Yes! more refreshing Bhangra this week with a catchy electronic twist. It might be another drinking anthem buts its got this bouncy feel to it thats contagious!. Excited to hear more releases from Lil Amit.
Aaaah! I am seriously blown away by this mans tune ‘Kabishi’. From Malakzi, Durban the home of South Africa’s unique house music sound. This is Arnold nkombose Madlala AKA, DJ Nkoh
And the results are in from Janaka Selekta’s ‘AWAKE’ remix contest hosted here on chaiWalla’s BOOMbox! Remixes by Ealzee, Adil Medina, Sunskript and g-ta; all re-interpreting ‘AWAKE’ with their own weaponry and swagger. From deep house, drum n bass, dubstep and chill out ‘AWAKE’ will be with you from the morning stretch to the nightclub.
One of our favourite blogs Generation Bass celebrates their debut release as a Digi-Label today! and they bring to the world ‘herr muller’. Grab your copy below on Beatport
This tune must be played while flying through tunnels and crossing bridges. The echoing asiatic vocals just make me want to push harder on that accelerator !
Recorded Live at the BBC maida vale session this summer. The Kominas Punk-O-fie the classic tune “Choli Ke Peeche”. I can’t wait to see this band live one day! its gonna be a riot ! Also they should be releasing their new music video for ‘Tunnne” on Monday, Sept 27th. So watch this space peeps.
Zuzuka Poderosa drops Brazilian bred, Brooklyn based swagger like no other. A stylistic blend of Carioca Funk and NYC rumble, giving a breath of fresh air to today’s international music scene. She’s hard to miss with her unapologetic sultry Portuguese lyrics and booty bumping basslines. Its no wonder she packs New York nightclubs like sardines.
Dark Horizons by nonchalant is like walking into a haunted castle governed by dead kathak dancers. Love the layers upon layers of asiatic samples and effects.
‘La Patere Rose’ from Montreal, Canada caught my eye this week. They just released their new EP ‘Waikiki’ but its actually their previous release in 2009 with the same title as the band ‘La Patere Rose’ that did me! and more specifically a tune called ‘L’éponge’. Loving its electronic chill vibe!
Das Racist, who took the music world by storm this past March with their debut mixtape Shut up, Dude, is back with a Mishka, Diplo, Mad Decent andGreedhead Entertainment-presented sophomore release titled Sit Down, Man .
Das Racist has enlisted superproducers Diplo, Boi-1da, Scoop Deville, Devo Springsteen and Dame Greaseas well as collaborations with El-P, Despot,Roc Marciano, Keepaway, Teen Girl Fantasy,Chairlift and Vijay Iyer to make this one of the hottest projects of the year by one of the most sought after unsigned acts in recent years.
Ever heard Mohammed Rafi completely dub-stepped out? Well Sunskript from Vancouver, Canada just remade a classic into a massive Bollywood Dubstep ear thrasher!
Luisa Maita has lured me in over the past few days with her new album Lero-Lero! from start to finish its quite lovely and melodic.
translation of Lero-Lero: “Lero-Lero” is a slang term that translates as an informal, aimless conversation. A deconstructed samba about two friends from a ghetto on the outskirts of São Paulo who have each other’s backs whenever trouble arises.
From Toronto, Canada is where unsigned artist Resolved Dissonance crafts instrumentals that subtly grab your most disguised emotions. This one is a beauty!
Screaming in joy! YES! this is exactly how I feel at this moment with this new tune by Dj Rekha, Sharmaji and Meetu Chilana. Such a refreshing and creative cross of Baile Funk bass lines and soulful hindi lyrics. Looks like the start to new genre ‘Bollywood Baile Funk’ and its gonna BLOW!
‘Pyar Baile Wale’ BY Dj Rekha, Sharmaji & Meetu Chilana
Bandish Projekt dropped their highly anticipated ‘Brown Skin Beauty’ EP this week! with remixes from Robert Koch and Liquid Stranger and lyrically laced by ‘Last Mango In Paris’ this is space odyssey you need to take off on!
Below is what happens when you smack that wasp nest outside the studios of Nasha Records. You get a terrifying swarm of bass that will just make you ‘shreeeek’ ! and we mean that in a good way !
Maybe its because I have a shrine of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan in my home and every time I give it butter and milk the qawwali gods deliver some great electro interpretation of the art. These guys are called ‘Dolby Anol‘ and you need to get to know these producers from Glasgow!
Synopsis of EP: “There must be something in the water in Glasgow. Dolby anol have been churning out hot release after hot release this year; Cameroon/Macaroon had clubbers screaming for more disco, so (like teasing femme fatales) they released Sandy bitches – an electronic masterclass in simplicity. Both had tails wagging for more across the blogosphere with youtube fan videos coming from around the globe. So now they return to keep you guessing some more with the Visa – Mastercard E.P.
With most artists these days the general trend is to take their samples on holiday; african rhythms, jewish chants, romanian folk et all. Dolby missed their flight to Somalia, however, and landed knee deep in Islamabad. Visa – Mastercard takes Qawwali hymns and chants to spread a message of capitalism to all. In fact, only their cynical take on pretty much everything would be able to find the word “Visa” in an ancient chant from the east. The record is a departure – yet again – from the previous records, the samples are the stars here, not the “broken ragdoll” approach in cameroon nor the clinical automaton of sandy bitches. The beats are heavy, claps are loud, the whole thing will have you in a frenzy that will have you running to the Ganges to cool down.
This is essential to your collection , Dolby anol have, it seems, done it again!”
Welcome to ChaiWalla’s Boombox Shamik, how did you get into beat-boxing? what was the first moment like when everything just clicked and you knew this was your ‘element’ of expression ? Thank you! Making sounds, doing voices, and mimicking a lot of things were characteristics that came naturally to me. I would come home from school and imitate teachers, or quote lines from a movie after only seeing it once. I didn’t really know there was such a thing called beatboxing until I heard Rahzel’s ‘Make the Music 2000′ album or saw Doug E Fresh’s cameo in the movie ‘Beat Street.’ Then I became obsessed and looked for it anywhere I could. Keep in mind this was pre-internet revolution, youtube, and social media. You can find out a lot about a genre with google right now if you wanted to. For me beatboxing with guitar players, bass players, singers, and MC’s came first…so I learned how to think like a drummer. I was really into rock and hip hop, but my influences and style changed when I discovered electronic music. That’s when making synth and basslines became my focus. I don’t think it really clicked until I hopped on mics at open stages back in the day…and people gave me feedback. Eventually, beatboxing became like breathing where I didn’t even know I was doing it. It became my outlet to bring life to the music I heard in my head.
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One thing that blows me away is your ability to draw from current bass heavy sounds in the market, and bring them to life with your voice, like in track 16 “nomadic injections” that “wobble” like voice effect you’ve used is Brilliant ! So if your voice is your Abelton Live or Drum Sampler, my question is how many samples do you have banked in that brain of yours ? how do these sounds come from inception to prototype to new sound ?
Well the sounds in this brain are endless…same with the ideas. Sometimes I’ll hear a genre I like and want to do something similar. Other times I think of elements of genres I don’t like and how I would change them. Writing an album can be fun that way…where the listener becomes the critic to make music for other listeners. Half of this album is electronic and the other half is organic so you can hear the two extremes of the ideas I had over the past 3 years.
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Whats your Mic of preference when performing live and then when in the studio ? I am still loyal to the Shure SM 58 mic at shows. In the studio a good condenser mic works well…but it also depends on what you want to do or what sounds you’re trying to isolate.
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Who designed the artwork concept on your album with all the microphones dangling down in front of that mirror ?
Where did you find yourself writing most of the time for ‘nomadic injections’, since you were a pretty much a nomad ? A lot of my beatboxing ideas came from practicing while walking in various places. Some of the tunes were done in several sessions so I wrote my parts in the studio. The shortest time length for a song’s completion was ‘Extra Extra’ with Vandal & Goldfish…which was done in 2 hours in Kuala Lumpur. For a few of the tunes, I had the easier end of the deal because the production took a few more sessions after I put my parts down. I wrote some of my verses on planes and in airports. I was in Melbourne in June 2009 when I recorded the beat and bassline for ‘Bruise You’ with Johnny Hooves & JPS. Then I had a show in Sydney and came back to Melbourne after having written 3 verses while in transit. I had the beat in my headphones the whole time. The title track of the album was recorded in January of this year in Kuala Lumpur. Similar to Melbourne, I put down the beat and kept it with me. I took it while I was on tour in Thailand and Philippines and came back to KL with my verses. Vandal and I spoke about our travels throughout the song.
Your whole album is one giant collaboration ? and I take it these collaborations happened throughout the world. Did you have these tracks and specific guests pre-planned before you entered a new continent or was this all done off the fly ? Sometimes I feel like life is one big collaboration! A lot of the tunes came to be because I made plans to work on music with certain artists. With good cats like Subvert, Knight Riderz, Erica Dee…there was a lot of “hey when are we gonna work on a tune?” conversations so it was a matter of timing.
Some of the tracks were born from me coincidentally being in the same city as a cool producer or artist. For example ‘Boom Box Riddim’ was produced by Sweet Az Soundsystem. We met because were were on the same bill as support for Pitch Black in Sydney. We traded schedules and made it happen. A couple weeks later we were performing at Peats Ridge Festival so we collaborated during Sweet Az’s set as well.
Clip of Sweet Az Soundsystem & Shamik from 2009 Peats Ridge Festival in Glenworth Valley, Australia:
Another example…’Space Zoo’ with Longwalkshortdock happened because we met at a Shah DJ’s party at the end of last summer. We were both busy in the fall and winter…then when we had some time in Vancouver, we hammered out 2 sessions. It was a lot of fun cause LWSD is an amazing dude and producer who is good at making you feel free to do whatever…he even has a tickle trunk of gadgets that make funny or cool noises…which pretty much gets a gold star from any beatboxer. The title gives you an idea of the crazy sounds we came up with together…literally what animals would sound like in space.
Favourite venue you’ve performed at ? and who was there ? its a tough one I know but consider everything from the sound engineering to the crowd to the sheer prestige of performing at the venue ?
Wow…so many to choose from! I would have to narrow it down to 2 shows.
1) Last June I did a show with Marky and Kentaro in Osaka, Japan at Triangle. It was packed and those Japanese sure party hard! The show was a huge honor since Marky is one of the drum and bass gods…and turntablist wizard Kentaro is a hero out there! That show manifested because I opened for Kentaro in Bangkok last April. We jammed out at the end of the show and then his management team invited me out to Japan since I was still on tour in Asia in June! I didn’t know many people at the show, but it felt like a turning point in my career to play my first show in Japan.
2) In 2008, I had a crazy set in The Village at Shambhala Music Festival right before Numark as well. That stage can fit 5000+ people and the PK Sound rig in there is bass at the next level. Anyone who has stood in The Village can vouch for this. Every PK speaker is custom built to amplify bass so your eardums hear it how it is supposed to sound. Shambhala is one of the biggest platforms to showcase at in Canada…hands down.
20 Million people have been effected by the floods in Pakistan. Do your part today and help your brothers and sisters of humanity . All proceeds from the charity single “Sabotage” will go towards DEC APPEAL.
Much love to some of the biggest names in UK’s Asian Hip Hop scene for putting this together. Raxstar, Da Poe, Sam Khan, Rkz, Swami Baracus, Faze, Kaution, Sabotage & Arjun. Thank you all very much.
