Bristol’s own, Joker, just released his debut on Kode9’s Hyperdub Records. It’s a split 12-inch of his massive banger “Digidesign” together with 2000F & J Kamata’s “You Don’t Know What Love Is.” Both of these track were on pretty constant rotation on Benji B and Mary Anne Hobbs’s radio shows.

Artist: Joker / 2000F & J Kamata
Title: Digidesign b/w You Don’t Know What Love Is (12″)
Date: February 2009
Label: Hyperdub (UK)
Catalog #: HDB018

Buy @ Rush Hour
Buy @ HHV

Don’t miss out on this crazy shit.

To get a feeling for the Joker tune, listen to the stream below. It’s a radio rip from back when the song was in an earlier stage of production. The final version on wax has even more sophisticated mixing and mastering going on. Joker messed around with the track since late spring, early summer of last year—constantly reworking it and testing it out in clubs and getting hype on nighttime radio shows—until it was finally released a couple of weeks ago. Everybody who’s been spinning it in their sets over the last months said the crowd went apeshit whenever “Digidesign” came on. I can imagine.

Joker – Digidesign

More goodies coming soon, including an Events Digest.

Stay fresh.

This’ll be quick. I just wanna draw your attention to a new “feature” of the blog. It’s sort of an RBMA Radio request service. Read all about it on the designated page. You can also reach it through the navigation bar at the very top of this blog.

And just in case you were wondering where the BBC Radio archives went: I got flagged a couple of days after I posted the first round and had to delete the whole post. Until I figure out an alternative, I’m gonna keep my hands off those.

Peace!

Swedish MC Prop Dylan released his first video (I think it was his first) a couple months ago. It’s for the song “Top Of The Top” and features Promoe of Looptroop fame and Caribinghi.

Check that!

In collaboration with his production buddy Logophobia, dude also dropped his second EP (“The Morning After EP”) for free not too long ago. Download link and more info on his blog at HisSpace.

Back in 2007, the two had already released “The Afternoon EP,” also for free. Get it here. It was also in 2007 that his debut full-length dropped: “A Garbage Pail Kid” with features by Wordsworth and Pumpkinhead, among others. Cop it here.

Dope shit. Don’t sleep on this cat.

In May of last year I was lucky enough to have caught the man at a live gig where he opened for J-Live. Read about it here.

Fred,
eardrummer

… If you’re not, prepare to be. I’ve got some crazy shit for you.

The first is an album that’s been making the rounds among sample-crazy beat makers and crate diggers in the past year or two. It is ’70s Turkish psych funk hero Ersen’s (pictured on the right) reissue on Finders Keepers Records (read their press release for more info). Unfortunately, I was unable to find even the slightest trace of a CD rip anywhere on the net, and my vinyl copy still hasn’t arrived after several months. But not to fear, I was able to work my way around an online store at which you can stream all 16 tracks in full. The only problem is the very low bitrate. The files are MP3s encoded at 40 kbps. At least they’re in mono, so it sounds like a stereo recording would at 80 kbps.

In spite of all that, the overall sound quality is still quite good. Believe me, I wouldn’t offer any songs on which you’d mostly hear static. But, if one of you out there has a decent CD or vinyl rip of this album, or comes across a working RS link or some such, I’d very much appreciate a comment. Otherwise I’ll get my own vinyl rip up here, once I get the damn thing. Even though the bitrate is rather lame, I didn’t want to hold out on this release for obvious reasons. It’s fucking pure hell fire.

Also, I have Ersen’s complete discography of original recordings in mp3 format (twenty 45s and ten LPs). But it’s all very unorganized at the moment. Maybe I’ll up the entire collection at a later point. We’ll see.

As a little example of the sampling I was talking about, here is Ersen’s original track “Zalim” and Oh No’s flipped version in the song “Heavy,” off of his latest full-length effort “Dr. No’s Oxperiment.” (The Gaslamp Killer also flipped this song. More about him in the future.) You can clearly make out the sample, and both tracks are dope as fuck. Oh No sampled even more Ersen for his “Oxperiment,” but this is the one that really stands out.

Ersen – Zalim from “Ersen” (2008)

Oh No – Heavy from “Dr. No’s Oxperiment” (2007)

But without further ado, here is the download…

Ersen – Ersen
Release year: 2008
Label: Finders Keepers Records
Catalog number: FKR016LP / FKR016CD
Bit rate: 40 kbps
Size: ca. 19 MB

Download

1. Ternek
2. Gunese Don Cicegim
3. Kozan Dagi
4. Beni Hor Gorme Kardesim
5. Guzele Bak Guzele
6. Yine Seni Tanirim
7. Garip Gonlum
8. Metelik
9. Sor Kendine
10. Dostlar Beni Hatirlasin
11. Dertli Kaval
12. Gazan Mubarek Olsun
13. Cakmagi Cak
14. Bir Ayrilik Bir Yoksulluk Bir Olum
15. Gafil Gezme Saskin
16. Zalim

**********

Next up is another reissue from Finders Keepers, but this one’s a sampler. A sampler of Hungarian Funk-Rock, to be precise. “Say what now?” was my reaction when I first came across this joint. But my doubts would fade away as early as the first seconds of the first track. Just like the Ersen album up top, this one is packed to the brim with heavy (Psych) Funk tunes that will leave nobody unharmed.

The collection is called “Well Hung: 20 Funk-Rock Eruptions From Beneath Communist Hungary Vol. 1″ (again, read press release for more info). The last part of the title leaves me with nothing but hope. If this is “Vol. 1,” then there should be a “Vol. 2″ in the future. Please, Andy, please!

Also, the subtle irony on the cover (see image below) is great: the title of the record (“Well Hung”) in combination with the fact that it’s Hungarian music and that there’s a donkey on the cover is just brilliant. Luckily, this time I didn’t have to go through the back channels of an online store only to end up with low-quality files. Quite the opposite, actually. You’ll be able to enjoy this baby at full blast: 320 kbps.

There’s really nothing left to say about this project other than “the music will speak for itself.” Pure hotness. Enjoy!

Various Artists – Well Hung: 20 Funk-Rock Eruptions From Beneath Communist Hungary Vol. 1
Release year: 2008
Label: Finders Keepers Records
Catalog number: FKR017LP / FKR017CD
Bit rate: 320 kbps
Size: ca. 180 MB

Part 1
Part 2
(Simultaneous download possible. You’ll need both files.)

1. Anna Adamis & Gabor Presser – Ringsad El Magad No. 2
2. Omega Redstar – Egy Lány Nem Ment Haza
3. Metro – A Pénz
4. Hungaria – Végállomas
5. Kati Kovacs – Add Már Uram Az Esöt!
6. Corvina – A Tüz
7. Neoton – Nóra
8. Tamas Somlo & Omega – Azt Mondta Az Anyukám
9. Meteor & Demjen Ferenc – Kivánji Te Is Nekem Szép, Jó Éjszakát
10. Illés – A Bolond Lány
11. Omega – Kérgeskezü Favágók
12. Sarolta Zalatnay – Hadd Mondjam El
13. Locomotiv GT – Megvárlak Ma Délben
14. Nemenyi Bela & Atlantis – Kínai Fal
15. Kati Kovacs & Gemini – Nem Biztos Semmi
16. Piramis – Mondj Egy Mesét
17. Skorpio – Szevasz Haver
18. Omega – Félbeszakadt Koncert
19. Illés – Nekem Oly Mindegy
20. Bergendy – Hétköznapi Balladák

**********

On another note, I’d like to guide your attention to a previous post of mine. A few months ago, I upped the series “The Boondocks” but didn’t include the download links in the post directly. Instead, I linked to a forum post I had made elsewhere. As it turns out, the posts on that forum can now only be viewed by registered members, which leaves you guys with nothing. So now the RS links are also included here. If you missed it the first time around, check it out now. It’s definitely worth it. Amazing show from [adult swim].

And to top things off, here’s a little preview of what you can expect from the next few posts (over an undefined period of time and not necessarily in that order):

• Hip-Hop-related documentaries for download (really awesome stuff, some of it very rare)
• [DONE] RBMA Radio request service (you’ll find out what this is soon enough)
• unabridged audiobooks of Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point,” “Blink,” and “Outliers”
• DVD rips of the complete(!) “Def Poetry” series from HBO (yes, all 44 episodes)
• [DONE] download for Karl Hector & The Malcouns’ brandnew live session for RBMA Radio
• high-quality MP3 rips of my small-but-growing vinyl collection (I’m gonna call this “EarWax;” how apt!)
• a ton of dope music I gathered over the past months: lots of Electronica, Instrumental, and Funk along the lines of Ersen and “Well Hung” (e.g. Flying Lotus, The Gaslamp Killer, Samiyam, and other Brainfeeders; more Heliocentrics stuff; a complete Jazz & Milk Recordings discography; some wicked ish from Stones Throw and Now-Again; African and Latin Funk; and many more)

So stay tuned, bitches!

Most humbly,
Your Aural Percussionist

In light of recent events in Gaza, I’d like to share a Tom Waits tune with you. The track is called “Road To Peace” and was first released on his 2006 triple-disc collection “Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards.” It’s a real masterpiece, both musically and lyrically, in which he doesn’t take sides or judges either of them. Instead, he points the finger at “bystanders” like the U.S. government. One line that struck me in particular is “They fill their children full of hate to fight an old man’s war and die upon the road to peace.”

Tom Waits – Road To Peace from “Orphans” (2006)

Lyrics

Young Abdel Madi Shabneh was only 18 years old
The youngest of 9 children, he’d never spent a nite away from home
And his mother held his photograph, up in the New York Times
You see the killing has intensified, along the road to peace

A tall thin boy with a whispy moustache, disguised as an Orthodox Jew
On a crowded bus in Jerusalem, some had survived World War II
And the thunderous explosion blew out windows 200 yards away
More retribution and 17 dead, along the road to peace

Now at King George Ave and Jaffa Road, passengers boarded bus 14A
In the aisle next to the driver Abdel Madi Shabneh
And the last thing that he said on earth was “God is great and god is good”
And he blew them all to kingdom come, upon the road to peace

Now in response to this, another kiss of death was visited upon
Yashir Tehah, Israel said is an Hamas Senior militant
Israel sent 4 choppers in, flames engulfed his white Opel
And it killed his wife and his 3-year-old child, leaving only blackened skeletons

They found a toddler’s bottle and a pair of small shoes,
and they waved them in front of the cameras
But Israel said they did not know that his wife and child were in the car
There are roadblocks everywhere and only suffering on TV
Neither side will ever give up their smallest right, along the road to peace

Israel launched its latest campaign against Hamas on Tuesday
And two days later Hamas shot back and killed five Israeli soldiers
Though thousands dead and wounded on both sides, most of them Middle Eastern civilians
They fill their children full of hate, to fight an old man’s war and die, upon the road to peace

“And this is our land we will fight with all our force”, say the Palastinians and the Jews
And each side will cut off the hand of anyone who tries to stop the Resistance
If the right eye offends thee, then you must pluck it out
And Machoud Abbas and Sharon had been lost, out along the road to peace

Once Kissinger said: “We have no friends, America only has interests”
And now our president wants to be seen as a hero and he’s hungry for re-election
But Bush is reluctant to risk his future, with the fear of his political failures
So he plays chess at his desk and poses for the press, ten thousand miles from the road to peace

In a video that they found at the home of Abdel Madi Shabneh
He held a Kalashnikov rifle, and he spoke with the voice like a boy
He was an excellent student, he studied so hard, it was as if he had a future
He told his mother he had a test that day, out along the road to peace

The fundamentalist killing on both sides is standing in the path of peace
And tell me, why are we arming the Israeli army with guns and tanks and bullets?
And if god is great and god is good, why can’t he change the hearts of men?
Well, maybe god himself is lost and needs help
Maybe god himself he needs all of our help
Maybe god himself is lost and needs help
He’s out upon the road to peace

Maybe god himself is lost and needs help
Maybe god himself he needs all of our help
And he’s lost upon the road to peace
And he’s lost upon the road to peace
Out upon the road to peace.

(via Tom Waits Library. Check out the site for more info on the song’s genesis.)

For more Arab-related music, have a go at Joe Namy’s (aka El-Iqaa) two-hour radio show for New York University’s station WNYU, “Electric Kahraba.” You can download individual shows or even subscribe to the whole series as a podcast. Of special interest should be the Middle Eastern Hip-Hop Special and the Gaza Tribute Special.

Also, The Narcicyst put out a tribute song a couple weeks back, “Hamdulilah (Gaza Remix) feat. Shadia Mansour.” Stream, download, lyrics, and a nice write-up for that can be had from my mans 9@home. And don’t forget to check out Narcy’s blog for up-to-date, thought-provoking material about the ongoing crisis in Gaza. He digs up some brilliant stuff.

**********

And now for those whose appetite for Tom Waits was whetted by the song above, I give you the entire three-disc album with high-res cover. I don’t want to talk too much about the ins and outs of this full-length, but rather direct you to its Wikipedia page. There’s some interesting background info there.

A few of my favorite tracks are 1.5 “Bottom Of The World;” 1.6 “Lucinda;” 1.10 “Road To Peace;” 2.14 “Goodnight Irene;” 3.20 “Missing My Son,” among some others. The last one’s a nice little tall tale; very refreshing to hear.

Altogether, this is a fantastic album and, for those who are yet unfamiliar with Tom Waits, also a great gateway into his work. By the way, he’s the guy in the segment with Iggy Pop in Jim Jarmusch’s “Coffee And Cigarettes.”

Tom Waits – Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards (2006; Label: ANTI-) @ 192 kbps (ca. 263 MB)

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
(You’ll need all parts to extract the files. They can be downloaded simultaneously.)

Disc 1: “Brawlers”
1. Lie To Me
2. Lowdown
3. 2:19
4. Fish In The Jailhouse
5. Bottom Of The World
6. Lucinda
7. Ain’t Goin’ Down To The Well
8. Lord I’ve Been Changed
9. Puttin’ On The Dog
10. Road To Peace
11. All The Time
12. The Return Of Jackie And Judy
13. Walk Away
14. Sea Of Love
15. Buzz Fledderjohn
16. Rains On Me

Disc 2: “Bawlers”
1. Bend Down The Branches
2. You Can Never Hold Back Spring
3. Long Way Home
4. Widow’s Grove
5. Little Drop Of Poison
6. Shiny Things
7. World Keeps Turning
8. Tell It To Me
9. Never Let Go
10. Fannin Street
11. Little Man
12. It’s Over
13. If I Have To Go
14. Goodnight Irene
15. The Fall Of Troy
16. Take Care Of All My Children
17. Down There By The Train
18. Danny Says
19. Jayne’s Blue Wish
20. Young At Heart

Disc 3: “Bastards”
1. What Keeps Mankind Alive
2. Children’s Story
3. Heigh Ho
4. Army Ants
5. Books Of Moses
6. Bone Chain
7. Two Sisters
8. First Kiss
9. Dog Door
10. Redrum
11. Nirvana
12. Home I’ll Never Be
13. Poor Little Lamb
14. Altar Boy
15. The Pontiac
16. Spidey’s Wild Ride
17. King Kong
18. On The Road
19. Dog Treat

20. Missing My Son

Enjoy and As-Salāmu `Alaykum for real,
eardrummer

As i alluded in previous posts, Mulatu and the Helios are actually working on a collab album, “Inspiration Information 3.” Strut Records, the label on which it will be released, just put out a 10-minute interview video today. Sort of a behind-the-scenes look while the masters work the magic. Enjoy…

Salaam,
eardrummer

Just before backing up Mulatu Astatke for his live session at Cargo (see post below), The Heliocentrics performed solo at the very same gig. That was back in April this year. As always, RBMA Radio recorded the session and made it available on demand at their online radio station. Yours truly worked the magic and now (finally!) you can also download the Heliocentrics’s solo show and listen to it wherever you want without having to be online all the time.

The quality clocks in at a nice 192 kbps, which is the same as the radio stream. So no loss there. I’ve listened to the finished set of MP3s before uploading—to make sure that everything is in order—and it sounds just dandy. The single file is now split into the nine individual tracks. I just hope I didn’t mess up. It was quite tricky at some points. And since this session was performed and recorded on the same night as the one with Mulatu, it ended up having the same album title in my collection. But it IS a different album / release / bootleg. So don’t let that confuse you.

On the music side of things, this is a stellar set. Five of the nine tracks are new and the four others are taken from their LP “Out There.” All songs are beautifully interpreted and ear candy of the best kind. I especially enjoyed “Calabash,” one of the new songs. It has an incredibly long and slow build-up of about three minutes before it culminates in a vocal frenzy by Anthony Joseph, who sounds like one of those crazy preachers for a strange religion you can see in Central Park or Hyde Park. The song is wonderfully experimental and psychedelic. Of course, all the other tunes are breathtaking as well.

But without further ado, here’s the tracklist and download.

The Heliocentrics – Live At Broad Casting, Cargo, London. 17 April 2008 (2008) @ 192 kbps

Download

1. Haunted House (Live) – 6:13
2. Collateral Damage (Live) – 7:00
3. String Solo (Live) – 3:16
4. Second Chance (K2’s Prayer) (Live) – 6:45
5. A World Of Masks (Live) – 8:56
6. Sirius B (Live) – 6:26
7. Calabash (Live) – 7:12
8. Shish Kebab (Live) – 6:45
9. Age Of The Sun (Live) – 7:21

Personnel (according to the run-down at the beginning of track 9):
Keyboard: Ollie Parfitt
Cello: Danny Keane
Violin: Antonio Campbell
Bass clarinet: Adam Bishop
Baritone sax: James Arben
Vocals: Khadijatou, Asli, and Anthony Joseph
Drums: Malcolm Catto
Electronics and other oddities in the corner: Tom Hodges
Guitar: Adrian Owusu
Bass: Jake Ferguson

Once again, granjeros over at Dailymotion has video material for this session. Full-length clips for seven of the songs are available. Go check them out. The audio mixing and mastering is a lot different from the RBMA stream. It’s hard to believe that the videos and MP3s are of the same gig. But they are.

There’s even more Heliocentrics live material out there. Before today, I thought that the sessions at Cargo (including Mulatu’s and The Helios’s) were the same as BBC’s Maida Vale Sessions, i.e. I thought they were just two different names for the same thing. In fact, they’re two entirely different things. Back in February, The Helios did a solo session at the Maida Vale studios, and in April, they did another one together with Mulatu. This means that in the near future (maybe even by the end of next week), several additional live tracks from Mulatu Astatke together with The Heliocentrics and Helios solo ones (altogether about five to eight) will be available right here. I’ve already got the audio material, but the songs are buried in two-hour-long radio sets. So I gotta dig them out first.

Until then, enjoy the Broad Casting session and leave some feedback. I wanna know what you think of this.

I’m off to Psych-Land,
eardrummer

Finally, it is here: the update for the Mulatu Astatke & The Heliocentrics live set. I made you wait long enough. Sorry about that.

You can find all the necessary info, the new download links, and the new tracklist in the original post. If you downloaded the old and slightly wrong material, you might want to download it again. The tracks aren’t really different, but if you are anal about songs having the correct titles (like me), this is the way to go.

Thanks to Sun|Rah for the initial legwork and hunting down all the material.

Also, I found video material for the entire gig, minus one song (“Ethio Blues”). You can find all the clips right here on Dailymotion. If you click on “watch playlist” at the top of the left sidebar, you can watch all nine of the videos without interruption and in the original setlist order. Many, many thanks to granjeros for providing this stuff. Surprisingly, many of the videos don’t have a lot of views yet. Let’s go change that right now; and if you have a Dailymotion account, leave some comments and ratings. I’m sure he’ll appreciate it.

No news on the collaborative-studio-album front. At least not as far as I know.

However, more good news on the live-set front. I was able to grab The Heliocentrics’s solo live session, which they recorded at Cargo on the same night they joined Mulatu, from RBMA Radio’s website. Since it’s a single mp3 file, I still have to separate all the tracks. But the plan is to have it posted here before the weekend is over. And this time I really mean it. So come back soon for a full hour of live goodness from The Heliocentrics.

In fact, I found a way to get a hold of whichever RBMA Radio stream I want, without quality loss. I’m thinking about offering a request service. More on this a little later.

Many other good posts are in the works, especially from the Jazz / Funk / Instrumental department. Stay tuned.

Peace!
eardrummer

“The music industry no longer controls the distribution of its own product.”
— John Robinson, “Touch Em” (I Am Not For Sale)

Word!

My beat man Dert just put out a remix a few days ago. Apparently, the new Mary Mary album features a song called “Dirt.” So Dert jumped on it turned the beat around. Here’s the result…

Dert – You Need A Little Bit Of Dert To Grow

And make sure to check out HisSpace (link above) for a bunch of free beat tapes. Hot! Apparently, he’s also got some new things in the works. Now let’s all be excited together.

Vote Obama if you can. (Yes We Can.)
3ardrumm3r