Get Down Sounds

Newness from Poldoore has recently dropped on one of our favourite labels - Cold Busted.

The Last Skeptik drops a new beat tape on us, not long after releasing his dope new EP “Revenge is the Best Success”.

This one is exactly what you’d expect from Skeptik - slick use of sampling across experimental/alternative beats.

A long time coming, Moodymann has finally contributed to the ever popular DJ-Kicks mix series... some serious funk, soul and electronica on this one. Release notes below...

Across 75 minutes and 30 tracks, Moodymann does not disappoint: despite being a notorious vinyl fetishist, Dixon's aim is to present music of quality, not to one-up fellow collectors. Rather than serving up ridiculously rare or hard-to-find records, he instead focuses on creating a libidinous, blues-drenched mood that takes in heart-breaking soul, gorgeous hip-hop and love-fuelled house. In addition to cuts from his own creative circle, the mix features 11 exclusive Moodymann edits. Like everything Kenny Dixon Jr. touches, DJ-Kicks showcases the taste, skill, and soul of a dance music original.

All over this new flip from Tall Black Guy of the De La Soul classic “Stakes Is High”.

From the man himself...

“Howdy folks, this a tribute to one of my favorite hip hop groups ever De La Soul. I tried to flip "Stakes Is High", but change the time signature from 4/4 to a 6/8. l wanted to keep the vibe of the original.

So I flipped the Ahmad Jamal - Swahililand I hope you all dig

TBG”

Spotted this from BBE Records a couple of weeks’ back and felt compelled to get myself a copy. Definitely one to add to the collection! Release notes below:

Incredible as it seems, this year marks twenty years since the launch of Johnny D’Mairo’s Henry Street Music label. To celebrate, BBE is marking the occasion with a very special 5 x 7 inch vinyl box set. Many of the movers and shakers of the day had their best moments on Henry Street, and some of the best of them are represented here: Johnick, Armand Van Helden, Kenny Dope, Ralphi Rosario, Mike Delgado, DJ Sneak, Robbie Tronco, 95 North and Scotti Deep – a veritable roll-call of the premiere-league of dance at the time, an era when dance music still seemed incredibly fertile and the link with its own past is still vital. Henry Street (named after Brooklyn homeboy Johnny’s neighbourhood) always had a ‘New York’ vibe, and even when drawing its producers from further afield, the label encapsulated the city’s melting-pot of talent and raw, bristling energy... energy captured here, and exploding off these remastered tracks like it’s 1999 all over again! So... dust off those dancing shoes, and get ready to feel the heat, it’s one more time for the Henry Street Hustle! 

With so many big tracks this year, it’d be impossible for us to pick out our favourites.

New music from Brussels-based electronic beatmaker Le Motel. Loving the Afro/Caribbean influences on this one. Release notes below...

OKA is a metaphorical journey between various worldwide tribes. Starting and closing with a lullaby from a mother to her child, the 9 tracks depict a day of passing by rain dances, odes to forest spirits and water, child’s plays, dugout canoe trips, hunting and gathering songs and vodun ceremonies...

This project brings ethnic sounds from different communities out of Africa, the Caribbean, Oceania and electronics together and combines worldwide atmospheres, blending current sonorities and ancient samples.

Le Motel spent years collecting samples all around the world (mostly ethnic music related to ceremonies), field recording in the jungle and is using sounds from his environment. He aims to connect those different cultures and periods within his music.

‘An Introduction To LOA Records’ is the first compilation from the new independent label owned by producer & composer Adam Gibbons (Lack of Afro). Committed to an eclectic roster of diverse artists, the label was founded with a wide open music policy – to simply release quality music, completely unrestrained by genre or style and free from the sort of commercial pressures that can be associated with major label dealings. No more is the open music policy in evidence than in this introduction to the label…

New album from New Zealand’s finest Fat Freddy’s Drop is now up for listening on Spotify. Expect to hear a few of these in upcoming radio shows.

Album release notes:

Introducing BAYS a 9 track boil up heralding a fresh chapter in Freddys fantastic voyages. BAYS opens with slow burn funk of ‘Wairunga Blues’ journeying through a hybrid of reggae, hi-tek soul and jazz with techno rhythms underpinning Freddy’s signature horns and Joe Dukie’s smooth & introspective vocals, 'Slings And Arrows', '10 Feet Tall', 'Wheels', 'Razor', 'Makkan', 'Fish In The Sea', 'Cortina Motors' and arriving finally on the crooked blues jam of ‘Novak’.

BAYS is named after our Wellington studio homebase, where the album was predominately written and recorded around beats, food, darts and a winter of content.

Our October album of the month comes from iZem and his release ‘Hafa’. Somewhat of a nomad, iZem has picked up a number of influences on his travels, all of which are captured on his debut LP. Album notes below:

Journeyman, DJ, radio presenter, beat raconteur – it’s been hard to keep up with all of iZem‘s movements lately. The innovative Lisbon-based French producer has been hard at work on his debut LP Hafa, exploring the sounds of Latin America and Africa in a vivid analogue-digital, genre-defying soundscape that is sure to leave your head spinning. Inspired by cultural greats like Jack Kerouac, Paul Bowles, Tahar Ben Jelloun and Matisse, iZem spent time soaking up the atmosphere at the inspiring Café Hafa, an idyllic cliff-top joint overlooking the strait of Gibraltar, in Tangier, Morocco, which has formed a golden backdrop to his debut LP. Brimming with soulful exoticism, personal narratives and adventurous collaborators, Hafa has been an experiment in taking on the afro-centric sounds of his journey to-date by incorporating modern, introspective songwriting and hybrid beats. 

Featured on the 56th Get Down Sounds Radio Show, the latest release from South London’s finest Andreya Triana. This one’s called “Giants” and it’s quickly becoming an instant classic. Release notes below...

Soulful Londoner Andreya Triana returns with the release of her highly anticipated album, 'Giants' through Counter Records.

Produced by Matt Hales (Lianne La Havas, Paloma Faith), 'Giants' is an elegant melting pot of styles, sounds and themes effortlessly brought together by a voice both distinct and timeless in equal measure.

Featured as part of April’s Get Down Sounds Radio Show, this is France’s Quiet Dawn’s debut out on First Word Records. Nice bit of sampling on this one, with guest MC duties from Oddisee & Barrio as well as vocals from Miles Bonny, Theory Hazit and more.

Release notes below...

‘The First Day’ is a concept album of sorts, a human journey based on one day – specifically the first day in search of love. This takes in many forms; peaceful familial love (Aurora, Hold Them Close), introspective love (The Trap, Golden Moments) and of course romantic love (Dusk, After Sex). Each track is linked to a specific time of day, taking the listener on a personal trip through time. 

The February featured album comes from Ded Tebiase and his debut on Keep Up! Records - ‘Stagger’. Album release notes below:

The Stagger EP sees Keep Up! sticking with more-beat driven instrumental productions with four tracks of good old-fashioned Hip Hop. Two to stomp to; two to mellow and in the mould of a beat tape. Opening with title cut Stagger could be something straight out of the Madlib school of hooks with its immediately recognisable sample flip accompanied by live swinging drums. Two Point Four drills down harder at the dancefloor with a skippy beat, relentless bassline and coupled with a cheeky vocal hook. 5am switches the mood to back the home stereo. Laid back, but still sample-based. The blinds are drawn down on the EP with closing track Smoke in my eyes’s supremely mellow piano and double bass lick is the call to stub out the last light of the night.

Available to download here.

Featured tracks off Milton Wright's recently re-issued 'Friends & Buddies' during the 52nd instalment of the Get Down Sounds Radio show, broadcast w/c 26th Jan. Loads of soul classics on this one - notes from Kudos Records below:

Athens of the North is proud to present Milton Wright's stunning alternate version of the now Classic Miami soul LP 'Friends & Buddies'. An altogether more stripped down, folky soul affair than its highly respected, much sampled brother is now available on Vinyl, CD and Digital for the very first time.

Shelved at the last minute then re-recorded and overdubbed, only a few promo copies of this early version escaped from the studio and are deep in the collections of the very few previously in the know.

The master tapes burnt in a fire at T.K Disco in Miami in the early 80s so even the label has not heard this in 30 Years. Many reissues of the second version of Friends & Buddies LP have come and gone, but Milton's original vision has remained hidden until now.

As searingly honest and stunningly soulful as any seminal Marvin Gaye or Terry Callier LP, it stands tall amongst its exceptional peers as one of the true pillars of quality 70s soul.

Anyone that throws a decent disco/boogie party will know that The Reflex is up there with the edit/remix greats. We featured a few tracks off his latest release - 'Million Sellers Vol. 2' - as part of our radio show that aired w/c 22nd December (and we weren't disappointed). 

Lovely bit of jazzy hip-hop featured on the w/c 15th December show from the man Funky DL. The release (in its entirety) can be found here.

Featured on the show w/c 8th December, this one from Roller Trio is a blend of jazz and math rock. Review from the Guardian below...

With their first album, Roller Trio, from Leeds, scored 2012 Mobo and Mercury prize nominations, and stunned the jazz-averse by being an open and vivacious sax/guitar/drums band that genuinely fuse John Zornian abstract-sax blastings with rock’n’roll. Fracture is the more intricate follow-up, a reflection of hundreds of hours of road life, improv, and new writing since. Some of the music has coalesced from improvisations, some of it (like the tightly contrapuntal and then waywardly grooving Mango, or the tempo-shuffling Three Pea Soup) are complex structures, and the idiomatic sources are wide. Reef Knot is a looping, hooting sax motif inspired by a hip-hop groove that turns into a thrash, while the jigging, unison-themed Doris is contrastingly charming, like a Celtic knees-up. There are dark, ambient-electronic mists, a multi-tracked, somewhat Portico-echoing trance (Tracer), and sharp contrasts like the idiosyncratically wheeling rock-ballad Splinter, an imaginative original from guitarist Luke Wynter. The improv occasionally runs out of steam a little, but Wynter, saxist James Mainwaring and drummer Luke Reddin-Williams have come up with a second album that’s different and diverse, and on a live show it must be a gas.