…………………..Every now and then… not so often… but just every now and then I hear something cool. Something so cool, that I stop whatever I’m doing and check it out. Being fortunate enough to be surrounded by music, musicians, and artists of all types on a daily basis, I begin to develop a shell that makes it hard for another song to break it. The Erik Truffaz Quartet with NYA is the newest group to smash that shell, and for the last 8 minutes… absolutely no work has been done

Erik Truffaz with NYA – Sigfried

Born in 1960 in Switzerland, Erik Truffaz is a contemporary Jazz trumpeter who combines elements of hip hop, rock, and dance and occasionally partners up with some talented vocalists in order to create his own eclectic mix of down beats & dance music. Writing several albums on Blue Note,  The latest Truffaz release ‘Arkhangelsk’ is a mixture between pop songs, french songs, and jazz grooves like the one seen above in the video that stole 8 minutes from me.

A smoothness that’s hard to put into words, however the quasi-english chat that you’ll find on the youtube clip for ‘Sigfried’ made me laugh with the question “The musical background is perfect to have sex on it……… no?” and answered “It depends on the sex partner, but it certainly is an excellent song”.

Nice one Europe

Erik Truffaz with NYA – Yuri’s Choice

…bs

TICKET GIVEAWAY – Hey peeps, QLD hip hop crew Laneous and The Family Yah are touring around Australia at the moment in support of their upcoming album release for ‘St Ill Regal’. Sydney got their turn last weekend, and from all accounts the tour kicked off with some mad energy from these crazy kids. Next up Laneous and The Family Yah will be hitting Victorian and Queensland fans with a few shows around Melbourne, culminating in their album launch party in Brisbane.

Laneous and The Family Yah - Bubblegum

Laneous explains ” ‘St. Ill Regal’ was recorded with Brissie Buzz Man Peet G @ Psi Fi Studios throughout 2008, the 17 track slammer features a whole flock of extended Family Yah members including MC’s, an 8 piece string section, Nepalese Table Master and others”.  The album tour looks to boast some talented guests also including LOTEK (UK), Very Good’s own Pataphysics, and New Zealand’s funkiest Olmecha Supreme in QLD with his Soundsystem brothers along for the ride.

Olmecha Supreme – Snowblood

So Laneous has been cool enough to hook up a double pass to the ‘Bar Open’ show in Melbourne with Pataphysics, and the Hi Fi show in Brisbane with Olmecha Supreme for some Very Good readers!  Thank you to Laneous, and to his wicked massive family.

To enter the draw, email your name to vg@verygood.com.au with the name of the gig you want to go to in the subject line and we’ll notify the winners by email on Thursday.

You can check out more from Laneous and The Family Sly, and get full details of the performances at:

www.myspace.com/lachlaneous

…bs

DJ Shadow speaks up!
Legendary DJ and producer, DJ Shadow, has emerged from hiding to release a personal message to his fans in the hip hop community. Leader of the instrumental hip hop revolution, Shadow has been largely absent since touring with Cut Chemist on The Hard Sell tour last year. The release of his debut album “Endtroducing…..” back in ‘96 saw the beginnings of a movement in instrumental hip hop. Ahead of its time maybe, “Entroducing….” still sounds just as good 13 years later (isn’t that amazing, 13 years!). When it was released it entered The Guiness Book of World Records as the “First Completely Sampled Album”. Relying primarily on a combination of sampled funk, hip hop and film score, Shadow’s innovative sample arrangements influenced countless producers and musicians. In recent years, artists such as RJD2, Madlib, and Blockhead have garnered critical acclaim with a number quality of instrumental hip hop albums.
Anyway, enough from me, here’s what Shadow has to say (released on his site www.djshadow.com):

Hello, everyone, and Happy 2009. It has been quite a long time since anyone has heard from me, so I thought I would bring you all up to date.

To cut to the chase, this is going to be an interesting year in DJ Shadow-land. As some of my longer-term followers have probably observed, long bouts of silence usually signal changes on the horizon. That’s because I am ‘head down,’ focusing on the tasks at hand and laying a strong foundation to build on over time. There are some things brewing that I’m not at liberty to reveal yet, but that are exciting and very different for me. More about that soon; keep watching this space. But in the meantime…

….Yes, I am working on new music. It is way too early in the day to discuss what it will sound like or when it will come out, but I feel I owe everyone at least that much information; work has begun. Probably the only thing I can promise is that as always, it will sound different from the last one…oh, and that everyone will undoubtedly hate it until two years after the fact. (Let the backlash to the backlash of the backlash BEGIN!!! haha, err…ha)

DJ Shadow – Organ Donor

My touring cycle is generally over, so it will be awhile before most of you will see me live. This is all part of the normal process of exchanging studio life for road life, and vice versa. Both are important, but 2 and 1/2 years touring was enough to buy me some quality time in the lab. That’s not to say that there won’t be ANY shows this year, just that they will be few and generally unique to my “live” stage show. In other words, if it sounds different and fun, I might not be able to resist.

Ok, also, this site is about to undergo MAJOR reconstruction. We’re still a couple of months away from relaunch, but when it happens…get ready for some shit. Forget everything you’ve ever thought about what a DJ Shadow site could or should consist of…if we pull it off, I promise you, you’re going to be pleased. I’ll leave it at that for now, in case something happens and it all falls to pieces. Just know that I’m genuinely excited about the future.

I think that’s a good thought to end on…as always, thank you for your support, your honesty, your patronage, your ears; and your time, for reading this.

Humbly,
DJ Shadow

Hmmmm sounds intriguing!

Check out some Shadow at:
www.myspace.com/djshadow
www.djshadow.com

Cracked…

Get ready to party! No strangers to Australia, regular party-starters and mixtape masters, The Nextmen, are returning to our shores for a series of gigs across Australia and New Zealand in April and May. With their reputation of stomping live shows, pristine track selection and turntable tricks to boot, you can be sure they’ll have you waving your hands in the air like you just don’t care.

The Nextmen are UK song writing/producing hip hop DJ’s Dom Search (aka Dominic Betmead) and Brad Baloo (aka Brad Ellis). They’ve become known for their dope remixes and awesome two-man four-turntable live shows where the tunes range from hip hop to drum and bass, funk to breaks, reggae to soul and everything in between. As usual, they will be accompanied by an MC, and one of the UK’s finest at that in MC Wrec.

If you’ve ever listened to any of The Nextmen’s mix albums such as ‘Moving Amongst the Madness’, ‘Listen and Lose’ and ‘Not the Nextmen’, then you’ll be well aware of the kind of party atmosphere they’re going to bring. If you haven’t heard them before, do yourself a favour and get over to their myspace now and listen to their “Annie Mac Mini Mix”, a frenetic head-nodding mix of everything from Fat Freddys Drop to Jurassic 5 to Dizzee Rascal, including a couple of classic Nextmen remixes, that’ll give you a small taste of what to expect. Better yet, cop any of the albums above for a real good insight in to the Nextmen madness; all of their albums are sure to have you nodding your head in no time.

The Nextmen ft Zarif – Something Got You

Tickets to the Melbourne gig are a bargain at $20 presale, so pick one up today before they’re all gone, this will be a night filled of dancefloor killing bangers and tight rhymes from some of the best in the business, not to be missed!

The Nextmen on tour in April and May:
17th April – Coherent & Ink Bar Auckland
18th April – Summerset @ Basin Reserve Wellington
19th April – Groove is in the park Adelaide
23rd April – Transit Bar Canberra
24th April – Roxanne Parlour Melbourne,
25th April – Halo Hobart, Tasmania
26th April – Villa Perth, Western Australia
1st May – Oxford Art Factory Sydney
2nd May – Groovin’ The Moo Townsville
2nd May – Shifty Beats @ Empire Hotel Brisbane

You can check out more of The Nextmen at:

www.myspace.com/thenextmen

Cracked…

Your going to check out a gig on a Friday night yeah? so you go to a friends place for a few drinks, spin some records, chill out, and set the mood before arriving at the gig. Well last Friday night the gig was O.G. and MC Switch, TZU, and Illzilla, the freinds house was Kate (whats up Kate), and the record she was spinning  was Foreign Beggars. I’m feeling a little lazy this week after what turned out to be an awesome weekend so to quote directly from their homepage, Foreign Beggars are… “Voted ‘Best Group’ and winners of “Best single” at the Lyric Pad Hip hop awards 2005, Foreign Beggars are a 5 man crew comprising of rappers Orifice Vulgatron and Metropolis, Dj NoNames, Beat Boxer Shlomo and Producer Dag Nabbit. The crew have released a slew of 12″s and Ep’s and really made their mark after independently releasing their critically acclaimed, debut LP ‘Asylum Speakers’.  Foreign Beggars have collaborated and toured with the cream of UK’s Hip Hop movement, with Shlomo appearing on Bjork’s album ‘Medulla’ and NoNames having done cuts for Damon Albarn’s Gorillaz project. With forthcoming projects with Dj Sparo, Dj Vadim, Dudley Perkins, WildChild (Lootpack), OHNO, Dj IQ, Dj Mentat, Scratch Perverts and Euphrates, the crew see no boundaries with diversifying their sound. Foreign Beggars are also renowned for their explosive live performances, which recently saw them tear down Glastonbury, Fabric and Hip Hop Kemp in Prague. They have supported Public Enemy, Roots Manuva, Beatnuts, Masta Ace, Grand Master Flash, Talib Kweli, Wu Tang, Asian Dub Foundation, Last Emperor, Mark Ronson, Ja Rule, Blak Twang and many more.

Foreign Beggars – Frosted Perspeks

I hadn’t heard Foreign Beggars in a long time now so bringing back their party style upbeats and tongue twisting rap style has been most welcome in my headphones and office / bedroom. With a fairly limited contribution to the Hip Hop scene in the last few years (obvious exceptions in Tricky, Roots Manuva, and Floetry), the English accent and subject matter always stays fresh and interesting for me. They manage to have their own slice of life feel about the rap that is backed up by their simple hometown video clips that add that reality based edge they continuously deliver throughout their albums. With the string of collaborations they are working on over the next year also, it’s going to be a trip to see what they come up with next.

Special thanks goes out to Kate, O.G. , MC Switch, TZU, Ilzilla, Foreign Beggars, and Whiskey for a sweet weekend.
You can check out more of Foreign Beggars at:

www.myspace.com/foreignbeggars

www.foreignbeggars.com

…bs

If you’ve ever been somewhere unfamiliar, heard a twisted, futuristic, hyper-produced, soulful blend of hip hop & breaks and wondered what the fuck it was (and maybe where you could get a copy)… chances are it was Prefuse 73 currently on the label – Warp. That’s how I stumbled across them several years ago when my brother had “One Word Extinguisher” on high rotation, and now that new album “Preparations” has been released October 15, I can only wonder what the future holds today.

Hailing from Barcelona, Prefuse is now based in New York (much to his dismay) as so many musicians do, to be within cab fare of many of the artists he works with including Beans, GZA, and Diverse to name a few of my favourites. While Prefuse 73 is a producer, and ‘One Word Extinguisher’ was in the most part, an instrumental album, it featured a smattering on eclectic emcee’s, beatboxers, and varying vocalists, that somehow managed to latch onto the strange and fluctuating emotions carried in this epic ‘masterpiece’ Prefuse had created.

In an interview on www.drownedinsound.com , Scott Herren, a.k.a Prefuse 73, seemed extremely dissillusioned with the industry, and especially touring going as far as to say:

“If it was up to me, I wouldn’t tour at all, and just play one-offs and festivals that seem cool, or shows with my friends that’d be like family reunions.” His eyes roll, fingers clench; he’s visibly distressed at the prospect of his upcoming US dates. “Playing night after night, senseless shows in the US in the middle of Bumfuck Nowhere with five people in the audience… to sell three more records? What’s the point? Get in your car, drive to the next biggest city. I only asked to play five shows this time in the US. I’ve ended up with 30. After here I tour the US straight away, and from there it’s Japan and Australia… and I have a son to take care of. His mother’s in a band too, on tour with Blonde Redhead, so things are getting tight. Nobody’s listening to me though, and someone needs to listen to me before I put my foot down and cancel shows. I don’t want to do that, but does anyone in the office want to take care of my kid for a month? Of course not. It’s not their responsibility, but it’s definitely mine, and I want to be a good father. I am way more concerned with my son than being a musician and putting out a good record.”

Prefuse 73 w. School of Seven Bells – The Class of 73 Bells

“I do insist on good hotels. That’s my one rock star bad habit. I tour for no money – I usually go on tour to comply with Warp’s wishes, and to make them happy, and to promote the record and make fans happy – but I don’t want to be in any shitholes. Put me in a bling hotel, and I’m gonna be happy. I want to wake up and feel good in the morning, ‘cause you can feel shit on tour. For me that’s worth it. People are like, ‘Yo man, that’s stupid – you’re not gonna come home with any money’. But I don’t want to make money this way – I don’t want to make money as an entertainer. I am a musician, and a producer – I’m not a clown, and if I tour it’s because someone asked me to, not ‘cause I have to go tour.

From the music I have enjoyed by Prefuse 73 over the years, and the awesome reports I have heard of his live shows (with instrumentation as opposed to DJ sets), I’m confident this album is worth checking out, and will most probably get plenty of play in my car and over dinner as ‘One Word Extinguisher’ did at my pad.

From my experience in the music industry working with artists, musicians, and on tours however… his outlook on the relationship between releasing music and touring is so far out of whack with any logic, especially given his constant references to earning money to raise his child being a priority, that it could just be that this eccentric dude is as crazy as his beats.

either way… check it out for sure:

www.myspace.com/prefusion1973

www.prefuse73.com

…bs

and thanks to www.drownedinsound.com for an interesting interview.