The Prodigy’s “Smack My Bitch Up”, recreated from scratch.
Ukranian producer Jim Pavloff has put together “How to” videos detailing how the Prodigy made some of their biggest tracks, from the samples of Ultramagnetic MCs, Kool and the Gang and Rage Against the Machine to concocting original acid lines and keys. It’s fascinating to see how they used funk and soul samples alongside slices of rock to create something completely different and a lot harder.
Hat tip goes to the Coilhouse blog.
At this time of the year I slowly start to turn away from a lot of the funky soulful music that goes down so well in the summer and delve into brooding and expansive tracks that suit the longer nights. Here, Nocow of St Petersburg, Russia, delivers a brilliantly dark and dubby rhythm track that whets the winter appetite.
So I was listening to The Rub’s History of Hip-Hop (1990) last weekend and this came on. The production just blows me away.
Eye opening, surreal and trippy video from Plastic Horse for Débruit’s ‘Mezdé’ that plays on the Turkish influences.
Wheeee! One of my favourite new artists, Antoine (DTMD), hooks up with Oddisee who puts in a somewhat ‘rare’ vocal performance (in light of his widespread production work). This track has been getting plays on my iPod for a while now since it was released on Oddisee’s free ‘A Year In’ compilation but with a sweet little video to accompany the track, even more reason to share.
Following on from the Austin Peralta/Taylor McFerrin performance, how about a balmy evening in LA with the Miguel Atwood-Ferguson Ensemble featuring Bilal on vocals for a rendition of Donny Hathaway’s “Someday We’ll All Be Free”. Airtight’s Revenge was one of my favourite albums of last year, a superb voice that just never fails to lift my spirits. The Ensemble also features Stephen ‘Thundercat’ Bruner on bass (word is, his new album is stonking), FlyLo on the laptop and Rebekah Raff on the harp.
Lovely, meandering performance. Who’d have thought beatboxing and jazz keys would go so well together? If you like this you should check out Austin Peralta’s new LP, Endless Planets, and subscribe to the Put Me On It blog where I first clocked the video. Definitely one of my ‘Desert Island Blogs’.
The Glitch Mob - Between Two Points (by Motiphe)
The Glitch Mob have always somewhat passed me by. I’m not sure why, I think my previous experiences of their output have been somewhat ‘meh’, but this feels like one of those tracks you could listen to endlessly, and the visuals from Motiphe are rather nice.
Seen via Put Me On It
Very nice video to Kraak & Smaak’s “Squeeze Me” (feat vocals from the lovely Ben Westbeech)
Yesterday was the birthday of the late great J Dilla. Today, Stones Throw posted a video showing behind the scenes footage of the cover for his masterpiece, Donuts, an album I rank in my all time favourites. Watch it above and check out the back story on Stones Throw.
‘J Dilla changed my life’. And it wasn’t that long ago.
I first heard a Dilla production on an Atomic Hooligan mix CD from the cover of DJ mag sometime in the mid-2000s. It was his remix of Four Tet’s “Serious As Your Life” and the rhythm left me speechless; the dropped beats interspersed throughout the track literally left me breathless. I was wowed, but at the time wasn’t really spending money on hip hop due to my infatuation with breaks.
A bit later, Dilla was thrust into my life again when I tuned into the first Gilles Peterson show after his death and Gilles played a few more productions to celebrate his life. Again though, most of my money was spent on other music as hip hop was still something in the background, regretably. But when I discovered Spotify I finally perked up. A renewed interest in instrumental hip hop sparked by FlyLo’s Los Angeles led me to dig deeper and I soon struck gold with Donuts. If Los Angeles was like my first kiss, Donuts was like losing my virginity. The production blew me away with its samples, textures, groove and rhythm and I’ve listened to few albums since that come anywhere close to knocking it off its perch in my Most Loved list.
J Dilla acted as a catalyst, urging me to seek out even more beautiful hip hop while putting a lot of the current ‘beat’ scene stuff into perspective. But more than anything else he set something off inside me like no other producer, a longing to make my own music with such soul, nous and precision as the beats laid down by Dilla. Thank you.
