Heroes of 2011: Number 11

Label of the year for me has to have released only 100% hits. This year with two eps from label boss Semtek and the first release by Northern By Nature favourite Mr Beatnick in over a year, Don't Be Afraid are the deserving receprecants.

Not only were they producing some amazing material themselves, their choices of remixers; BNJMN, Architeq, Photonz and DJ 3000, plus they are great djs and deep diggers right across the board and just generally nice guys. Sickening isn't it?

Semtek - Pizza (DJ 3000 Remix)
Mr Beatnick - Sythetes

Mr Beatnick VS Semtek : DBA Launch Mix by Don't Be Afraid on Mixcloud

Heroes of 2011: Number 16

Radio station of 2011 for me has been NTS Live which began broadcasting earlier this year. Within under 12 months they have built up a great line up but my particular favourites are New Jerusalm with Alex Chase, Bullion and Mr Beatnick, Charlie Dark's School Of Dark and Tristian BpM's breakfast shows. Check some of those shows below.


The New Jerusalem-2011-10-11-20:00:00.mp3 by NTS RADIO. Uploaded with Airtime


The New Jerusalem w Bullion & Young Turks 28.06 by NTS RADIO. Uploaded with Scup

School of Dark-2011-11-03-14:00:00.mp3 by NTS RADIO. Uploaded with Airtime

School Of Dark 2011-10-06-14:00:00.mp3 by NTS RADIO. Uploaded with Airtime

2011-11-01-20_00_00.mp3 by NTS RADIO. Uploaded with Scup


2011-11-23-09_00_00.mp3 by NTS RADIO. Uploaded with Scup

http://ntslive.co.uk/

Newsround

Just a little round up of some stuff I've liked over the past month or so


First up Mixcloud


Blck

Thank Faç its Friday by Black Classical on Mixcloud

In-som-nia... by Black Classical on Mixcloud

RIP Gill Scott Heron by Black Classical on Mixcloud

And for Blck's other Gil Scott-Heron meets Sun Ra tribute mix http://t.co/s4HuMXu


Seja Heroi has also dropped a nice little mix from this week's show including a bit of a GSH tribute.

The Cannibalist Manifesto #007 - Black Bombs Blasting Out (RIP Gil Scott-Heron) by Space Invader Radio on Mixcloud

You can listen to these and more (including my stuff if you are mental) on Mixcloud's new Iphone app.


http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mixcloud/id401206431?mt=8&ls=1


One of my all time favourite magazines, Muzik, has put the entire contents up as pdfs so you can go and find out what Sasha was playing in '96. My kind of fun filled afternoon. 


http://www.muzikmagazine.co.uk/


Shook magazine has sadly ended it's print form but they are still putting up some quality stuff online including this recent mix by Bnjmn


http://www.shook.fm/content/2011/05/bnjmn/


who was also interviewed by German techno magazine de-bug


http://de-bug.de/mag/8295.html


Check Ben's mix of Mr Beatnick's forthcoming release on Don't Be Afraid



Mr Beatnick - Casio Romance (BNJMN remix) by factmag


Ben UFO's Boiler Room started a spin-off series of mixes kicking off with this belting mix of classic d'n'b of the mid '90s.


http://boilerroom.tv/nothing-new-001-ben-ufo-never-went-to-blue-note/


WrongTom has started a blog with some great tales and gems from the post punk / dub reggae scene: Skank Blog Bologna


http://skankblogbologna.wordpress.com/about/


Passionweiss blog ran a great piece on 30 classic hip hop demos (with links - there goes your afternoon)


http://passionweiss.com/2011/05/02/the-30-greatest-hip-hop-demos-now-in-zip-form/


Charlie Dark put up a great video of a brief history of his Run Dem Crew and old Attica Blues days. Can't wait for part 2.





Charlie also linked to these other videos recently, the first is pure poetry, the second is about homelessness from the perspective of the children.



DARK SIDE OF THE LENS from Astray Films on Vimeo.



Sofa Surfers from walshbros on Vimeo.


Ghostpoet + Koreless = WIN for me.


 
Ghostpoet - Survive It (Koreless Remix) by ghostpoet


This tweet from Bake of All caps has got me very excited at the prospect of finally being about to check his music on wax.


http://twitter.com/#!/BAKEGLA/status/76043138283741185


Blawan has dropped a classic here. Sampling Brandy might seem like an idea everyone is doing at the moment but this one really rises above the rest. One of my favourite tracks of the year already I think.


http://yourstru.ly/2011/06/02/mp3-blawan-i-wanna-be-down/


On Bandcamp there is some interesting stuff including some nice freebies.


Mo Kolours debut on One Handed Music 





Stac's remixes by Blue Daisy and Kidkanevil amongst others





Tommy Tempa







Sleeparchive







Zoom Lens including a new track by Svpreme Fiend





And did I mention Bandshell had a new ep on teaandcakerecords?

Don’t Be Afraid

A little follow up to yesterday's post of the Semtek Space Invader Mix, today comes the promo's for his label's next two releases. Don't Be Afraid.


Semtek delivers another quality techno / house / acid production to add to his growing catalogue of gems but it is his choice of remixers which always particularly interest me. He always seems to get great people in to work with, such as Mr G and Mr Beatnick, and with Portugal's Photonz he delivers once again.


 
DBA004 Semtek - West Acyd Shelter EP (W / Photonz Remix) by Semtek


Mr Beatnick had been a bit quiet of late with just a couple of remixes released in the last year so The Synthetes EP is a very welcomed return.  Check a rip of the title track below. On first listen it appears to be a bit of a departure from his usual beats sound to a more house / disco influenced, string laden vibe, but just watch out for the drop. Heavy.


Finally, Beatnick's debut show on NTS radio starts tonight, 8-10pm, and is obviously going to be essential listening. http://www.ntslive.co.uk/


 
Synthetes - ripped off BBC Radio 1 Gilles Peterson show by mrbeatnick


To launch the releases, the label is taking over Visions Video Bar, Dalston on Friday 27th May with both Semtek and Mr Beatnick being joined by the remixers on each of their tracks; Photonz and Architeq and One Handed Music's Paul White, Bullion and Alex Chase. Tickets

Happy birthday to Mr Beatnick!

Happy birthday to Mr Beatnick! Today he did a Wiley and gave away a stack of unreleased (and some released) tracks in some sort of a reverse birthday gift to the world. Grab them here. For a little more stuff, check out again NBN's Heroes of '09 post.

So to chose a track for the day. Well I know Nick is a big fan of jungle and old hip hop so to combine these two loves it has to be something by The Jungle Brothers - no not that d'n'b remix because thats a bit crap in comparison to the original.

Download: The Jungle Brothers - Jimbrowski http://www.mediafire.com/?jzzfgut0zngyflu

2009 Record of the year 2 : Heroes of the year

2. Mr Beatnick

I've been a big fan of this guy for a couple of years now, firstly from his writing on the Brownswood site and more recently for Shook magazine - he is a self proclaimed archiologist of sound. This passion for digging out the lost and unknown was manifested in a series of classic mixes of jazz and library cuts on his Shhhhh site.

As a producer he has been responsible for a couple of the wonky / broken anthems - 'I Know All The Bitches' and the 'What's Going On?' edit. This year has seen more of his productions / remixes released including one of my records of the year, 'Walk' by Jungle Drums. The second track I've picked came through his twitter page where he slipped out a couple of exclusive edits earlier in the year. 

However what I really want to focus on is how he is pushing forward his dj sets. Since the summer, he was (to me) one of the pioneers of using his UStream site to throw down some random and irregular sets. Highlights have been the day he bought a huge collection of old jungle records and rinsed them one Saturday afternoon or the time he was spinning and Dobie came on chatting. Nick invited him round to play a few tunes of his own and within an  hour they were back-to-back playing classic disco breaks. 

A short clip of the session can be found here:

As a short introduction to his style, I can also highly recommend his mix for Mary Anne Hobbs from August.

 

Mr Beatnick - Mary Anne Hobbs Mix by mrbeatnick

Ustream: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/moog-madness

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/mrbeatnick

Twitter: http://twitter.com/MrBeatnick

Download: Jungle Drums feat Ahu - Walk (Mr Beatnick Remix) 
Phat Kat - Lovely (Mr Beatnick I love Melanie Edit)