Lee Rosevere – Colourless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously

Lee Rosevere does his own brand of instrumental funk on this release. With a quirky, retro feel, the six tracks run the gamut from smooth and jazzy to hip-hop to beatles-esque. Top notch drum programming keeps the funkiness in the forefront. Out of the whole set, I think track six, Stormbox, is my favorite, mainly because of the huge drumbreak in the background and the big ol’ fat synth doing weird things in the foreground, but also it’s interesting to hear samples from who knows where fading in and out and sounding all out of place and discordant, and finally the entire track implodes in a synth patch nightmare. This is definitely worth a listen – and if you’re like me, you’ll want to have this blazing out the windows of your car as well.

Lee Rosevere – Colourless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously.

Mo Town Junkie and Joe Jetson – The Worst of Jetson and Junkie

Now this is just weird. We’ve featured Mo Town Junkie before, well this time he has teamed up with Joe Jetson to bring you seven tracks of instrumental hip hop confusion. And you can believe me when I say that these two definitely put the ‘mental’ in instrumental. This is not for everyone – it’s music that you must be patient to hear. But once you hear it, you’ll understand where it’s coming from. And then you too will be mad like me.

Mo Town Junkie and Joe Jetson – The Worst of Jetson and Junkie.

Mo’town Junkie – Cuts and Raw Tapes

A handful of rocking electro hip-hop tracks. Samples from old movies cut up and glitchified over sampled beats, with minimal, almost house-like synth chord stabs; slow moving, weird, dark and distorted at times; upbeat and funky at others, this little release comes from the heart. Found on Phonotactics, a great netlabel, check out their other releases as well.

Mo’town Junkie – Cuts and Raw Tapes

Sliptone – Funk Agent 1

Awww snizzap son, it’s time for some downtempo hip-hop. Check out this funky six-track release from Budabeats. Mixing hip-hop with elements of house and funk, this is an all over the place audio trip that will have you tapping your feet and drumming beats on the desk. Reminiscent of Revolution Void, this style of music features jazzy basslines, breakbeats, wah-wahed synths and funk guitars – you name it, it’s in there. The first track, entitled Birds And The Bees, is a humorous take on ‘the talk’ (don’t worry, it’s family friendly). The other five tracks follow suit, making this an first-class, entertaining and just downright fun release.

Sliptone – Funk Agent 1.

Raise The Dust – Ground Floor Records VA Compilation

Cover artGround Floor Records has a catalog of superb artists. Samplists, turntablists, and hip hop wizards come together on this compilation to give us eighteen wonderful tracks of instrumental hip hop magic. Also included are five remixes. If you liked Basementality (posted back in June), you’ll love this release.

Raise The Dust – Ground Floor Records Various Artists Compilation

Tokyo Dawn, it LIVES!!!

Ok, first some background info. Waaay back in the day, when I first started really getting into music (meaning I suddenly realized there was more to music than Megadeth and commercial rock, lol), I stumbled across this new thing on the net called ‘net-labels’. The very first one I found was called Tokyo Dawn Records, and there was such a huge library of great tracks, I thought it would take forever to exhaust it all. Then one day Tokyo Dawn disappeared, leaving behind a simple page stating that Tokyo Dawn would return soon, brand new music, etc. etc. The website stayed that way for at least five years, I’d check it a couple times a year to see if it had come back and it hadn’t. I don’t know how long it’s been since the last time I checked, but now I get a server not responding error so Tokyo Dawn Records is officially gone.

Now, I just stumbled across possibly the greatest find yet. An ftp server on scene.org that has a catalog of Tokyo Dawn files from the late 90’s. The files are in mod .xm format, so make sure your player knows how to deal with them. (Winamp does just fine.) Mods are what we kids had back in the days before mp3, heh heh.

So without further adieu – Tokyo Dawn ftp site.

Naturally7

I became an instant fan of these guys when I saw this video. Watch the way everyone on the train loosens up by the end of the song. Observe how a normally boring train ride home from work turns into a micro-party, even the complete herbs in the train eventually crack a smile, everyone whips out there blackberrys and camera phones. Be sure to hit up youtube for Naturally7’s concert performances.