rhythm

Three of the best dubstep tunes I’ve heard recently, from Ramadanman aka Pearson Sound, 2562 and Scottish troupe Mungos Hifi.

Last time we checked Xploding Plastix their music was a crossbreed of nujazz/downtempo and electronic music. That I guess was their excellent 2001 album “Amateur Girlfriends Go Proskirt Agents“. After 7 years, a trip to a major label, collaborating with the likes of Kronos Quartet, the Norwegians are back.

Remember Clutchy Hopkins, the so called mysterious beat digger from Midwest?. Ubiquity has released an exciting new collabo between C.H and Britain’s exotic kookhead Shawn Lee.

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.

Here’s an album that I’m sure some of you already know. The Jewish American guitarist Marc Ribot, an important figure from downtown NYC and the John Zorn inner circle, and guitar player for rock giants like Tom Waits and Elvis Costello, was the leader of the successful but now defunct latino band “The Prostethetic Cubans”.

The second part of minimalia covers different sides of the minimal dance spectrum. Whether it’s Kadebostan’s African vocal induced dancer or Efdemin’s lush bell melodies, the thing that makes me identify all as minimal is only the rhythm. The last two tracks are dark and distressing in the way it reminds me of the painstaking late hour low energy dancefloor nights I had a few years ago

California’s Upsilon Acrux may not be as intense as grindcore bands in tempo and noise, but it’s complex oddtimed riffage and polyrhythmic drumming (and silly album names?) is quite correctly labeled as “brutal prog“.

There’s a rising trend in dance music for the last few years, and it’s now safe to say disco is back, at least in Europe, and mostly thanks to re-edits. Of course the nu-disco scene in USA has been flowering for years, with the likes of Metro Area, Daniel Wang & Kelley Polar but re-edits of prog/kraut bands like Alan Parsons Project?