Record Kicks 10th birthday!

One for you northern hemisphere folk... "Record Kicks is also happy to announce that on Sat 09 Nov will celebrate its 10th Anniversary with a massive FEST at legendary 100 Club London feat TRIO VALORE – Live, MARTA REN - Live, HANNAH WILLIAMS & THE TASTEMAKERS – Live, CALIBRO 35 – Live, GIZELLE SMITH BAND – Live, IAN WRIGHT – DJ, ADRIAN GIBSON – DJ, JO WALLACE – DJ, CORRINA GREYSON - DJ, NICK RECORDKICKS and more."

Lee Fields live in AK, Jan 11 next year

Lee Fields and the Expressions are set to play their first-ever show here on Saturday 11th January 2014, at the Powerstation in Auckland. This promises to be a dynamite night of super soul! Presale tickets start Nov 5, see here for more info.

From the press release:

"There aren’t too many artists making soul music today who had a release in 1969; Lee Fields, however, is one such artist—or maybe he’s better labelled a phenomenon.

Since the late sixties, the North Carolina native has amassed a prolific catalogue of albums and has toured and played with such legends as Kool and the Gang, Sammy Gordon and the Hip-Huggers, O.V Wright, Darrell Banks, and Little Royal. With a career spanning 43 years, releases on twelve different record labels, and having toured the world over with his raucous-yet-tender voice, it’s mind-blowing that the music he’s making today with Brooklyn’s own Truth & Soul Records is the best of his career.

With a catalogue that ranges from James Brown-style funk to lo-fi blues to contemporary Southern soul to collaborations with French house DJ/producer Martin Solveig, Lee Fields has done it all. Today, with The Expressions–Truth & Soul’s house band, Lee Fields continues to evolve, enmeshed into the group’s sweeping, string-laden, cinematic soul sound. Their first full-length together, My World, released in June 2009 on Truth & Soul, was called “one smoking mother of an old-sound soul record” and a “throwback done right” by Pitchfork.

While drawing comparisons to groups like The Moments, The Delfonics, The Stylistics, and–of course–James Brown, My World has been able to create a space of its own due to the group’s desire to interpret and further the formulas of good soul music rather than parrot and imitate them.

“In a curious case of musical evolution, the older Fields becomes, the closer he gets to perfecting the sound of soul that he grew up with as a young man,” so said music writer, scholar, and DJ Oliver Wang about Fields in a piece for NPR in July 2009. The latest LP from Lee Fields and The Expressions, titled Faithful Man, is the next step towards this perfection. A step that may find Fields& The Expressions, finally being bestowed the contemporary soul music crown."

Tausani: Confessions...

Hat tip to DJ Pause (BaseFM) for putting me onto this cat... he does a mean flip of Mayer Hawthorne on this...

Ayebro blog write that "Tausani, a producer from Grey Lynn, Auckland releases a 6 track EP ‘Confessions of A Time Traveller’ with features by Mr Fisher and Raiza Biza – All tracks produced by Tausani.

‘First Light’ featuring Raiza Biza got accepted for a grant from NZ On Air for music video and production. Tausani’s influences include J Dilla, Boonie Mayfield, Freddie Joachim, Mr Carmack, Afta-1, and Erykah Badu. Like what you hear? Name your price and purchase."

Unsound

Via Digital Music News, with news clips of John Campbell and Kim Dotcom... " The following comes from producer, composer, engineer and now activist Mikael Eldridge (aka, Count), who has spent the past two years making a film about the realities musicians actually face in a digitized industry.

The film starts with the bigger picture, then tracks the stories of several artists – Jurassic Five, Zoe Keating, Diplo, Tycho, and Cracker, Camper van Beethoven, and Old 97′s. ’Unsound’ is now in the process of being crowdfunded to finance its completion and make it ready for major film festivals."

Interviewee quote: "Kim Dotcom lives in a mansion, living the good life, purely off the backs of creators."

That screengrab with the Hunter S Thompson quote on the music business being a cruel and shallow money trench is a bit flawed  - he never said it, as I discovered in early 2011, when a local journalist used that same quote.

The quote comes from Thompson's book called Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80s. It reads...

"The TV business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason...." Source: Urbanlegends.com

Ever been to Electric Afroland?

"Paris DJs with some insight from Zakari Frantz (The Souljazz Orchestra) have prepared for this 4th volume in the 'Tropical Grooves & Afrofunk International' series a special treat, since they opted from day one to go into an Afro Rock direction with the title 'Have You Ever Been To Electric Afroland'. With only that title in hand, illustrator Ben Hito prepared a psychedelic cover artwork, which we then sent all over the place asking for submissions.

Exclusive tracks are numerous, starting with a surprising Ethio-Twist number from Dereb The Ambassador (Australia), and going on with more unclassifiable stuff from Nikhil P. Yerawadekar & Low Mentality, Hard Proof (both USA), Onom Agemo and the Disco Jumpers (Germany), the Grant Phabao Afrofunk Arkestra or The Afrorockerz (both from France)."

Christoph El Truento - Oopsie daisies

New music by Christoph el Truento with help from fellow humans waiata evans, karnan saba, simon koziarski, lontalius & julien dyne.

Bandcamp Weekly's host Andrew Jervis featured a track off this on release, and he writes "Having heard the whole thing I can safely say this album will be in my top 10 for the year. Christoph is a bit like New Zealand's answer to Madlib's YNQ. Mad jazz + beats." 

Laptop suntan

"Since their humble beginnings in a Wolverhampton suburban bedroom, Leeds-based hip hop, space jazz and bass-loving outfit Paper Tiger have carved their own niche in the electronic music scene, both as a heavyweight production outfit and as a damned fine live band (sharing stages with the likes of Jaga Jazzist, Rustie, Gaslamp Killer, Daedelus, Alice Russell, Amon Tobin and many more).

Following on from their first of three releases on Wah Wah 45s, the six-piece found themselves highly sought-after, and consequently working with a wealth of talent that included Benin City's Joshua Idehen, British rap superstars Foreign Beggars, leftfield US trio Archie Pelago and, most recently, Stones Throw recording artist (and possibly the greatest MC out there right now) Homeboy Sandman.

The latter's collaboration with the band's resident wordsmith, Raphael Attar, is just one highlight of Paper Tiger's debut long-player, appropriately titled (for a crew who work as hard as these guys do) 'Laptop Suntan', released October 28.

The album is, as you might expect from artists with such broad tastes, a wonderfully diverse yet cohesive package.

From the dextrous lyricism of Attar, as well as guests that include highly-rated UK MCs King Kaiow, Infinite Livez and Bang On! (Big Dada), to the sultry, soulful sounds of Sabira Jade (DJ Vadim, Frameworks), this album covers a myriad of palettes within electronic music.

There's a sonorous, mature quality in cuts like 'Gundam Bling' and 'Drift', as well as a keen sense of humour on tracks such as 'David Starkey' and 'The Sting'. Paper Tiger make music that's one moment subtle, sensitive and delicate, and then another witty, sharp and supremely funky - it all comes together beautifully on 'Laptop Suntan', an album that will appeal to lovers of hip hop, soul and dance music in equal measure.

"Really dope." Alexander Nut (Eglo/Rinse FM)
"Amazing." Gilles Peterson (BBC 6Music)
"Isn't it lovely? Wonderful, lovely stuff." - Lauren Laverne (BBC 6Music)