Tom Watson

Apologies for the absence of yesterdays post, computer decided to die on me, full reinstall the lot...

Anyway, following on from my last post, todays beats come from Tom Watson. A somewhat underrated and overlooked producer hailing from Nottingham, Watson was one the first to embrace the (at the time) upcoming LA beat scene and it's influence. He first came to my attention when, under his Keaver & Brause moniker, he released his debut album 'The Middle way'.  The album encapsulated the hazy and nostalgic detuned synths reminiscent of Boards of Canada, that his label mate Lone also came to be known for, although in my opinion he shows a more creative approach to percussion and sample manipulation on this album than Lone's earlier work.


Following on from the minor success of The middle way , Watson formed a collaboration with Lone in the form of Kona triangle. Releasing the 13 track album Sing a new sapling into existence in 2009, it received heavy plays from the likes of Teebs and Dublab.com. The album seemed to focus more on composition and atmosphere rather than just purely hiphop beats, some tracks having little or no percussion at all.

Which brings us to his latest effort that sees him creating a cleaner, more uptempo & percussion heavy sound  for the 3rd release on Lone's Magic Wire imprint ,under the name 'Neon Jung'  Still with the same hazy & shimmering synths  but with a more cohesive and dance floor oriented sound, taking influences from house and grime. Personally i'm really feeling this new direction he is going in and hopefully he will be releasing a lot more in the future.

Lastly, it's pissing down with rain here, hope you're all experiencing better weather, peace.

Lone - Feral remix

Matt cutler aka Lone, started off his music career as one half of the shortlived Nottingham duo Kids in tracksuits. 

His second solo effort 'Lemurian' gained him widespread attention, heavily influenced by the LA beat scene, Boards of canada and artists like J Dilla and Madlib. Around the time of Lemurian he also began a side project/collab with friend Tom Keaver called Kona Triangle.

Since then he has developed a more dancefloor oriented style, switching out the contorted boom-bap beats for a straight 4/4 groove. Still maintaing his BOC influenced synths and lo-fi samples, his music has attracted attention from well respected labels such R&S as well as Alex Ridha's Boys Noize records.

His latest effort sees him taking on remixing duties of Radioheads 'Feral' alongside versions of 'Morning Mr magpie' & 'Separator' from heavyweights Pearson sound and Fourtet. 

So that concludes my brief history of Lone. It's definitely worth mentioning his Magic wire label, which is mostly an outlet for his own material but has just signed artist & collaborator Neon Jung (Keaver & Brause / Kona Triangle)

Bonus vid

Plaid - 35 summers / Scintilli

Long time Warp recording artists and IDM stalwarts Plaid have just announced their new album 'Scintilli' is to be released in September and have uploaded one of the forthcoming tracks '35 summers'  


Plaid, are in my opinion, responsible for one of the best and most original soundtracks of last decade for the Anime TekkonKinkreet. My favourite tracks from the film linked below, also included is their contribution to the Renaissance Soundtrack 'Chasend'

 

And below is the video for '35 summers', more details can found via http://scintilli.com/

This would have been a longer and more detailed post but it's Saturday so enjoy the music and have a good weekend!

Thundercat - Shenanigans pt.1 - Mixed by Flying Lotus

New mixtape from Flying Lotus consisting of tracks that have featured the Brainfeeder artist Thundercat.

Mix available > here <

 If you don't know Thundercat, he is somewhat of a bass virtuoso who has come into his own recently, he was the bass player for LA thrash group Suicidal tendencies and more recently he was signed to Flying lotus' Brainfeeder label. Since then he has gone on to collaborate with Mr Lotus on his Cosmogramma L.P, most notably on the track 'MmmHmm' and in a few weeks (Aug 29th) his debut solo album 'Golden age of the Apocalypse' drops on wax and digital release.  Linked below are two of the tracks from his forthcoming Lp 'for love i come' & 'Daylight'.

New Fourtet single - Locked

Last month details emerged of Kieran Hebden's forthcoming FabricLive CD which features a mixture of old and new tracks plus exclusive Fourtet productions made specifically for this release intertwined with field recordings taken from nights at Fabric.

The track 'Locked', which is featured on the mix, is now available for streaming via his soundcloud page and is a slow breakbeat laced groove with shuffling percussion and melancholic synth lines. Coming in at over 8 minutes long it's definitely a slow burner but gives a good taste of whats to come on the full mix.
  Locked (TEXT011) by Four Tet


Fabriclive 59 details and clips here , due out in September.


Sidenote: His Future music interview and producer masterclass is also well worth checking out and proves there are some good producers that use Pro tools, jokes.

Upcoming releases

Thought i'd post some new - soon to be released shit - that i'm currently feeling , all on a similar tip.


First up, Due to be released August 15th, Sepalcures debut e.p 'Love pressure' gets an all star remix treatment from U.S producers Falty DL, Jimmy Edgar, XL, Daedelus & Lazer swords Lando Kal. Taster below.

Tracklisting:

1. Love Pressure (XI Remix)

2. Love Pressure (FaltyDL Remix)

3. Every Day Of my Life (Jimmy Edgar Remix)

4. Down (Daedelus Remix)

5. Love Pressure (Lando Kal Remix) [digital only]

Next up is from Scotland's Akira Kiteshi in the form of 'Transmission' forthcoming on the afterglo label in September i believe. I first heard this on Fantastic mr foxes Vice Mix, available here and kinda forgot about it until last night on Mary anne hobbs Xfm show, available here. Needless to say, it's a banger.

Lastly Martyns e.p on Flying Lotus' brainfeeder label drops tomorrow on digital release, available on vinyl in september & his debut album drops October, can't wait!  Set rip of 'Masks' from the e.p below.

Dark Sky XLR8R mix

Another quick & lazy post here but SO necessary. This mix comes from Londons Dark Sky, a production trio consisting of Tom Edwards and Matt Benyayer of Boogaloo Crew and Classmate Carlo Anderson.

 If you don't know Dark sky...

The mix Includes such highlights as Burials 'Street Halo' , a taster from Martyns forthcoming album on Brainfeeder in the form of 'Masks' plus several cuts from the mighty Boddika and Dark sky themselves.

Nice summer vibes on this one

Mix  download & stream available here!

Tracklist

01 Jazzanova "Cyclic" (Sonar Kollectiv)
02 Burial "Street Halo" (Hyperdub)
03 Pepe Bradock "Deep Burnt" (Kif)
04 Martyn "Masks" (Brainfeeder)
05 Boddika & Joy O "Swims"
06 Cosmin TRG "Purple Lights" (Tempa)
07 Boddika "Underground" (Swamp81)
08 Pearson Sound "Side AA" (Night Slugs white)
09 Dark Sky "Armour" (Blunted Robots)
10 Dark Sky "Neon" (50Weapons)
11 Dark Sky "High Rise" (Blunted Robots)
12 Dark Sky "The Lick" (50Weapons)
13 DJ Slugo "Wouldn't You Like To Be A Hoe Too" (Dance Mania Inc.)
14 Peverelist "Dance Til The Police Come" (Hessle Audio)
15 Addison Groove "This Is It" (Tectonic)
16 MJ Cole "Hawaii" (Prolific)
17 Dark Sky "Be Myself" (50Weapons)
18 Dark Sky "Totum"
19 Holy Other "Know Where" (Tri Angle)