Way Back Wednesdays: Eric B. & Rakim – ‘Don’t Sweat The Technique’

April 27, 2022 — Leave a comment

Pictured: Cover Artwork for ‘Don’t Sweat The Technique’ (LP) (Released on June 23rd, 1992) (via MCA Records)

Good Morning to you! My name is Jacob Braybrooke, and the time has come for you to send a distress call to DedSec (A short soundtrack-related reference for those who know) right after reading your latest retro-filled edition of ‘Way Back Wednesdays’ on the blog, because it is always my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! Although not entirely remembered in the discussions of Hip-Hop’s greatest artists to lace up a pair of rhymes by the general public, Eric B & Rakim have still been named as two of the genre’s greatest talents by publications like AllMusic and NPR, while Rolling Stone have ranked them as #5 on their list of the 20 Greatest Duo’s Of All Time published in 2015. They were also among the many victims who were affected by the 2008 Universal fire, which caused their tapes of lost material to be destroyed in the incident. They could still take a lot of the newer artists to school though, and we are currently in session with them today on One Track At A Time, and so I’m going to pay attention and listen up to the title track from their final album – ‘Don’t Sweat The Technique’ – released in 1992 via MCA Records. Like many of the Long Island-formed duo’s critically acclaimed albums, the LP was handled mostly by Eric B. & Ralim themselves in terms of production duties at The Hit Factory in New York city. The titular track itself was a minor radio hit, while the associated album reached #9 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums Chart in the US. This is a powerful track, but it is somewhat disfigured in the memory by a music video that is riddled with the typical tropes of 90’s Hip-Hop in which the album, and Rakim’s career as a whole in particular, usually stood in a more creative opposition against. It strikes me as a piece that was designed by label executives in order to sell more records. That said, the album debuted at #22 on the US Billboard 200 chart in its first week of release, a healthy result for an alternative act. Try not to Sweat The Technique below.

Eric B & Rakim’s ‘Don’t Sweat The Technique’ was not intended to be the duo’s final album, but their contract with MCA Records was due to expire, eventually leading to lots of legal wrangling, including a court case, that would cause the duo to disband completely. However, things did not meet a grisly end because a re-union tour took place in 2018. Summing up what they do most thoroughly on releases like this LP with the frantic beats and cuts, ‘Don’t Sweat The Technique’ (the title track) is built off an infectious and funk-driven instrumental that expands into Rakim’s rhymes that feel razor sharp and cutting edge on arrival. The main bass line (Which is a sampled loop from Young-Holt Unlimited’s ‘Queen Of The Nile’) is a perfect partner for the recurring blasts of Horns (A Kool N The Gang sample), developing elements of Jazz and Soul among the Boom Bap style of production and the percussive, clicking Drum loops. Lyrically, we are dealing with a love letter to the art form of rapping itself, with Rakim giving light testimonies about his career and his relationship with Eric B. as he continually performs his methods of mental alchemy. He uses sequences like “They want to know how many rhymes I have ripped and wrecked/But research has never found all of the pieces yet/Scientists try to solve the context, Philosophers are wondering what’s next” to give the boisterous track its energetic and conscious character. His delivery is absolutely swift and nimble too, as his syllables bounce between the elastic bassline like a rubber band and syncopated rim-shots, as to aid the rhythm of the instrumentals with his internal melodies. Together, they boast a DJ/Producer dynamic that has still influenced combinations like Run The Jewels and Nas & Hit-Boy to this day, and that’s simply because the formula feels timeless. To conclude, it is a classic track that Eric B. & Rakim delivered without breaking a sweat.

Pictured: DJ Eric B. & MC Rakim (William Michael Griffin Jr.) (2018) (Photo by JLN Photography/REX/Shutterstock)

That brings us to the end of roughly another 24 hour period on the blog, and I thank you, as always, for reading what I had to say about Eric B. & Rakim today. Tomorrow, I’ll be reviewing a recent single by an all-female Pop, R&B & Funk trio who became mainstays on the DIY L.A. club circuit after they started jamming together in 2017. They are currently signed to Stones Throw Records and they have a new LP – ‘Excess’ – releasing in June. They will also tour with Tame Impala and Parquet Courts in 2022.

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Today’s Track: Blue Lab Beats (feat. Fela Kuti, Killbeatz, Kaidi Akinnibi & Poppy Daniels) – ‘Motherland Journey’

April 4, 2022 — Leave a comment

Pictured: Namali Kwaten (aka NK-OK) and David Mrkapor (aka Mr DM) (2019) (Photo Credit: Blue Note Records)

Good Afternoon to you! This is Jacob Braybrooke, as usual, and I’m writing fresh off this marathon of a WWE WrestleMania 38 weekend with yet another daily track on the blog, because it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! Pitching their sound as “Jazz-Tronica”, Blue Lab Beats are the North London-based experimental electronic music duo of sampler and producer Namali Kwaken (aka NK-OK) and multi-instrumentalist David Mrkaor (aka Mr DM) who have sat in the additional production seats for their work with artists like Ruby Francis and Age Of Luna, and they have remixed A-list pop culture superstars like Dua Lipa and Rag ‘N’ Bone Man. The follow-up to 2021’s ‘We Will Rise’ EP is the Grammy award-winning and MOBO-nominated musicians’ latest full-length studio album ‘Motherland Journey’ which they released in late February on the legendary Blue Note Records label. The new creative project explores a whole suite of Avant-Jazz, Prog-Jazz, Afro-Funk, Trip Hop, Boom Bap, Northern Soul and Contemporary R&B influences, and it has been described as an “extremely special album” to the duo, who say, “This album took us two-and-a-half-years to finish, or longest process to make an album, but it was so worth it. On this album you’ll hear many fusions of genres and inspirations that we gathered throughout that time frame and especially to work on so many of the songs during the first lockdown, it was a test in itself”, about their recent release. The title track samples Afrobeat activist icon Fela Kuti’s 70’s song ‘Everything Scatter’ and they were given permission by the BLB estate themselves to use that sample. It features guest contributions from Kaidi Akinnibi and Poppy Daniels, while they also travelled to Ghana to record it along with Killbeatz as the producer. Let’s give it a spin.

Much like all of the classic Afrobeat music releases of the 70’s and 80’s, ‘Motherland Journey’ is designed to replicate a communal experience where all of the different influences and the guest contributors are welcome as long as the album’s flow is not disrupted, and the duo also comment, “When we got confirmation to have Fela Kuti’s vocals from his publishers in Nigeria we were honestly blown away that he could really feature on our tracks. An absolute dream come true.”, on Kuti’s featured artist credit for the eclectic track. The track gets off to a bright and warm start immediately, with a quickly established groove formed by the percussive African drums and the prominent Amapiano stabs that pulls apart the standard tropes of their favourite genres with the introduction of the electronic music elements and the sparse guitar melodies to give the classic sound a more modern, updated feel. The pair layer up some of the Trumpet samples and the Afrobeat-tinged backing vocals together to blur the contrasted electronic and organic sounds together occasionally, but the rotating instrumentals and the upbeat textures creates the most dominant impression where we’re witnessing something improvisational and organic from a live house band, like the performers who used to visit Kuti’s shrines at the heart of the Afrobeat cultural movement, who are simply taking to center stage and jamming with one another, creating a timeless feeling as opposed to overtly recycling outdated ideas for simply nostalgic effect. It is not necessarily futuristic, but it feels well-built and structured neatly, with new melodies being bought into the mix to keep the grooves from getting a little tiresome. Overall, ‘Motherland Journey’ is a wonderfully encouraging listen that pulls off a fresh re-boot of it’s ideas by blending the organic percussion of the classic Afrobeat days with the progressive electronic production standards that we’re used to hearing more often from the west. The final results feel quite accessible and engaging to a fairly wide audience, without the feeling of commercialism ever truly dominating their sound in a blatant way. It just feels timeless and eminently buoyant.

Pictured: Cover Artwork for ‘Motherland Journey’ (LP) (Released on February 25th, 2022) (via Blue Note Records)

That brings us to the end of another uplifting track on the blog, and thank you for continuing to support the site. I’ll be back tomorrow to discuss the new single from an Oxford-born classically trained electronic music producer who has been covered more than once before, since I’m such a huge fan of his work. He’s going to release his first album in a decade this July, and his collaborative single ‘Heartbreak’, which he created with Bonobo, was nominated for this year’s ‘Best Dance/Electronic Recording’ honour at the Grammy awards. The British musician is currently based in Los Angeles.

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Today’s Track: The Halluci Nation (feat. Chippewa Travellers) – ‘It’s Over’

January 6, 2022 — Leave a comment

Pictured: Tim Hill (Producer/Engineering) and Ehren Thomas (Mixing/Percussion) (2020) (Photo via PR)

Good Morning to you! You are tuned into the text of Jacob Braybrooke, as we ready ourselves for yet another daily track on the blog, since it’s always been my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! Music you may have missed from last year headlines the page today, and it comes your way from an Ottawa-based Canadian experimental electronic dance music duo known for blending Ethnotronica, Moombahton, Reggae and the ‘Brostep’ term of post 2000’s Dubstep with elements of First Nations music, particularly known for their vocal chanting and high-speed drumming – and their name is The Halluci Nation. It wasn’t always that way, however, as the band used to be titled A Tribe Called RED, a homage to the legendary Hip-Hop group A Tribe Called Quest. Last year, however, they decided to scrap their old alias in light of “as we move into this next phase of our evolution, we also find it necessary to remember our past”, in their own words. Now a duo comprised of Tim Hill and Ethren Thomas, their name is a phrase borrowed from activist/artist John Trundell to “describe the vast global community of people who remember at their core what it means to be human”, in Trundell’s quote. The group describe their own style of music as a “Stadium Pow-Wow” sound, which is a style of contemporary club music for urban First Nations (A society of Canadian indigenous people who are classified distinctly from the Metis and Inuit groups). My first experience with The Halluci Nation was hearing their stellar third album, ‘We Are The Halluci Nation’, released in 2016. The follow-up, ‘One More Saturday Night’, was self-released last July, which finds the duo collaborating with the likes of Black Bear, The Beat and Northern Voice – some of which they have frequently recorded material with before. The band’s latest album pays tribute to the Electric Pow-Wow gatherings at Ontario’s Babylon nightclub the group ran between 2007 and 2017. Hear more about their change of identity below and skip to 1:05 to hear the new track ‘It’s Over’ below.

“We wanted to pay homage to the Electric Pow Wow and wrap that whole decade of the experience up and close the cycle, and in doing so give direct co-ordinates of where the future was headed. In a nutshell, that’s what this album is about”, says co-founder Ehren “Bear Witness” Thomas in a press release, explaining, “We just wanted to make a party record, as well, one that people could dance to while still having the strong message we are known for”, about the planning and recording behind the record. Going for a more psychedelic take on their older material, Hill and Thomas combine stretched samples of vocal chants performed by Chippewa Travellers with EDM-inflicted Dubstep to explore the memories of the club nights that brought their Canadian community of indigenous people together back in the 2000’s, but the ferocious pace of the brisk Drums also imply a regret concerning the abrupt disbandment of the Babylon nightclub’s scenes. Some fragmented Synth effects are sprinkled throughout the song that evokes the vibrant nostalgia and anti-colonialism surrounding the club nights. Meanwhile, the driving melodies of the instrumentation are there to remind you that it is a positive dance record, as their signature style of moulding Septia-toned vocals from Chippewa Travellers together with visceral drum and bass melodies that set things into motion with a commanding Bassline, while the trickling Trap snares and the some declarative EDM drums that gradually incorporate reverb-drenched Dub and righteous vocal chants into the equation. ‘It’s Over’ suffers from repetition a little, but it does a fantastic job of spreading the message that forms the emotive core of the album that breathes new life into a memory or dream that settler colonialism and its extractive violence have attempted to erase, and ‘It’s Over’ provides a club-heavy but contemplative moment that gives the affirmations and goals of The Halluci Nation a reasonable amount of space to take root, as the band continue to cement themselves as one that needs to exist to serve the social purpose.

Pictured: Cover Artwork for ‘One More Saturday Night’ (Released on July 30th, 2021) (via Self-Released)

I have previously shined a small spotlight on The Halluci Nation before their rebranding, with a detailed post about another track that aims to get more indigenous people represented in the media. Find out more about ‘The OG’ here: https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2020/01/13/todays-track-a-tribe-called-red-feat-black-bear-the-og/

Pictured: The Halluci Nation performing at the Lost Lake Festival (2017) (Photo Credit: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)

That’s everything I’ve got lined up for you today! I’m still working on my year-end Albums list of 2021 and it is coming soon. In the meantime, thanks for checking out my latest post, and I’ll be back tomorrow to get you re-acquainted with a Grammy-nominated Texas-born Jazz artist and a Houston trio who host the ‘AirKhruang’ radio show on Facebook Live and NTS Radio. They will be releasing a direct sequel to their earlier collaborative EP ‘Texas Sun’ on 18th February through the Dead Oceans label.

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Today’s Track: Solemn Brigham – “Dirty Whip”

September 28, 2021 — Leave a comment

Pictured: Cover Art for ‘South Sinner Street’ (Released on September 24, 2021) (via Mello Music Group)

Good Morning to you! This is Jacob Braybrooke – showered and shattered after my first Cambridge gig (Which you’ll be hearing more about at some point during the week) – and the time has come for me to get typing up for yet another daily track on the blog, because it has always been my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! If the face of North Carolina-based lyricist/rapper Solemn Brigham appears to be strikingly familiar to you, then you may already know the chap as one half of the underground rap duo Marlowe, a project that he leads with the producer L’Orange, which, for my money, is one of the most exciting new hip-hop double acts in years. Last year, they released ‘Marlowe 2’ through Mello Music Group, and, this weekend, they will be playing at the Sound City festival in Ipswich. It has also been a restless weekend for Brigham himself, who has just released the new solo album ‘South Sinner Street’. Brigham’s music, as a solo artist, can be heard on Gatorade’s ‘G For Greatness’ campaign, 7 Eleven’s ‘Harmony Korine’ campaign and the soundtrack of NBA 2K22. For Brigham, the new album is an ode to those who carried him to greatness and an exploration of the theme of decay – economically and medically – through the lens of his hometown in Albemarle. He says, “What was once a vibrant area now survives as a reminder that the only thing eternal is change. Trash and debris flood the streets, relics of the many lives lived – each piece with a story to tell” for the album’s description. Take his latest single – ‘Dirty Whip’ – for a ride below.

‘South Sinner Street’ features production work from Marlowe compadre L’Orange, Kuartz (Also known as Katalyst from The Quakers), Frank Drake, The Lasso, Scud One and Krum, who all create some fluid instrumentals for Brigham to bounce off. On ‘Dirty Whip’, Brigham reflects on the illusion of wealth and the power of your roots through the lens of rapping about his Porsche. He says, in a press release, “This song is an ode to someone who carried me and provided for me during tough times”, elaborating, “When I was broke, you helped me find a way, and when I was reckless, you helped to keep me safe. To my Dirty Whip and all dirty whips alike, I’ll always ride for you” in his press notes. Brigham has always struck me as a virtuoso of tone, flipping between playfulness and severity at a skittering ease, and he confides in these strengths once again on ‘Dirty Whip’, delivering a genuinely witty moment when he raps that he didn’t make the basketball team “Cause I’m me first” in the verses. This light sense of humor is counteracted by the dramatic strings of the single’s opening and the Blues-leaning scatterings of Piano arrangements that make up the instrumental bed for the track, a softly cinematic backbeat that gives Brigham plenty of fresh energy to launch his own lyrics, at a frenetic pace, from. On the other hand, Brigham’s vocals feel raw and not very polished, which is different to the more sample-based style of his work as one half of Marlowe. I have also noticed how Brigham spits his bars on top with an equal mix of intimacy and observation in the sense that he raps about how riding in this car brought him joy, but the streets that he rode down had a share of corruption to them, later extending to the themes of poverty and security. Overall, ‘Dirty Whip’ is a nice rap tune that perhaps could have done with a little bit of neatening up when it comes to the lead vocals, but the ideas that he explores lyrically are very intriguing when you read between the lines, and he is very good at manipulating the tone of his words to suit his demands, an aspect of what makes his work as part of Marlowe really entertaining. I would ride down to this.

Pictured: Solemn Brigham (right) with L’Orange (Marlowe) in a ‘Marlowe 2’ PR shoot (2020) (via PR)

As mentioned, I’m a big fan of Marlowe and I would recommend checking them out very much. Why not start with a blog post that I did previously on ‘Future Power Sources’?: https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2020/09/09/todays-track-marlowe-future-power-sources/

Pictured: Cover Artwork for ‘Marlowe 2’ (LP) (Released on August 7th, 2020) (via Mello Music Group)

That’s all for now! Thank you for your continued support for the blog, and I’ll be back for more of the same with ‘Way Back Wednesdays’ tomorrow. We’ll be doing something a little different tomorrow, as we take an in-depth look at a lesser remembered album from an 80’s female pop star who recently got a laugh out loud mention on BBC One’s ‘Ghosts’ and popped up in a Cadbury’s Darkmilk commercial.

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Today’s Track: Nas – “Moments”

September 11, 2021 — Leave a comment

Pictured: Track Listing for ‘King’s Disease II’ (Released on August 6th, 2021) (via Mass Appeal Records)

Good Morning to you! I’m Jacob Braybrooke, and I’m going to be putting the ‘Hip’ into the ‘Hop’ on this rather cloudy Saturday morning to up its ante with another daily track on the blog, because it’s always been my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! It’s only been under a year since legendary 90’s rapper Nas won the Grammy Award for ‘Best Rap Album’ with 2020’s ‘King’s Disease’. However, that was more of a ‘legacy Grammy’ if you ask me, and I feel that his new direct continuation of that record – ‘King’s Disease II’ – released a handful of short weeks ago, is a bit better and more representative of such an award. Another victory lap for the famous associate publisher of Mass Appeal magazine, and a New York-based musician whose debut album – 1994’s ‘Illmatic’ – has been inducted into the Library Of Congresss National Recording Registry, ‘King’s Disease II’ once again finds the multi platinum-selling entrepreneur bringing the Fontana-born producer Hit Boy on-board with him, and the frequent pair have seemed to become something of a collaboration cheat code in recent years. The new album also features fruitful guest appearances from the likes of Eminem, Ms. Lauryn Hill, Charlie Wilson, EPMD and more. The new record also comes highly recommended from the critics, scoring an excellent 88/100 on review aggregate site Metacritic to indicate “Universal Acclaim” from lots of music publications. Check out the mid-album highlight ‘Moments’ below.

‘King’s Disease II’ was released in early August through Nas’ own label, Mass Appeal Records (of course) and, as well as performing strongly in review sections, this new release marked another commercial milestone for the famous rival of Jay Z, as it went straight to #3 in the US Billboard 200, becoming Nas’ highest charting album in nine years, and its first week sales of 56,000 units outmatched those of its predecessor in his ‘King’s Disease’ string of recent releases last year. An introspective anthem that matches chopped old time Soul samples with a clear, witty backdrop of nostalgic realizations, ‘Moments’ reminds me, in terms of its narrative thread, to recent movies like Disney Pixar’s ‘Soul’ and Amazon Prime’s ‘The Map Of Tiny Perfect Things’, where it feels like a grounded celebration of the little beauties in life, and this really connects with me on a decent personal note because I recently had my sister’s wedding, and that was a ‘Once In A Lifetime’ deal of enjoyment. Lyrics like “We used to all put in and go half on bail money/F**k making it rain now, we makin’ it hail money” harken back to the youthful days and the emerging stages of his career, and reflective sequences like “My whole career I stayed away from features/But I figured its perfect timing to embrace the leaders” are calling cards for the album as Nas speedruns through his personal growth through the decades. The catchy chorus, with quick hooks like “Movin’ in ya first crib or having your first kid/Moments you can’t relive” really hammers the point home with a near equal mixture of accessibility and relatability. I love how these rhymes feel a little clumsy at points, as the straightforward meaning of the track really helps to give them a freestyle flair that charms. Plenty of credit goes to Hit Boy too, who works very hard behind the DJ decks to make everything flow together elegantly. The whimsical mix of laidback Horn sections, the strutting muted drums, the fluttering Glockenspiel melodies and self-satisfied Bass beats feels nicely endearing and complements Nas’ relatively unpolished vocals well to tell the story, and it gives the brief lyrics that may otherwise come across as a bit too slap-dash a well-contained, apt Jazz influence for the backdrop to flourish. He’s perhaps not a brilliant producer on his own, but when he works with Nas, there’s a really coherent chemistry that feels very engaging. It is a bold statement – but this is one of Nas’ best.

Pictured: Cover Artwork for ‘Illmatic’ (LP) (Released on April 19th, 1994) (via Columbia Records)

As Nas’ quietly declares in the track that we just heard, he is now considered a legacy artist and so he’s no stranger to making appearances on my blog already. Last year, we took a listen to the lead single ‘Ultra Black’ from the first ‘King’s Disease’ record, which you can still read here: https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2020/10/14/todays-track-nas-feat-hit-boy-ultra-black/. Meanwhile, earlier in the year, we looked back at his culturally significant debut album ‘Illmatic’ with the single ‘It Ain’t Hard To Tell’ for ‘Way Back Wednesdays’ – a moment that you can relive from my site here: https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2021/04/21/way-back-wednesdays-nas-it-aint-hard-to-tell/

Pictured: Cover Art for ‘King’s Disease’ (LP) (Released on August 21st, 2020) (via Mass Appeal Records)

That brings us to the end of the page for today, and thank you very much for being a part of this particular moment with me! It’s ‘Scuzz Sundays’ tomorrow, and so we’ve nearly reached the part of the week where we take things a little less seriously and either head-bang or cringe to some of the Pop-Punk anthems from the teenage time of our lives. My pick for this week comes from a rather successful Kanas City-bred Post-Grunge band who have sold over seven million albums worldwide. Since 2012, the band’s leading man has been hit with accusations of lip syncing during live shows.

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Today’s Track: B-Wey – “Psych Police”

August 24, 2021 — Leave a comment

Pictured: Cover Art for ‘Section 1’ (LP) (Released on July 16th, 2021) (via Self-Released/Bandcamp.com)

Good Morning to you! You are here with Jacob Braybrooke, as always, in time for yet another daily track on the blog, since it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! Approaching the cusp of 30 years of age, South East London-based independent rapper Ben Weyman has been reflecting on his twenties in his tell-all debut album, ‘Section 1’, which he self-released last month. The new record examines tragedy – familial grief, mental health struggles and his run-ins with the law. This is a very hard-hitting and stripped-back listen that was partly inspired by the tragic loss of his parents, which occurred due to battles with cancer and within only four months of one another. The record was also named after his development of Bipolar Disorder which has led to an arrest pertaining to his share of psychotic, manic episodes. Brutally honest, B-Wey has laid bare on the taster track, ‘Psych Police’, which specifically refers to the heavy-handed treatment of those who need support. The new LP was mixed and mastered by Ryan Sullivan, the former head engineer of Red Bull Studios, and Weyman wants you to know that he has been stable for 3 years – and hopes his work can guide others to peace. Spin ‘Psych Police’ below.

Following a tumultuous period, Ben Weyman has turned to music as a way to express himself like never before, writing, “My musical journey and influences give way to a unique production style while my life experiences give me something tangible to write about and gives my music a real direction. I hope to raise awareness and influence change in his neat address to the music press. A deeply personal call to others going through serious pains, B-Wey delivers some candid, and catchy, lyrics that cut like a knife sunk in deep to your heart. The repeating hooks of “What they want from me, I’m not sure/Now they’ve got me pinned to the concrete floor” and names the likes of corporate greed and the vanity of 20’s youth as the stigmas surrounding his times of downfall. The refrain of “1 to the 2 to the 3 to the 4/Psych police are knocking at my door” is a memorable and wickedly melodic one, while he spits the rest of his bars with a rough-edged first person perspective. His beats harken back to J Dilla and Madlib, where his sampling goes for a more playful brand of style collage, and his turntable scratches equally evoke the old-school Hip-Hop production of Boom Bap. He peppers this material with some sombre Piano notes and a gently ethereal female backing vocal that get the dramatic subject matter across to the listener in a way that continues to ditch flashy Synth schemes or the mincing of his words. I like how the overall track feels rather unpolished to an extent, as this really allows for Weyman’s personality and his expression to come across naturally and without any hesitation of mentioning the more hardcore scenarios of his narrative, as he continues to seek introspection through his lowest of moods. Overall, this is an effective example of DIY UK Hip-Hop production, and it harkens back to the days of The Streets or Kate Nash that feel increasingly rare to come by in this day and age. A hard-hitting listen, which B-Wey’s personality makes all the more attention-grabbing.

Pictured: B-Wey (Ben Weyman) (2021) (Photo via slavestotherhythm.monkjackpublishing.com)

On that note – we’ve reached the end of the page. Thank you very much for joining me for another day, and, as I have already mentioned, I will be going on a short break starting from Thursday because I’m busy attending my sister’s big day! I shall leave you tomorrow with a track, taken from our ‘Way Back Wednesdays’ feature, from a particularly special act. This androgynous Synth-Pop and New Wave band were formed in 1983 and they found their fame after supporting Depeche Mode’s tours in 1985 and 1986. The group have been described by The Houston Press as “forward thinking” for their lyrics that used to deal with gender politics and sexual orientation.

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Today’s Track: Kozmodrum – “Wormhoooooooooole…”

August 23, 2021 — Leave a comment

Good Morning to you! You are reading the words of Jacob Braybrooke, and now is the time for me to pollute your ears with another daily track on the blog, because it’s always been my day-to-day pleasure to write to you about a different piece of music every day! This is a shortened week of project work for me on the blog this week, and so I’ll be going away for my sister’s wedding during the week, but I still wanted to sneak ‘Wormhole’ in, and this new one comes from a Croatian 5-piece group called Kozmodrum. Exploring Dub, Techno and House, the quintet have found success in their domestic market and they seem to be looking to gain new fans overseas with the release of their self-titled third full-length album, back in June, via Rika Muzika. Describing their sound as “Organic House Music”, the band use the framework of a DJ set by producing electronic compositions that were designed to be played openly, where they loop beats until a cue point is given to indicate a switch to another part. On Facebook, they pitch this as “Jazz-infused Post-Rock meets Ambient Electronica meets Tech House with a percussion twist”, and that sounds really good to me. A 5-piece led by a classically trained drummer – Janko Novoselić – Kozmodrum won a Porin Award (The Croatian equivalent to the BRIT’s) for their second LP, ‘Gravity’, released in 2017. I was really pleased that John Ravenscroft introduced me to this project on BBC Radio 6 Music a number of weeks ago because it’s been growing on me ever since. Check out the lead single of the band’s new album, ‘Wormhole’, below.

Kozmodrum cites Tycho and Elektro Guzzi as their stylistic influences for their new record, and they told Twisted Soul, “After our first two albums, that were each very different in their own way – the first one being an exploration of Jazz/Fusion moods and the second veering toward more electronic/ambient atmospheres – this album is the most truthful representation of how we really sound live” in their own promo message. ‘Wormhole’ is a tune that was being developed over the space of five years until it reached its final form that you can hear on the new LP, and this tireless dedication to their own craft clearly shows in the meticulous structuring and the layers that build throughout the track. The six-minute duration seems to be on the longer side of things, but the instrumentation is paced nicely and it feels packed neatly considering the various Drum, Synth, Keyboard and Bass sequences in play. There’s no vocals, just pretty guitar melodies and splashings of rumbling Bass that gets a light-hearted tone across, and the animated music video adds nicely to the hand-woven aesthetic of the overall proceedings. As you would expect for a mix between Jazz and non-traditional Dance music, there is a fairly minimalist start to things before the different layers keep building and then evolving to form new loops, creating some sublime electronic grooves that have a bright warmth to them in the process. More complex, fragmented and harmonic Synth sounds follow in the later stages and small elements of Prog-Jazz and Math-Rock are evoked through the specific timing schemes. I really like how the track takes cues from Nu-Jazz, non-traditional Punk and experimental Electronic music to do something unique with the instruments being used, and the resulting sound is a blissful and chilled affair that is never afraid to throw some rougher sounds into the mixture. Once established, the grooves bump and slither their way through a Psychedelic concoction of genres that just slips neatly into your ears and keeps you actively listening out for the chord changes at the same time because they feel interesting and carefully textured. In summary, it is a lovely listen and definitely worthy of more ears than it’s been getting.

Pictured: Cover Art for ‘Kozmodrum’ (Self-Titled LP) (Released on June 25th, 2021) (via Rika Muzika)

That brings us to the end of the page for another day! Thank you for reaching this historic part of the day for me, and please feel free to join me again tomorrow as we do it all over again. I’ll be supporting more music from a lesser-known artist in John Peel style again as we take a detour into some DIY Hip-Hop production. My next pick comes from a 30-year-old rapper from South East London who has based his new album, ‘Section 1’, on the tragedies that have all defined his twenties, such as mental health struggles and familial loss. It’s a hard-hitting listen that demands your hearing.

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Way Back Wednesdays: Black Sheep – “The Choice Is Yours”

July 28, 2021 — Leave a comment

Let’s see if this 91′ Hip-Hop classic still has any of it’s seminal wool. Let’s go Way Back!

Pictured: Cover Art for ‘The Choice Is Yours’ (LP) (Released on August 6th, 1991) (via Mercury Records)

Good Morning to you! It’s Jacob Braybrooke, and we’re both here for an in-depth look back at one of the sounds of the past that has been influential to the sounds of the present for ‘Way Back Wednesdays’ – because its always my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! ‘The Choice Is Yours’ was an East-Coast Hip-Hope tune, released in 1991, that would have been inescapable at the time. It comes from the rap duo Black Sheep, who were formed in Queens, New York by Andres “Dres” Vargus Titus and William “Mista Lawnge” McLean, who were a part of the Native Tongues collective, which also included A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul and The Jungle Brothers. The duo were only an act for six years together, having formed in 1989 and split up in 1995, due to creative differences, but, in that time, they made a mark with their hit single ‘Flavor Of The Month’ and their album ‘Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing’ from 1991, with the duo receiving attention in the East Coast Hip-Hop community for their intelligent, unique rhythms and their witty, sardonic lyrics. ‘The Choice Is Yours’ was arguably their biggest hit single from their aforementioned LP, ranking on #73 on VH1’s Greatest Hip-Hop songs poll and being notably used in a commercial for the 2010 Kia Soul. It was also used in popular films like ‘Step Up’ and ‘Lakeview Terrace’, as well as being used in video games like ‘True Crime: New York City’ and ‘Aggressive Inline’ too. It appeared on the album twice, with a ‘Revisited’ rework of the track also gaining massive popularity. Check out the OG version below.

Black Sheep’s ‘The Choice Is Yours’ famously sampled New Birth’s ‘Keep On Doin It’, ‘Her Favourite Style’ by Iron Butterfly, ‘Big Sur Suite’ by Johnny Hammond Smith, ‘Impressions’ by McCoy Turner and ‘I’d Say It Again’ by Sweet Linda Divine, as well as paying homage to Roger Miller’s ‘Engine Engine Number 9’ by quoting it in the post-bridge, and, the song itself was covered by The Bloodhound Gang in 1999, of all acts. Kicking off with the opening riff of “Who’s the Black Sheep, what’s the Black Sheep?”, Vargus and McLean quickly talk about combating early-90’s racism with punchy rhymes like “The styling is creative/Black Sheep of the Native/Can’t be violated, or even decepticated” and call to the local community of musicians for a plea to unity, riffing “I got brothers in the Jungle/cousins on the Quest” in reference to the Native Tongues collective. They also talk about the gain that developing their own work provides for them, spitting “Black Sheep, get play like the Sony innovator/Never the traitor, party inflater” over the top of the thick basslines in the speedy second verse. The references to earlier songs are blatant and mimic sampling, layering some denotative lyricism with the fast delivery of the vocals, and adding some Boom-Bap production to the diverse vocals. It has a slightly rough and aggressive quality to it, with subtle Vinyl scratches and brief Horn arrangements whipping up a Jazz influence for the smoky beats to conjure up a slightly dark and late-night mood. The bass really kicks in during a fast set of verses to match the uptempo rap vocal delivery, and there are a couple of twangy licks on the guitar here and there, within the soundscape, to call back to early Funk. Understated, chiming and melodious, the shimmering vibe of ‘The Choice Is Yours’ was drastically different to the ‘Revisited’ remix that appeared later on the same album. A classic cut with bars and beats that slice easily like a Knife.

Pictured: Black Sheep (Andres Vargus Titus & William McLean) (Date n/a) (via Paul Natkin/Getty Images)

That brings us to the end of the page for another day! Thank you for the support, and please feel free to reconvene on the site again tomorrow for some brand new music tomorrow. It comes from one of the brightest stars on the UK’s Bedroom Pop circuit, and BBC Radio 6 Music’s Steve Lamacq seems to be a big fan of the tune too, which has received airplay on his shows. He describes himself as a “Lo-Fi Pop noodler” who writes witty music about Patrick Swayze, Pizza toppings and defunct TV game shows.

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