Thursday 4 March 2010

The Quantic Soul Orchestra - Pushin' On


Peace.

Sly & The Family Stone - Fresh


Fresh to death baby.

Cannibal Ox - The Cold Vien


Classic underground/indie hip-hop. Very dark. Very excellent.

Ghostface Killah & Trife Da God - Put It On The Line


Dope

Clubroot - Clubroot


Nice

Sean Price - Monkey Barz


Great ignorant rap album. Like Rick James fuck-your-couch levels of ignorance.

Blue Sky Black Death - J(A)Y(Z)


Remix album from BSBD of Jay-Z and AZ material. J(A)Y(Z). Geddit? Good.

Thursday 25 February 2010

Prince - The Very Best of Prince


If you don't like Prince then there is probably something wrong with you.


Non-musical proof that Prince is awesome.....

Dday One - Heavy Migration


More instrumental hip-hop for your ears. All dusty drums and cut up samples. Very nice.

Danger Mouse & Jemini - Ghetto Pop Life


Seriously underrated hip-hop record.

Peace.

Outsidaz - Night Life EP


EP from underground rap crew Outsidaz. Post-debut, pre-Royce Eminem used be affiliated with these lot if that makes a difference to anybody? No? Fair enough.

Contains at least one top quality 16 and there’s a fun size mars bar up for grabs if anyone can tell me which one I’m referring to. Ready? Go......

Download

Tuesday 23 February 2010

Trentemoller - The Trentemoller Chronicles



Second album from Trentemoller, the Danish dance music producer fella. The first CD is his own production; all quality, fairly downtempo stuff but the second disc is where it's at. A collection of remixes he has done for other artists (The Knife, Djuma Soundsystem, Royksopp etc).

Beth Orton - Central Reservation


Wonderful voice, great songwriter. Will probably make you feel a bit sad.

Various Artists - Badmeaningood Volume 2: Roots Manuva



Roots Manuva should do more compilation albums. This is brilliant.

If you don't agree then you're a massive racist. Fact.

Download

Curtis Mayfield - Superfly (OST)


Listening to this album while pounding the mean streets of Camberwell lets me imagine I’m in a mid-70’s blaxploitation film. Occasionally I slide across the hood of a parked car and kung fu chop the nearest jive turkey in the neck. That's just how I'm living these days.

No but seriously this is dope.

Download

Ultramagnetic MC's - Critical Beatdown


If something can be extremely classic, then this is it. So many great breakbeats it’ll make your head spin. Also, Kool Keith is The Prodigy’s favourite rapper. The internet taught me that.

Download

Casual - Fear Itself


Debut album from Hieroglyphics member Casual.

Right, in my opinion, there are only a handful of albums that display this level of skill consistently throughout and all of them are better known than this one.

Start to finish this guy is on point and on this kind of form, could probably rap circles around your favourite rappers favourite rapper (Unless they're Nas, Andre 3K, Jay, Pun or Biggie. Or Em, or Ghostface, or Big L. Okay, maybe not, but on the strength of this album he deserved more praise from the lyrical/miracle/spiritual underground hip-hop nerds than he got.)

Download

Plantlife - The Return of Jack Splash


Basically, this fella has listened to an awful lot of Prince and George Clinton records, which is no bad thing.

Electrofunk-soul type thing? Hella funky.

Download

Fat Jon The Ample Soul Physician - Wave Motion


Quality instrumental hip-hop album. All that jazzy and soulful bizness. Highly recommended.

Les Rythmes Digitales - Darkdancer


Underrated album from that Jacques Lu Cont fella; he went on to produce for Madonna I think. Nobody’s perfect I suppose.

Download

Monday 15 February 2010

Geto Boys - The Foundation & We Can't Be Stopped

Download - The Foundation

A lot of hip-hop these days is labelled as ‘gangsta rap’. Well this group is the very definition of that term.

The Geto Boys (Scarface, Willie D & Bushwick Bill) were so gangsta that their most violent and psychotic member was a midget. This midget was so gangsta that he made his full size girlfriend shoot him in the face during a failed suicide attempt. If that wasn’t crazy enough, they then used a photo of him on a gurney in the hospital, post-shooting, swollen faced and blind in one eye, as their next album cover.

I wish I was making this shit up.

Download - We Can't Be Stopped

p.s. The Foundation is a great album.

Company Flow - Funcrusher Plus


I played this album to death when I first copped it. Will probably only appeal to a couple of people but I love this record.

Breakbeat Era - Ultra-Obscene


Late 90’s D&B. 'Bullitprooof' and 'Ultra-Obscene' were the shit when this first came out which, unfortunately, is over ten years ago now. Fuck I’m old.

Download

Lee Fields & The Expressions - My World


Soul record that sounds like it was made 40 years ago when in fact it came out last year. Vintage yeah?

Download

Styles P - The Ghost Sessions


Don’t know if this was a legit release or some fan boy compilation that the internet spat out but either way it’s a slice of grimy New York hip hop for your ears.

Download

DJ Spinna - Intergalactic Soul


Once again can’t really be categorised other than in the aforementioned pigeon hole of niceness. Modern soul maybe? Yeah go on then.

Modern soul album.

Download

D'Angelo - Brown Sugar


One of the few R&B albums that stands the test of time. Another plus point is that, to the best of my knowledge, D'Angelo never pissed on any underage girls and videotaped it.

D’Angelo: 1 – R.Kelly: 0

Download

Ry Cooder - Paris, Texas (OST)


An entire album of acoustic slide guitar you say?

Yes, yes I do. There is some seriously beautiful, haunting music on this soundtrack. If you don’t believe me then check out the title track, ‘Paris, Texas’.

If you still don’t believe me then you’re wrong.

Download

Friday 12 February 2010

Ghostface Killah - Supreme Clientele


My favourite solo album from my favourite Wu-Tang member featuring one of my favourite songs of all time, Mighty Healthy.

Favourite.

Sly & The Family Stone - There's a Riot Goin' On


The granddaddy of funk. Without him there would be no Prince, and without Prince there would be no Carmen Electra or Sinead O'Connor crying in a video.

You do the math.

LTJ Bukem - Logical Progression, Level 1


One of the best D&B mix CD's in my opinion. Jazzy and soulful with great basslines throughout. You need this in your life.


UGK - Ridin' Dirty

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My favourite album from Port Arthur's finest. Unfortunately no more following the death of Pimp C, but southern rap doesn't get much better than this.

Do not play within earshot of anybody with a vagina.

Capleton - More Fire


If you have even a passing interest in reggae/dancehall and you haven't already, you need to acquaint yourself with Capleton.

You can thank me later.

4Hero - Play With The Changes


Can't really stick this in a pigeon hole other than the pigeon hole of niceness.

Does that exist? It does now, I just invented it. Deal with it.

Chemical Brothers - Exit Planet Dust


Their first album as The Chemical Brothers and their best in my opinion.

Thursday 11 February 2010

Jay Electronica - What The Fuck Is A Jay Electronica?


Compilation/mixtape of Jay Electronica material scattered across the interweb.

Basically the dude has listened to a lot of Nas and Wu-Tang. This is a good thing.

The Orb - The Orb's Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld (Deluxe Edition)


Disc one from The Orb compilation and yes, Little Fluffy Clouds is on there.

Peace.

Chris Read - The Diary: Volume 1.5 (20 Years of the Remix)


Remix album from former med bar stalwart and professional flat cap wearer, Chris Read.

Most of this is pretty down tempo and chilled, worth a listen.

DJ Kicks - Kruder & Dorfmeister


DJ compilation from Kruder & Dorfmeister, kings of dubby chilled things and other such stuff.

Nice for your ears.

Aretha Franklin - Lady Soul


This woman has won 18 Grammys. 18.

Cookin` Soul Presents - BigDilla

Big Dilla Cover web

Dilla v Pun?

It would be rude not to.

En Vogue - The Best of En Vogue


En Vogue were awesome. Real talk.

Warp Records - 2010 From Warp


Warp Records sampler of upcoming stuff in 2010.

Features Flying Lotus, Pivot etc.

Freddie Gibbs - The Miseducation of Freddie Gibbs


Dude can rap. Seriously.

Blu & Exile - Below The Heavens


Somewhere between Slum Village & Little Brother?

Highly recommended.

White Mice - White Mice


Reggae niceness.

Nuyorican Soul - Nuyorican Soul


Classic.

Wednesday 10 February 2010

Burial - Untrue


Dubstep on the whole passed me by but this is nice. Instrumental style, yaknowwhatimsayin?

Probably what MJ Cole would have sounded like if he came from Bristol and hung around with DJ Shadow a bit. Maybe? No? Okay then.

Various Artists - Down & Out: The Sad Soul of the Black South

Christ this is sad.

Beautiful but sad.