27.6.2007 von mk.

Ich bin schon seit geraumer Zeit Fan von griechischem funky Freestyle. Das liegt einerseits daran, dass es dort richtig Underground ist, jeder jeden DJ und Act kennt und sich gegenseitig supportet. Und andererseits an immer neuen, talentierten Newcomern, die frischen Wind in die Funky Breaks-Ecke bringen, sei es Timewarp Inc., Basement Freaks, Headson Groove, DJ Didis, Blend etc..
Quasamodo  reiht sich da super mit seinem Debutalbum ein. Mutig packt er 27 Tracks auf 2 CDs und fast so viele Styles. Quasamodo hat einen eigenen Sound, den er einmal im Funky-Gewand („You scratch mine, I´ll scratch yours“ / „Tramp Dance“), ein andermal im 4-to-the-Floor-Tanga (???), im poppigen Nadelstreifenanzug („Seacret“) oder auch im chilligen Bademantel („Deseo Brutal“) präsentiert. Unterstützt wird er von diversen Sängerinnen und Gastmusikern. Das ergänzt meist prima. Olga haucht spanische Obszönitäten und Emma bringt einen gewissen Everything but the girl-touch. Gerade Frauenvocals sagen mir etwas weniger zu; macht er schließlich den Sound extrem poppig. Andererseits ist das bei 27 Tracks auch gelegentlich OK. Insgesamt ergibt das ein gelungenes und abwechslungsreiches Debüt. Ich bin gespannt auf weitere Taten des Herrn Quasamodo.

Quincy Jointz (4 von 5 Punkten)

Label: timewarp music

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27.6.2007 von mk.

10 years of Sonar Kollektiv simply means 10 years in which the JAZZANOVA members have been appearing as a multi-faceted and powerful formation. Through their great international success JAZZANOVA have established the basis for Sonar Kollektiv. Their achievements speak for themselves and form the basis for an ever growing network. JAZZANOVA have managed to gather a roster of artists around them who, with their high quality of output, have also managed to enjoy worldwide fame: CLARA HILL, FAT FREDDYS DROP, SLOPE, ÂME, MICATONE, TRICKSKI.

Label: sonar kollektiv

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22.6.2007 von mk.

From cosmopolitan London to inspirational Brazil, Zeep bring you an album inspired by the attitude of the 70s when music was live, urgent, right-on, scruffy, funky and folksy. Imagine Led Zep, The Meters, Joni Mitchell and The Beatles jamming in Brazil with Tropicalistas such as Gal Costa, Gilberto Gil & Os Mutantes - where rock ‘n’ roll, funk and classic pop get spiced up with a little samba magic - and you’re on the right track.
Nina and Chris were involved in two of the biggest selling and critically acclaimed Brazilian influenced acts of the past decade - Smoke City (still remembered for their seminal ‘Underwater Love’ track) - and Da Lata, signed to Chris Blackwell’s Palm Pictures label. By no-means limiting their involvement to only ‘Musica Brasileira’, over the years they have collaborated with a number of world renowned musicians such as Tony Allen, Baaba Maal, Ernest Ranglin, Naçao Zumbi, Marisa Monte, Sly and Robbie, Nitin Sawhney, Jah Wobble, Femi Kuti and Bebel Gilberto to name a few.
The musical chemistry between Nina and Chris was so fluid that the natural thing for them to do was to make an album together. “Zeep is a more folky, more organic album than anything else we’ve done”, says Chris. The songs were mostly dreamt up in their home in North London from jam sessions over the last few years. As the songs took shape, they thought about their friends from Brazil who could help them realise their tales of love, life and the universe with the necessary sub-equatorial tropical heat, and so last summer they jetted off to Brazil to recruit their fellow Zeepistas.
Alongside Nina on vocals & Chris on guitars are some of Brazil’s finest musicians: Mauro Berman (bassist for Marcelo D2 and member of Democustico), Marcelo Jeneci Da Silva (keyboardist with Vanessa Da Mata & Chico Cesar) and Marcalzinho (percussionist with Joao Bosco & Pat Metheney). UK based Italian drummer Davide Giovannini (drummer with Marcos Valle & Steve Winwood) came along on the trip with them and back in Blighty they recorded the second half of the album with Mike Lindup (Level 42, Da Lata) on keys , Tristan Banks on drums (Terry Callier, Dave Valentin) plus Diabel Cissokho with guest vocals and Momadou Sarr on djembe. The album also features the voice of UK jazz and TV legend Kenny Lynch and the sax of the superb Jason Yarde (Hugh Masekela, Roy Ayres, Hermeto Pascoal).
Whilst Zeep was mainly dreamt up in London, the beat of Brazil gives the music it’s swing, as electric guitars, funky drumming and samba percussion all combine with shouts, whispers and random bursts of ‘collective conscience’ to produce one of the freshest albums we’ve heard in a long time. “We made this record without having a record deal in place as we wanted to let the music dictate where it was going”, says Chris, “this is music for music’s sake, recorded with everyone playing together”. “This” finishes Nina, “is why we christened it ‘Zeep’, because we wanted a name that was born the same time as the music”.
Opening track ‘Super’ sets the tone of the album - a blast of psychedelic folk funk where our ’super-hero powers can take us high’, whilst second track ‘Funny Old Song’ is a snappy uplifting folky bossa where spoken interjections from various Zeepistas give the track a film-like quality. ‘Come with me’ features the velvety voice of Kenny Lynch - London’s answer to Nat-king-Cole - and is a tale of two people down on their luck who find solace in each other. Lyrically it’s classic samba and with the shuffling percussive groove and sing-a-long chorus it’s undoubtedly one of the albums highlights. ‘Zeep Dreams’ is a pacey baião featuring Senegalese djembe player Mamadou Sarr and vocalist Diabel Cissoko that connects Brazil to mother Africa.
Other obvious highlights are ‘Baby’, that featuring Courtney Dennie on backing vocals, is a romantic bossa with a reggae soul vibe. ‘Agua’, the first ever Nina & Chris song, is a punchy baião inspired by the spirits of those passed away and the essential life-giving property of water. ‘Sem Pensar’ is sung in Portuguese conjuring up the contrasting physical and socio-economic landscape of Brazil to a lilting rhythm in ¾ time and ‘Keep an Eye on Love’, is a feel-good R ‘n’ B samba begging for daytime radio airplay…

Label: far out recordings

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19.6.2007 von mk.

Reinterpretations is the re-working of Lindstrom and Prins Thomas’s debut eponymous album from late 2005.
Since then they have been heralded the world over as the kings of cosmic or space disco, spearheading the vanguard of new sounds emanating from their native Norway.
This album collates their own alternative versions and B-sides released on vinyl only and gives a more uptempo, dancefloor vibe to 2005’s highly praised debut. If their debut was the Norwegian chilled factor then this brings the duo’s love of the groove firmly to the fore.
As seen on Lindstrom’s Feedelity compilation last year and soon to be witnessed by Prins Thomas’s genre-splicing eclecticism on a double mix-cd for Eskimo, Reinterpretations brings together elements of funk, house, disco, psychadelia, italo, boogie and beyond, taking them into a new Nordic dimension.

Label: eskimo recordings

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17.6.2007 von mk.

After a long break WALDECK is back with his new longplayer “Ballroom Stories”. Our musical journey begins in the Americas at the beginning of the 1920ies. Tango meets Swing. Delicous cocktails and a live that seems even richer than the thick smoke of Cuban Cigars. The opener “Make my Day” reminds of the days when Al Capone was making a fortune by selling booze. Singer Joy Malcolm gives us an impressive performance of how she would have sounded, if she were born 60 years earlier. If, this track sounds familier to you, it may be, because Mercedes Benz chose it, for its latest TV-campaign featuring the Formula 1 world champion Mr. Alonso. All there is to say: “Turn the radio on, the neighbour´s gone!” Another highlight “Addicted” sneaks in with an intriguing bass line and a healthy dose of tango-feeling. Zeebee is the new voice on this masterpiece.

Label: dope noir

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5.6.2007 von mk.

We don’t know much about those two artists in question, but what we do know is…that this one is a massive anthem. Kareem´s Musicshop established to be nothing less than an oasis of love in the middle of those cold blooded urban deserts.
“Personality” is a funky and catchy composition, a song with uplifting lyrics. Reconsideration, “giving another try” where it’s worth is the humble message in here. This classic debut comes along with two amazing mixes by Cologne’s Levent aka Can7, who remixed already dons like De La Soul and Moloko.
To sum up this joyful release, Jürgen Drimal from Vienna’s own Freedom Satellite delivers a fine overdub-version of the original radio track.

Label: sunshine enterprises

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3.6.2007 von mk.

fabrique records was born out of an encounter in the winter of 2001/02 between former major company A&R, Michael Martinek, and musician & journalist, Christian Rösner. They aimed to offer a musical platform to a small, close-knit group of artists and to forge their own way into the then booming Viennese label scene. From the beginning, fabrique records committed itself to a variety of musical styles and thrust the personalities behind the releases into the foreground.
Through the first releases of artists such as Kava, Mauracher, Paloma, Konsorten TM and Bassman, fabrique records got off to a truly dream start with airplay on various radio stations in Europe including FM4 in Austria, Xfm London and BBC Radio1 in the UK, some international licenses and a temporary branch of the label in London. Consequently, fabrique records also managed to attract highly esteemed remixers such as Bonobo, TM Juke, Zed Bias, Dr. Rubberfunk, Spoonface and Don Air, and to strengthen the international reputation of the label.
Some five years on and after numerous small successes, the circle of artists around fabrique records continues to strengthen and develop with artists such as the exceptional young talent, Kava, the Discopunks TNT Jackson, the Berlin based duo Liechtenstein & Kasar, the bass and electronic virtuoso, Hannes Strobl, the Broken-Beat-duo Mirize, the electronic music pioneer Hans Joachim Roedelius, and many others destined to provide further top quality releases.
To celebrate the fifth anniversary of fabrique records, “The Fabrique Album” will be released as a showcase for the label’s alternative style. A statement that reflects the eclectic nature of the music released over the past few years by fabrique records. This album will consciously go against the classic “Best Of” principal and instead include some essential highlights from the colourful back-catalogue, numerous exclusives produced especially for the record, as well as remixes and rare material.
Exclusives: TNT Jackson present a brand new track “Great Expectations” which is a taster for their forthcoming 2nd studio album, as do Mirize with their contribution, the melodic “Dazed Pride”; while the British broken-beat magician, Elroy “Spoonface” Powell aka Pan Cosefo shows us with “There´s Plenty” the more audacious side of his musicianship.
Moving on, nobody celebrates his status as a new born “electronic” artist in a more understated way than MTV legend Ray Cokes with the song “Sleepwalking” in a remix of the turntable wizzards Waxolutionists, and he gives a foretaste of a remix 12″, which is planed for Autumn/Winter. The Waxolutionists offer with “Eos” a second very exciting and exclusive track.
In addition to the well known track “Wheels of Steel” from Paloma, former artist Bassman Hannes Strobl gives us a taster of what we can expect from his debut release under his own name with the wonderful track “Nachtzug Berlin”, while Bernhard Fleischmann delivers an exclusive cover version of “Mine” by Christian Roesner.
Finally a dreamy, minimal and rare track by Hans Joachim Roedelius serves to bring the album to a harmonious conclusion.

Label: fabrique records

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3.6.2007 von mk.

Signs marks the triumphant return of leftfield electronic band Ikon. A mixture of dubby electronica and blissful vocals this promises to put them on a par with their major label contemporaries.
Rewind 3 years and everything is going right for the band. Their single “The Dove” is being championed by daytime radio DJ’s , festival shows are booked and they are being mentioned in the same sentences as Air & Royksopp - so what happened next?
“Basically we weren’t really ready to go out and slog it round the live circuit” says Elliot Ireland from the band “The people we worked with on the first album were friends of ours that lived in Ibiza, Berlin and other even further flung parts of the world - it was really stressful getting everyone together and rehearsed for gigs and it just meant too much time out of the studio - in the end we did a few major gigs like The Big Chill and a Radio 1 showcase but turned down the rest to concentrate on studio projects. Myself and Alex are also in Skeewiff and we had an album of that material to finish for release. We just ended up concentrating on other projects till last year when Alex, Trevor and myself sat down to plan out the new album.”
The album kicks off with “No reason to stay” one of two tracks vocalled by seasoned soul singer Dee Ellington. “We had a lot of fun in the studio with Dee - she’s a lot of fun to be around and has a really distinctive sound to her vocals” says Trevor Mac “We also worked on two tracks with Ian Britt whose album we released a couple of years ago and there is a definite element of that folk singer-songwriter sensibility to the album. Dirty Girl is more about us shaping him to the IKON sound and Out of Our hands is him bending us back the other way. They seem to work really well together on the same album. The album finishes on a really stripped back acoustic track sung by Kirsty Hawkshaw - it’s great that Kirsty is on this album as her vocal was one of the highlights of the first one”
The album is a real mixture of songs and soundscapes. “We do a lot of music for film and I think that shows in tracks like “Kill Tremolo” says Elliot. It’s all about creating a mood while keeping everything moving forward. Kill Tremolo started life as an instrumental but was missing something so I got in touch with a friend called Swati who sings with Nitin Sawhney and she added a vocal that is really subtle but brings out what’s special in the track.

Label: jalapeno records

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