Chris Macro, the mixologist behind the awesome Macro Dubplates series (download here) has a new track up on his site. “Brooklyn Slow Motion” mashes up Jay-Z and Lil’ Wayne’s “Hello Brooklyn” with one of the most famous riddims in dancehall history, the Stalag. The results are excellent:
Brooklyn Slow Motion by MACRODUBPLATES
Download here (right click and “save as”) 3:52 /// 9.08mb /// 320kbps .mp3
I’ve been a big fan of J-Star’s DJ mixes for a couple of years. The Herbalist series of mixes are all reggae songs about smoking weed. So, if you’re into that, J-Star brings the hottness! The songs are a mix of modern tracks and classic anthems, quite a few of which can be found on volumes 1-3 of the great “Big Blunts” series of compilations on the Tommy Boy label.
You can stream or download J-Star’s Herbalist mixes from the Soundcloud widgets below. Hint – click the “down arrow” to download the mix. Also check out J-Star’s Soundcloud account for more great mixes as well his own remixes of reggae classics.
Tracklist for Part 1 after the jump… Continue reading
On first listen a couple months ago, I wasn’t really feeling this mash-up album. But after a couple re-listens, it’s really grown on me. The tracks work well, and are reworked to an interesting degree, making Mos Dub more than the sum of its parts. In other words, this doesn’t sound like hiphop acapellas overlaid on dub instrumentals, but a deeper and more thoughful re-working. The creator of this mash-up, Max Tannone, had this to say:
While listening to these dub tunes, which are often heavily based on the drums and the bass, would also sound great if sampled for hip-hop tracks. Being a huge Mos Def fan (and Mos who sometimes breaks into a Jamaican patois himself), I knew he would fit well over the tracks. His lyrics are often socially poignant – a common theme with reggae music too. He is one of my favorite musicians and I hope he heard Mos Dub and enjoyed it.
If you enjoyed this mash-up, check out Tannone’s other works: Jaydiohead (Jay-Z vs Radiohead) and Doublecheck Your Head (Beastie Boys).
Lamb, a contemporary of Massive Attack in the mid-late 90’s UK triphop & drum n’ bass scene, produced several albums of haunting, edgy electronic songs, the best of which are collected in DJ Finny’s awesome “This Is Lamb” mix. Although getting their start in Manchester, Lamb are more commonly associated with the Bristol-based trip hop sound that was popular during the nineties. Aside from trip hop, their musical style is a distinctive mixture of jazz, dub, breaks and drum and bass, with a strong vocal element and, in their later works especially, some acoustic influences.
At nearly three hours, this mix captures the best work of Lamb, mixed smoothly and unobtrusively. In Finny’s words:
After a very long drive back from an airport, my cd changer came up with Lamb’s first self-titled albumn, and i thought to myself “has anyone done a mix of Lamb’s stuff?” well, i didnt actually look to see if anyone actually did or not, i went straight to planning 🙂 And here is the final Result.
This is a journey through all 4 of their albumns, this 3 hour mix starts with their very laid back ~70bpm tracks, and gradually builds to their trip hop and ambient DnB ~150bpm tracks, and if you haven’t heard of Lamb before, this music is perfect to shag a lass to.
I purposely put “Arranged” as opposed to “Mixed” because i made a physical effort not to overlap the tracks too much, yet make the transitions as smooth as possible, because i wanted everyone to hear the very best of this duo.
Listen Now:
Download here (right click and “save as”)
2 hours 52 minutes /// 256mb /// 192kbps .mp3
Track list after the jump… Continue reading
Matt Black and Jonathon Moore have been creating tracks since the mid-80’s. It wasn’t until they came together as Coldcut and formed the highly innovative label Ninja Tune that they really started to have any success. With tracks such as “Mo Beats”, “Beats and Pieces”, and “Greedy Beat” they helped lay the foundation for hip-hop instrumentalists like DJ Shadow and RJD2. The Ninja Tune label has released albums and singles from DJs and producers such as the deep hip-hop of DJ Food, turntablist extraordinare Kid Koala and Russia’s DJ Vadim.
The mix starts off with some classic hip-hop, including Sweet Tee and A Tribe Called Quest’s “Can I Kick It?” with the original Lou Reed vocal over it. The mix then moves in to expiremental electro-house territory, before starting the second hour with some drum-n-bass like DJ Zinc’s “Super Sharp Shooter” and Krust’s infamous roller “Warhead”. Laced in between is Wayne Smith’s heavy “Under Me Sleng Teng”. Finally rounding out the mix is Franz Ferdinand’s “This Fire” over a floating dub reggae track, they then put Bjork’s “Hidden Place” with a backing track that consists of reggae guitar, 808 drums and opera-like vocals.
This is an entertaining mix that keeps you nodding your head the whole time and leaves you in awe at some of the things Coldcut come up with — they prove that even in an era when a kid with a computer can create “Jay-Zeezer” it still takes talent and a knowledge of music and DJing to create truly beautiful music using . It is rare that you get a DJ mix that contains creativity. It is even rarer to find an Essential Mix with longevity that doesn’t just contain the newest and hottest tunes.
Listen now:
Download here (right click and “save as”)
124 minutes /// 170.21 mb /// 192 kbps .mp3
Track list after the jump… Continue reading
Clocking in at over four and a half hours, this epic mix collects Massive Attack’s vast collection of work into a flowing journey of elegiac, melancholy soul and deep, dubbed-out funk. Spanning their career from 1991 to 2004’s “Danny the Dog OST” album, as well as a number of the essential Mad Professor remixes from “No Protection,” this is a definitive document on the seminal Bristol, UK group.
Arranged by DJ Finny, who did a perfect job of blending and arranging this mix in a way that always puts the music first, and also bridges the darker, more ambient interludes with classics like “Karmacoma” and “Teardrop.” Listen and download below, and check out the gigantic track list after the jump.
Listen now:
Download here (right click & “save as”)
4 hours 43 minutes /// 389mb /// 192kbps .mp3
I mixed up some vocal dubstep and new school dub to create this mix. A lot of dubstep bores me, but I’ve heard some amazing mixes from DJ Zhao, Squincy Jones, and Shiva that have shown me that it leaves a lot of room for creativity. So I tried to bring mine, with tracks from Caspa, L-Wiz, Dr. Israel, Leftfield, Kode 9, Dubblestandart, Modselektor and more… like Lil’ Wayne and Peter Tosh.
I’ve been working on this one for a while, going through hundreds of dubstep tracks to find the few I really liked and that work well together. It came together this weekend, reflecting how I’ve been feeling… in the Valley of the Shadow of Dub.
Listen now:
Download here (right click and “save as”)
59 minutes /// 81.4mb /// 192kbps .mp3
Tracklist after the jump… Continue reading