french

Talking about Jazz Liberatorz without going into a long rant about the world of bling & how despicable the “MTV/Cribs/Industry rappers” troupe are, seems impossible as the roots of hip-hop have been hijacked by the industry and turned into a simulacra of what it originally meant in the last decade.

Taking Konono No. 1’s emergent punk aesthetic and making the likembe power more easily digestable for the urban youth is actually something we’d rather be opposing but CongopunQ has done it right.

Bastien might be the world’s quirkiest tinkerer with an army of mechanic robots whirring and whizzing to create an authentic sonic scent. His newest work, a collection of pieces which he composed for filmmaker Karel Doing is released with the apt title “Visions of Doing” on Western Vinyl.

After all these years, I know that the blogosphere doesn’t have an attention span of more than a few days so whatever you present should either be shit hot or totally vintage, effectively rendering albums from say, 2006 out of sight. Today we make an exception for Eglantine Gouzy a lesser known bedroom pop artist from Paris.

These days the French seem to be enjoying themselves more than the rest of Europe. Fueled by booze, disco revival, fashion and more booze, Paris nights have taken the standard from drugcrazed Berlin and its selfobsessed minimal house/techno. French duo Nôze have even bigger aspirations like putting fun back into minimal house?!?.

A few weeks ago I’ve been contacted by Pierrick from Distile Records, an up and coming Paris/NY label focusing on instrumental/noise/math rock. I listened to one of their bands,SWIMS and right away the amazing Claypoolesque bass-tapping hit me. After listening to most of the label back-catalogue, I’m amazed with the quality of their roster.

Taking its name from the forefather of Russian avantgarde painting, France’s Kandinsky is a guitars and drums duo that’ll make him proud. Last year I’ve listened to their “tRASKOMI eLCAÄST” MCD – don’t ask me what that means – which is a 25 minute piece cut into 9 movements.

15 Battles – Mirrored (Warp Records) : Everybody’s been talking about “Mirrored” this year, and they kind of deserve it for getting their oddtimed dissonant music to find strange acclaim from mainstream circles as well as mathheads.
14 Deejay OM – Reheated Naan and Curry (Galapagos4) : A fine hybrid of Indian samples mixed with beats. Somehow liked it much more than Madlib’s take. Past