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International Rude Boyz - International Acclaim E.P. - 07-Jun-09 04:38 PM
International Rude Boyz was a production alias for DJ SS, the founder of his legendary breakbeat hardcore/drum & bass label Formation, and a producer who was completely unknown at the time: Matrix. This duo only had two releases: the International Acclaim EP, which was a 4-track 12" that Drum Programme was extracted from, as well as a remix ep that had 3 additional remixes from International Acclaim. Most drum and bass heads know that Matrix went on to become a legendary producer in his own rites, releasing track after track with Future Bound, the Sleepwalk LP, and many tunes with his brother Optical and Ed Rush. Not to mention a couple massive house hits under his alias Goldtrix! Check out what was one of Matrix's first works released to vinyl way back in 1993.

Moodymann - Don't Be Misled! - 07-Jun-09 04:37 PM
Moodymann (aka Kenny Dixon Jr.) is one of house music's unsung heroes, an individual who has made the choice to remain under the radar and out of the spotlight in an effort to just let the music do the talking. He's been releasing deep house tracks since the early 1990s, many of the tracks on his imprint KDJ which has been around since day one of his production career. Misled is one of his earlier tracks, from 1996, but even back then his sound was pretty much set in stone. This tune is definitely on the deep melodic tip.

JB³ - Forklift (The Remixes) - 07-Jun-09 04:36 PM
Joey Beltram's Forklift was one of those seminal early 90's techno songs that even though many may not know it by name, when played it's one that everyone almost instantly recognizes. The main version of Forklift used a very distinct, hi-pitched single note synth as it's lead with some classic 909 drums underneath. Several years after the original was released, a remix 12" was released that included interpretations by Luke Slater and Damon Wild. Although Slater's remix overshadowed Damon's version, it's still very much worthy of recognition. What I like about this mix is that the bassline is reworked almost entirely, and as the title suggests, only very tiny fragments of the lead are used to almost make it sound as if it's a separate piece in and of itself. Damon restrains from tweaking the bits of the lead synth until the last 30 seconds, when he starts to go nuts playing with the cutoff and resonator

Dutch Liquid - Scream / Funk-E - 07-Jun-09 04:34 PM
Funk-E is one of those classic hard techno songs that just gets better every time I listen to it. Dutch Liquid was the brainchild of two producers from Holland: Lucien Foort and Ron Matser, both of whom crafted all different types of edm throughout the mid-late 90s and eventually even went on to produce a long forgotten trance record with Ferry Corsten under the alias "Project Aurora". Funk-E centers itself around a relentless, almost infuriating drum loop that has an extremely heavy swing to it. There isn't too much of an overall melody aside from the high-frequency blips that are slowly introduced through the first half that just sort of sway along with the rhythm of the song. Although this tune doesn't incorporate a huge build-up/release structure to it, it is a perfect song to play towards the beginning of a set as it forebodes the listener not to miss out on the onslaught that is about to follow. So there should be absolutely no surprise whatsoever that Carl Cox used to open with this track on a regular basis in 1998-99. Oh yeah, the "onslaught" that comes later on in the set, is perfectly captured on the flip side of this record in a little track called Scream, one of the most energetic techno songs I have ever heard. Massive 12", very tough to find nowadays for cheap though as it only had a very limited pressing!

Kanye West - 07-Jun-09 02:43 PM
I remember a time many years ago when hip hop wasn't just music, it was a movement. Pioneers from Grandmaster Flash, to Run DMC, A Tribe Called Quest, DJ Premier, Dr. Dre, RZA, and Nas pushed the music forward during the 1980s-90s by constantly implementing new ideas and techniques, allowing the music to grow and become accessible to the masses. Sadly enough those days are long gone; and ironically the last individual I listed above released a song a few years ago called "Hip Hop Is Dead", which paints a perfect picture of the abysmal state of the music nowadays. To make a brief analogy here, we can consider Kanye West the "paint" the Nas uses to portray his scene in that song, and the paint is not oil or pigment-based, but instead is made of real-life shit and comes in one color: brown.

Kanye West fully encompasses every single thing that is wrong in hip hop today. His complete lack of talent as a producer, DJ, rapper, and (as described in the recent South Park episode mocking him) a "voice of the generation" seriously make me think the utilizes his absurdly obtuse ego to compensate for the deficiencies described above, and for pure publicity. I will even go as far as to say his vocal support for Barack Obama in last years election is an insult to the Democratic party in the United States.

That being said, I cannot start to describe his most recent fucking abhorrent and vile compilation of "music" without throwing up in my mouth a little just thinking about how rap and hip hop music came to this in a short span of 10-15 years. Someone at Roland's blood must be curdling thinking about how "808s & Heartbreak" references it's classic TR-808 drum machine. I am not even going to touch on his self-indulgent abuse of autotune (let's see here, maybe because he can't sing?) layered on top of his weak ass beats. It's really sad that the younger generation of people eat this kind of garbage up, because they're the people who have the most influence when it comes to what sort of content the major labels and media companies give the most support to. It almost makes my blood boil seeing this album everywhere, yet cats like Lupe Fiasco and Papoose who get very little mainstream support can chew Kanye up and wipe their asses with a hard copy transcript of "Stronger" (which is a lame Daft Punk ripoff).

Kanye is certainly a "voice of a generation" right now, he is the spokesperson who represents the dire straits of rap music in 2009.

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