-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.

“Both Full Crate & FS Green are producers who love to play music. Since there is so much music out there they like to select their favorites for you and yours on a monthly base and blend them in a lovely mix which is free to download because good music needs to be heard.”

Mixingmonthly brings you a fresh hiphop/beat infused mix every month, starting January 2008. So far that makes 12 sets of fresh new head-nodding tracks blended with some dope tracks of the last couple of years. The 2 Amsterdam producer/dj’s seem to blaze through a wide range of styles that are closely related to hiphop. Beats, breaks, rnb, neo-soul and boom-bap are all represented with ease in these cheerful mixes. Check out the tracklist of Mixing Decembuary for your (soon to be) favorite artists:

Dwele – Lady (Full Crate’s Clap Variation)
Leon King – Knowingness
Full Crate – She Was Fly Ft. Mar
Afta 1 – MPM 066
Slumgullion – Springers
Erykah Badu – Vibrate On
FS Green – BCK WRDS
Kelis – Millionaire Ft. Andre 3000
88 Keys – Stay Up Ft. Kanye West (Stoney Rock Remix)
FS Green – Up
Mayer Hawthorne – Just Ain’t Gonna Work (Astronote Remix)
Pacific Division – She
John (Dwele’s Son) – Beep Beep (Find Me)
Full Crate – Might Do (FS Green Remix)
Liquid Spirits – Closing Time (Duet)
Ali Shaheed Muhammad & The Foundation Band – Jam Session
Afta 1 – The Time In Between
Full Crate & FS Green – To The Floor
Grooveman Spot – Down To You Ft. Muhsina
Peter Hadar & Nicolay – Watermelon
Lizz Fields – All My Mistakes
Slumgullion – Favela
The Big Payback – New Worlds Ft. Reggie B.
Midas Hutch – Yes, No, Maybe (What’s Up?)
Q-Tip – Manwomanboogie

The cover artwork is supplied by Brian Elstak and Deluge, and the mixes are hosted by the omnipresent Nalden.

Get Mixing Decembuary here directly, and check out the site for the rest of the sets.

As you can see on the flyer the suspects of the evening will be

• Arts The Beatdoctor
• Atactic
• C-Mon (C-Mon & Kypski)
• theFringe
• Illvester
• Jae (ex-Stropstrikkers / Hof van Jaeden)
• John Sniffler
• Kapabel
• Kypski (C-Mon & Kypski)
• Kyteman
• Mike Mago
• Mseize
• Nicks
• Pax (ex-207, Illicit)
• perCeptie (of I.S.)
• Prace
• Randstad Rollaz
• Reazun (ex-207)
• $jammie The Money (Nobody Beats The Drum)
• Skiggy Rapz (Keynote Speakerz)
• Stabiel

Between the acts, Mseize will be the one mixing everything together. For an impression of last year’s party you can download the Utreg Centraal 4 mixtape here.

The event will start at 22:15 and the damage to get in is EUR 10,-. Not too shabby for such a line-up eh? Also, the visuals for the night will be done by Ramkraak.

I’ve got a personal sidenote on the event: Since I’m a beat-lover, I have totally no objection to more styles being represented at Utreg Centraal next to hiphop. But seeing some of the names on the line-up makes me wonder how far this will stretch in the following years.

Seeing as most of the Boemklatsch guys have switched over to the dance side I wonder whether they will play that, or break out their old hiphop records. And aren’t Randstad Rollaz a dubstep crew? That’s kinda far from hip hop if you ask me. The only thing I could find on John Sniffler is a link to a guy with that name being the Dutch Air Guitar champion…. hm.

Like I said, I have nothing against broadening your view in music and I love beats. But while hip hop is massively upfront in our money-infused society (mixtapes/sneakers/fashion), the music itself is being represented less and less and traded in for 1- or 2-year lasting hypes.

No matter what happens though, and although the site has only been up for 1 year, thebeats.nl crew has been in this game for over a decade and we’re keeping our ground. We embrace the past, the future, the progressions and the changes, but we acknowledge that we love the core of hip hop and we will not trade in that core for anything that’s hip right now.

Pfew, now that that’s out there.. let’s forget the politics on friday and have a blast!

Don’t confuse Tweed Prison Tapes with a mixtape, it’s more like one of those old blends you would make at home on your tapedeck, putting your favorite tracks of that period together. Some are blended, some are just put after each other.

Divided into 4 parts and laced with funny vocal excerpts, the Tapes combines stuttering beats with straight-forward boom-bap and freakishly harsh funk. After listening for a couple minutes you’d think ‘Nice shit.. although I’m missing MF Doom on these beats’, but that void is filled by some dope Dutch and English guest appearances: MT Vessel Steam Supreme, Benman The Bathtub Pirate, Foreign Beggars, Emcee Surya, Dr.Shoshi & Funk E-Technician.

Tweed Prison Tapes may sound chaotic at first, but it’s in fact just plain wild.

Get it here, and go here for more free music released under the Bathtub Piracy Recordings moniker.

It’s because I ran into Berlin-based DJ Synflood’s blog, on which he places a new mix every month. ‘So? There are a shitload of so-called DJ’s on the web that put their shit online, and most of the time it isn’t worth checking anyway‘. Yea that may be true, but did you check the tracklists? You should. This cat is mixing just about everything I’m writing about on this website, and he’s doing it real tight. Beats, hiphop, dubstep, house, everything that has a decent groove to chill out or get loose on. And it goes back to 2006! That’s 3 years times (almost) 12 mixes.

From Flying Lotus and Samyiam to Kenny Larkin, from Madlib and Rakim to Coki, you name it. If it has a dope beat, Synflood is gonna put it on.

So stop reading and start downloading. The mixes are available at the blog, more info can be gotten at his website, his podcast is here, and you can personally connect to Syn at myspace or soundcloud.

You can listen to, or download the sets for free at last.fm and soundcloud!

X-Bangers Set 1 by niwa

‘Indigo Club #443′ is a blend of all variations of downtempo, from steady sampled beats and hip hop to spaced out ambient’esque tracks. It’s a little bit on the eclectic side, so you might find some new unknown favourites in this mix!

The tracklist:

moosefrog – zero gravity container
cecil otter – down beast (instrumental)
aphilas – lifelong fiction
clutchy hopkins – 2:07
invincible – locusts (feat. finale, gwen mingo and ron scott)
hermitude – zacktor
40 winks – wise up
backgammon – ???
k-on – break through
tom caruana – cause for celebration
rino latina – next movie (feat. you the rock & g.k.maryan)
erik sumo – csillag vagy fecske

Get the mix here

Something I can’t hold back from you all is the David Axelrod interview that Solidsteel has put up online. As some (or most) of you know Axelrod is a legend in the game, mostly known for being sampled by well known (and lesser known) hiphop artist like DJ Shadow, Dr. Dre, Diamond, Black Sheep and most recently Lil Wayne (and the list goes on and on).

Solid Steel has put up an excellent interview online with a compilation of his work. On top of that Axelrod gives his vision on the songs and is telling various anecdotes about them.

Download the interview here.
Read about is here.

Tracklist:

Solid Steel – The David Axelrod Interview (1hr, 82MB)

1. David Axelrod – The Warning (Capitol)
2. David Mccallum – House Of Mirrors (Capitol)
3. Myriam Makeba – Quit It (Disque Esperance)
4. Art Tatum – Willow Weep For Me (Verve)
5. Lou Reed – Walk On The Wild Side (RCA)
6. David Axelrod – Holy Thursday (Capitol)
7. Black Sheep – Without A Doubt (Mercury)
8. DJ Shadow – Midnight In A Perfect World (Mo Wax)
9. David Axelrod – The Human Abstract (Capitol)
10. David McCallum – The Edge (Capitol)
11. Howard Roberts – Dirty Old Bossa Nova (Capitol)
12. Tribe Called Quest – Jam (Jive)
13. Howard Roberts – Gasoline Alley (Capitol)
14. Cannonball Adderley – Space Spiritual (Capitol)
15. Sly And The Family Stone – If You Want Me To Stay (Epic)
16. David Axelrod – Crystal Ball (Mo Wax)
17. The Electric Prunes – Holy Are You (Reprise)
18. David Axelrod – Jimmy T (Mo Wax)
19. David Rose – Main Title From Exodus (Capitol)
20. Lou Rawls – Life Time Monologue (Capitol)
21. David Axelrod – The Little Children (Mo Wax)

Axelrod recounted many stories from the music industry over the years, letting us in on his influences, favourite session musicians,
thoughts on his music being sampled and even revealing the fact that a film he scored was actually credited to another producer
(a fact we couldn’t reveal in the broadcast). When it came time to make some CDs, he photographed some of his collection relating to the
interview against his old stereogram and we had some suitably retro artwork.

While we’re on the Axelrod tip, check out the new Royce track which samples Axelrod’s the Smile:

Video: Royce Da 5′9″ – Shake This

As you’ve probably noticed at the end of vol. 1 I’m a Transformers freak, and I decided to incorporate that hobby with my first love: collecting and mixing records. I had never done anything like this before so it took a lot of time to get the concept really together. Here’s a little overview:

• Watch Transformers: The Movie (1986) and the series over and over again for soundclips
• Choosing the records. Since vol. 1 had mostly older jams I wanted to keep this one fresh with more recent tracks
• Getting the records for the originals
• Picking covers from old records and getting some fools to recreate them
• Making a design to use as CD-spray
• Getting the materials (CDs, trays, spraycans, cardboard, cover-prints etc)
• Folding the covers
• Spraying the CDs and numbering them

We got Joris Pol to do the photography and Rutger to finish it off in Photoshop. The end result looks like this:

Check this post for more info on the covers.

As for the mix, Inf did the intro track and our boy Qualitee gave us a beat for the outro. The mixing proces was a back-and-forth play between me and niwa, and he also helped out in putting the interludes together.

Tracklist:

01 skidz & inf – jam that transmission (intro)
02 www.thebeats.nl – farewell (interlude)
03 reef the lost cauze – give it up
04 wax tailor ft. voice – the games you play
05 ugk ft. talib kweli – real women
06 www.thebeats.nl – the leader (interlude)
07 prodigy – stuck on you
08 saigon ft. kool g. rap – the letter p
09 evidence ft. kobe – all said and done
10 little brother – good clothes
11 freeway – this can’t be real
12 www.thebeats.nl – help revive the dead (interlude)
13 shells – why i love you
14 rhymefest – all i do
15 kool g. rap – risin’ up
16 skyzoo & torae – get it done
17 www.thebeats.nl – the return (interlude)
18 black milk ft. ahk – shut it down
19 marco polo ft. o.c. – marquee
20 outlines – waiting in line
21 erykah badu – honey
22 www.thebeats.nl – wisdom of the matrix (interlude)
23 ski beatz ft. camp lo – ticket for 2
24 snowgoons ft. el da sensei – show love
25 qualitee – roll out(ro)

Get the mix here, and check my site for news, info and playdates!

1. Alice Coltrane – Galaxy In Turiya
2. Charlie Hayden and Egberto Gisomonti and Gonjasufi – Testament
3. Flying Lotus – Massage Situation (Stripped)
4. Dimlite – Sun Sized Twinkles
5. Flying Lotus feat Dolly – Robertaflack
6. Flying Lotus – Robertaflack (Mike Slott Reflunk)
7. Ahu – I Know All The Bitches (Bullion mix)
8. Heralds Of Change – Amuse
9. Carlos Y Gaby – Happy Summer Solstice
10. Pudge – Yung Infamous
11. Dorothy Ashby – Myself When Young
12. Nosaj Thing – Bach
13. LL – Turf Day
14. Flying Lotus – Infinitum (Dimlite mix)
15. Clark – Springtime Epigram
16. Burial – Shutta
17. Blank Blue – Blank Blue (Flying Lotus mix)
18. Daedelus – Im String Struck
19. MHE – ?
20. Daedelus and Madvillain – Experience/Accordion (Flying Lotus live mix)
21. Hudson Mohawke – Zoo0000oom
22. Rustie – Black Block (remix)
23. Teebs and Jackhigh – Idea 1 (Clutch)
24. Matthewdavid – Tallahassee Tapes
25. Martyn and Flying Lotus – Vancouver/Pet Monster Shotglass
26. Fulgeance – Chico (Dorian Concept mix)
27. Joker – Solid State
28. Rusko – Moanerz
29. Daddy Kev – Invite8
30. Ras G – Star Messenger
31. Madlib – Unreleased Gem
32. SAMIYAM – Cheesecake Backslap
33. Knowledge – Dawn
34. Flyamsam – Princess Toadstool
35. Sa-Ra – Hollywood
36. Muhsinah and Flying Lotus – With Me/Melt
37. Flying Lotus – Dissecto
38. Flying Lotus – Breathe
39. Mike Slott – Home
40. Flying Lotus – Sangria Spin Cycles (ambient mix)
41. Danny Breaks – Cosmic Dust
42. Flying Lotus – Beginners Falafel (Free The Robots mix)
43. SAMIYAM – Falafel Cannon
44. Flying Lotus – Beginners Falafel
45. Slum Village – Players (instrumental mix)
46. Flying Lotus – Cackle
47. Slum Village – Raise It Up
48. Osborne – Definition Of A Breakdown
49. Baron Zen – Burn Rubber (Dam-Funk mix)
50. Mono/Poly – Needsdeodorantbitch
51. Chocolate Star and Nelly Furtado – Stay With Me/Promiscuous
52. Gonjasufi – Suzie Q
53. Kiing Midas – Lost (Flying Lotus live mix)
54. Rusko and Flying Lotus – Terminal3 / Tea Leaf (Dancers live mix)
55. Daedelus – Hours Minutes Seconds (beat invitational version)
56. Kode9 and Flying Lotus – Kryon
57. Zomby – Spliff Dub (Rustie mix)
58. Busta Rhymes – What Up
59. SAMIYAM – Crystal Lake
60. Weather Report – River People
61. SAMIYAM – Flintstone Car
62. Flying Lotus – Backpack Caviar
63. Radiohead – Reckoner (Flying Lotus mix)
64. Bjork – All Is Full Of Love
65. Broadcast – Winter Now
66. Portishead – Elysium
67. Linda Perhacks – Hey Now Who Really Cares
68. Flying Lotus – Infinitum (Exile mix)
69. Flying Lotus – Live Set Practice Run

Get the mix here (courtesy of newmixes.com)