VARIOUS - Lagos Shake: A Tony Allen Chop Up (Honest Jon's) Comentários: After 18 months of 12" releases that completely blew our minds, Honest Jons finally compile their amazing lineup of Tony Allen remixes for this one mighty cd package. Reworkings from Basic Channel's Mark Ernestus and Mauritz Von Oswald head the lineup, with Mauritz delivering a Ten and a half minute basic channel classic, a mighty Steppers version that unfolds in textbook Rhythm & Sound style, using the deepest tools imaginable within that impossibly spacious, fuzzed-out environment that only Basic Channel ever seem to produce so effortlessly. Carl Craig, meanwhile, utilises all the dancefloor savvy and careful vocal manipulations marked out on his finest and most sought after remixes of the last few years, delivering a fierce drum edit as good as his classic remix for The Congos a few years back. We have a mighty soft spot for the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble reworking that's also featured here, we've been spinning it more or less endlessly since it was first released and everyone we play it to begs us for a copy. The Ensemble take on Tony Allen's "Losun" and come out sounding like a school brass band touched by pure genius. Hard to over-emphasise how good this is, for sure one of the best things on this excellent set. After further contributions from the likes of Diplo, Bonde Do Role, Wraeika Hill Sounds, Newham Generals, Son Palenque and Salah Ragab, you'll be left in no doubt that you're in the presence of one of the most exquisitely curated, brilliantly executed remix packages of the decade. ESSENTIAL PURCHASE! in boomkat [Para Ouvir/Samples]
ONRA - Chinoiseries (Label Rouge) Comentários: Brilliantly odd instrumental hip hop album here from Onra, compiled and constructed around vintage Vietnamese pop records picked up in flea markets on a trip to the far east. 32 short tracks make up "Chinoiseries", each of them clocking in at the 1 or 2 minute mark and delivering a tight selection of beats that somehow bring to mind J Dilla, Rza, Madlib, Moondog, MF Doom and the Sublime Frequencies label rolled into one beautifully incoherent package. Having a ravenous appetite for the "Radio Transmission" style beloved of the aforementioned Sublime Frequencies crew, we might be perfectly primed for this sort of thing, but while the dusty exotica, folk and plastic pop of the source material here could so easily have ended up sounding like the sterile plunderphonic coffee table beats that typified so much instrumental hip hop in the late 90's, Onra manages to harness the mystifying magic of the original material and
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