJ, it’s a beattape, it’s chill. By now you probably know what to expect from the Slumgillion producer: minimal beats, good grooves, laidback samples and complementary synthwork.

Ok that may sound a bit boring, which this release definitely isn’t. It’s kind of an after hours space-age lounge collection throughout, with a couple of sparkling gems on it. Ranging from jazzy beats to futuristic electronics, you’ve got an hour of really decent music in 30 tracks. My personal favorites are the more downtempo’ish tracks like The Doks, Zwart ~Wit and Who’s Bringin’ It Back.

There’s a small downside to this pack, some MP3’s are in pretty low quality and the volume between tracks varies from time to time. Still, it’s free!

Check out some of the beats below (courtesy of Blunt Guts Nation) and download “Vibe Out” through zShare.

Siroj – baby dork – vibe out by BluntGutsNation

Siroj – 204 – vibeout by BluntGutsNation

Sir oj – thirty two – vibe out by BluntGutsNation

That sparked your interest, but you’re not ready to spend your hard earned cash yet? Well you’re in luck, because Suff has a nice collection of remixes online for free, called “Suff Refills”.

The Refills is 45mins of pure Suffness, only this time he’s put acapella’s of your (mostly US) favorite artists on top of his sample-heavy drums. Whether it’s chilled-out mood’ism, heavy boom-bap or über-funky disco tracks, Daddy matches his beats to the vocals like it’s nothing. A must-have for hip-hop heads and beat-dj’s!

Tracklist:
01 – Slum Village – Look Of Love Refill
02 – Suff Daddy & Morlockk Dilemma – Ich Trinke
03 – The Alkaholics feat. Diamond D – Next Level Refill
04 – Guilty Simpson – Before The Verdict Refill
05 – Dabrye feat. J Dilla & Phat Kat – Game Over Refill
06 – Suff Daddy & Fleur Earth – Wasichloswerdenwollte
07 – Notorious B.I.G – Big Poppa Refill Instrumental
08 – Erykah Badu – Honey Refill
09 – Phat Kat feat. Guilty Simpson – Nightmare Refill
10 – D3CCPT feat. Guilty Simpson – Psycho Refill
11 – Notorious B.I.G – Nasty Boy Refill
12 – Fleur Earth feat. Frank Nitt – Changes Refill
13 – The Alkaholiks – Hip Hop Drunkies Refill
14 – Morlockk Dilemma – Unterwegs Refill
15 -Audio 88 & Yassin feat. Morlockk Dilemma – Isolation Refill

Check out track 13 below and get the 320kbps MP3 package at Suff Daddy’s Bandcamp.

Hip Hop Drunkies (Suff Edit) by Suff Daddy

The first EP (”19/76″) that Crookram released on Budabeats back in 2008 was met with open arms in the downtempo scene because of the perfect in-style feel and melancholic atmosphere. Two year later he returns with 19 tracks to show us downtempo isn’t only not dead, it’s actually in damn good shape! Let’s do some quick highlights here of the album that came out on Budabeats as well as Bankrupt Recordings.

The album starts off with an oldschool ‘who am I and what do I do’ intro. A dope beath with a bunch of rap vocals scratched on it. Da Crook still brags and boasts and follows with ‘Crookrilla’, one of his sample-laden breakbeat tracks that Wax Tailor would be proud of.
Next up on the menu are ‘Breakadawn’ and ‘Missione Pericolosa’, two steady 90bpm groove tracks. Dope cinematic vibes with straight drums is the recipe. ‘Bij De Rest’ also features these ingredients but because of the dusty Dutch sample (nice find bro!) it has kind of an early Spinvis vibe.

Speaking about nice finds, ‘Please Get Out Of The New One If You Can’t Blend The Ancient’ is a beautiful and funny interlude. It almost seems like a message to all the young kids out there making hip beats without researching their predecessors (my words, not Crookram’s!). The title track ‘Through Windows’ and ‘Two Seven Three Eleven’ continue the downtempo stream that’s ideal for a sunsplashed sunday morning. It’s the perfect build-up to ‘Good Morning Good Days’, an interlude which welcomes you to the more uptempo track ‘Makedonija’.

After this happy segment it’s back to cinematic moodyness with ‘Your Eyes Are Full Of Hate’, ‘Bodies’ and ‘Badalamenti’, an eastern Europe influenced track in which Crookram shows us he’s capable of more than simple breaks and boom-bap drums. ‘A Man Named Ivan’ continues the exotic sample-trip before getting back to straight funk on ‘Business Is Business’ and ‘Eugène Et Le Cerceau’, which are more minimalistic and reminds me of the Belgian loop-cutters 40 Winks.

Ending the album in style, the last 3 tracks take us back to the Crookram we know from “19/76″. Dragging movie styled sampled accompanied by robust beats. A perfect goodbye and ’till next time that makes you lunge for the repeat button before the final track is over.

On “Through Windows” Crookram not only shows us his growth as a producer, but also that regular downtempo music isn’t dead and the pile of old records to sample from is still not depleted. As much as I love our new erratic stuttering synthy counterpart, I’m filing this release as a classic without a single doubt.

Check out the intro track below and download the album at Budabeats or Bankrupt Recordings (direct links).

crookram-back to school by budabeats

update: The Dutchies can check an interview with Crookram at 3voor12. And here’s a video of the track ‘Through Windows’

When I tried to describe the album to a friend last week, I couldn’t come up with anything else than ‘emotionally beautiful’. Now that I’ve had some time to let it sink in I’d say it sounds like Ugress meets Glitch Mob with the moodyness of Aphilas.

“Passing By Behind Your Eyes” is a very consistant album and it represents all aspects of modern music production: synthwork, sampling, drum programming and extensive composition. In stead of taking the more minimalistic approach, as a lot of hip producers do nowadays, Pretty Lights takes the complete opposite route and delivers a very layered and cinematic sound while still keeping a raw and fast-paced dancefloor edge. Don’t expect no 2-minute looped beats either, every track has a strong build-up and varied composition.

Throughout the album the workflow seems pretty straight-forward. There are groovy tight drums with a layer of nice and moody samples, which forms the froundwork for the melodic synths that are placed on top. Since the sampling isn’t the main focus but an equally important part as the rest of the composition, even the most purist sample-heads can’t front on the usage of a couple of well-known tracks (I just love how he flipped “Stretch – Why Did You Do It” on the 8th track “Let Em Know It’s Time To Go”).

Next to offering a load of releases online for free Pretty Lights also play live in a 2-man combination. Check out the video below (which is of the track with the Stretch sample)

It’s 11am, over 30 degrees celcius outside already and I’ve been rocking “Yello-21″ since I rolled out of bed about an hour ago. So that’s over 3 times in a row already.  Ba has a really nice blend of bobbin’ hip-hop beats, laid-back samples and lovely synths. All this is packed in a more analogue sound than most of the new beats that are coming out nowadays.

There’s not one track on this little gem that oozes any kind of darkness. The release is made up of a couple of full-length tracks accompanied with 1-min shortbeats, and everything just feels like a good hot summer’s day. You got sample-heavy tracks on one hand (’Intro’ and ‘Just Now’), and groovy synthloops (’Giant Clock’ and ‘Meditation’) on the other. Put this end-80bpm pack on your mp3-player, break out the speakers, grab some beers and get your ass down to the park!

Check out the intro track below, and download the soulful pack at Bandcamp for free!

Intro (Africa Get Down) by Bagir-Ba

-Track choice: Awesome
-Mixing: Awesome
-In-between-track EQ’ing: Awesome

In other words, this mix of instrumental raw electronic beat tracks is simply tight. Pound says he’s been spinnin’ since ‘94 and everything is done on turntables, which is something I know a lot of people still think highly of. No disrespect to laptop-only people (I’m one of those myself), but seeing someone rock the 1’s and 2’s properly still gets me amped.

If you’re into stomping beats and buzzsaw synths, this mix is for you!

Tracklist:

1 – (intro)Too $hort – Keep Bouncin
2 – Mono / Poly – Punch the Troll In the Neck
3 – Saadiq – Vienna
4 – Herrmutt Lobby – Rock the Bell
5 – KenLo Craqnuques – Boiling light
6 – Tayreeb – Da Punk RMX
7 – Herrmutt Lobby – Fat Manual
8 – Akira Kiteshi – Boom n Pow
9 – Simo – World
10 – Devon – Mystery Box
11 – Robot Koch – Death Star Droid
12 – edIT – The Game Is Not Over
13 – Mono / Poly – The Beatles
14 – Boreta – Bubblin the Cut
15 – KenLo Craqnuques – Grasmaigre
16 – Cupp Cave – Frozen Beet
17 – The Clonius – Fogged Spacesuit
18 – Slugabed – 1ofus
19 – Fine Cut Bodies – Beaver Blink
20 – Hudson Mohawke – Unknown
21 – Mono / Poly – MS-14
22 – Hudson Mohawke – Oversized Pencil Break
23 – Mono / Poly – Ground Beef
24 – Gritboys – Freesh!!! (Radio Edit)
25 – Slugabed – Help I’ve Fallen Down A Well
26 – Herrmutt Lobby – Lessevicesavielsalm
27 – Leigon Of Two – And Now We Wait
28 – Appleblim – Within
29 – 16Bit – Swine Flu
30 – Propa Tingz ft Dakini – Babylons Scared 16Bit Rmx
31 – Mono / Poly – Sping Crossings

Download it through Rapidshare or Mediafire.

DJ Pound has more stuff for free at his Bandcamp profile,  and you can also connect with him on Twitter or Facebook.

Simon Amon (of Bathtub Piracy Recordings) teams up with Fret Hinge (the 2 men behind the boards of The Fringe, get it, get it?) and together they’ve made this incredible funky & sexy track called “Afrodisiacting”. I was pleasantly surprised because a) I had no idea Simon could sing like this, and b) I recall the production for The Fringe to be a bit more harsh and electronic.

The drum-heavy and bassline driven track is the perfect set up for Simon’s smooth vocals. The production and harmonies are plainly awesome. Broad enough to evoke an emotional response, and not too overdone that it gets a too slick rnb feel.
While the remix by Ebokai is in a total different form, bouncing simplistic beats and straight-up electronics, it’s just as sexy and groovy as the original. With the pitched-up vocals, chicago bassline and house-stabs it’s a straight-up dancefloor killer.

You can check out the tracks below, or download the package here.

Simon Amon x Fret Hinge – Afrodisiacting by Simon Amon x Fret Hinge

Simon Amon x Fret Hinge – Afrodisiacting (RMX by Ebokai) by Simon Amon x Fret Hinge