Adventures in hiphop - Mixtape (January 2015)

This time I selected my favourite hiphop tracks into a mixtape that I've listened recently. The tracks are free on SoundCloud or on Bandcamp pages, and of course you can download this mixtape as well, if you're so pervert. Most of the artists are German hiphop producers, there is an Austrian guy (Mono:Massive) and you can see some North American guys too (Marco Polo, Kevin Kool). All of them are great beatmakers.
I know, the mixtape collapses twice - I just couldn't keep it in one piece but I hope, you'll like it anyway. Here it is:

Adventures in hiphop (January 2015) by Jefe on Mixcloud

I also made a playlist of those tracks, so you can download them separately. (Tracks from Hubert Daviz and Mono:Massive are on Bandcamp.)



If you like some of the artists, follow them on social sites or order their music, or just go to a party where they play: Hubert Daviz, Twit One, Fulgeance, Melting Pot Records (for Betty Ford Boys and Carpet Patrol), Melodiesinfonie, T&A Records (for The Rub), Mono:Massive, Darker Than Wax (for Kevin Kool & Phoniks), Figub Brazlevic, Bruce Missile, Bluestaeb, Klaus Layer, Feelin' Music (for S. Fidelity. These guys deserve any supports!


Jefe

The Ruffcats - The Essence vol 2.

If you think Germans can't do a great job in funk, you were mislead. It’s high time for you to know the following name: The Ruffcats.
I mean, if you prefer listenting to real funk music with a lot of hammond and trumpet with tight drums (like The Bamboos [AUS], The Haggis Horns [AUS], The Qualitons [HUN], Dokkerman [HUN]).

I found The Ruffcats on the website of MeltingPot Records which is a German – mostly – hiphop label. (MPR released The BeatPower, a compilation album I wrote on the blog before and they are responsible for Suffy Daddy’s albums too). In this case there isn’t any hiphop but funk music presented by a band. Melting Pot defined The Ruffcats as the best live bands in Germany nowadays. You can order their vinyl and/or digital releases but from some reason they made their The Essence vol.2. album free so you can download it. And by clicking the picture below, you can listen to this album:

I really like those tracks that are sort of skits or just short practices (Und, Dann) because these songs are the most creative parts of the album. You can get uptempo funk music (Ritalin Kid, Betty’s Babies) and also some chilly beach psychedelic funk (Seven of Five). Junkyard Dog starts like a funeral ceremony and then it is evolving more like Tom Waits ballade or a Tarantino-movie soundtrack.

If you want more, follow these guys on SoundCloud or on Facebook.

Jefe

Cooly G – Playin Me (2012)

I read an interview with Cooly G made by Electronic Beats Magazine a few years ago. I don’t know why but Electronic Beats presents that kind of electronic artists that haven’t impressed me at all. They are definitely talented musicians but they just make too similar music to each other. I still think that happy, uptempo music is harder to create than atmospherical, melancholic, downtempo electronic music. It is like the teenagers who usually write sad poets but cheery lines. Or the amateur filmmakers who do the same in film: serious topics, drama after drama, no humour or comedy.

But let’s get back to the artists Electronic Beats features. If I can’t have any personal impressions about/from them I can’t name any of them and never know whose music I listen to. They are almost the same. Of course Cooly G was different for me (otherwise she won’t be on the blog).
You can read her interview in Electronic Beats Magazine.

Cooly G has a label called Hyperdub. The magazine featured Cooly G's roots, her semi-professional football career, and - as a mother of two - how motherhood influences her music. I don't read many interviews but this was great because you could really know her. And that personal thing made her more interesting than the others. As I read the interview I could imagine her making her music. I think her studio could be simple, kind of Spartian but - as you will figure it out from her album -, also very effective.

Cooly G makes more kind of rnb music than electronic. As Electronic Beats wrote: Cooly G’s debut longplayer Playin’ Me (Hyperdub) is the soulful light at the end of dubstep’s long, dark tunnel. (2012)  It is also dub with a lot echoes and delays, piano, high percussion (Come Into My Room).
The instrumentals sometimes are made of quite broken beats, almost avant-garde or experimental for me (Is It Gone). Beside this the whole album has a constant flow, and I couldn’t find big, definite peaks in the tracks. While I was listening to the album Playin me I often thought „there will be the climax, a peak soon” (e.g. He Said I Said), but in the end the tracks just ended. Anyway the whole stuff is easy to listen and easy to love.

If you like underground rnb and dub(step), try Cooly G. All you can get is no theatric themes or huge solutions in music, but a very cosy atmosphere.

Find Cooly G on Facebook, on SoundCloud or on Spotify.

Jefe