the beats

download amsterdam’s finest – happy 3010 promomix

niwa — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 12:17:08 +0000

“It’s life Jim, but not as we know it”. After psych-rock, funk, italo, electro and.. well practically every genre in music that’s been around after the 70’s, you can now see a new artificial musical constellation in the skies. The upcoming example has been launched from somewhere in Amsterdam, and consists of raw electronic beats and some funky dubstep. Get your oxygen-tanks, strap on your anti-gravity boots and get ready for the last timewarp from 2009.

“Your favorite’s favorites of 2009″ is what Cinnaman, Shady, Brutuzz, Giographic and O.Boogie call this collection of 5 small mixes to celebrate the upcoming New Year’s eve.

Cinnaman launches off with some boom-clap beats, bleeps and distorted arps. Fresh styles as we’re used from him, so ’nuff said. After dumping the initial boosters, Shady takes us smoothly out of orbit and into the dark void of space. From there on he slowly takes us into the dubstep nebula, where it’s time for Brutuzz to take over.

It seems Brutuzz has had enough of the endless darkness that surrounds the nebula. Ditching impulse speed he goes straight to warp 6, heading for a beautiful supernova with some blissfull 80’s electrofunk influenced stepping. While the rest of the crew is tightly strapped in, the passengers are now wiggin’ out.
After the supernova has died out Giographic relieves Brutuzz and, to make up for lost time, kicks it to warp 9 with harsh synths, steady drums and a lot of LFO’ing. Getting pushed back in your seat, the stars off the port-bow suddenly go from little white dots to bright long stripes.

Quickly entering the new constellation, it’s time for O. Boogie to explore for a suitable planet to descend to. Conducting surveys of each planet within the star system, Boogie encounters and debriefs us on everything that we’ve already heard and seen on the journey to this corner of the galaxy. Then, out of nowhere, appears a red dwarf of the likes we’ve never seen: That’s where we need to go. Setting down the spacecraft with a nostalgic tune, excitement buzzes through the ship. Everyone suits up and gets ready to depart…

…and that’s where the transmissions ended. I guess we’ll have to wait ’till next year to see what was on the planet’s surface.

Get the mix through soundcloud (MP3), mediafire (full package containing covers and flyers), or listen below.

download supa kool dj uncle q – a tribute to yukimi nagano

niwa — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 14:41:24 +0000

While the albums of the Swedish collective known as Little Dragon aren’t really fitting our cozy niche of beat-related music, the other projects of lead-singer Yukimi Nagano are much to our taste. She has sung for Koop, works with José González and appears as vocalist on releases by Swell Session, Hird and Ge-Ology. In honour of her works (and a live performance in his hometown), Supa Kool DJ Uncle Q has made a tribute mix for the online magazine ‘The Couch Sessions‘.

The mix consists of the more(up) tempo oriented tracks on which Nagano is featured, making it a nice and smooth jazzy 55mins, with some touches of electronica. With all the tracks from different sources packed together it’s easy to observe how versatile Yukimi’s vocal talents are. Whether it’s trip-hop, poppy electronica or straight-up (nu-)jazz, she seems to get into the perfect vibe with ease, adjusting her way of singing perfectly to the style.

Uncle Q does a great job blending all these different tracks together into a great mix which is easy to listen and enjoy.

Tracklist:
01. Koop – Whenever There Is You
02. Ge-ology – Blues Alley
03. Little Dragon – No Love
04. Quartermaine – Mystic Qool Breeze
05. Little Dragon – After The Rain
06. Little Dragon – Feather
07. Shuya Okino – Pieces of You
08. Little Dragon – Forever
09. Koop – Summer Sun
10. Little Dragon – Thunder Love
11. Hird – Love You My Hope (Do Right Remix)
12. Swell Session – The Music in Her Eyes
13. Koop – I See A Different You
14. Jafrosax – Drawn 2 U
15. Little Dragon – Never Never

Get it here (on z-share through thecouchsessions.com)

portformat – the repeat factor

niwa — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 18:21:34 +0000

Last year Tokyo Dawn announced that they would re-start their label and, although it took a bit longer than planned, they kept their word. After Comfort Fit’s 2nd album (check the previous post) it’s time for Portformat to drop his debut today: “The Repeat Factor”.

Now don’t you dare to judge this album in comparison with Polyshufflez. Although the 2 producers are friends and work closely, Portformat has really developed his own style. If you thought hip hop was dead and neo-soul long buried, in comes PF to prove you wrong. “The Repeat Factor” is pure electronic soul for our generation. Thick basslines over head-nodding drums, melodic raps accompanied with swaying chorus-vocalism and smooth pads laying the ground for raw synths.

The release is nicely split, putting a 100% Portformat solo instrumental between every couple of featurings. The list of people who bless the tracks with their vocalism includes Bless1, Shaunise, Caits Meissner, Joe Kickass, ofcourse Blaktroniks and US residents Dudley Perkins & Georgia-Anne Muldrow!

Whether it’s hiphop, neo-soul or spaced out beats, Germany’s Portformat is your man.

You can check out the album and buy it at the TDR website

comfort fit – polyshufflez lp and remixes

niwa — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:17:59 +0000

The German beat-wizard known as Comfort Fit has returned after 5 years to drop his sophmore album called ‘Polyshufflez‘ on Tokyo Dawn Records. And what a return it is. Whereas his 2005 (free) release consisted mostly of sample-based material, Polyshufflez blends in seemlessly with todays’ electronic groovyness and maybe even gets on top of it for a while. Let’s take a quick look at the album, before moving on to the oncoming remix LP!

Comfort Fit – Polyshifflez LP

It would be a little too easy to just label Polyshufflez as yet another electronic-beat album/tape as we’ve seen pop up over the last couple of years. Although minimalism is key, CF proves that you can keep that vibe without making tracks that only contain the bare minimum of sounds. Next to his trademark punchy thick kick-and-snare sound the album is layered with deep basses, atmospheric pads/drones, simple but beautiful melodies and quirky beeps and sound fx. All these ingrediënts are used to make slow jams, party bangers and the occasional abstract ambientesque beat.

To top things off the shufflemeister has collaborated with old and new friends on the 71min disc, including Dyno, Howard Marks, Mishoo The Drumkit, Blaktroniks, Caitlin Meissner and ofcourse friend and labelmate Portformat (whose album will drop December 3rd, but we’ll get back to you on that).

There’s also a video for the track ‘Bit By Bit’. Below the video is a player in which you can check out clips of the whole album and buy it at your fav. online store:

—-

Comfort Fit – Polyshufflez Remix LP

As announced on the EPK, on December 17th the remix version of Polyshufflez will be released. After taking a glance at the artist roster it quickly becomes clear what CF has been up to the last couple of years, next to shaping his style: laying new and impressive contacts all over the globe. Next to genre-peers like Portformat, fLako and Swede:art some high rollers are present too! Atjazz, Domu and Jay Scarlett are real nice surprises, but Laurent Garnier came as quite a pleasant shock.

Tracklist:
01. Next Incarnation feat. Caits Meissner (Boom Clap Bachelors Remix) 03.10 min
02. Seen Not Heard feat. NOTE (Jay Scarlett remix) 04.02 min
03. Yer Daddy feat. Wallis Bird (Domu remix) 05.11 min
04. Peter Pan (Portformat remix) 02.12 min
05. Exabyte (Singing Statues remix) 03.39 min
06. Exabyte (fLako remix) 03.14 min
07. Fired up! feat. Blaktroniks (Opolopo remix) 04.27 min
08. Ask The Devil feat. Howard Marks (Atjazz Deeper remix) 05.34 min
09. Seen not heard feat. NOTE (Tim Turbo remix) 05.16 min
10. Wicked Game (Swede:art remix) 06.46 min
11. Fired up! feat. Blaktroniks (Robot Koch remix) 03.30 min
12. Superposition (Comfort Fit remix) 07.43 min
13. Snare Wars (Jacob Korn remix) 05.57 min
14. Ask The Devil feat. Howard Marks (Laurent Garnier remix) 11.24 min

For the next 2 weeks until the album drops, you can enjoy these 2 tracks that TDR has supplied bloggers around the globe with:

Next Incarnation feat. Caitlin Meissner (Boom Clap Bachelors remix)

Seen, Not Heard feat. Note (Tim Turbo remix)

download j rawls – hotel beats vol 1.

niwa — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:04:53 +0000

Yet another beat-tape? Hell no! J. Rawls (known best as one-half of Lone Catalysts) drops an oldschool 50mins compilation of pure unadulterated hip hop beats. You may have thought he would go fully instrumental after his 2 Liquid Crystal Project albums, but no less is true.

Just before dropping his new album with John Robinson (aka Lil’ Sci of Scienz Of Life) called “Jay Are – The 1960’s Jazz Revolution Again”, Rawls pops out this collection of beats in conjunction with Mighty Healthy NYC.

Although I honestly can’t say this is a superb product from beginning to end (some beats are a bit.. easy or unworked), it still just what you expect from J.: minimal, soulful and funky smooth-jazz on dope beats. Thankfully the few ‘misses’ on the tape are quickly forgotten after hearing the masterpieces like ‘Equinox’, ‘Stand Down’ and ‘4 A.M.’

Also included is a track from the Jay Are album, ‘The Lee Morgan Story’ and a joint featuring L.E. called ‘American Idol’.

Get Hotel Beats vol 1. here (zshare)

3 latest tracks

niwa — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:21:12 +0000

I almost forgot, during our little break I also managed to crunch out 3 new tracks. You can check them out below:

no need to rush by niwa

Slow soulful but rough track. I couldn’t resist cutting up the (well-known) sample and adding some boomin’ drums and sizzlin’ distortion on it to push the groove.

shut up and just ask me by niwa

Another sexy soulful track, but a bit more uptempo with a touch of disco. Didn’t even realize this was sampled before until I reached the end of the track ;)

properly prepared by niwa

Some oldschool 90′ish bpm boom bap downtempo tune. Broad pads, simple soothing melodies and some nerdy speech cuts. “Don’t you like beats, doctor?”

All these tracks (and more) are also on:
-soundcloud
-last.fm
-myspace
-thesixtyone
-hyves
-my own lil’ site

Enjoy!

download elaquent – in colour vol. 3

niwa — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:53:47 +0000

We’re still up on the backfill from our summer break, and since we tipped you before on Elaquent’s marvellous releases we can’t forget vol. 3 of his ‘In Colour’ series. While a lot of artists seem to get a little bit numbed an dull on their releases after their first bomb, the Canadian beat-creator just keeps on getting bringing the same dopeness on this ‘tape’ (as he calls it) with old and new beats, as he did before.

Yet again this is almost 40mins of offbeat, filtered, bleeped and dusty beats. Add some commercial-snippets and hip hop acappella cuts and it’s a certified Elaquent release. He can downplay himself in the liner notes all he wants by stating that “poor mixing” was done, it doesnt’ matter because this is supposed to be downright dirty.

If you want a more complete review of the man E and his works, check out our previews review “elaquent: massive free downloads!“.

Get ‘Elaquent – In Colour vol. 3′ (MediaFire) here.

download zo! – …just visiting too

niwa — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:41:19 +0000

Ok everybody’s bitching about the gloomy, grey and darker days of autumn. In the end, ofcourse, you are the one that defines the gloomyness. So here’s a bit of slick neo-soul’ish stuff. Invite your best friends over, light some candles and let the red wine flow.

Like I said, this is a slick EP. No rough beats and samples this time, but easygoing instruments and sweet vocalism. With almost ten albums behind him, Zo! is no newcomer to the music-scene and it is to be heard music- and production-wise. Lovely clean sounds on all instruments (which the multi-instrumentalist played himself) make this teaser for his upcoming album “Sunstorm” a really sweet laid-back release.

Being connected for a while now with Foreign Exchange the featured artists on the 7-track EP are not surprising in the least, but they are certainly enjoayble: Yahzarah, Carlitta Durand, Sy Smith, Phonté and Darien Brockington deliver beautiful verses over Zo!’s light productions. Ofcourse the man himself leaves room enough for amazing solo’s (check for example My Flame) and funky basslines.

Get the EP here (through Foreign Exchange)

download infiniteskills presents: nine

niwa — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:52:53 +0000

After I saw a guy walking past, wearing a “J Dilla Saved My Life” shirt (yea they still sport those. . .) I remembered a release from last year that I want to share with you. Not to diss the lost US prodigy but to show that the world holds more great beat-creators. This time it’s a little compilation from my neighbouring country Belgium:

Infiniteskills (Eric P., LuiGi & Pat Gonzalez, the laid-back.be inhouse production team) collected a total of 12 tracks from 9 Belgian beat-producers including themselves, and put out a 12″ through Rush Hour at the end of 2007. With most of the physical copies gone they decided in 2008 to release the mp3s for free!

If you want to take a break from all the glitchy cut-up electronic stuff, you’ve got 37mins of chilled out bliss right here. Soulful sampled loops and drums with the occasional fat synthy bass is what these Belgians are all about. Don’t mistake the smoothness of this package with softness, the drums keep rolling steady all over the sampled foundation.

A lil’ extra is also included in the package: a promo video containing some nice diggin’ footage stylishly put together and a couple of US cameo’s!

Tracklist:
Eric P. – Is this the end?
Versatell – Clap ya hands
Ame – I Hope that I
LuiGi – Hombre
Dyno – Autumn love (feat Kissey Asplund)
Flo – Love jones
Lefto – Michigan 1963
LuiGi – In my life (in memory of “le mich” van vlasselaer – RIP)
Versatell – Gamble
Pat Gonzales – As I Am
Eric P. – Turn it up
Mr Critical – Almost lost you (in the mist of my mind)

Get the release here.

download sands – online blends vol. 1

niwa — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:35:50 +0000

After the Sandmania cassettes and Sandies Blends CD’s, Spinnin’ resident DJ Sandman has now set out to take over the internet with a new series of mixes called Sands Online Blends.

As usual Sandman lays down the new hip hop bangers mixed with the hottest tracks you missed out on. This goes side to side with the occasional sampled original thrown in and dope timeless music for all us not-so-narrowminded peeps. Ofcourse all of this freshness is smoothly blended together, making this yet another Sands mix you won’t skip through!

tracklist:

1. Jay-Z Feat. Nas – Success
2. Art & Ron – Can’t Stop Talkin’
3. Marco Polo & Torae – Coney Island
4. Rustee Juxx feat. Sean Price – Wipe off Ya Smile
5. Alchemist feat. Snoop Dogg, Pusha T & Jadakiss – Lose Your Life
6. Drake feat. Lil’ Wayne – I’m Goin In
7. The Clipse feat. Wale – Forever Fly
8. Bishop Lamont – Grow Up
9. Lil Wayne – Mrs. Officer
10. Emily King feat. Lupe Fiasco – Walk in my Shoes
11. Freddie Cruger feat. Lin – Pretty Little Thing
12. Alice Russell – Hurry on Now
13. Jay Electronica – Exhibit A (Transformations)
14. Suff Daddy feat. Miles Bonney – Late Night Stuff
15. Suff Daddy feat. Kissey Asplund – Late Night Reprise
16. De Javaanse Jongens – On You
17. Mr. Beatnick feat. Ahu – I know all the Bitches
18. Pacific Division – Shut Up
19. Common – The Corner ‘09 Pt. 2 (Beatnick & K-Salaam remix)
20. Rich Girl feat. Bun B – 24’s
21. Paper Route Gangstaz – Bama gettin’ Money (Diplo remix)
22. Wham! – Careless Whisper (No Homo)

Download the blend for free here!

And here are some more older mixes (right-click -> download):
- Spinnin’ Mixtape 1
- Spinnin’ Mixtape 2
- Sandies Blends: Cherry Blend