Jon Kennedy - 14

Do hip-hop ao jazz, do trip-hop à soul, dos traços rock aos estilhaços funk, assim se caracteriza o último álbum do inglês Jon Kennedy. E sobre o LP 14, ficam as linhas seguintes roubadas daqui.

"Jon returns with his 4th Long Player entitled "14" representing the number of tracks contained within.
From hip hop to rock, jazz, soul and breakbeat, "14" is the cleanest piece of work from Mr Kennedy to date. Teaming up with Floridian label Organik Recordings to great effect. With all the characteristic melodies and constructions of Jon's own sound and an injection of the new.

Featuring some new voices in the form of Plymouth, UK based Amie J, legendary rocker and in-house vocalist for Hospital Records - Pat Fulgoni . Jon himself vocalises and of course the vocal genius of Miss Sarah Scott makes an appearance...
Jon has been touring Europe with his LIVE BAND, testing the new tracks in the live arena to great effect. Rocking crowds of 200 to 4000 people at venues and festivals from East to West for the past 12 months. Encore's were demanded and return visits secured. Be sure to look out for Jon's 4 piece live outfit in a town near you!"

Jon Kennedy - I feel the weight

14 download

Aufgang - Aufgang

Rami Khalifé e Francesco Tristano responsáveis pelos pianos clássicos e Aymeric Westrich dono das electrónicas e das percursões, são os elementos constituintes do projecto francês Aufgang. No LP homónimo, lançado este ano, ouve-se uma combinação de música clássica com electrónicas que vão desde o downtempo até sonoridades mais dançáveis. Um álbum delicioso!

"The epic tale of Aufgang starts with the new century in the star city of the New World. Rami Khalifé and Francesco Tristano met in the year 2000 in New York where they were both studying the piano at the very prestigious Juilliard School. Being almost as assiduous in their clubbing than in their studies, the two began a passionate affair with electronic music on the side of their classical training, focussing on House Music, New York being one of its hotspot. They soon began playing together, creating from the start an explosive mix of genres transcending any possible musical bigotry.

Things started shaping-up in 2001 when Aymeric Westrich, a musician (former drummer) from the same school as Rami, went to New York and, guided by his two friends, immersed himself in electronic music. Thus the three boys sealed their union under the auspices of a common attraction for limitless experimentation.

The band was put on the back burner for a time while they each pursued their individual projects. The son of a famous Lebanese composer, Rami played numerous concerts across the world, alongside his father and with other bands, published two classical albums and worked for films and dance. Aymeric, operating on the Hip Hop scene as a producer and a composer, also expressed his talent as a drummer with Cassius in the full swing of the French Touch euphoria."

Aufgang - Channel 7

Aufgang download

Dub Tractor - Sorry

O dinamarquês Anders Remmer, mais conhecido por Dub Tractor, fez-nos chegar este ano o álbum Sorry. Um trabalho intimista, onde a sua electrónica anda por caminhos downtempo, técnicas de dub e desta vez com uns traços shoegaze, dados pelas guitarras. Um álbum que se recomenda. Foi deste sítio que vieram as as linhas que se seguem.

"This latest long-player from Anders Remmer finds the Danish electronica hero continuing to pursue his affection for all things shoegaze. The signature Dub Tractor line in warm, glitched beats and glowing echo chamber production remains at the core of all the action here, but there's an increased emphasis on the song-based aspects of Remmer's music. If the Hideout album marked a tentative step in this direction, Sorry is a more confident harnessing of the songwriter's craft, more comfortably fusing guitar-based patterns with electronic layering. This album serves as a reminder of just how prescient Hideout was as a gesture towards making-over '90s shoegazing indie, but this time around the engagement with tuneful, clicky programmed soundscapes (as delightfully illustrated by 'A Lot Of Work Is Done') reminds you what it was that made Remmer's productions so compelling in his earliest days."

Dub Tractor - And you are back

Sorry download

Letting Up Despite Great Faults - Letting Up Despite Great Faults

Os californianos Letting Up Despite Great Faults, lançaram este ano o álbum com o mesmo nome. Um disco onde se ouvem batidas electrónicas, adornadas por guitarras shoegaze, sintetizadores doces e vozes que parecem não ser o mais importante das músicas. Alberga este disco a electrónica, a indie, a IDM, a pop e talvez uns resquícios de trip-hop.

"Letting Up Despite Great Faults is set to release their debut, self-titled LP October 2009. Its been a full three years since the release of Movement, an intimate collection of intricate and melancholic songs that received acclaim from the likes of NPR, CNET, and Death Cab for Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard. The EPs first track even found its way onto the hit television show One Tree Hill. In that time, Letting Ups sound has matured with more of the familiar bittersweet melodies and intelligent electronics, but is now also brilliantly layered with catchy guitars and dancier beats.

To push Letting Ups sound and studio dexterity to another level, they enlisted the sonic help of recording engineer Andrew Lynch to record drums at The Ship (Earlimart) and the finishing touch by mastering engineer Jeff Lipton (Andrew Bird, Spoon, Camera Obscura).

Through this new diary of sorts, Letting Up Despite Great Faults takes us through hard times, sad times, and best of all, dancey times. Expect to fight, cry, and dance with them soon if youre on the west coast (tour dates tba). Otherwise, the album will be available at iTunes, Amazon, Insound, and all major online retailers this October."

Letting Up Despite Great Faults - In steps

Letting Up Despite Great Faults download

Tricky Meets South Rakkas Crew - Tricky Meets South Rakkas Crew

Quando o projecto South Rakkas Crew tem como ponto de partida o álbum de Tricky, Knowle west boy, o resultado é uma mistura de electro-dancehall com trip-hop e com dub. Tricky Meets South Rakkas Crew é um híbrido musical curioso, à qual vale a pena dedicar alguma atenção.

"Tricky Meets South Rakkas Crew is a version excursion of ten tracks from Tricky’s ‘Knowle West Boy’, where electro-dancehall collides with Tricky’s whispering ‘sprechgesang’ lyrical style to create a dancehall filler radio killer soundtrack thriller that seems to touch on all the happening urban sounds from around the globe. We’re talking hip-hop, reggae and rock inna dubstep dancehall style that’s left-of-centre pop for the 21st century. As Tricky says: ‘We come in peace and leave you in pieces"

Tricky Meets South Rakkas Crew - Joseph

Tricky Meets South Rakkas Crew download

Worm Is Green - Glow

O projecto islandês constituido por Arni Teitur Asgeirsson, Bjarni Thor Hannesson, Thorsteinn Hannesson e Vilberg Hafsteinn Jonsson, voltou este ano com o álbum Glow. Os Worm Is Green continuam a sua saga pela música electrónica baseada no trip-hop e no downtempo com uns toques de electro. Um excelente álbum! As linhas que se seguem foram tiradas daqui.

"Worm Is Green started as the bedroom electronica project of Arni Asgeirsson, who soon enlisted longtime friends from his hometown of Akranes, Iceland (population 5,500) to flesh out his melodic soundscapes. Solidifying into a group, Worm Is Green began recording the songs that would become Automagic, released overseas last year on Iceland's Thule Musik (home of Mum and The Funerals) and now available in the U.S. on The Arena Rock Recording Co."

Worm Is Green - The politician

Glow download

Blockhead - The music scene

O produtor nova-iorquino Tony Simon, mais conhecido por Blockhead, está de regresso com mais um álbum de instrumentais, intitulado The music scene. Com uma produção que varia entre o hip-hop, o trip-hop e o downtempo, aqui fica mais um dos bons álbuns deste ano. Daqui veio o seguinte:

"New York hip hop producer Tony Simon aka Blockhead returns with his third and best instrumental album for Ninja Tune. Blockhead has long made beautiful, emotive music based around the hip hop template, but on The Music Scene he elevates his craft to another level. Tony puts it down to the use of Ableton, which means that rather than working from "one basic beat and building off it" (the standard hip hop model), he has begun stringing together multiple beats and weaving them together into increasingly complex, surprising and satisfying pieces of music. As he himself puts it, "I made each song a little more of a musical journey than anything I have ever done before."

Blockhead - It's raining clouds

The music scene download

Video trip #1

People Under The Stairs - Trippin' at the disco

2econd Class Citizen - A world without

O inglês Aaron Thomason é o homem que dá vida ao projecto 2econd Class Citizen. Lançou este ano o álbum de estreia, A world without, onde apresenta uma sonoridade downtempo, com elementos hip-hop, trip-hop, folk e rock. Deixo para ver o ouvir o tema Angelic soul, que não faz parte do alinhamento deste álbum, mas sim do EP Wyred Folk. Quanto a A world without é um álbum que recomendo vivamente. Deste site deixo as linhas abaixo:

"Drawing from his palette of all things psychedelic, prog-rock, folk and traditional-song related, mixed with modern techniques of sampling and sequencing,
2econd Class Citizen aka Aaron Thomason creates music which transcends a multitude of genres to distil a wholly immersive experience.

With “A World Without”, his epic, debut full length, 2CC has out-done even himself in terms of the scale of production and ambition of the vast journey of song he has successfully encompassed. The music is awash with soaring sections of string-led beauty, doused with brooding passages of disquietening ambience and driven on by crashing drums layered with such subtle textures as to create a densely-woven sound that might take many listens to fully realise. Punctuated only with snatches of lost folk songs and striking contributions from US based song/wordsmith Ceschi Ramos and the deeply unsettling jamesreindeer, the album is an ever-changing, ever-refining kaleidoscope of melodies and directions. Each track touches on a subtly different part of the whole which, in turn, has the album slowly draw itself out in one great all-encompassing movement, carrying the listener off into a brave new world rarely visited in this current musical age."

2econd Class Citizen - Angelic soul

A world without download

Vaiper And Serumas - Cafeteria inn legend

Vaiper and Serumas, chegam da Lituânia com o álbum Cafeteria inn legend, lançado este ano. Um LP que cruz a produção hip-hop e downtempo com o jazz e com alguns elementos funk e soul.

"Two and a half years went since the first album by Vaiperis and Serumas called "Cafeteria" (ex "Coffeteria"). A year ago it was released on vinyl in limited numbers.
The new fruit of "Despotin' Fam" is called "Cafeteria Inn Legend". It's a fully finished album that requested a lot of hard work and sleepless nights from the authors. You may find influences of funk and jazz, the golden era of hip-hop and the almighty Detroit's soul bank. "Cafeteria Inn Legend" describes the nowadays with beats and nu jazz scene together with English dubstep phenomena. Album consists of live instrumentals, city rhythms and electronics."

Vaiper & Serumas - Lovenote

Cafeteria inn legend download