The Unearthed Sounds crew members have compiled their weekly picks containing collectively, in no particular order, our favourite tracks/releases of the week.
Here are the selections individually from the crew:
The combined production powerhouse of Deekline, Ed Solo & Specimen A bring forth 10,000 blowtorches to celebrate the vibe that only music can create alongside the vocals of Jamaican reggae superstar Blackout JA.
If you were lucky enough to witness the burner cans of the original dancehall movement or the vast array of lighters flickering to ‘94 Amens, you know what to expect here. This is upfront jungle with a full canister of gas, one hell of a bouncy bassline and an excellent delivery of lyrical goodness. Blackout JA was certainly a fine choice to voice this beat, riding it effortlessly and requesting you all to “let the music play”.
You’re getting both the club mix and the slightly shorter and perhaps less aggressive original in this fine package from Jungle Cakes. Two for two as they say. Fire in the basement.
a1. Ed Solo & Deekline - Have Some Fun ft General Levy
b1. Deekline, Ed Solo & Specimen A - Let The Music Play ft Blackout JA
Ginger Johnson and His African Messengers - Witchdoctor
Regular price
£8.33
Sale price
£5.50 (£6.60 Inc VAT)
Release Date 19th April 2019
For Record Store Day 2019, Freestyle Records are proud to release on a fresh vinyl 45, two 1970's tracks by Ginger Johnson & His African Messengers that have been lost for over 45 years. 'Witchdoctor' and 'Nawa' (written by Dizzy Gillespie cohort Chano Pozo) demonstrate a musical progression as afro-funk had stamped it's indelible footprint on Ginger's ground-breaking afro-cuban and jazz hybrid style.
a. Witchdoctor
b. Nawa
AKO150 Arcade: Standard Vinyl Edition - Defender [2x12" Vinyl LP]
The recent data dump from DJ house get the remix treatment from Coco Bryce & Desert Sound Colony - "breaks-jungle-house" in the mix! Pressed on limited 12" vinyl [300 copies Worldwide].
a1. DJ Haus - Bleep Bots (Desert Sound Colony Remix)
b1. DJ Haus - Catch Your Breath (Coco Bryce Remix)
Sub Basics - Walk & Skank / Forward [10" Vinyl Repress]
Is this the sound of the future or fragments of the past coming back to haunt us? Is a remix of a classic thirty years after the fact an exercise in hauntology or a time loop closing? When hardcore came bowling out of the UK underground, it was sci-fi postulating rendered on wax, but it also reflected an inescapable reality at street level. Idealist, escapologist music that said as much about decades of inner city pressure as it did about outer space fantasies. A sweet refrain underpinned by a necessary ruffness, the elegant ballet of a break dissected 16 different ways over 16 bars, the protest pulse of the subs carrying the torch from one soundsystem culture to another.
What hardcore successfully struck on was so definably alien it set a new paradigm which has been cast back and forth in dialogue ever since. Whole scenes have risen and receded around these principles, and the constant remains – masses of bass carrying angular rhythms, unnerving echo chambers of disembodied voices and moments of staggering beauty and masterful ugliness. These principles have a universal appeal that burns bright generation to generation, never seemingly diminishing but rather fortifying with time. Sometimes a surge of inspiration finds the principles reinterpreted in head-spinning new ways, but the ethic remains the same.
Those shaky, intrepid years of lo-fi samplers and narrow band broadcasts were defined by their lack of definition. Take a punt on a rare groove lick and work out how to get the low end louder. Then everything got organised – in the face of mass appeal scenes started splintering and preferences catered to. It may not have been a force for unity, but it engendered more intensive investigation. Years of scenes, styles, subgenres, niches, furrows, corridors, avenues, detours, each more hyper-specific than the last. Eventually though, everything breaks down so much it all becomes one mass again – a constant cross-contamination between these intensely cultivated strains, creating ever more potent hybrids that simply feed back into the temporal swirl.
Karim Maas leads a collaborative 3-track 12” alongside Outer Heaven and Charlene. ‘The Force’ with Outer Heaven true to name is a solid modern jungle stomper cutting and sliding between breaks, drum rolls and shuffles. Solo effort ‘Mosquito’ dials down the tempo to a distorted hardcore-esque noise and bass workout, crunched breaks and overdriven keys aplenty. ‘The People United Will Never Be Defeated’ alongside Charlene voyages over 9 minutes into the realms of experimental noise, a sonic finale to complete Karim Maas’ triptych descent into tempo- less domain. An EP that expresses Karim Maas’ range and versatility.
a1. Karim Maas & Outer Heaven - The Force
b1. Karim Maas - Mosquito
b2. Karim Maas - The People United Will Never Be Defeated ft Charlene
