DEADBEAT

These are exciting times we live in. No, no, please keep reading. I'm not going to talk about the US elections. I couldn't give a toss, really. I'm referring to the astounding quality and fair quantity of albums being released that are patiently stacking themselves into my listen-to list this year.

Earlier in the year Sascha Funke, Loco Dice, Minilogue and The Mole all released superb albums. In the latter parts of 2008 we've had substantial additions from Shed, Stefan Goldmann, Headhunter and the topic of today's discussion, Deadbeat, with Roots and Wire.

Alton Ellis

The Godfather of rocksteady, the man with one of the sweetest reggae voices in the business has died from lymphatic cancer at the age of 70.
Despite being a huge influence on other successful artists, Ellis never enjoyed financial prosperity from his many successes. His biggest hit "I'm Still In Love", which he made at Clement "Coxone" Dodd's Studio One label was a source of controversy between the two men, as were the royalties of many of his other songs he recorded there.
Ellis had lived in England since the early seventies continuing to perform and record, though more sporadically. Listening to his music, you couldn't help but feel happy, whether he was singing songs of praise, lover's laments or hymns of repatriation.
R.I.P.

Keane

Rehab, the Berlin record, alternative media and hyping Dead Prez. Hang on, is this Keane we're talking to?

You don't expect soft rockers to have problems. They make their emotional ballads, play them to adoring fans, sit around with a cup of tea afterwards and head off back to the manor for a kip before the next Royal gala show.

Things are never what they seem though; beneath the veneer of culpable tenderness, cracks appear and soon enough large amounts of mind altering intoxicants are needed to keep that veneer in place.

Oasis: Dig Out Your Soul

Can the last great apes of rock pull out another rabbit from their velvet swag bag?

Liam Gallagher has been bounding around the old boozer like a young chimp, his jaunty swagger giving way to near scampering as he ascends and descends the rickety stairs with quad-pedal aplomb. His brachiating calms as he approaches the lounge where Real Groove is already ensconced with Gem Archer and Andy Bell, though it would seem things are off to a bad start as I’m sitting in Liam’s seat. Deferring to the alpha male I shuttle myself over to the couch.

Kerri Chandler

Clubland


Kerri Chandler once said that in order to enjoy your (house) music all you needed was “a basement, a red light and a feeling.” The simple truth spoken many years ago still holds today, as does the career of Mr Chandler, with his ongoing production of impeccable classic house cuts and a slight tweaking of that red light into a red laser.
House music in 2008 is seeing a renaissance, partly thanks to a backlash against formulaic minimal-by-numbers releases finally reaching a point of unsustainable dehydration. It's not that house music went away or anything, just that more DJ's are switching back to something a little more hefty in the soul department for their sets.

14 Tracks

It's a fast paced world out there. Too fast to nestle down to the computer night and day to forage for hidden delicacies of the musical variety, let alone group a bunch of them together in one silken, sonorous swag bag.
Good thing is, there's someone out there doing it for you.
14 Tracks is an affiliate of the mighty Boomkat on-line store out of Manchester. Those gorgeous little dance-wise goblins serve up weekly release sheets of the top end techno, dubstep, far out electronica and experimental whateverness. Most of it is on a dub tip, all of it quality.
Anyway back to 14 Tracks. Subscribe to this modern marvel of the new musical age and get a slippery electronic slice of mail inserted into your inbox on a weekly basis, updating you on the latest fourteen nuggets of sound gear assiduously assembled on whatever that weeks theme may be.
The best of dubstep, the most coveted covers, rootical radness, Kompakt's finest moments... the list goes on. A single track will run you 99p, the whole bunch you can net for a measly £6.86. As for the quality of the tracks selected, well just go to the site and find out.
Utterly ridonkulous!

Shackleton

Is this the end of the line for Soundboy? Has his bleak penchant for, well, bleakness finally become too much for him?
Soundboy's Suicide Note becomes the latest bassbin biscuit on the Skull Disco imprint to demand instant purchase; four tracks to measure your resilience to murderous low end frequencies by.
Vengeance Tenfold blathers beat-esoterica over the grim 'The Rope Tightens...', '...But the Branch Is Weak' offers brief respite, while the two cuts on the B-side dive into further subterranean duress.
Essential listening.

DJ BONE

CLUBLAND

The term underground gets thrown about like kids toys these days, without meaning, for almost no reason. It has been a long time since dance music could be denoted underground and have that really mean that it was pushing against the trends, forging new ground, remaining true to itself without following a bigger trend. With a recent purchase I was reminded of one artist I truly consider to be underground; evidenced by his longevity (yet relative anonymity) as a DJ and producer, uncompromising ideals and do it yourself spirit.

Ladyhawke

LADYHAWKE


The bar was old; a long ago given a sniff of paint type of boozer that had been providing a scrap of goo-plated carpet and scent-soaked atmosphere for the pint swillers of Lexington and Broadwick streets. Pip said it was meant to be haunted, though who knows why any ghost would hang around in such a dingy outpost of an other-time Soho.
We settle down to a cheap draught lager and Pip Brown starts filling me in on the details of her alter ego Ladyhawke.

Black Kids Interview

THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT

Party lights are on dude. Florida’s Black Kids are here to show you how.

Reggie Youngblood, sister Ali and drummer Kevin Snow are pretty exhausted. Chatting with three members of Jacksonville, Florida’s pop darling band of the moment Black Kids, I’m getting a grasp on how much work their chance at breaking out of their hometown to an international stage has been. The easiest part apparently was being discovered; the band was playing at the Athens Pop Fest in August of last year to around forty people including several bloggers. After seeing the band they got typing and launched them into the worldwide blogosphere, though not necessarily with all the facts. An early blog mentioned the band sounded like My Bloody Valentine and Arcade Fire and since then almost every article about Black Kids has picked up the same thread. It’s something they are keen to dispel.