First things first, Snapclicker HAS NOT sold out to The Man. I am getting NO flavoured potato goods in exchange for this post, it simply comes as an ode to possibly THE greatest waste of time ever.
Need i say, this link came from my boy Main Cors. This guy will forever be the king of doing essentially nothing, whilst masking it with 'something'. About a month ago he sent me this, and now i know why he doesn't leave the house.
In the picture above, you will clearly see i reached level 10. I did however not complete the game, or know ANYONE who has done.
Last night i went up to Kings X to snapclack my extended family member Sam Sure and his beat wizard Giacomo. The show was great fun, packed with uplifting hits and deep vocals. Sure manages to make you feel like the only person in the room at his live sets, bringing a level of intimacy that many bands cannot.
Having known Sam for a hot minute, and been collecting Giacomo's beats since he did some cuts on Braintax's ' Travel Show Ep', it was really nice to catch a set of their new material.
You can buy 'Welcome to The Canteen' here featuring a couple of old tracks. Also look out the classic 'Fresh Air Ep' and Giacomo's stuff including 12"'s of 'Deceive', 'Sit Back See The World' and the killer Ep's 'Programmed Percussion' and 'Building'.
In the meantime, here's a tune they've released on youtube to honour Amuk, who's currently on lockdown.
Last week myself and Freckles hit my boy Bleach's opening night. Pure Evil in Old Street has put on an exhibition of work by Bleach, Zadok and Busk called Pascal's Wager. There's a nice description of the meaning of this title on the Pure Evil site.
The show was dope. So dope in fact that even Bassett hounds turned up for a cup of free ice and a good scratch.
S.Click HQ urges you all to head down there and have a peep, and spend some of your hard earned pennies on stopping Bleach running away to the circus. The show runs until Weds 26th May.
This past few weeks has been a great time for buying fresh music. I've had a real good run of brilliant releases and a great gig.
First up has to be The National.
I managed to end up in a box at the Royal Albert Hall last week with my folks and a very lovely lady and the show was immense. The new album, High Violet came out on monday and was described by the sunday papers as 'a masterpiece'. While i'm not compelled to use quite such epic comparisons to the great albums of all time, this record is fantastic. Boxer was one of my most played albums of the year when it came out and this tidy collection of tunes picks up where that left off. The lyrics are as melancolic as ever, but the songs themselves are slightly more uplifting. I read a recent interview with them which spoke of how REM's Michael Stipe had advised the band 'not to be scared of writing pop songs'. I think they have taken this advice and applied it as much as possible with a few of the tracks being melodic and radio friendly. I'd strongly advise going out and buying this.
Flying Lotus.
Fly-lo's Los Angeles LP blew me away when it came out. Literally blew me away. I've found it a little more difficult to ger into his new record, Cosmogramma, but there are certainly some gems on there. He's become the darling of this sound in the past few years and has a few great collabs on the LP including one with Thom Yorke. The best though has to be Table Tennis featuring Laura Darlington who's vocals are sublime. It's basically the 'Tea Leaf Dancers' of this album. But sadly not as good (as if anything ever could be).
Anyway, try it out, and check out Auntie's Harp too, and ode to a late family member.
Bonobo
Black Sands, the new album from Si Green is dope. Start to finish dope. I've been a fan of Bonobo since his first Ep on Ninja Tune. He's ridden the wave of instrumental hip hop, landing on the beach of mainstream 'trip hop and easy listening' as the music journalism industry lapped up everything 'chill out' before disgarding it just as easily. He now arrives back where he started, making great instrumental music, something that over my years of listening to hip hop, seems to be actually far far harder than many would have you believe.
The stand out track on the album has to be the Andreya Triana song 'The Keeper' but you can go find that yourselves. Instead, lap this one up. On another note, he's also produced an entire LP for Andreya, so be sure to pick that up when it drops this summer.
Lenzman.
My last head nod goes out to Lenzman, in my eyes the best drum and bass producer doing his thing right now. He's steadily growing towards being at the pinnacle of the game and with the amount of amazing music he's putting out right now, it's only a matter of time.
Kasra's Critical Records has just started a sister imprint, Modulations. To launch the fiasco, he's drawn for two gems from Lenzman, and rightly so. 'More than I can take' shows off just how well this producer can craft the use of soul and samples into the drum and bass genre. Subtle and sublime all at once, this hasn't been off my record player since it came out on monday. Each release on Modulations is also a limited 10", so go and grab one and support a great producer, a great label and a great piece of wax.
The second Lenzman tune i HAVE to recommend is 'Open Page' featuring Riya. Riya's a vocalist being used a fair amount within the scene recently and it's obvious why. Together, they have made a beautiful tune, out now on promo from Metalheadz.
Remember everyone, please, if you like the music featured here go and BUY it.
I got a call the other day from a fellow LTD crew member who was real upset about the locking up of such a nice guy. Amuk is a genuinely great person, and all of those who know him well say literally NOTHING but good things about his character.
Ok, so every time an english writer gets jailed, there's normally an 'unfair' outcry aimed at the powers that be, but this time, they have simply got it wrong. To give jail time to someone this creative, thoughful and straight edge for crimes he committed a long time ago seems completely insane to me.
Anyway,
Those of you who have access to his address please make the effort to write. You know the drill, letters will be open and read etc etc but please, lets give him some material to keep his head held high.
Myself and Bizzart opened up the compu the other night to install a new cooling system. Mad to see the inner workings of the beast that basically makes my world go round.
