Young God and Kingston are collectively known as production duo Blue Sky Black Death, cutting melancholic hip-hop beats years before folks like Clams Casino went that route. Already responsible for soundtracks to rappers like Nacho Picasso, Jean Grae, and Hell Razah, Aquatic Reverie is a blend of all things beautiful in their pursuit of instrumental happiness. Read on for more, plus download & stream links…
DJ E.A.S.E. aka George Evelyn is known as the positive force behind Nightmares on Wax. Since 2009, he has been hosting the weekly WAX ON records radio show called WAX DA BOX, streaming worldwide via IBIZA SONICA radio every thursday 6-7pm CET – with the repeat going out every saturday 2-3pm CET. You can check out the full archive of Wax Da Box mixes at their Soundcloud account.
This particular mix is my favorite one of all. some of the tracks in the mix include Waldeck’s dubby “Our Day Will Come”, “Dreamer” by B.B.&Q Band, the “Soul Clap” instrumental by Showbiz & AG, “Rocking Chair” by Mr. Scruff, “Mas Pan (DJ Day Remix)” by Quantic, the “Luck of Lucien” instrumental by A Tribe Called Quest, and a rare old-school hiphop nugget from Jibri the Wise One, “The House the Dog Built”. Quite a mix of rare and classic tracks with newer selections – truly worthy of the Nightmares on Wax name. Check out the full tracklist after the jump…
Alternate download link – 136mb, 58 minutes, 320kbps .mp3 file
Brilliantly odd instrumental hip hop album here from Onra, compiled and constructed around vintage Vietnamese pop records picked up in flea markets on a trip to the far east. 32 short tracks make up “Chinoiseries”, each of them clocking in at the 1 or 2 minute mark and delivering a tight selection of beats that somehow bring to mind J Dilla, Rza, Madlib, Moondog, MF Doom and the Sublime Frequencies label rolled into one beautifully incoherent package.
Onra – “What Up Duyet?”
Having a ravenous appetite for the “Radio Transmission” style beloved of the aforementioned Sublime Frequencies crew, we might be perfectly primed for this sort of thing, but while the dusty exotica, folk and plastic pop of the source material here could so easily have ended up sounding like the sterile plunderphonic coffee table beats that typified so much instrumental hip hop in the late 90’s, Onra manages to harness the mystifying magic of the original material and juxtapose it with a production style that’s still adequately rough around the edges.
Onra – “The Anthem”
And the source material itself is still bathed in the sublime hiss and crackle of hoary vinyl, retaining the unknown wonders of each of the nameless gems that play a central part through each and every track on this excellent album. Like small, perfectly flawed vignettes, each of the tracks here offers a quirky and mesmerising window into the far east of another era. A real treat for crate diggers and found sound hounds out there, wherever you may be.
Onra – “Relax in Mui Ne”
Download a .rar with all the tracks here (right click and “save as”)
In an act of great musicianship, the legendary Roots-crew pay respect to the late and great J Dilla offering their renditions of the producer’s greatest hits. The featured mixtape belongs easily to the most sublime tributes to J Dilla I have seen to date. Enjoy in this highest form of appreciation.
DJ Spinna offers this mix in celebration, which he says features
“some rare releases, B-sides, alternate versions, exclusive re-edits and remixes courtesy of myself and some legendary dj/producer friends.”
He goes on to say that:
“The whole world knows that I’m a huge Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson and Prince buff. But the other beast of a soul artist that I love to death is Marvin Gaye, of course! His music deeply expresses the soul of a man. The most bewildering thing about Marvin that I’ve come to understand more in my adult years is how he was able express his life experiences so artistically despite all his traumatic upheaval. I mean, his pops was a cross dressing preacher that practically despised his own son. I’ll never forget the day I found out his dad took him out, the day before his birthday! I couldn’t understand it and I was sad as hell. But life is wild that way. All that pain he endured led to greatness.”
– DJ Spinna on his “Happy Birthday Marvin Gaye” mix
Listen here:
Download here (right click and “save as”)
61.5 mb /// 1 hour 29 min /// 96kbps .mp3 (but it sounds damn good)
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