- Rinse July
Me & Dusk, Rinse FM were on Rinse thurs 22nd. Download the podcast
HERE!!!- LHF infact
"The light means many things. Mostly for me it is connected to illumination and forgotten wisdom. The light relates to our sound, theres elements in there from the past that have been completely forgotten about, theres an attitude in our music that doesnt get represented any more. The light is the light that makes things new again..."-- Amen Ra [LHF] via
Fact.
- Ashes57
Photo: James Blake @ DMZ by Ashes57Lava collective presents... The Message: A selection of photo portraits by Ashes 57 Featuring her shots of Madlib, Rza, Skream, Mala, Loefah, Coki, Benga, Silkie, Pinch, Quest, Joker, Sgt Pokes + more. Photos, posters and prints for sale. Ashes57 is the designer for Deep Medi, Swamp 81 and Dubwar.
Thursday, 22nd July at Rag Factory, London 6-11pm. Drinks in the courtyard, sound system indoors: music from Jon Rust, LAVA DJs + special guests.
www.ashes57.com or
Ashes57 on Flickr.
- Polstar: Margins Music Live at The Albany
All photos of Dusk + Blackdown Margins Music Live at the Albany in June shot by The Polstar*.
There are other shots here including some stills from the 22 music videos made for the live show.- Pitchfork July: SA infiltrates the LDN bass matrix
My Pitchfork column for July covers how a South African influence is infiltrating the LDN bass matrix. Below, read my full interview with Gerv from LV. Dont forget you can still download the "OKZharp" mix here.Interview: Gerv from LV on SA influences in LDNBlackdown: Do you think its fair to say that within London based sounds, especially dubstep, UK funky & house, that influences from South Africa have begun to be more prominent this year?
Gerv LV: Yeah seems like it, and it's fun listening out for those crossover moments. It seems like London music is just a hectic mess at the moment and the SA influence is in there somewhere. Hectic mess haha, I like that. In SA slang hectic can mean bad and bad-meaning-good...
The World Cup has obviously had a big impact so perhaps people are more aware of SA culture in general, which makes it easier for them to accept an SA twist in their party music. and then if someone is really feeling that sound or vibe they can go looking for the source...
B: What current examples, musically, would you point to of South African music in a London context? Are there South African artists getting some attention here or SA influences being adopted into London sounds?
G: I guess an obvious example is Kode9 playing that Mujava Mugwanti tune and putting it in his DJ Kicks mix. and I've heard Mosca and the Night Slugs people play DJ Cleo tunes and other SA stuff. I recently got sent an amazing track by Bakongo with a complete brainmelter of a b-line, all slidey and bubbly and... kwaito-ish. It'll be interesting to see if DJ Cleo's new Es'Khaleni CD gets any love over here.
B: There are obviously so many styles of music within South Africa, you point to kwaito, shangaan (old afro pop records being played at 45 rpm) and this term township tech, can you explain alittle more about what these are?
G: I guess that's inevitable in a country with 11 official languages! It does seem like weird things are happening with Kwaito at the minute, in the stuff I've heard there's been a pretty blatant move away from the traditional sounds and people are just going fully for the trance leads and 808s formula from US pop, but always with the classic Kwaito vocal stylings. And it seems to be speeding up too so it fits in with the house thing.
The Shangaan thing is really exciting to me, I heard some amazing stuff from Smiso when I was out in SA. He was telling me that it basically started on this late night radio show on this one local radio station in Joburg where the DJ realised that if he played all their parents' generation's township pop tunes at 45 instead of 33 peeps were going crazy for it. I guess it's also a cool way for these kids to reclaim that generation's music that, for the outside world at least, was totally lost. But then obviously the new producers are vibing off those hyper sounds and making their own versions.
I think Township Tech was a term coined by Spoek Mathambo for some of his stuff but it seems quite a good fit for quite a lot of the stuff I've been hearing. Spoek is very proud of where he's from but he's also a total sponge, devouring sounds and scenes and spitting it all out in this great mishmash that is just him. When I was planning my trip out there various people including Marcus from Hyperdub suggested I give him a call. It was pretty mad when we met how much we had in common musically, we pretty much bonded over Newham Genz, Big Nuz, Scratcha's breakfast show, DJ Rashad and PM Dawn haha and we had magic late-night recording sessions at Red Bull studios in Cape Town with Zaki Ibrahim. A couple of the tunes we did have ended up on his forthcoming album for BBE and I think it could surprise a few people. It surprised me when I heard it!
B: Does Kwaito connect with UK funky? How?
G: There's an obvious rhythmic similarity there with Kwaito and SA house, those broken up snare triplets over the 4/4. And I think you can also hear a similarity in those emotive bendy chords and brash percussive synth lines. But it seems accepted now that the Funky thing mainly came out of UKG and US house. The interesting thing about the US house influence on Funky is that DJ Fresh and various other slightly-older SA house DJs have long-standing connections with Masters At Work and people like that, so perhaps there's an indirect second-hand connection there too...
B: Is there any evidence of a SA influence in grime? Im not sure there is but Id open to persuasion
B: I haven't heard much of an SA influence in grime yet but it excites me to hear people like Skepta and JME showing pride in their Nigerian heritage and not being afraid to use that in their music. I wouldn't be surprised if soon some UK kid started chatting his parents' dutty Cape slang to get past Westwood's radio censors haha.
[
NB: I sanity-checked this point with Logan, ie is there any SA influence in or on grime, and the answer is a resounding no as expected Blackdown]
G: I do think it's already going the other way though, with UK grime influencing SA artists. I know Spoek, for example, is a total grime geek. And I noticed a few people in SA referring semi-seriously to their music as SA Grime. Rattex is a hiphop artist from Khayelitsha near Cape Town on the Pioneer Unit label and though the main inspiration is still clearly US hiphop you can hear a definite common ground with a London artist like Giggs in the tone, delivery and subject matter. I remember playing Rattex and his crew a couple of Wiley tunes and that Riko/Scratchy tune 'Don't Get Caught'...to say they went mad is a bit of an understatement!
B: Can you explain a bit about your own background, your current location but connections to SA?
G: I was born in Cape Town but moved to London when I was about 6. All my family are still out there and I do feel a definite connection with the place but my musical life and education was definitely London. Then at Christmas time my mum would get all misty-eyed and put on Soweto String Quartet or Miriam Makeba or something...
B: In our
first interview you mentioned the connection between taxi drivers and music in SA, what kind of music do they mostly play?
G: I heard a few people refer to it as 'taxi music' but I suppose the easiest word to use for that stuff is 'house' cos it always has that 4/4 pulse. South Africa pretty much runs on that pulse. I guess the thing people often don't realise about SA music is, as Spoek said to me, house music is pop music. Or pop music is house music. It's everywhere.
B: I think Boomslang could be a very big record for you guys, could you tell me how it came about?
G: Safe! wicked that you like it! It came together in quite a pretty skitzoid roundabout way. It started in January when I went up to Joburg from Cape Town to play a couple of DJ gigs there and Spoek suggested I give his mate Smiso a call. So the day after the first gig I went round to Smiso's place to chill and we hit it off, I had a mic with me so we set up in his kitchen and he chatted Swazied madness over a few LV beats. When I got back to the UK we messed around lifting cool bits out of his freestyles and one of the resulting tunes was Boomslang.... Hope to have some news on it soon...
B: Can you tell me about 'experimental' end of SA bass music, the breakbeat scientific
- Rinse June
We're on Rinse last Thursday night at 11pm, despite my PC dieing 15 mins before I needed to leave for Dusk's gaff and I'd only burnt half the music to CD and despite when pulling away in the car the 'empty' light came on in the fuel gauge. Then when we got to Rinse it turns out the FM, internet stream and MSN were all down.
Despite all the stress and some extreme driving on my part, it turned out to be... a really fun show.
Hopefully the podcast will appear at some point. this just in, no podcast either. shame, was happy with the show.
we're trying to re-schedule a re-run, watch this space...UPDATE: we did a cover show this weds, 29th 11pm on rinse.
DOWNLOAD IT HERE, it was one of my favourite shows in ages...** Dusk + Blackdown Rinse FM June 2010 show **Dunian "Where is the Problem" [unreleased]
Cooly G "Dis Boy" (DVA remix) [unreleased]
MC Creed & Esko Beats "Generate" [unreleased]
Pocz & Pacheko "Zarbak" [unreleased]
Louise Williams & MVP "I Wonder" [unreleased]
DJ Tony Blitz (C.R.S.T.) "Mighty Music" [unreleased]
Girl Unit "IRL (Mosca refix)" [unreleased]
Gremino "The Shining (Jam City Remix)" [Car Crash Set/Fortified Audio]
C.R.S.T. "Thank You!" [unreleased]
Untold "Anaconda (Guarachero Refix)" [unreleased]
Kentphonic "Hiya Kaya (Rocco Deep mix)" [Stalwart]
C.R.S.T. "The Bells!" [unreleased]
Fiz-T "Came To Dance ft Atim Esther (Fiz-T remix)" [unreleased]
Baobinga & I.D. feat. Rider Shafique "Lickle Further" [unreleased]
Tomb Crew "Inna Dat (Rico Tubbs club mix)" [Bass = Win! Records]
Kode9 "You Dont Wash (Instrumental)" [!K7]
S-X "Woooo (funky house remix)" [Stay Fresh]
Mount Kimbie "Mayor" [forthcoming Hotflush]
Maxwell D "Creeper funky remix vocal" [unreleased]
Rooflight "Harlem Power" [Prolific]
C.R.S.T. "Bump" [unreleased]
Mount Kimbie "Carbonated" [forthcoming Hotflush]
C.R.S.T. "Turn Away" [unreleased]
SBTRKT "Readysetloop" [unreleased]
Silkie "80s Baby" [forthcoming Deep Medi]
Terror Danjah "Horror Story" [forthcoming Planet Mu]
Desto "Untitled" [unreleased]
Mr Mitch "Save As" [unreleased]
Redlight & Ms Bratt "Selecta" [unreleased]
Exo & Moony "Two Face" [unreleased]
SRC "Sex on the beach" [unreleased]
Mumdance ft Trim & Jammer "Tarahhtid" [unreleased]
Double Helix "Supreme Architecture" [unreleased]
Amen Ra "One Toke Wonder" [unreleased]
Amen Ra "Simple Tings" [unreleased]
Arge Numa Crew "Shivaganga" [unreleased]
Arp 101 "Dead Leaf" [forthcoming Eglo]
- Who are the keepers of the light?
Who Are The Keepers of the Light? Group MixDownload the mix
here. Join the Facebook Group
here.
Protect & Serve - Octaviour
Lucid - Solar Man
Sono Luminessence - Double Helix
Life Age - Double Helix
Hot Steppin - Double Helix
Dream Catcher - Amen Ra
Dreamers Lament - Double Helix
Candy Rain - Amen Ra
Chamber of Light - Double Helix
No Love - Amen Ra vs NFA
The Gap - Double Helix ft Solar Man
Supreme Architecture - Double Helix
Sunset (Mumbai Slum Edition) - NFA
Solo - LDM
Pranayama - Amen Ra
LHF "EP1: Enter in Silence" is out June 28th on 12" but in Boomkat now and on digital. Listen to it here.- Rinse gets a licence!!!!
Rinse FM has been awarded a licence, 16 years after it started in east London... this is an historic moment for London pirate culture, one-nil to the good guys.
The work put in by Gee, Rat, Soulja and all the Ammo family has been immense, from the updates I've occasionally heard. The plans for the future seem incredible, quite different and beyond the music really socially heartwarming.
But enough about the future, let's savour this moment. The audio is
here. "Feel Good!"
- LHF "EP1: Enter in Silence"
- The greatest rhythms in dubstep part 2
Last year I started writing about rhythms in dubstep and since then things have been a bit mental. Anyway here's part 2 and I'll try and not and leave it so long for part three, honest.Mala "Learn" (DMZ, 2007)Nominally, "Learn" is both a halfstep beat (in where the snare is placed) and "wobble" tune (in so far as it uses an LFO on the sub bassline), but the truth is it's absolutely neither of these things, as far as the words are popularly understood to mean. It is instead, so much more. The genius of "Learn" is revealed as the arrangement flows and that itself is a thing of wonder. Not least because it makes you wonder why more producers don't do it more.
"Learn" begins by throwing you in an echo chamber, a dark and dangerous one, using dub-as-process (not dub-as-sample-source) to bring you as close to dub as dubstep truly gets. The high hats lead the way, suggesting a way out of this dangerous space, a path into the light, but it's a slippy and treacherous one.
To begin with the hats seem fairly traditionally placed - on beat but with a short (probably 16th) delay - and then offbeat 8th hats come in, creating the classic house 8th on-beat/offbeat tension. But as we descend towards the drop the delay on the on beat hats suddenly they change time signature, from 4/4 to 12/8. Naturally these two patterns can be overlayed, by placing three triplet note hats where once were two eighths, so the track can be beatmixed while giving the impression of changing time signature midway through. It's a simple but very rare move, with the only people that spring to mind being Wiley and Zomby who perform 4/4 --> 12/8 switches.
The sub drops in, adding a physical impact, but in truth at this stage "Learn" is still skeletally thin, a body of percussive bones that flesh barely clings to. Mala sees to that: the track progresses and reveals its second moment of rhythmic genius.
While Loefah, in past interviews, has talked about the use of space as rhythmic element ("
the way I see it, space is just as much of an instrument as a kick or a snare. You need peaks and troughs"), as the track develops Mala uses a synth stab as percussion. Riding triplets again, it's a completely new element added to the track but proves magical, shocking in its unannounced late arrival. He could have added it in 4/4, but by adding it in 12/8 he respects the understanding that for a track to rhythmically work as a whole (unless you're looking for something deliberately jumbled), each percussive element has to have it's place, not conflict with others and work towards the greater, utterly coherent whole.
Mala is the teacher: why haven't you Learned anything? ;)
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