Fuck the Radio is dedicated to supporting artists and their work. All music is owned by the artist/record company and is supplied for promotional purposes only.
Cascade Records has overtaken Warp and Ninja Tune for me when it comes to exciting new releases; the Paris-based label is constantly supporting underground gold- and their latest release with Resistant Mindz is no exception.
A great compilation with some fantastic post-hip-hop/trip-hop etc. sounds from a plethora of talented artists, including FTR faves Broke, Repeat Pattern and Ackryte (above), there’s some real special creativity running through the grooves of this record, and I can’t wait to get my hands on it!
Much like the nouvelle vague du rock français scene that saw the rise of garage-rock bands like Naast and my beloved Plasticines in France, there’s a new breed of underground beat-makers in France seeing the creation of a new-wave of electronica and hip-hop.
Sorg is one such artist at the forefront of the emerging scene, joining artists such as Miqi O, Zerolexand Don Da Nonein bringing a blend of sample-based, electronic and acoustic instrumentation to trip-hop for a sound which, sounds just as uniquely French as French house does.
France is the home to most of my favourite artists… Daft Punk,Plasticines, Edgard Varèse… the list goes on. I don’t know what they put in the frog legs over there, but something makes them good at producing groovy music.
Take 7even Sun for example, who has put out two completely free and awesome electronic-jazz albums that are scrumptiously funky. With a third on it’s way on the 28th of March, get into him now so you can say you dug him since his older albums.
New New Jack is from the first EP titled Abstractly Concrete which was released November last year. Filled with a great mix of sample-based jazz and electronic funk, 7even shows that he possesses more musical ability than simply stringing a few sampled loops together without any creative attention to detail.
His second free instrumental EP titled Concretely Abstract was released late Feburary 2012, and builds upon the same production styles and sounds used in Abstractly Concrete (no surprise there, due to the similarity of the titles, think of it as all the same project). The third EP will be titled Abscrete and is due out on Number 24 Records later this month.
When I was about 13 years old I loved the german industrial-metal band Rammstein. I loved them so much it inspired me to learn German… until I found out I was head-banging along to graphic lyrics about gay sex. This isn’t something I’m against; It was just a little shocking for my 13-year old self. Then I looked at the cover of my favourite album- an image of the band shirtless and oiled up, standing in-front of a giant flower… it was never the same.
I did see Rammstein live many years later and they were amazing… but something about the muscular front-man in make-up, adorned with feathers and tight black leather just haunted the back of my mind… Mann gegen Mann
Meine Haut gehört den Herren…
Now the reason I bring up Rammstein is not because of their deceptively homosexual lyrics, but because I haven’t ever loved a foreign band so much as to want to learn the intricacies of their language since I was 13 and head-banging away to German metal…
This time in French; NÉBULEUSE(s) is an album title I’m not even going to BEGIN to try and pronounce. My French is a bit rusty these days (read: ‘non-existent’), but that didn’t stop me from getting into talented French hip-hop artist Don Da None, who self-released his debut EP Nébuleuse(s) for only €3 in November last year.
Don Da None‘s lyrics flow so well that it makes me wish I could speak French. There’s a sophistication in the way he speaks which compliments the amazing self-produced beats very well. Borrowing samples from rare soul and jazz records, Nébuleuse(s) would work as an instrumental album in it’s own right… In-fact, I have an instrumental copy of Le Bas Coté to give you!
The underground trip-hop community may seem like a never-ending sea of sampled beats and bedroom producers. And for the most part, it is! Albeit a glorious one full of unique rhythmic gems. Every now and then, in this new-age of internet distribution, a funny thing happens…
I had just purchased Zerolex‘s 2.z EP (off of bandcamp for only €1!) when no more than an hour later I got an email from Zerolex himself pointing me towards his music. I clicked the links he provided, stared at the album art for awhile thinking “Wow, this looks very familiar” until I realised he was currently playing in my iTunes.
All Over Again is the first of two tracks off of his more recent release on Combien Millie Records, which is available for free download. There’s some great future beat style trip-hop elements present throughout his tracks, and some really diverse and interesting sounds being used as well- check it out!