I was surfing the web, as you do whilst checking mail in the early part of the day, and I came across this GEM of a remix. As some of you may already know I love Amy Wino, she is the ULTIMATE BAAABE, her debut FRANK being one of my favourite albums of all time, so favoured that I refuse to listen to anything that came after because I wouldn’t want to taint my divine perception of HRHAmy Winehouse. It’s probably seven months since Amy’s departure but I’m still reluctant to acknowledge her passing because it’s waaaay too painful to come to terms with.
Stronger Than Me was the first tune that got me hooked on Amy. This bootleg is my dedication to her -Alby Daniels
Sure everyone’s saying to themselves at this point in time “Oooh what about Whitney, what about MJ?” but I weren’t heavily into them on a personal level. Sure I had their music enforced on me from a young age but I actually picked up Amy’s first album a few years after discovering her Stronger Than Me video and I listened to it religiously for months, years even. No other albums apart from Reasonable Doubt, The Blueprint, Ready To Die, Illmatic and Midnight Marauders have me running back for a listen as much as Frank, it’s timeless. I think I’m amazed at how skilled she was, bamboozled at how she had become the master of her voice, how she had tamed it to the point of wielding it around with such ease.
Amy had found zen, Amy had spiralled so far within to strike light and become master of a troubled, pain riddled, melancholic vulgarity with clear but slightly hazy vocal tones that would become her signiature untamed, and bastardised style.
*All I wanted to do was show you the remix but as always I share the personal connection because that’s what music is about, shared sentiments…
My penchant for females in hip-hop has spiralled out of control over the past year. 2011 didn’t just see Nicki collaborating on loads of artist’s tracks or like, wrenching out Lil’ Kim’s dusty weave. We saw Kreayshawn’s Gucci Gucci video go viral (not to everyone’s taste and I’m not sure what I can say that is positive about V-Nasty), we saw Iggy Azalea sport most of American Apparel’s spandex range and her and A$AP hooking up. Harlem badass Azealia Banks signed with Universal (but sadly did not score it with Interpol front man Paul Banks after her cutesy cover of Slow Hands…). I think at some point some British girls did some cool stuff for rap (anyone…?) but all the while Brooklyn-dwelling K.Flay (real name Kristine Flaherty) was hanging out being awesome and rapping over a bunch of cool beats she’d produced in relative obscurity. But it’s very likely that 2012 Is going to be her year.
Over from the states to record her first full-length, we meet with K.Flay in Sarm Studios after navigating our way from Ladbroke Grove underground in the pissing, pouring rain. Arriving early we dry off in the reception area, awaiting our invitation to studio 4. Promptly we’re led up the spiral staircase and ushered in to meet K.Flay.
K’s petite and full of energy, welcoming us in with a smile. Dressed in leggings, a slouchy tee, high tops with the laces loose, her hair is shoulder-length, side-parted and a little disheveled; she spends the interview mussing it about intermittently in an animated fashion. She’s full of this sort of effervescence that’s bubbling under the whole time, and immediately totally engaged when we start chatting. While we set up, she bounces about the studio before flopping onto a sofa, momentarily glued to her iPhone, thumbs going light speed crazy. She explains her addiction; Scramble With Friends. I express my reluctance at downloading the game because of the pressure – I’m perfectly content ducking in and out of Words With Friends at a leisurely pace – but K is a bit more hardcore with her gaming habits, telling us about a particular girl she has a fierce rivalry with on Scramble. “Or I think she’s a girl, her name on it’s like, ‘lady-something’!” she laughs at the veritable battle of words she’s having with a total stranger.
Hailing from Wilmette, Illinois (just north of downtown Chicago), K relocated to Stanford University to pursue a double major in sociology and psychology in sunny California where there was a “really interesting hip hop scene in the San Francisco bay area, there was all this hyphy music, like E-40, Mistah F.A.B, Turf Talk and all those guys, so like really weird and playful and eccentric rap.” With no musical upbringing (“I could play guitar as a kid but that was about it”) her initial foray into recording came about in a rather unorthodox manner; “I was talking with a friend of mine about mainstream hip hop and rap at the time and how a lot of it felt really formulaic and we were just kind of going back and forth talking about it, and he was like, “well you should make a rap song” so I did, pretty much as a joke-“ she laughs, “and it was horrible!”
Of her prank, K muses “There was something really fun about the process, about making a beat, recording something, and then it, like, existing. One thing led to another and “I started getting into production and I got a keyboard, started making beats and started playing house and frat parties on campus but I was still super serious about school. It was actually a really cool release for me.” She goes on “It was something that had nothing to do with anything I was studying, and something I had no expectation at being good at, and nobody else had an expectation of me so it was like, this really liberating thing to do. Then I just sort of got more and more serious, a couple of people in the Bay area in San Francisco who are further along, like other artists took me under their wing a bit, and like, mentored me and after graduating I started playing a lot of shows in the area. ”
The music K grew up listening to does not instantly lend itself to hip hop, but as she reels off names it’s evident where she has taken inspiration from in her own recordings, “I listened to a lot of like, depressed female vocalists… A lot of Liz Phair, Fiona Apple, PJ Harvey, Garbage… So kind of that rock girl, pissed off, “I’m angry too!” kinda thing. One of my top albums ever is Metric’s second album ’Live It Out, I love Emily Hanes and I love Metric and I just like that they’re a band I feel has very interesting lyrical content with like, kinda cool but still very appealing music.” She grins “I was listening to it the other day walking to the studio!”
And for hip hop? “I’ve always been a huge Tribe [A Tribe Called Quest] fan and there is some stuff from that era that I kinda love. I think a lot of the Outkast stuff was pretty influential for me just because it’s weird and freaky… It has a very distinctive flavour even though that flavour is like, always changing, their albums are very different one to the next. ”
What female artists have influenced K? “I think Robyn’s a really interesting case study” wasn’t the answer I’d expected, but she goes on, “She’s sort of developed her own lane in a lot of respects, and she’s been doing music and been around for quite some time with just like, her.” Listening to some of the mixtapes K’s produced it’s actually not difficult to draw parallels between the two artists; K is absolutely doing her own thing and the way in which she combines cute synthy bits with lyrics about loneliness and confusing boys is very Robyn. “There’s something really compelling about her and her vibe, she’s just kind of a badass which I like and she’s just in her lane doing whatever, for the sake of the music and being creative and doing what she wants to do. I think that’s really cool, I’d love to be able to have that sort of energy.” The next evening K plays a show in Kensington’s Archangel; she really doesn’t have to fret about energy levels.
Describing her song writing process, she grins “I usually start a song with some kind of loop, usually like a sixteen bar drum loop, basic synth line, or little riff or whatever, that’s how I start, instead of with a lyric, and I kinda put it on repeat for like, a really long time.” At this point she laughs “It’s annoying for anyone around me… I just get a vibe. I think what’s nice about that, is because I’m creating the music to begin with it feels like it kind of co-evolves you know, as the lyrics change, I can be like, oh the beat shouldn’t be like that it should be this. I just kind of practice over and over again and try to find a rhythmic flow that sounds cool over it, and try to do something different I haven’t done before.”
Of her live set-up K explains “My live show, I run Ableton Live, we’re kind of looking at my live set-up now”, she gestures at the equipment in front of her “I use this Akai MPK 25 pretty much as my midi-controller for everything. I compose most of my stuff on [Apple] Logic and [M-Audio] ProTools, I like Logic for midi. I’m trying to get a little more into Ableton Live for production rather than just for the live show, but I feel a little crazy with it, and I just love it for on-the-fly kind of stuff, but I think it’s cool to add those little modulation things into a recording so that’s kind of what I am using it for.”
Before we have to leave for a further flurry of interviews K.Flay has penciled in for the day (and of course, recording), we speak briefly about her thoughts on being a female in the music industry. Does K feel a pressure to look, dress, act a certain way? “I think in pop music generally speaking there is this kind of hyper-sexualisation. I think for women, a lot, you either exist on one extreme end of the spectrum, like very hyper-sexualised or just totally not. I do think there’s a void somewhere in the middle, I feel like I want to fill that void. I know that for a lot of young girls, like I’m talking about growing up, talking about rock girls, there was that kind of aesthetic, you know, someone who was sort of a badass but wasn’t necessarily super sexualised. Even talking about Garbage or Shirley Manson, there’s a place for it in hip hop. She grins, “I do think there’s room for that, and for me it’s not a fabricated identity, it’s about who I am and what I’m about naturally. I don’t feel a tonne of pressure, I just would like for that to exist.”
K.Flay’s Eyes Shut EP is available for free download on her website KFLAY.COM and for other recommended listening, check out YouTube for her tracks Less Than Zero, Doctor Don’t Know and also her Gucci Gucci remix (she eats a lot of hamburgers in the video for the latter!).
Quadron are a Danish duo consisting of vocalist Coco O. and multi-instrumentalist/producer Robin Hannibal. The pair were introduced by a mutual friend and decided to name themselves Quadron as a respectful nod to their heritages being 1/4 black. Their sound is a mixture of folk, soul, pop, and electronic music. What makes Quadron stand out from the pack is their subtle and often sparse productions, each song giving Coco’s vocals and Robin’s instrumentalism room to combine and shine alone.
It all began with a 104rog remix of Average Fruit…
I discovered Quadron through a Seattle producer called 104rog who had remixed their single Average Fruit. After hearing and listening to this remix countless times, I embarked on a research mission to find out what their music sounded like and discovered they were also two members of the Boom Clap Bachelors. Since discovering their self titled debut ‘Quadron’, it’s been on loop. It’s addictive, thought provoking and calming. Listening to this album allowed my thoughts to manifest and run rampant without keeping track of time, nor the amount of times I had listened to the album over and over again.
A Game of Comparison.
Coco O. is [ridiculously] skilled when it comes to throwing down vocals, as Robin Hannibal is with the instrumentation. She bends with the wind, moulding herself to all aspects of Robin’s compositions, creating the perfect musical partnership. Coco’s voice is far from Florence Welch‘s (Florence and The Machine) level of overbearing and sometimes gaudy tonality, it’s light years away from Beyonce Knowles‘ vocal and star spangled showboating, and much less troubled with pain riddled vulgarity of a smokey, untamed, and bastardised style of Amy Winehouse.
Coco’s vocals are understated, humble, subtle, and endearing, directly reflected by the soundscape painted by her partner in crime, Robin Hannibal. The two combine to become the sweet whispers from your star crossed lover whilst wrapped in the confines of your duvet on a cold winter night, staring up at a blanket of stars through the skylight window in your loft converted bedroom. [Descriptive cringe overload.]
This is a dark spiral of pleasant melancholia which captures all manner of melodramatic sentiments. I haven’t heard such a haunting, emotive, and near tear jerking track do it so subtly. At times it can be an uncomfortable listen but that’s what has you coming back for more. The vocal pauses lead the way for contemplative breaks, where the melodic loop of instrumentation allows you to dig up, digest, and deal with all the emotional turmoil of last seasons broken heart, which had been long buried and forgotten. It’s beautiful and cringe inducing, it lightheartedly expresses the darkness of waking up to nothing the day after. Robin’s instrumentation provide a warm reassuring embrace to Coco’s cries of despair.
Izzy Toshi a.k.a Magik Skillz is a producer/beatsmith from North London. I caught up with him in the midst of a major studio overhaul, a busy production and studio session schedule to talk all manner of things from rebranding himself Izzy Toshi to improvisation and musical infusion.
Izzy Toshi is a befitting name to this artist because his real name is Israel Omotosho, he’s a self taught pianist who was born and raised in Nigeria before moving to North London at the tender age of six. Izzy recalls that his first experiences of London were shock because London was densely populated, ‘They live too close together’, as opposed to back home where there was a fair amount of space between neighbours. A man of very few words, Izzy Toshi is a humble observer who chooses to express himself through music. I thought he’d object to becoming Izzy Toshi but once I explained to him that for a production and skill set so eclectic, he needed a name that would not only stand out but represent himself, his family and cultural history.
I met Izzy while studying a Fda Popular Musician degree at British Academy of New Music in London, where alumni include chart toppers Rita Ora and Ed Sheeran, so I’ve seen the progression in sound and skillset. He’s produced and remixed for UK artists Kasha Rae, Kristina Shashina, Tyme‘s Money and a whole host of artists from the African diaspora. He’s dabbled in a variety of genres across the musical spectrum from Afrobeat to Rap, House, R&B and Pop. Izzy Toshi is someone who stays open to experimentation so if your looking for a producer, remixer and beatsmith/collaborator, look no further.
Do I care if you don’t get that they’d rather invest in innovative ways to be creative and simply intricate rather than be tacky and vulgar? No.
Do I give a fuck if you think I’m posting this just for traffic? No.
If you thought the questions which preceded this sentence were anything but rhetorical, you are a DICK.
These two are my IDOLS. They represent two prominent polarities at opposite sides of the Rap spectrum. Their partnership has propelled Hip Hop culture to dizzying heights. They are an absolute partnership in both business and creativity. If you think otherwise, you can shut the fuck up and piss off because I’ve listened to Rap since my conception in the winter of 1984 whilst a bunch of you discovered it a few years ago. I’ve seen many come and go. Yes I know I’m babbling but fuck it. I can write what I feel and I will because you really didn’t have to read this far, did you?
I personally love the way they kept it quintessentially about the live show and energy to keep it simple with sprinkles of luxury i.e the panthers and lions, but kept it archaic with the kaleidoscope.
I FUCKING LOVE THIS!!! … But did you see this one?
Lana’s a hottie. Lana’s got a nostalgic and cinematic voice. Lana hooked up with the right producer for the album. Lana’s album contained no tracks that I wanted to skip. Lana’s album was epic. Lana’s voice was accentuated by the soundscape. Lana did her own thing. Lana carved her own lane. Lana stuck two middle fingers up at the techno-urban-amalgamation-pop trend. Lana Del Rey has dropped an album that will result in every other vocalist following suit. Lana Del Rey I love your album and everyone who loves ‘genuine’ music loves your album. Lana I apologise for getting the album as a leak but we enjoyed it and I will buy the hardcopy because the album is epic. Lana I will buy a ticket to your show when you visit London. Lana I respect your artistry. Lana I love that you have made a work of art that plays out like a movie. Lana you embody nostalgia and cinematic music. Lana I admire the way that you allow the music to speak for itself and don’t distract the listener with shallow spectacles.
Lana I’m going to buy this on CD, I don’t buy CDs but one day I’m going to get you to sign it when we meet. Lana I understand that a lot of critics have written off your album but I think that in this day and age of hyperreality, people forget that it’s the music that matters and how it makes you feel. Lana people get it twisted probably because you’ve got no electronic arpeggios and dance club singles with the “oh ah oh” ad libs featuring punk mcs like Flo Rida and Pitbull. Lana they need to realise that you don’t need WillIAm with his fucked up hairdo to sell records, you’ve just got to be sincere, capture the right sentiments and people will always relate to it. Lana thank you for delivering such a great album, I apologise for not going into the specific highlights of the album but people reading this will only realise the reason once they listen to it… No words can articulate a sentiment, you’ve just got to put this album on and enjoy the movie.
Surfing through soundcloud and I stumble across this guy Silkie who really does produce some smooth and silky sounds. It’s Bass Music but it’s not flat, two dimensional or loopified, it’s that ‘take you on a mission into the depths of your consciousness‘ type of music. Silkie is a don and I pretty much figured I couldn’t just fling a couple of souncloud streams together -not my fucking style- so I did some googling and found some info…
Solomon Rose, more widely known as the London Grime turned Dubstep producer extraordinaire Silkie, is no new jack to the urban music scene. Silkie started to release singles on Deep Medi, Skream’s Disfigured Dubz and Soul Jazz, releasing classic tracks like ‘Cyber Dub’ and ‘Skys the Limit’ alongside tunes like ‘Purple Love’ and ‘Head Butt Da Deck’.
When a new form of music is formed we often ask the question, where will it go next? Dubstep in its true identity is still forward thinking music and Silkie, following the Anti Social mantra of pushing boundaries and experimentation, is an artist who continues to grow with every release.
This is the Dubstep I LOVE!
Lush sweeping pads and heavy oscillated basslines!
As some of you may know, outside of Grime I’m really not a UKRap fan. Why? Because I can’t get with the ‘Urban’ amalgamation watered down malarky and let’s face it 9/10 UK artists are either emulating our cousins across the pond or ‘artist‘ of the moment. I’ve been sent links to this artist before and skipped through it as a lot of the time I’ve been on the go -maybe it was the beat, maybe it was the flow, maybe it was the visuals… Who knows?
The only thing I’m sure about is that I’m feeling this cut right here, it’s original, it’s uplifting, it’s beautiful, it’s BRITISH.
This is a wave that I hope other Brits jump on because it’s totally our vibe, from the production, to the lyrics, to the flows, to the arrangement, the singer and the visuals. I really couldn’t of given a fuck about him before but this cut right here has put this rapper on the radar… Let’s just hope the album, scheduled to drop later this year, contains more cuts like this and less of the soundalikes like his contemporaries. FUCK DAT! I wanna hear a joint album because these two lads have got maaad chemistry, and a great set of producers behind them.
Where were you in 1996? I was on the cusp of a transition; second half of the sixth grade, starting high school in september where I’d be travelling 8 miles across town to go to school. It would be the first time I’d wear a blazer, shoes, shirt, tie, and trousers, the first time I’d carry a pencil case and rucksack to school. 1996 was the year I began to grow up, it was the start of my life outside of the bubble that was my small town, the year I began my adventure to find the treasure that was to stop caring about all the trivial nonsensical judgements imposed upon me by other people.
This release came out a while ago but I’ve just discovered it, I love it, I can most certainly relate. K.Flay separates herself from her female counterparts who came to the forefront in 2011 such as Kreayshawn, Iggy Azalea, Azelia Banks etc because she’s the ‘girl next door’ who happens to live in the basement where she spends most of her days writing, producing and recording her own music.
I Stopped Caring In 1996 is K.Flay’s chronological soundtrack to her adolescent struggle to become an adult. The album is split into three parts:
I Stopped Caring
I Feel Everything
Everything Is Nothing
My favourite song has to be Less Than Zero because it’s so powerful. The beat and the crazy guitar riff -courtesy of sampling XX’s Crystalized- are mind blowing with compliments from her lyrical flow and delivery.
I think I love K.Flay so much because she’s comfortable with being herself, she’s sincere and doesn’t ascribed to the hyper sexualised/animated characteristics of her 2011 contemporaries. Bear in mind that K.Flay released her first project back in ’09 and has averaged two albums a year ever ever since, which are all written, produced and recorded by herself -impressive!
This is something special, this is that ‘take you on a journey into the unknown‘ music. It’s no mystery that the creator of this majestic EP should be so secretive, I couldn’t find any information whatsoever -I kinda like it that way. I could not find a twitter account to follow, yet I found a record label and a Facebook page which I liked. It’s great that Kwala remains a mystery because I’d hate to think that the creator who delivered us this epic release of eurphoric electronic ambiance should be an arrogant dick. The music speaks magnitudes and there’s more than a few people I’d recommend him to -I’d recommend Kwala to anyone who appreciate great music and deep pensive meditation. Believe me when I say that listening to this is like an out of body experience.
Can’t wait to hear more but before I do anything else I’ll be sure to check out his past releases.
Take Off EP was the beginning of a Grime Take Over, January 30th will see the release of the much anticipated sophomore effort, The Second Six.
January 30th 2012 sees the highly anticipated release of Faze Miyake’s triumphant follow up to 2011’s Take Off EP, The Second Six. In the eight months since the release of his first official EP on his own imprint, Woofer Music, twenty two year old Faze Miyake has scored the single for the Lord of The Mics 3 CD/DVD release, remixed Magnetic Man and P-Money’s Anthemic, produced Kozzie’s single I’m Famous, and continues to exceed all expectation in his role as in house producer for Grime collective FT (Family Tree).
Since releasing the Take Off EP, Faze Miyake’s raw, undiluted, barbaric style of Grime has caused quite a stir, not only in Grime ciphers where MCs would throw the gauntlet against one another in a battle of punch lines and technical prowess, but on the dance floor, where the Woofer epidemic spread immensely, causing revellers to sound cries of Woofers from out of the strobe lit darkness of hot overcrowded nightclubs nationwide.
The Second Six is the second batch of instrumentals featuring Faze’s signature sound; hard hitting drum rhythms and deep heavy bass, perfect ingredients to soundtrack legendary MCs battles and for DJs to play out in the clubs to keep the revellers happy. All six tracks have been played by a select few of Grime’s elite DJs and will be available to buy digitally from iTunes, Amazon, and Bandcamp.
I’ve found a new ‘favourite’ artist that I’ll be on the lookout for in 2012!
I was doing the sporadic twitter/soundcloud rounds when I come across this song Maybe I’ll Miss You. At first I didn’t think much of it, I slyly dismissed it but I got to the chorus and I was like “WHAT THE FUCK!? THIS IS A BANGER!”. It was there that I began to share it on my Tumblr blog whilst listening to it and sorta started writing a commentary in real-time. Since posting it I think I’ve listed to it a few dozen times. At first I didn’t know why I loved it so much but then I put my finger on it, she has an angelic vocal timbre similar to Ellie Goulding. It’s also the way Corinne layers her vocals, the harmonies, the ad libs -simply majestic, add that to her overall sound and song choice; an amalgamation of quirky, ‘booty shaking’, feet shuffling electronica (UK Garage), and a piano ballad with sprinkles of manipulated oscillators on a variety of modular, granular, and additive synths -reminiscent of my gaming excursions on Nintendogaming consoles in the late ’80s/early ’90s, it’s no wonder why I’m captivated by this particular song.
Corinne Shields’ Maybe I’ll Miss You has won a place ‘Up In My Ear‘ because she -with the help of a creative collaborator perhaps, has managed to capture the sentiment of nostalgia almost absolutely. Also befitting of the song title and subject matter -WELL-FUCKING-DONE!
Randomly seething through twitter/soundcloud before finding this. Flicked through it and fell in love with it. Not perfect but I’d love it because the chorus is sick and it reminds me of one of those video games, you know the travelling through space in a spaceship on a mission to rescue Zelda…
Pretty much wrote this as I’m listening and I’ve just heard the breakdown… The backing vocals, harmonies are on point. She’s looking for work as a writer so artists and producers get in touch.
The track continues to grow on me with every listen, by the time I got to this sentence I had actually began to listen through all the other tracks.
