He was the Cool Ruler, the Lonely Lover, possessed of the sweetest voice to grace reggae and perhaps my favourite reggae artist of all time. A compilation of his mid to late seventies work has been one of my most played albums of the many, many thousands that I own. I have played his music at various restaurants I have managed over the years and have had an enormous amount of people - most of whom I would never consider to be fans of reggae, come and ask me about the artist.
He experienced the ups and downs of fame, though for all his personal trials he produced an incredible body of work that proved to be remarkably solid despite the overwhelming quantity he released.
His music has and will continue to be a soothing tone, a healing vibration, a lovers soundtrack, a poor man's vision of hope. He was the Cool Ruler. RIP!
When it comes to the history of cinema
there are scant few among us who cannot recall the era defining
soundtracks to such great films as Saturday Night Fever, The Harder
They Come, Pulp Fiction or Trainspotting. Because for the serious
music lover, life can be archived by its soundtrack. Perhaps the
first time you heard My Bloody Valentine or Public Enemy, you knew
where you were, what you were doing, how it made you feel. It is
there as we go through periods of huge change, as we grow and learn,
as we laugh and cry. It's there for many the first time we kiss
someone, the first time we have sex.
Myths have formed around the eclectic
indie rockers Klaxons since their startling Mercury Prize-winning
debut. Real Groove sets out to debunk the theories with guitarist
Simon Taylor-Davis.
As far as the media consuming public
are concerned, Klaxons are on their last chance bid to save their
careers. The ill-fated second album was turned down by record label
Polydor, with drug binges and over indulgent prog rock all part of
their lost weekend in the French and Italian countryside with
producer James Ford. Sent off to musical rehab, anyone would think
the British quartet were punished by being paired up with producer
Ross Robinson, the so-called Godfather of Nu Metal who has worked
with acts such as Limp Bizkit, Korn and Slipknot.
Unless you've had you ears tucked away
under the settee next to a stack of Noel Coward long players or
exclusively tuned in to the confines of Radio 4 for the past ten
years, then chances are you've heard of dubstep. Its popularity has
been steadily rising for many years with its roots able to be traced
back to everything bass-wise that has come before it; be it the dub
heavy sound system culture that itself emigrated from Jamaica, the
future forward strains of drum & bass that impacted on the entire
world, the champagne and cocaine excesses of garage and 2 step, or
the gritty urban reality of grime.
First up this month is Red Rack'Em AKA Danny Berman and his debut album The Early Years. He's been hotting up labels like Undertones, Shift, Untracked and Home Taping Is Killing Music with his slo-mo house and boogie for the past couple of years. His full length cobbles together some of those tracks with some brand new ones and is essential for anyone with even a remote interest in milk-fed, rosy cheeked house music. James Blake's CMYK EP on R&S was a genre bending work of art and his new one is no different. He's incredibly young and unfathomably talented, making experimental, electronic masterpieces that are getting him compared to Joni Mitchell! Check out his latest Klavierwerke EP on R&S records and breathe it in.
Johannes Heil is one of those rare
bread of producers who can wake up one morning and discover he's
accidentally penned another album in his sleep. Since his debut in
1995 the German stalwart has notched up more than fifty releases,
including an impressive nine albums and a bucket-load of remixes. His
skills are transferable across many different genres; as at home
crafting brutal, skull splitting techno as he is at etching out
elegant, graceful electronica.
It has long been noted that it is not
what you know but whom. For a growing set of adolescents coming of
age in the spotlight this could be no more true, for their fame
hinges on one crucial fact; their parents are famous. For most,
anything they do will pale in comparison to the achievements of those
who gave them life, whilst a very few will inexplicably manage to
outshine their folks. Many are shameless in their quest for fame,
trying anything they set their name and money to for their fifteen
minutes, whilst others shun the lifestyle completely, seeking only
anonymity and the opportunity of leading a normal life.
The conceptualization of science fiction through techno is nothing new, especially not for Robert Hood. As far back as his first albums, Internal Empire and Minimal Nation, Hood has posited the existence of other worlds, alternate realities, supposed futures. His latest long player Omega continues this recurring theme, postulating a post-apocalyptic world of decay and decrepitude in which one man works to find a cure for a plague that has rendered any human survivors zombies.
Being a part of Workshop 10 gave Ron Deacon’s career trajectory a big leg up, bringing him to the attention of everyone who follows the highly sought after low-key house label. So upon seeing his first solo EP on Farside Records it was almost a matter of buying the disc unheard, such is the esteem that Lowtec’s label carries with it. Although I did cast a rudimentary ear towards the record before purchase it proved unnecessary; the Secret Garden EP, Deacon’s debut solo outing, offers rich, atmospheric house music laced with a subtle, honeyed vocal that hits deep on first listening.
Every year there are a run of artists who completely shake the foundations of music, mercilessly messing with your preconceptions of sound and style, extending a beckoning finger for you to join, follow or simply witness as they blast off into orbit. This year already there have been such albums released and surely with a further six months of 2010 there will be more who inspire, confuse, cause utter disbelief and admiration in equal doses. For my money I'm not sure if there will be any that will surpass the sheer brilliance and unrestrained ambition of Actress's Splazsh and Mount Kimbie's Crooks & Lovers.
