#2: The (Unsigned) Hip Hop Sessions

Na próxima hora, o Coffee Breakz vai andar a fuçar os recantos do ciberespaço, à procura de gente do hip-hop sem contrato assinado.

1 Juggla Records
2 Trife Salasi Slave Market Radio
3 Zeez Shock Of The Hour
4 Vangaurd Belly Of The Beast
5 Reef The Lost Cauze Where It's Not (prod. by Noxt Millen)
6 French & Graph Goodnight
7 Tame One & DJ Porno Slowdown
8 Kustoo Love (prod. by Cassius Clay)
9 Reef The Lost Cauze Mike Jones Infomercial
10 Omega Crime Happily
11 Fenalm It's Time
12 DJ Crumbumb Scoundral (used for bed music)
13 Bashton & Megalon Off Mic
14 Jak Progresso Sit On My Face
15 TDI I Run Tha Bronx
16 Conumdrum One I Love C1
17 The Kid Getting High
18 Dump Sites Black Umbrellas

emitido a 21 e 25 Novembro

No Luck Club - Prosperity

Igloo Cartel









Rating: 9/10

Just when I was banging my head against the wall in frustration, a Vancouver-based trio sent me an advance copy of the finest instrumental hip-hop pedigree I've come across this year. I immediately thought to myself: Finally, a record that is like a cinemascope, discharging sonic luminaries like we were all starring in a remake of Chaplin’s Modern Times. But then the first track, "Triad Zone," languidly worn out in its low-cholesterol abrasiveness, was more typical of a film noir. It’s even better, I recall salivating to my inner self. (Actually, "Triad Zone" had already made it to WFMU host Noah Zark’s podcast Coffee 2 Go earlier this year, so it wasn't completely unrecognizable.)

Prosperity is an urban fairytale, inebriated with oriental fumes. In fact, as the press release puts it, this is the second chapter of a trilogy of recordings, inspired by the Chinese deities symbolizing luck and good fortune. The first was Happiness and it was released in September 2003. Could they be more conceptual? Yes, they could... and they are. Going through No Luck Club’s latest effort is like reading a book, divided in four chapters, here eloquently called "suites": the Cinematic Suite, the Uptempo Suite, the Introspective Suite, and the Nada Suite.

Founded in 2000 by the Chan Brothers (Matt, the turntablist, and Trevor, the laptop samplist), No Luck Club claimed the attention of Dan the Automator’s 75Ark Records when the group issued their mix CD and demo, Newfangled Moments. They signed a contract with the label but, when Happiness was already in the stove, 75Ark went kaput. A revised version of the album would be released by Ill Boogie Records two years later, and Vancouver DJ champion Paul Belen (a.k.a. Pluskratch) would join the Club in late 2004. With the addition of Pluskratch the brotherhood of the ring was complete, so to speak.

Imagine an art gallery comprised of four rooms, each devoted to a specific musical mood. Each hosting three alphanumerical combinations you have to decipher so that you can unlock three different safes, and move on to the next suite. I think this is a nice way to describe the mental maze that Prosperity induces. But there’s more to it. The eclecticism is its watermark, from vacant electronics ("Corporate Spy Hunter") to piano-driven, dub incursions like "OMD (Orchestral Maneuvers in Dub)," and from the scratching, fatso delivery of "Rock n’ Roll Monster on Sunset" to the tropicalia, jazz-funk intersection on the Portuguese/Brazilian-titled "Mais Ritmo no Carnaval" – which translates as "more rhythm in Carnival".

And, of course, there’s even room for politicized, mind-numbing numbers like "Our Story," which speaks up about the difficulties in Sino-Canadian relations, and features racist samples like "we don’t want China men in Canada, this is a white men’s country and white men will keep it so," and "the people of Canada do not wish to make a fundamental alteration in the character of our population". No Luck Club are not afraid of pouring salt in someone’s wounds.

As far as musical spectres are concerned, No Luck Club could not be among better people. They have shared the stage with the likes of Buck 65, the pope of grainy, tedium-fuelled hip hop, M.I.A., the girl with "revolution" as her middle name, the mighty Jurassic Five, DJ A-Trak, DJ Z-Trip, among others. "Oh my god that’s the funky shit!"

http://www.lostatsea.net/review.phtml?id=20918416374561a332b9ceb

#1: Atlantic Waves 2006

Quando já decorre o Atlantic Waves 2006, o Coffee Breakz mostra os sons que a edição deste ano leva até Londres.

1 Shlomo Intro
2 Carlos Bica Hank
3 Mieyon & Park Je Chun Iberian Sunset
4 Max Eastley Two 150 Kilo Blocks of Melting Ice with Layers of Stones Embedded Falling Onto a Metal Plate for Climate Change Project Farewell
5 Z'EV The Smoking Key
6 Robert Rutman Live at King Kong Club, 11.2.05 (excerpt)
7 Victor Gama Jetstream (Wind on Totem Harp)
8 Asmus Tietchens S.4
9 Thomas Köner Tu, Sempre
10 Paulo Raposo Stanza (For Marta)
11 David Maranha Bercese Pour Ema

Site oficial

emitido a 14 e 18 Novembro

The Strugglers - You Win

Acuarela



Rating: 6/10

Although my street cred may irreversibly turn to dust, I kind of like this record. While most alt-country artists take advantage of the momentum created by Richard Buckner, Will Oldham and Ryan Adams – sounding merely pictorial and unashamedly flat – The Strugglers offer a more prosaic association with a certain folksy American tradition. You Win takes no conceptual jump but the band, hailing from North Carolina’s "Paris of the Piedmont," Carrboro, manages to savagely grow early seeds still bearing fruit.

It’s not an original idea, though – it never was, really. And it definitely stretches back to Neil Young, (Smog) and the like. But The Strugglers do so in a defiantly manner, which is half the way to prevent their final work from getting a depreciative look. Always exploring an introverted terrain, these songs possess the comfortable scent of a fireplace burning constantly on a Sunday afternoon.

From "The Rejection Letter," a spacious, silent outburst of restrained anger, to the self-titled epilogue, this album is eminently coherent, a solemn chant of the disenchanted, if you will. Does my heart feel warmer at the completion of these 50 minutes? Only slightly. Nevertheless, I can see this was the only way songwriter Brice Randall Bickford II had found for his music to keep pace with his ideas.

Let all music history fall down like yellow, aged print matter – by that time, The Strugglers’ page will probably remain blank and this record will feel like a cucumber in the gardener’s ass. But for now, it’s no crime to crank these songs up, incorporate the solitude of reclusive numbers like "Necrophilia" and "Distant Demands," and contemplate the big black hole on the wall.

Enjoy the inertia provided by the guitars, the banjos, the drums, and the rich string and piano arrangements. The next Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy record is only a few weeks away to warm up fall evenings.

http://www.lostatsea.net/review.phtml?id=59029949944f08128a0d28

Jet Sam - Remote

Earsay



Rating: 4/10

With all due respect, this EP is like having sex with a bartender: enjoyable while it lasts, but lacking all manner of memorable details to make for a nice, juicy shit-chat at the water cooler the following morning. Jet Sam is an Israeli power trio, ideologically rooted in the old tradition of American rock trios. They are gifted musicians, though sometimes dangerously reminiscent of the megalithic style of Our Lady Peace and Days of the New.

That reverence to acts of the past is simultaneously their greatest virtue and their Achilles’ heel. Post-grunge is so dated it drags the dutiful ear into a spiral of arbitrary rejection and circumspect prejudice. But if you idolize Nickelback just as much as you say you revere Nirvana, this may score high in your summer passions’ hit list. Besides, Omer Hershman’s voice and guitar playing are irrepressibly good in academic terms, as are Yair Yona’s bass and Ran Jackobovitz’s drums.

Nevertheless, they end up sounding monumentally annoying after a second rerun, especially in numbers like “The Days” and the live version of “Man from the Park”. And so Remote is like a little tragedy just waiting to happen. These guys should have been told that tossing a hard rock album, with all the clichés of post-grunge, and never moving a millimetre from the safe rock n’ roll commandments, would put them at risk of a rotund disapproval.

If I had to highlight something from this 23-minute EP, I would choose the 23-second watering effect at the beginning of “India”. Just don’t take their on-stage curriculum as a consequent guideline! Even though they have performed in some of New York’s finest venues, they’re still too “monkey see, monkey do” for the average taste. Jet Sam is another abortive record away from falling into a collective purgatory, that of the act more ready to give a shot in the foot than a shot in the dark. So let me just put the lights out and see if they get the message.

http://www.lostatsea.net/review.phtml?id=51232798344c6775504af9