July 12th, 2010 by niwa | posted in albums, beats, download, downtempo, electronic, free music, review, video | no comments »

Derek Vincent Smith, does that name ring a bell? It didn’t for me, but I’m glad I ran into the full-length album “Passing By Behind Your Eyes” that Derek has produced under the moniker Pretty Lights in 2009.

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)

July 10th, 2010 by niwa | posted in beats, download, downtempo, electronic, free music, hiphop, release, soul | 1 comment »

Time for some freshness! We’ve just got an e-mail from Mishoo promoting releases by some of his friends, including a beat-tape by Bagir-Ba.  This (now) 20 year-old producer from Brooklyn lays down 20 minutes of  fresh chilled out beats, for free!

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

July 7th, 2010 by niwa | posted in beats, download, free music, mix | no comments »

Early on this year DJ Pound contacted me with a mix he did. At the time I gave it a quick listen and didn’t really get into it because I thought it “sounded the same the whole mix through”. Stupid, stupid me. After giving it a couple more plays lately I realised why:

-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.

July 6th, 2010 by niwa | posted in .nl, beats, download, electronic, free music, release, review | no comments »

Disappearing for 6 months has it’s upside as well, because I’ve got a backlog of free releases and mixes laying around that are just waiting for a couple of scribbles.  This one’s from January and I’ve been in love with it ever since I heard it for the first time.

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

July 1st, 2010 by niwa | posted in albums, beats, downtempo, electronic, release | 1 comment »

We’re back from the hiatus! To give a short ‘n simple explanation for our break: I wanted to release some tracks.. didn’t happen. We wanted a new layout for the site.. didn’t happen! In the meanwhile the new releases, old gems, free plugins and good parties.. did happen! So let’s just shove the past aside and get on with the music.

Tokyo Dawn signed yet another hot up and coming artist to their roster: Swede:art. Already known on the web for his Mondayjazz and Soundcloud sessions, the neck-breaking German electronic musician Joachim Prügl has dropped his debut album “Emotional Colors“.

If you’ve bought the last two TDR releases you know exactly what to expect: head-nodding beats, piercing synths, thoughtful raps and soulful vocalism. For some this is a reason to blindly buy Emotional Colors, for others it may be the reason to ‘skip it, because I already have enough of this style’.
If you’re one of the latter persons, you need to read on. Where Comfort Fit’s “Polyshufflez” took your head all over the place with his crazy electronic bouncing beats, and Portformat’s “The Repeat Factor” brought you back to the floor with a more soulful boom-bap sound, Swede:art slides neatly in between and adds some real electro-funk in the mix.

The album has an overall chilled-out feel and the emphasis lies more on the space between the drums than on the beats itself. This space is smoothly filled with funky and thick basslines, small sample excerpts and s-s-s-s-sweeeeping synths. Next to the usual TDR suspects Blaktroniks, Caits Meissner and Comfort Fit, Swede also recruits beat-funkateers Duktus (featured on the latest Brownswood Bubblers) and Pursuit Grooves (why haven’t we done an article on her yet?).

From the staggering opening track “Black Mining” to the soulful “Linguistics” (feat. Stray) and ending with the broken beat’ish  “On My Way” (feat. Note & Duktus), Emotional Colors is a versatile release for every beat-lover.
As an added bonus you can listen to Swede:art mixing up old, new and coming TDR tracks at Mixcloud before you buy the album.