hier dan

It was in the last decade of the previous century when I experienced my musical coming of age. TUPTB Rap 2, Ill Communication, We Rock Hard, Homework, and Illadelph Halflife layed out the tracks and I only had to follow. However, something was missing. Something slick, something smooove. It turned out to be FUNK. Not as I knew it, but FUNK from the EIGHTIES…

It was when I stumbled upon a pack of eighties funky delights documented at Freestyle Grooves that I started traveling over various prehistoric peer-2-peer networks looking for those synth driven funky grooves with lushy bass and smooove lyrics. I quickly developed a strong liking for artists such as Cameo, Kleeer, Patrice Rushen, and Dexter Wansel. And The Fatback Band, not to forget.

Recently, I discovered that the Freestyle Grooves site is still up and running. So I visited some blogspots and made a compilation of the 14 + 1 funky delights reviewed by Ez. Excellent material to spice up any (candlelight) dinner around sunset on a hot and steamy summer night. May the FUNK be with you!

demonoid

Check!

But Balance of the Force, the only full length album by Boymerang, can be considered as one of the highlights^imho of the Drum ‘n Bass genre. With his dark jazzy approach combined with minimal ambient Boymerang brought Drum ‘n Bass to the living room. Although maximum volume yields maximum result, this album can also consumed at a more appropriated volume level.

For everyone who missed out the Drum ‘n Bass movement, the wiki brings some enlightment. And for some references check the BBC’s history of Drum ‘n Bass feature. Essential reading before you take the step to listen to Drum ‘n Bass.

This torrent will appeal to everyone who currently diggs the dubstep/grime music, but also jazzists come to their pulling with the music of Boymerang.

Demonoid | Prelisten

This torrent contains the following album/EP’s:

1994 - Boymerang EP
1995 - Pro-Activ EP
1997 - Balance of the Force (UK version)*

199X - The Boy Reforces**

Tracklisting:
1. Goldie (feat. KRS-One) - Digital (Boymerang Mix)
2. Plug - Me & Mr. Jones (Boymerang Remix)
3. .O.Rang - P-53 (Boymerang Mix)
4. Collapsed Lung (feat. Belinda Butcher) - Ballad of the Night (Boymerang Mix)
5. Ed Rush & Nico - Technology (Boymerang Remix)
6. 2 Player - Extreme Possiblities (Pysche & Boymerang Mix)
7. Project 23 - Sugarize ‘Lost Inna Dream’ (Boymerang Mix)
8. Mandelay - This Life (Boymerang Remix)

* On the US-version track 3 - The River (VIP) has been replaced with Urban Space, also included in this torrent in the Balance of the Force map.
** This is a home made compilation of remixes by Boymerang. This is not an official release.

Maks:
Three covers.
From Trickys latest (and pretty good!) album ‘Knowle West Boy’ a fine Kylie Minogue cover of ‘Slow‘.
Artist Pipilotti Rist did it with Chris Isaaks ‘Wicked Game‘.
Les Breastfeeders made a cover of Stinky Toys’ (no not Lio) classic ‘Amoureux Solitaires‘.

freek:
Also three covers: a nice one from Frekenbok, News is gonna break from Frank Black (original by Black Francis) and the much covered Your cheatin’ heart by Beck.

ikiro:
Here’s an Antwort to and a suitcase by mrs. Jones.

Zoute snor:
Your cheatin’ heart zei je?

It’s not often that at the end of a brilliant concert nobody screams ‘we want more’. But after two and a half hours of My Morning Jacket in the Melkweg last tuesday I was full, couldn’t handle another song. One of the best concerts I ever saw!

The opening act was promising, Everest, with Jim James and Carl Broemel of MMJ joining them in one song. But at half past nine it went really los! MMJ started of with Evil Urges from their new album Evil Urges (Het gedicht Opvliegers uit de bundel ‘Opvliegers’) and from then on it was one highlight after another (Read Ear). At eleven a clock a small break, but within 3 minutes bandleader Jim James was back on his own with his guitar and a funny h00dje op. I thought: two toegifts and a big finale, and that’s that. But the band played for another full hour and after midnight we found ourselves outside the Milkyway under a small offroof, smoking, not saying anything, flabbergasted and with a pleasant peep in our ears.

Wobbly pictures, but good sound: One big holiday in de Melkweg, 8 juli 2008.

For your home-entertainment: the first disc of the live album Okonokos, the other one I still can’t find.

And I would like the two guys who were boo-ing all the time, throwing glasses and finally getting kicked out of the Melkweg to get a disease of which they will suffer a long time and then die in a very unpleasant way.

ikiro:
Tour de Kevorkian.

Zoute snor:
kreun steun

ape: El ritmo de la lluvia

regen?
Ik heb nieuwe schoenen man! Gemaakt in Afrika waar ALTIJD de zon schijnt JA!

ThE_ED: I can peel my skin off, and can’t get lyrics of armoured tanks out of my head, so I’m turning to even crueler ways of destruction. After this you can try to find me at the right side of the stage in the crowd here. (Sort of “where is waldo?”)

You will find concerts of famous artists (Black Keys, Billy Brag and Bjork) and lesser known artists as Lou Reed and Max Roach. Best aardig during bsc’ing.

The basis for this track is a recording of the court drummers of Burundi. The structure you hear is circle of drummers, while the drummers are called one after the other to perform a dance and drum solo on the huge ngoma drum in the middle of the group. It’s remarkably similar to Japanese Kodo drumming.

The drumtrack was also used by Joni Mitchell, Bow wow wow, and Manu Chao, to name but a few. Neil Steiphenson played guitar and piano on top of it in 1971, and did an electronic remake in 1981, which you can hear here. I know every sound, every piano note, every drum and syndrum hit in this recording. The video is nothing more then a set of more or less related photos, oddly enough ending with a photo of a young guy in a dark pub, with baggy trousers and hair hanging in front of his face. I must have looked stunningly similar in the late eighties.

One of my favourite labels was Mokum Records, founded as an Amsterdam response to Rotterdam Records in 1993, as a sub-label of Boudisque Records. About a month ago beneger kindly helped me out when I needed to digitalise two vinyl albums for a friend, and I took advantage of the opportunity and also digitalised some nice Mokum tracks, from MOK4 and MOK5, to be exact.

The first three tracks are from MOK5, and are produced by Tellurian. These are not your typical hardcore/gabber tracks, as they have been influenced clearly by the acid and techno movement, and were also quite early in incorporating breakbeats in their music. The fourth track is from MOK4 and is called “ore slope”. For a long time I was under the assumption that this had to be pronounced in English, but it makes more sense to just read it out loud with a mokum tonguefall; what you say is what you get.

Although there’s only 4 songs on this DenDriet© production, I have decided to bake a torrent and share them with you. Oh, and if anyone could get me a copy of MOK21 I would be most delighted.

MP3 - 256Kb - Vinyl Rip

Enjoy!

Torrent | Direct link

Tracklisting:
01 Tellurian - My Name Doesn’t Matter (5:21)
02 Tellurian - Psycho (5:09)
03 Tellurian - Booster Activated (3:46)
04 Haardcore - Ore Slope (6:40)

Today Jello Biafra, former singer of punk legends the Dead Kennedys and of course several thousands of other projects, is half a century old. Of course he is celebrating this with a nice concert.. too bad we can’t attend.

Lousy way to make up for it 

Absolutely SFW !

It has been about 1.5 years since my last Death Metal Reviews post. The time is ripe for a new one. I’ll handle some reasonably recent discs that have caught my attention, one way or the other….

Let’s go!

We start of with the new album by Swedish band Grave. A band that I have not really kept up with since their excellent first album ‘Into The Grave’ from 1991, everything I heard after that seemed to get increasingly weaker… (I must admit that I was conditioned by their grimey demo material that appeared in the tapetraders circuit quite sometime before their first album. And I absolutely loved that). They had quite some line-up troubles and I believe they have been calling it quits a few years ago. But back to 2008 now: the new album is called ‘Dominion VIII’  and I am very impressed by it. It hits all the right ‘old school death metal’ buttons. The tempo is quite high for a Grave album, the sound is crunchy, maybe a bit too muffled, but it really feels like classic Grave!! A very unsuspected return to form! Get it if you liked their old material
Listen

Bloodbath is also from Sweden. This band was not really known to me but started as a project by several members of Katatonia, Opeth and metal producer/musician Dan Swanö (who is no longer part of the project). Officially it was to be a ‘tribute to early death metal’… I don’t really hear that back in their mini album ‘Unblessing The Purity’ (March 2008).

 But it is very enjoyable fast technical death metal with quite brutal vocals. It reminds me most of Morbid Angel circa their ‘Covenant’ album, especially the contrast between the brutal blast-beat parts and the utterly melodic guitar solo work.  There is, of course, also some pointers to their Swedish nationality: some of the slower melodic parts bring to mind Entombed’s ‘Left Hand Path’ and ‘Clandestine’ days. Good stuff but not essential (Oh and there is a live album with DVD that came out this week.)
Listen

It gets boring but Coldworker is also from Sweden… They are the band that the drummer Anders Jakobson of grindgods Nasum formed after the misfortunate 2004 tsunami death of their guitarist/singer Mieszko Talarczyk. Coldworker already proved to be a very nice band with their first album ‘The Contaminated Void’ but this new album, ‘Rotting Paradise’, is really stepping it up a few notches. Production is great and the tracks are all flowing very nicely. Great Grinding Death that somehow seems to groove.. sweet shit that is highly recommended!
Listen

American band Abysmal Dawn does not really impress me much, I must admit. I can’t really get my finger on it exactly. But it sounds a bit soulless to me.. Production is very crisp and (too) clean for a death band. It somehow seems like an endless repeat of the same type of riffs that we all heard before. They can play, they can write some nice tracks but it does not ring any nice bell with me.. Not my type of stuff Listen

Of course I saved the best for last. With the proper ‘Trost op Nederland’-attitude I present you the Death Metal supergroup Hail Of Bullets! Consisting of the guitar players of the veteran band Thanatos, the drummer from Gorefest, the former bassplayer of Houwitser and last but certainly not least Martin van Drunen on ‘vocals’ (Pestilence, Asphyx). 

Damn this band shreds! It is everything you imagine it to be.. It reminds me most of Pestilence circa ‘The Consuming Impulse’. Martin’s vocals make you reach for the Strepsils straight away. The lyrics deal strictly with the second world war’s horrors of the eastern front. The production is fucking heavy. The album is mixed by the aforementioned Dan Swanö. And did I mention that they REALLY shred?? This is an instant classic. Nothing more to say.

Listen!!

My personal favorites:

* Built to Expose at the Jopenkerk: an exhibit of skatedecks by people like Hein de Kort, Erik Kriek, Femke Hiemstra, Luuk Bode, Peter Pontiac, Angelique, Typex, Def P, Vince and Shamrock
* Exhibit ‘Jazz & bulles’ at the Kunstcentrum Haarlem: “Music for the eyes”
* work of Roel Smit will be shown also at Lijstenmakerij Keppel
* maybe interesting with the Nekschot affaire in mind: exhibit in Café De lift: ‘Wat zeur je nou? Distriminatie verstript’
And then off course the beurzen will be of special interest to attend. Next to the terraces at the Grote Markt.

Put your recommendations and favorites in the comments.

Dieses ist der Dokumentarfilm über Wacken (demonoid), nicht das Schwermetallfestival an sich, aber, wie das Leben in diesem kleinen Dorf ist, das Wirt zum größten Metall-Festival in der Welt ist: Wacken geöffnete Luft. Ich fand dieses vor einiger Zeit und kombinierte den Film, der noch eine uncorrupted Akte mit einer Probe, einem Anhänger und einem newsbulletin in diese Stromakte war.

Leider bilden keine Subtitles, also müssen Sie Deutsches verstehen, möglicherweise Ihre Fremdsprachefähigkeiten eine Spitze aus. ;) (babelfish über alles fur diese text!!)

freek:
Voor elck wat wilsch (maer niet heusch!):
Zaklopende tortuur en die godvergeten Stinkende Sting.

*–*:
Voor Knut

2shoes:
Go on and put your ear to the ground
You know you will be hearing that sound……falling down.

Released on the mighty Ytsejam Records

Two years after Public Enemy’s groundbreaking and militant album “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back” was released Paris (real name Oscar Jackson) dropped his overwhelming debutalbum “The Devil Made Me Do It” for the second time, this time via Tommy Boy records. Combining the rage of (early) Ice Cube with the social consciousness of Public Enemy, the lyrics were sure to grab the attention of the (then socially aware) HipHop audience. The title song’s video was banned from MTV and a legend was born. (Paris hasn’t changed a bit as you can see on the site of his own label “Guerrila Funk” where the discussion on black awareness continues till date.)

The sound of the album is dark, grim and ugly with much bass and an emphasis on the lyrics. Combined with some fierce uptempo tracks, guitar samples, live scratching and an angry, very angry Paris. Angry with white America, uncle Tom negroes, Young MC, Kid-n-Play et al.

Black radio shame pop rap’s to blame
Program your playlist to sound the same
With a disco tempo cliche intro
Wack rap tracks for commercial shows
Mindless music for the masses has to take
time away from the REAL rap master
So I stay cool for community airplay
while ratings slip for the shit that you play

In addition, the leaflet explained the becoming of the BPP to a young and eager gast! (who could spell the ten point program at that time). Highly influential shit, parental discretion is advised!

Grab it here!

MP3 / 256 Kb

1. Intro – 0:40
2. Scarface Groove – 4:35
3. This Is a Test – 2:47
4. Panther Power – 3:58
5. Break the Grip of Shame 3:34
6. Warning – 1:07
7. Ebony – 3:56
8. Brutal – 3:53
9. On the Prowl – 1:10
10. The Devil Made Me Do It – 4:12
11. The Hate That Hate Made – 1:09
12. Mellow Madness – 4:50
13. I Call Him Mad – 4:17
14. Escape from Babylon – 5:18
15. Wretched – 3:32
16. Break the Grip of Shame (The Final Call) (Bonus track) – 8:06
17. Devil Made Me Do It (Poach a Pig Mix) (Bonus track) – 5:44