Lohan from the dubstep/breakstep duo Search & Destroy who are also behind the awesome dubstep labels Destructive and Pitch Black, has released an instrumental hiphop album. Or actually he released it a while ago already, but I only recently got around checking it out, and i love it. The album itself is called Crazy Lohan & the 2nd Hand Orchestra - 2nd Hand Shop Vol #1 and it contains 33 simple, raw and unpolished, short instrumental hiphop tracks. It's pretty laid back, but nothing dreamy or dubby. Simply just good funk breaks and samples and no fancy tricks or gimmicks.
Lohan himself describes the album like this: "It's all raw, straight vinyl + b-movie samples, no compression + a little eq. Out to the old school Hip-Hop heads who like it a bit dirty, crackles n all. To all my crate-digging brothers and sisters out there!
Please feel free to pass this around, give it to your friends, host it online, torrent it, sample it, burn it on a cd + use it as a coaster even, but most of all, I hope you have a listen and enjoy it."
Lohan is also working on an experimental Dubstep album under his Scarecrow moniker, so something dark and sci-fi influenced will be coming our way very soon.
Download the album here, or stream/download the tracks from the Soundcloud player below.
More than ten years ago we remixed ‘You Got Me‘ by Erykah Badu & The Roots and 1000 one-sided 12″s of the track were released. They disappeared instantly and ever since then copies of it have changed hands for silly money.
Nice as that is for our egos we’ve been thinking about this a lot and decided to use the high demand for a good cause.
So what we’d like you to do is donate whatever you can to Cancer Research UK in exchange for a download of the track.
Almost all of us will be directly or indirectly affected by cancer over the course of our lives. The work carried out by Cancer Research saves millions of people all over the world by discovering new ways to prevent, diagnose and treat the disease.
The release date of Exit Records' long await compilation "Mosaic Vol 1" is near and the guys at The Nest who are also hosting the album launch party are giving away a previously unreleased track from Skream.
I'm personally very excited about this album and been waiting for couple of these tunes to come out for ages, so it's a buy on sight album for me. The two samplers are already out, and the album itself will be released on January 31st.
Yet another Astrophonica-related post here, this time Fracture & Neptune have wrapped us a nice little gift, a track called "Time Trapped" which was recorded by a funk band trapped in space in 2001.
I wrote about Mineral and his website earlier, but I've been a bit lazy reporting about the free tracks when they've been good stuff, and 100% finnish too :)
Anyway, this week's track is an old one from me and inZtance, and actually our first collaboration as well. It got some nice dj support around here and also on bassdrive, and it was planned for a vinyl release too. Unfortunately, if there is a possibility that something might go wrong, it usually will go wrong and as the result this tune ended up gathering dust on our hard drives.
Mineral, a finnish drum'n'bass dj, producer and a promoter as part of the Pressure Crew from Tampere, has recently opened his personal webpage to showcase his music and dj mixes. He's also intending to release a free track every week, either from his own vault, or from other producers, he's open for submissions from people and is happy to promote good drum'n'bass music.
The first track, "A Neverending Story" is a good example of breakbeat-driven atmospheric drum'n'bass, with a bunch of switchups and classic jungle breaks.
While waiting for the next track, check his mixes. I had the promo mix of his own material in my mp3 player for months when I first downloaded it. He's also played at Science so he can't be bad ;)
Californian drum'n'bass dj and producer Method One decided to give away a free track for download today to celebrate having 1000 followers on his Soundcloud profile today. "The Next Day" is a nice piece of atmospheric drum'n'bass, as you might expect from this guy whose tracks have been in rotation at Science nights as well.
Going back to the Nerve roots with this release - two absolutely brilliant tough n techy rollers from Finland's finest - Trisector & Dejaru. Individually they create a beautiful cacophony of noise - with Trisector releasing on Med School and Dejaru delivering for Vampire Records but together it's an even more beautiful thang.
"Dead End" opens with creepy pads and synth work before a crisp breaks rolls in as a wee warning for the approaching bass, which can only be described as "a bit like that bit in Indiana Jones with the giant ball". It's a tough techy roller and guaranteed to get any decent dancefloor on it's feet and on the go. "Aeon Silicon" on the flip is a dirtier affair, again the trademark quality beats and bass are in place topped off with a grungey synth hook that can only be described as "filth" (in the best possible way).
Absolutely brilliant stuff, for more on these guys and other fine Finnish producers - make sure to check out the Finnish Drum n Bass and Dubstep 2010 compilation.
