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Tempest - Turn Of The Wheel (1996)

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Tempest - Turn Of The Wheel (1996)

Исполнитель: Tempest
Альбом: Turn Of The Wheel
Жанр: Art Rock / Celtic Folk Rock
Год выхода: 1996
Формат: FLAC (image+.cue, log, scans)
Качество: Lossless
Размер: 500 Mb
ФO: turbobit.net/katfile.com/gigapeta.com/depositfiles.com/uploadboy.com

Tony Buck Unearth

Def Leppard – Hysteria [3CD Remastered Deluxe Edition] (1987/2017)

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320 kbps | 325 MB | LINKS

Legendary British rock ‘n’ roll icons Def Leppard celebrate the 30th anniversary of their seminal album Hysteria, one of the best-selling and most influential releases in music history, with the release of Hysteria (Remastered 2017) through Bludgeon Riffola/UMC/Mercury.

Disc 1
1. Women 5:42
2. Rocket 6:36
3. Animal 4:04
4. Love Bites 5:46
5. Pour Some Sugar On Me 4:27
6. Armageddon It 5:22
7. Gods Of War 6:37
8. Don’t Shoot Shotgun 4:26
9. Run Riot 4:39
10. Hysteria 5:54
11. Excitable 4:19
12. Love And Affection 4:37

Disc 2
1. Stagefright 4:16
2. Rock! Rock! (Till You Drop) (In The Round In Your Face Live In McNichols Sports Arena Denver 1988) 3:32
3. Women (In The Round In Your Face Live In McNichols Sports Arena Denver 1988) 6:14
4. Too Late For Love (In The Round In Your Face Live In McNichols Sports Arena Denver 1988) 5:51
5. Hysteria (In The Round In Your Face Live In McNichols Sports Arena Denver 1988) 7:00
6. Gods Of War (In The Round In Your Face Live In McNichols Sports Arena Denver 1988) 6:33
7. Die Hard The Hunter (In The Round In Your Face Live In McNichols Sports Arena Denver 1988) 6:10

Disc 3
1. Bringin’ On The Heartbreak (In The Round In Your Face Live In McNichols Sports Arena Denver 1988) 6:19
2. Foolin’ (In The Round In Your Face Live In McNichols Sports Arena Denver 1988) 5:05
3. Armageddon It (In The Round In Your Face Live In McNichols Sports Arena Denver 1988) 5:31
4. Animal (In The Round In Your Face Live In McNichols Sports Arena Denver 1988) 4:51
5. Pour Some Sugar On Me (In The Round In Your Face Live In McNichols Sports Arena Denver 1988) 4:52
6. Phil Solo (In The Round In Your Face Live In McNichols Sports Arena Denver 1988) 3:06
7. Rock Of Ages (In The Round In Your Face Live In McNichols Sports Arena Denver 1988) 7:42
8. Photograph (In The Round In Your Face Live In McNichols Sports Arena Denver 1988) 5:20

ΝΕA ΣΥΓΚΡΟΤΗΜΑΤΑ KAI ΤΡΑΓΟΥΔΟΠΟΙΟΙ ΑΠ’ ΕΞΩ σκληροπυρηνικό fusion, noise-rock, ambient, oriental / anadolu

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7C: Compartment C [DeAmbula Records]
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Οι 7C είναι τρίο, και αν κρίνω από τα ονόματά τους είναι Ιταλοί (Tony “Death” Berardinucci κιθάρες, θόρυβοι, Giuseppe Iubatti κονταμπάσο, θόρυβοι, Davide de Virgilio ντραμς, κρουστά, loopstation, σύνθια, θόρυβοι). Στην Ιταλία εξάλλου, στο Montesilvano (κοντά στην Πεσκάρα) στην Αδριατική, είναι ηχογραφημένο το “Compartment”, ένα επίσης σκληροπυρηνικό fusion άλμπουμ, πνιγμένο στους θορύβους, στα ηλεκτρονικά και τα σύνθια. Τώρα, να πούμε πως είναι πνιγμένο και στις κιθάρες το “Compartment” είναι μάλλον αυτονόητο. Εκείνο που δεν είναι, ενδεχομένως, αυτονόητο είναι ο βαρύς μεταλλικός ήχος, ορισμένες φορές, των κιθαρών, που πάντως περισσότερο τζαζίζουν παρά ροκάρουν. Περαιτέρω, όλο το υλικό φαίνεται να αποτελεί περισσότερο ένα προϊόν αυτοσχεδιασμού, παρά μιαν οργανωμένη προσπάθεια, που μπορεί ν’ ακολουθεί κάποιους κανόνες ανάπτυξης θεμάτων, μελωδικής διαχείρισης κ.λπ. Τίποτα απ’ όλα τούτα δεν συμβαίνει εδώ. Οι Ιταλοί αντιμετωπίζουν το υλικό τους εντελώς ελεύθερα, και με γνώση των κανόνων του πλέον βαρέως ηλεκτρισμένου improv, με τους υπαινιγμούς από Hendrix, κατά πρώτον, να είναι εντελώς σαφείς. Από ’κει και κάτω υπάρχουν κι άλλα φυσικά…
A SHAPE: Inlands [Atypeek Music / Jelodanti Records]
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Λίγα στοιχεία από το bandcamp. Οι A Shape είναι Γάλλοι από την Τουλούζη, αποτελούνται από τη Sasha Andrès φωνή, στίχοι και τους Eric Pasquiet κιθάρες, Mathieu Le Gouge μπάσο, Tanguy Delaire ντραμς και περιγράφονται (πάντα στο bandcamp) ως noise rock group. Ακριβές. Έτσι, ευλόγως, μπορεί να αναζητήσει κάποιος σοβαρές επιρροές από τους Sonic Youth, και από άλλα συγκροτήματα εκείνης της εποχής (των eighties), παρά το γεγονός πως οι A Shape δεν μοιάζουν με συγκρότημα του ’80 – είναι ακόμη πιο πολύ κυνικοί, από διαφόρους προκατόχους τους… Οπωσδήποτε υπάρχει ενδιαφέρον εδώ, στο “Inlands”, που δεν εξαντλείται μόνο στις punky επεκτάσεις (ύφους Χ – του αμερικάνικου γκρουπ εννοώ), αλλά πηγαίνει και παραπέρα…
UENO PARK (MANUEL ADNOT): Feu Clair / Dix-Mille Yeux [Atypeek Music, Tropare]
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Ο Manuel Adnot είναι ακουστικός κιθαρίστας και κάτω από το ψευδώνυμο Ueno Park κυκλοφορεί ένα σόλο άλμπουμ, που έχει τίτλο “Feu Clair/ Dix-Mille Yeux”. Στο LP (ναι, κυκλοφορεί μόνο σε LP και digital) o Adnot ηχογραφείται σε διαφόρους χώρους (τυχαίους διαδρόμους, εκκλησίες, στούντιο) με σκοπό να διευρύνει τον ήχο του τη βοηθεία του περιβάλλοντος χώρου. Απ’ αυτή την άποψη θα μπορούσε να θεωρήσει κανείς πως η βάση στο “Feu Clair / Dix-Mille Yeux” είναι η ambient, αλλά στην πράξη η μουσική ξεφεύγει απ’ αυτή τη βάση – γίνεται πιο δυναμική, πειραματική, παιγνιώδης. Χάνει δηλαδή εκείνους τους ανεπαίσθητους τόνους πάνω στους οποίους συχνά στηρίζεται η περιβαλλοντική μουσική αποκτώντας πιο «σκληρά» χαρακτηριστικά. Ναι, αυτό ισχύει γενικά, αλλά όχι πάντα. Αν και δεν έχει σχέση με τον αμερικανικό κιθαριστικό πριμιτιβισμό του John Fahey εντούτοις θα μπορούσε να αναζητηθούν κάποιες αμερικανικές αναφορές στον Moondog (αν δεις τη μουσική του όσο πιο απογυμνωμένη γίνεται).
SATHÖNAY: Lost a Home [Atypeek Music/ S. K. Records]
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Sathönay είναι το… άλλο όνομα τού κιθαρίστα Nico Poisson (μέλος των NED και ιδρυτή της γαλλικής S.K. Records, που διαθέτει περισσότερες από 60 κυκλοφορίες). Κιθαρίστας είναι ο Poisson, αλλά εδώ στο δικό του άλμπουμ παίζει ηλεκτρικό σάζι, έχοντας δίπλα του την Leonore Grollemund τσέλο και τον François Virot στα ντραμς. Στο “Lost a Homeo Sathönay… κοιτάει ανατολικά, και το «ανατολικά» περιλαμβάνει και τη χώρα μας (φυσικά). Με υλικό oriental ούτως ειπείν και με διάθεση… anadolu rock (ή κάπως έτσι), ο Poisson κάνει ένα πολύ καλό LP, που θα ξεσηκώσει τους παλιομοδίτες. Ανάμεσα στο υλικό και η διασκευή του στην «Υπόγα» του Α. Κωστή (Κώστας Μπέζος), που συνδυάζεται με το «Καίγομαι καίγομαι» (Ξαρχάκος – Γκάτσος) από το «Ρεμπέτικο» – χωρίς να υπάρχει λόγος και αιτία. Τέλος πάντων… Το “Lost a Home” έχει αρκετά ενδιαφέρον σαν άκουσμα, δίχως τούτο να σημαίνει πως θα μας κάνει να ξεχάσουμε και τους μεγάλους Dissidenten.
Επαφή: www.creative-eclipse.com
  

HOLGER CZUKAY εις μνήμην

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Οι CAN (Communism Anarchism Nihilism) σχηματίστηκαν τον Ιούνιο του 1968 και ήταν σίγουρα το πρώτο γερμανικό γκρουπ που κατόρθωσε να σπάσει τα στεγανά ανάμεσα στις πιο προχωρημένες απόψεις της «σοβαρής μουσικής» και στην ποπ. Η πρώτη σύνθεσή τους ήταν: Holger Czukay μπάσο, David Johnson φλάουτο, Michael Karoli κιθάρες, Jaki Liebezeit ντραμς και Irmin Schmidt όργανο. Ο τελευταίος θυμάται (από το βιβλίο των Pascal Bussy & Andy Hall, The CAN book, των εκδόσεων SAF Publishing από το 1989):
«Ξεκινήσαμε χωρίς κανένα κόνσεπτ στο μυαλό μας. Η μόνη μας ιδέα ήταν να βρούμε ένα τέτοιο κόνσπεπτ συνθέτοντας όλοι μαζί, εντελώς αυθόρμητα και χωρίς να έχουμε κάποιον ηγέτη στο συγκρότημα».
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Οι CAN ηχογράφησαν πολλά άλμπουμ, τουλάχιστον 20 μαζί με κάποιες συλλογές, και κάποια απ’ αυτά μπορεί να θεωρηθούν αξεπέραστα. Τέτοια είναι το “Monster Movie” από το 1969, το “The CAN Sountracks” από το 1970 (λόγω του “Mother Sky”), βεβαίως το opus τους “Tago Mago” (1971), αλλά και οι «Μπάμιες» (1972), το “Future Days” (1973) και το “Soon Over Babaluma” (1974).
Στο πρώτο απ’ αυτά παρουσιάζουν όλα εκείνα τα στοιχεία, που θα αποτελέσουν τη βάση πάνω στην οποία θα στηρίξουν τις πιο ριζοσπαστικές ιδέες τους. Εδώ υπάρχει το “Father cannot yell” και το 20λεπτο “You doo right” ηχογραφημένο ζωντανά στο κάστρο Schloss Nörvenich, έξω από την Κολωνία.
Εν τω μεταξύ στο γκρουπ είχε προστεθεί ο Malcolm Mooney, ένας νέγρος Αμερικανός που γυρόφερνε στην Ευρώπη, πριν καταλήξει στους CAN. Στην μπάντα τον είχε φέρει η Hildegard Schmidt, σύζυγος του Irmin Schmidt, και παρότι δεν είχε εμπειρία επαγγελματία τραγουδιστή έπιασε αμέσως δουλειά. Ανήσυχο πνεύμα ο ίδιος –είχε γνωρίσει από κοντά στη Νέα Υόρκη και τη Βοστώνη τους μεγάλους της jazz και των blues– επεξεργάζεται διάφορους τρόπους αυθόρμητου αυτοσχεδιασμού, κυρίως πάνω στη μορφή των στίχων. Ο ίδιος είχε πει (πάντα από το CAN book):
«Οι στίχοι στο You doo right πάρθηκαν από ένα γράμμα, που μου είχε στείλει τότε μια φίλη μου, το οποίο έκλεινε μ’ αυτή τη φράση. Έτσι έγινε ο στίχος. Υπήρξαν πολλά κομμάτια που τα εμπνεύστηκα με το δικό μου τρόπο, μέσα από τις δικές μου ονειροπολήσεις».

Η συνέχεια εδώ…

Jack Johnson – All The Light Above It Too (2017)

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320 kbps | 87 MB | LINKS

All The Light Above It Too was recorded over the past year at Jack’s Mango Tree Studio in Hawaii. For the first time in years Johnson handled most of the instrumentation himself, echoing the four-track recordings that launched his career over 17 years ago. He worked with producer Robbie Lackritz (Feist, Bahamas), and brought in the band to play on a few of the tracks.

The Waterboys – Out of All This Blue [Super Deluxe Edition] (2017)

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320 kbps | 315 MB | LINKS

The Waterboys will release a brand new studio album, Out Of All This Blue, in September. It’s a double album and their first for BMG Records.

The 23-track long-player has been produced by Mike Scott and is available as a two-CD or 2LP vinyl set, however deluxe editions are available for both formats with the three-CD and triple vinyl sets offering a bonus disc of extra songs, alternate mixes and instrumentals.

Speaking about the new album, Mike Scott said “Out Of All This Blue is 2/3 love and romance, 1/3 stories and observations. I knew from the beginning I wanted to make a double album, and lucky for me – and I hope the listener – the songs just kept coming, and in pop colours.”

Living Colour – Shade (2017)

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320 kbps | 112 MB | LINKS

‘Shade,’ their first album since the critically acclaimed ‘The Chair in the Doorway’ in 2009, is Living Colour at the height of their creative powers, still experimenting as though they were upstarts instead of seasoned veterans. While the blues served as the foundation for the collection, one shouldn’t expect to hear the ‘down-home’ style that was once the soundtrack of sharecroppers and southern juke joints before the music rode the rails north during the Great Migration. Living Colour’s blues incorporate a myriad of influences, while speaking to the politically-charged climate of the times

Produced by Andre Betts who first worked with Living Colour on their album ‘Stain’ in 1993 he would spend five years in the studio with the band perfecting the project. Initially introduced to Living Colour by their bassist Doug Wimbish, Betts was more than ready to face the challenge of working with such perfectionists.

‘Making records is an art and a process, and sometimes it can be easier to herd cats,’ Wimbish laughs. ‘But, when it connects and we come together, it’s a beautiful thing. ‘Shade’ is a testimony to who Living Colour is, to our chameleon quality.’


Fabiana Striffler And Quique Sinesi-Mahagoni-WEB-2017-ENRAGED

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Download Fabiana_Striffler_And_Quique_Sinesi-Mahagoni-WEB-2017-ENRAGED Free
Artist: Fabiana Striffler, Quique Sinesi
Title of Album: Mahagoni
Genre: Ethnic
Year of Release: 2017
Tracks: 13
Total Time: 50 minutes and 15 seconds
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 320 Kbps
Total Size: 115.2 MB

# Song Title Artist Time
01 Alta Paz Fabiana Striffler, Quique Sinesi 6:00
02 Fantasie 1 Fabiana Striffler, Quique Sinesi 1:57
03 Voces Tempranas Fabiana Striffler, Quique Sinesi 6:06
04 Mahagoni Fabiana Striffler, Quique Sinesi 4:11
05 Candombe del Arco Iris Fabiana Striffler, Quique Sinesi 4:14
06 Terruno Fabiana Striffler, Quique Sinesi 5:32
07 Fantasie 2 Fabiana Striffler, Quique Sinesi 2:09
08 Eigensinnig Fabiana Striffler, Quique Sinesi 3:28
09 Fantasie 3 / Fantasie 4 Fabiana Striffler, Quique Sinesi 3:26
10 Gute Frau Fabiana Striffler, Quique Sinesi 4:07
11 Fantasie 5 Fabiana Striffler, Quique Sinesi 2:05
12 Despertando de Otro Sueno Fabiana Striffler, Quique Sinesi 4:11
13 Fantasie 6 Fabiana Striffler, Quique Sinesi 2:49

Release: Fabiana_Striffler_And_Quique_Sinesi-Mahagoni-WEB-2017-ENRAGED

The post Fabiana Striffler And Quique Sinesi-Mahagoni-WEB-2017-ENRAGED appeared first on AlbumDL.

Toby Keith – The Bus Songs (2017)

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320 kbps | 101 MB | LINKS

The life of an artist on tour is not one that many get to experience. Toby Keith is making sure that all of his fans get to see what it is like to spend time on a tour bus with the release of The Bus Songs on September 8.

Keith was recently in the top 5 on Forbes’ list of the highest paid country stars of 2017. Success like that grants the freedom to travel off the beaten path and release a humor-filled album.

The Bus Songs will feature 12 tracks that are probably best suited for his adult fans rather than being broadcast over the mainstream radio waves. They are all inspired by the mindset that someone could only reach from sitting in the back of a tour bus for hours upon hours.

Rachid Taha - Diwan (1998)

Rachid Taha - Diwan (1998)

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Rachid Taha - Diwan (1998)
Artist: Rachid Taha
Title Of Album: Diwân
Release Date: 1998
Location: Algeria / France
Label: Barclay (539 953-2), France
Genre: Arabic, Rai, Rock
Quality: FLAC (tracks+.cue+covers)
Length: 01:09:43 min
Tracks: 11
Total Size: 562 MB (+5%)

Diwân is a studio album released in 1998 by Franco-Algerian raï artist Rachid Taha. In contrast to his earlier releases, Diwân contains less rock and punk music, and features more traditional Arabic instruments. Many of the songs are about the founding fathers of raï music, and the lyrics are in Arabic and French.

Tony Allen – The Source (2017)

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Tony AllenMaking your way through the formidable back catalog of long-time Fela Kuti drummer Tony Allen — one that spans nearly half a century — is a revelatory, sometimes head-spinning journey. Allen’s work has traversed styles that on the surface have little in common beyond his unique rhythmic presence. In the past 10 years, for example, Allen has tackled everything from Afrobeat (on solo album Film of Life), dreamy French pop (with Charlotte Gainsbourg), downbeat indie rock (with The Good, the Bad & the Queen), and techno (with the Moritz Von Oswald Trio). This range is a testament to both Allen’s redoubtable drumming skills and his ability to rein in his percussive ego in support of the job at hand.
Curiously, though, for a drummer who absorbed…

150 MB  320 ** FLAC

…so much of his percussive knowledge from the work of Max Roach and Art Blakey, there was little place in Allen’s catalog for actual jazz until 2017. In May of this year, he released a tribute to Blakey and his Jazz Messengers on legendary jazz label Blue Note. That EP, which saw Allen filter Blakey’s hard swing through his own Afrobeat elasticity, serves as a brilliant precursor to The Source, with which it shares label, musicians, and influences. More importantly, The Source shares a fascinating musical hybridity with the Blakey EP. It’s a continuation of the cultural back-and-forth between African music and jazz that, decades ago, saw Blakey absorb West African musical influences on albums such as 1962’s The African Beat, and Allen mold the influence of jazz into the Afrobeat sound.

But The Source isn’t a jazz album, per se: Allen’s drums don’t typically swing so much as jitter and jiggle, with boundless syncopated rhythms that sound like a giant squid menacing a drum kit. Nor is it an Afrobeat album, with Allen’s band comprised largely of Parisian jazz musicians plus Cameroonian guitarist Indy Dibongue; Damon Albarn makes a low-key contribution to “Cool Cats.” Rather, this is an album that straddles jazz and Afrobeat in an elegant push-and-pull that sometimes edges closer to the former, sometimes wanders closer to the latter, and often sits joyfully in the middle.

On “Wolf Eats Wolf,” for example, a scratchy Afrobeat groove—all sputtering, percussive organ and ecstatic brass riffs—gives way to a wandering trombone solo. Album opener “Moody Boy” goes in the other direction: a scattered, jazzy introduction that sounds semi-improvised, dissolving into chicken-scratch guitar rhythm and tough funk drums. The hybrid tone of the band is hugely important to this mix, with the Afrobeat licks of Dibongue’s choppy guitar style balanced by the more classically jazz texture of Mathias Allamane’s double bass.

Freed from the role of support act, Allen is the unequivocal star of The Source, wallowing in the wonderful freedom of rhythmic expression. His unique drumming style rarely resorts to repetition as it alternately responds to and drives changes in the music. The result is a percussive masterclass, from the nervous energy of “Bad Roads,” where Allen’s mongrel rhythm puts a jazz beat onto an Afrobeat motif, to his deceptively complex skills on “Tony’s Blues.” On the latter, a drum pattern that initially appears out of joint pulls into glorious rhythmic focus with the introduction of the other musicians, who play in careful staccato dabs. In this mix, Allamane proves vital, his melodic bass riffs anchoring a musical blend that at times—as on the aptly named “Push and Pull”—threaten to float off into the ether. The one time Allamane is set free, his solo on “Cruising” is a joy, a rock solid bassline loosening into elastic bent notes, like a plastic packet slowly melting on a fire.

What saves The Source from being an album uniquely for drum nerds is the songwriting. The 11 tracks here—all written by Allen with saxophonist and long-time collaborator Yann Jankielewicz—may understandably not live up to jazz standards like “Moanin’” and “A Night in Tunisia” that appear on A Tribute to Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers. But there are some fine musical motifs, including a delightfully itinerant chord sequence and jump-cut riff on “Push and Pull,” the moody, merry-go-round melody on “Tony’s Blues,” and a playfully menacing riff that emerges four-and-a-half minutes into “On Fire.”

Perhaps the greatest attribute of this album, though, is how it makes the complex sound effortless. The Source may draw on Afrobeat and jazz to create something intricate and expansive, but the results are never contrived or academic. In this, The Source mirrors the musical skills of Allen himself, a man who tackles rhythmic mazes like a walk in the park, making this release both a fine addition to his catalog and a load of genre-bending fun. Rarely has percussive innovation sounded this downright satisfying. — Pitchfork

Podcast Special: Closeup #1

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To celebrate the launch of the second season of the Afropop Closeup podcast, this special radio program features some of the stories from the inaugural season. We’ll hear about the plight of Haitian radio stations in New York; the story of Mabiisi, a unique transnational collaboration between a Burkinabe rapper and a Ghanaian roots musician; and the surprising popular resurgence of U.K. grime music. Subscribe to our podcast and follow the second season of the Afropop Closeup podcast to hear intimate stories of the struggles and triumphs of human life in Rwanda, Nigeria, Haiti, the Bahamas and the African diasporas of Greece, the U.K., Paris, New York and San Francisco.

Produced by Morgan Greenstreet, Ian Coss and Sam Backer.

Jack Savoretti – Sleep No More (2 CD Special Edition) (2017)

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320 kbps | 204 MB | LINKS

Limited special two CD edition contains one new track, “Whiskey Tango”, plus a bonus disc of acoustic and live versions of tracks past and present. 2016 release, the follow up to his top 10 breakthrough album Written In Scars. Sleep No More features 12 original songs that are set to establish Jack as one of the UK’s biggest male artists.

Disc: 1
1. When We Were Lovers
2. Deep Waters
3. I’m Yours
4. Helpless
5. We Are Bound
6. Tight Rope
7. Troubled Souls
8. Only You
9. Sleep No More Any Other Way
10. Start Living in the Moment
11. Lullaby Loving

Disc: 2
1. Whiskey Tango
2. Soldiers Eyes (Live)
3. Breaking the Rules (Live)
4. Home (Live)
5. The Other Side of Love (Live)
6. Tie Me Down (Live)
7. When We Were Lovers (Acoustic Version)
8. Deep Waters (Acoustic Version)
9. Start Living in the Moment (Acoustic Version)
10. Only You (Acoustic Version)
11. I’m Yours (Acoustic Version)
12. Whiskey Tango (Demo)


Monty Alexander - Cobilimbo (1978/2014) [HDTracks]

DagaDana - Malenka (2010)

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DagaDana - Malenka (2010)
Artist: DagaDana
Title Of Album: Maleńka
Release Date: 2010
Location: Ukraine / Poland
Label: Offside Records (OFFSIDE 005)
Genre: Contemporary Jazz, Folk, Electro
Quality: FLAC (image+.cue+covers)
Length: 52:20 min
Tracks: 12
Total Size: 308 MB (+5%)

Saturday Night Wedding Party in Cairo

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El ‘aroosa—the bride!” yelled the young man, grabbing my hand and pulling me in the direction of the newlyweds as a beat pounded from the sound system. I looked to my friend and we got up from our chairs, bracing ourselves to join the chaotic free-for-all of a wedding party unfolding on this late Saturday night in Cairo.

Fellow journalist Alessandra Bajec and I had just eaten some Syrian food to commemorate Eid al-Adha, a religious holiday celebrated across the Islamic world. On a whim we decided to take a taxi up to Imbaba, a densely populated shaabi (popular) area in the Egyptian capital. We disembarked outside the famed restaurant Kibdat El Prince. It was closed for the holiday, but the streets were filled with vendors selling kitschy baseball caps and fashionable off-brand T-shirts imported from China. Families were playing on giant swings and other carnival rides. Tuk-tuks and microbuses were tearing down the street at frightening speed as young men popped wheelies on bikes and motorcycles.

Photos by Peter Holslin

On a festive night like this, it’s probably inevitable that we would stumble across a wedding party. Set up in a wide alleyway, a band called Fareeq Al-Ahlam (The Band of Dreams) had set up on a squat, splintered wooden stage—a keyboardist jamming alongside a drummer, who was throwing down beats on a canary-yellow kit while a DJ played the latest mahraganat hits. The bride lounged on a separate stage with a coterie of friends and family, while the groom and his boys were massed around the music, taking selfies, chugging sodas, spilling drinks, twirling and dancing with a knife their hands, one of them climbing on his buddy’s shoulders, everyone clapping and cheering and jostling around in delirious expressions of joy.

I moved to Cairo nearly a year ago to experience music like this. I’d first heard about the street music of shaabi areas like Imbaba when I saw a grainy YouTube clip of Islam Chipsy in 2011, sent to me by Banning Eyre from Afropop Worldwide only months after the revolution that overthrew Hosni Mubarak.

The YouTube clip Banning sent me was only two minutes long, but I watched it with awe. The now-celebrated Imbaba keyboardist Chipsy was rocking a wedding party in his home neighborhood, flailing his arms and fingers across his instrument, firing bursts of melody like a punk-rock maqam maestro in front of a circle of men clapping their hands and dancing in front of the stage. The video’s title included a phone number, in case you wanted to book Chipsy for your own wedding party.

In the early 2010s artists like Chipsy, Figo and Oka w Ortega laid down the foundations for the style known as mahraganat—which means “festivals” in Arabic, a loud, rude and weird form of street music defined by sing-songy Auto-Tuned raps in Egyptian slang, ear-piercingly soulful synth riffs, and megaton-bomb bass drums following the maqsoom dance beat. The songs are hated by many Egyptians, dismissed as lower-class, vulgar, sexist dawsha (noise or clamor), adding an extra layer of stress to the harried nature of life in the most crowded city in the Middle East and North Africa. But it’s exciting and potent, sticking to its Egyptian street roots even as it surges in popularity across Egypt and into Europe and beyond.

And the music industry in Egypt seems to be adapting in response to mahraganat’s popularity. Indeed, the latest mahragan (individual songs are referred to in the singular this way) to become a hit in Cairo this summer isn’t even by a mahraganat group. It’s “El Keif” (the fix or the high) by the political pop-rockers Cairokee. The track finds the band teaming with esteemed chaabi singer Tarek El-Sheikh for a fusion-y jam that strikes me as an Egyptian equivalent to Kendrick Lamar’s 2014 Grammys performance with Imagine Dragons. The lyrics use street slang to describe drug addiction, while the maqsoom beat is tastefully performed on rock drums and the Chipsy-esque wedding party keyboards are softened with reverb. The song culminates in a distinctly un-mahraganat piano breakdown, featuring a traditional ya leili vocal stanza.

Released online in July, “El Keif” has gotten over 27 million hits on YouTube—a certifiable hit. Mahmoud Refat, founder of the Cairo record label 100Copies, who has produced many mahraganat songs and also plays drums in Islam Chipsy’s band EEK, says the massive popularity of “El Keif” just goes to show how much the music has become ingrained in Egyptian pop culture. But he’s skeptical of polished artists trying to bottle up this avant-garde festival rap and leverage its mass appeal for their own purposes.

“In the end I am asking a question here: Why did they choose the chaabi mahraganat?” Refat says of Cairokee’s “El Keif” in an email. “Because it is about drugs? Because it is cool and hip? Because the access to the masses? I really have no idea, it only means confusion to me.”

Of course street artists like Chipsy make clear they’re aiming for a broad audience. Islam Chipsy has been touring Europe and the U.K. in recent years; his Instagram page is filled with show flyers, pics of him rocking a huge festival stage, making stops at airports in Poland and Italy, and posing in front of the Eiffel Tower.

Playing live, Chipsy and the dueling drummers of EEK have refined their approach to achieve Rush-like precision and power, though his volcanic drones and finger-flying riffs still feel rooted in the untrammeled joy of the wedding party.

“This music is about the rough culture and edgy lifestyle,” Refat says. “Mahragant is not your mainstream, it is our mainstream.”

Back in Imbaba, nobody at the wedding party seemed annoyed that a couple of foreigners had crashed their celebration. A couple older men at a cafe next door offered us chairs, and a young man in a Last of the Mohicans-style mahragan mohawk came over and handed me a ceremonial bottle of Sprite. Later some kids invited us to their table to take selfies and hang out. One of them cracked open a glass bottle of soda with his teeth, and later sparked up a half-smoked hashish spliff, passing it around.

We tried our best to observe the party from a polite distance, which was impossible. Not long after we first took our seats, a deliriously sweaty young man rocking a denim vest and distressed skinny jeans barged over to us, took my hand, and yanked Alessandra and me back with him into the increasingly crazy dance party unfolding a few yards away. Over the rush of pounding mahraganat beats we shook hands with the groom, offered congratulations to the bride, posed for selfies with friends and family, and awkwardly tried to dance along while a cameraman carefully documented the whole thing.

When the band launched into another recent hit—Khaled ‘Afr’s “Mizmar Ras Es-Sana 2017,” a synth- and drum machine-driven instrumental in a slower style, guided by a delightful, morphing, mizmar-style synth line that I hear approximately five times a day echoing from Nile party boats passing my house—the guy in the vest and jeans hopped onstage, throwing his arms out wide and smiling big, losing himself and almost stumbling over in delirious, drunken excitement as the band dropped into a cymbal-crashing breakdown.

Plenty of micro-genres and musical fads have come and gone across the globe in recent years, but seeing a thrilling scene like this, it’s hard to imagine Cairo street music like mahraganat fading away any time soon.

 

(Regional Music, Austronesian Traditional Music, l. Auvidis, UNESCO Collection) [CD] VA - VANUATU: The Music Tradition of West Futuna / La musique traditionnelle de Futuna occidental - 1998, FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless [286.5 MB]

Let the Beat Build: A Bounce Rhythm Primer

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Bounce is a music defined by its beat. And while the genre has changed and evolved in the years since its birth in the early ’90s, the basic building blocks of that beat have remained  remarkably static. Although they may be sliced, chopped and twisted into dizzying patterns, bounce producers return again and again to the same basic ingredients—without them, a track just isn’t bounce.

This isn’t to say that bounce is anything like static. Over the last 30 years, the ways in which these ingredients are combined have changed dramatically. Some tracks have incorporated new additions into bounce’s sonic canon, while others have reformulated the beat so well that they have, in turn, become stepping stones for their own remixes, sampling and reworking. These are some of the most important steps in that evolution.

1.) The Showboys, “Drag Rap” (instrumental) 1986

Without a doubt, the core of bounce is the Showboy’s “Drag Rap,” better known as “Triggerman.” A 1986 track by the Queens rap duo, the track made its way south in the late ’80s, where it was snapped up by audiences hungry for new 808 breaks. While the original track was a local hit in New Orleans, the song really took off when DJs began to flip it to instrumental side, and mix two copies together live, providing a perfect foundation for the evolution of bounce’s vocal style.

While precisely what about this beat made it so attractive to New Orleans is still hotly debated, a few elements in the track have remained crucial to bounce for decades. The first is “the bells,” a repeating ascending-descending pattern which runs through much of the song. Another is the Dragnet/Inspector Gadget sample which repeats throughout. Finally, when the beat drops into its kicks-and-cowbells section, it summons a propulsive drive that fits perfectly with the kind of midtempo strut that has defined New Orleans music for much of the 20th century. When those three elements hit together, the track packs an undeniable polyrhythmic impact. With so much to choose from, this beat became a playground for generations of DJs, kicking off bounce.

For a sense of what early bounce DJs were doing, listen to MC T. Tucker and DJ Irv’s 1993 track “Where Dey At,” the first recorded example of the “Triggerman” sound that had been rocking block parties live for years.

 

2.) DJ Cameron Paul, “Brown Beats”

While “Drag Rap” makes up a huge portion of bounce’s basic sample base, it shares its honors with DJ Cameron Paul’s “Brown Beats,” a hard-hitting 808 and snare workout from the San Fransisco DJ’s Beats and Pieces breakbeat compilation. Between the two of them, “Drag Rap” and “Brown Beats” form the core of essentially all of bounce. Built around a hard-hitting drum pattern, “Brown Beats” also provided bounce with a handful of shredded James Brown vocals that it would stretch to the breaking point over the next decades.

While most songs use a combination of the two beats, tracks that rely more significantly on “Brown Beats” tend to be heavier, without the sway provided by “Triggerman.” For a sense of that sound, listen to this track by Partners-N-Crime.

3.) Cheeky Blakk, “Bitch Get Off Me”

Being a bounce DJ was hard. You had to stand for hours, carefully mixing crackling copies of “Drag Rap on two turntables while rapper after rapper got up to deliver their lyrics. You were also essential—without your live mixing, bounce literally couldn’t exist. Couldn’t exist, that is, until Mannie Fresh and DJ Duck changed the game with this beat.

According to Mannie Fresh, the basic horn riff was found by the crate-digging Duck, who also provides the brilliant, ever-changing scratching which provides continual spice. Still, the core of this track’s appeal is Mannie’s absolutely massive fusion of “Brown Beats” and “Triggerman.” The result is an unstoppable rhythmic juggernaught that’s still outstripping the competition decades later. Spare, driving, and hard as hell, this song rewrote the rulebook of bounce. DJs unable to mix “Triggerman” themselves could just throw on the instrumental, while the track became the blueprint for the next generation of producers.

Willie Puckett, “Tear It Down”

For an example of the reach of the Cheeky beat, listen to howBitch Get Off Me” forms the basis of the beat on this Willie Puckett track.

4.) Vockah Redu “Roll Call”

The next (and for now, final) (r)evolution of the bounce beat came from the instrumental track for Vockah Redu’s “Roll Call.” Featuring the ultra-distinctive crowd/seagull samples as a constant backdrop (Although Vockah told us that the noise is actually a Triton keyboard’s “wind” sound), this track builds off the nonstop pulse of “Bitch Get Off Me,” but reintroduces some of the distinctive wood blocks and bells from “Triggerman.” Most importantly, this track is, (as DJ Flipset Fred told us) bass down—its accentuated low end destroys on the dance floor, while its body-rocking snares and claps push shakers to the edge.

For a sense of the track’s impact, listen to Shardaysha’s “Gimme My Gots,” a track from 2017. While the ultra-rapid chopping and the large-scale samples that drive the song are the signatures of modern bounce, the beat that drives the whole thing is pure “Roll Call.”

5.) BONUS TRACK: Vocal Samples—While the constant recycling and re-imaging of the beat is central to bounce, it’s far from the only element that undergoes this process. Lyrical fragments, melodies and ad-libs have also been borrowed, flipped and reused throughout the music’s three decades. More recently, computer production has taken this to a new level, as distinctive vocal tics and sounds from popular artists are grabbed by producers to be used as elements in new beats. Want an example?Just listen to Sissy Nobby’s “Yo Nigga Wanna Fuk Me”—Shardaysha’s “Gots” run through the whole thing.

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