– Never Forget, Always in our hearts-

[RECORD OF THE WEEK] EL MAHDY JR – GHOST TAPES (Discrepant)

Last March, Mehdi was invited at the University of the Arts in Helsinki to perform his new piece Ghost Tapes alongside Maja Rezoug’s Super 8 films collages. Let me be clear here: we’re not talking about digital films, treated with Super 8 filters à la Instagram style… We are talking about the real deal: Films.
Those who “Kill the nazis” remember?
Cissors, cuts, tapes, overexposure, textures and all what analog materials and equipment allows you to do. And this is very important to mention here: Sounds & Images’ collages were forming a unique experience not only around El Mahdy’ universe, but a true symbiosis between eyes, hears & contemporary soundscapes reflecting the fucked up situations & their ghosts we all can end up into or witness every, single, day.
Who is famliliar with his works & his unique #FuckedUpPlaces leitmotiv will surely understand what i mean here, for those who just took the train i suggest you to go back to his more than acclaimed first LP on Boomarm Nation.
Defining what and why makes his music so hypnotic & heavy, so grindy & transcendental, almost meditative sometimes but always surprising & changing, at the image of Dunes’s physics: unpredictable, inescapable & bloody beautiful, is a true challenge. Maybe it will sounds naïve & easy to say, but when coming to El Mahdy Jr’s music, it speaks for itself. While some producers forces themselves to “make” music everyday to get a good tune once in a while, it seems like a vital need for him to illustrate musically his visions & opinions. A kind of a therapy.
Nothing from the performance at Uniarts has been recorded (at least shared) and hopefully one day you’ll have a chance to experience it. For now, and thanks to London based label Discrepant, Ghost Tapes “soundtrack” (lets call it this way), is available today on Black Vinyl, cut & mastered by Rashad Becker @ D&M. Its maybe called Ghost Tapes, but its not a tape, AND you must not worry cause Sides have been respected. 2 Sides on a tape are still 2 Sides on a plate.
Mehdi sent me Ghost Tapes a couple of months back, so today is the release date and im gonna listen to it all the way again to write with my own words how i feel about it. Meanwhile, please listen to the promo edit below.

Ghost Tapes is a transmission. From an artist to an audience, and the whole composition is an intricate test to catch the right frequency. One to express himself trying to match the one to transmit. Field recordings have always been a major component of his works, and even if not much were present in what you heard,  he never stopped to record everything he could. By any means necessary. The result in Ghost Tapes makes so much more sense than in any of his past works, that is like you are directly plugged to his Hi-Fi, a little window to a man’s universe. Echoes dancing with textures, slowed speeches rhyming with his unique drums & the acquaintance with the Bristol based collective Young Echo makes even more sense. Not a surprise if they already worked together on the immense ‘They Come For You’ with the duo Jabu.
More will come from the artist, and one thing is sure: it will take you time to digest this record, you will always come back to it. Chasing your own ghosts because Nothing is clean, the music is organic. And organic is…Life:

“Time of the heart secret…Natural order of the World”

Release date: 14th August 2015

The haunting collages of El Mahdy Jr come to discrepant with the appropriately named Ghost Tapes LP. Ghost Tapes goes deeper into El Mahdy’s very own personal sonic space, in the artist’s words:
”Ghost Tapes is a composition of everyday fragments based on found tapes, field recordings, beats and radio frequencies. A ruff attempt of interpreting the cultural ghost that surrounds the field and makes the difference between place and space.”
El Mahdy Jr, 2015

Mastered and cut by Rashad Becker @ D&M
Pressed at Optimal
500 units, black vinyl

PURCHASE HERE

[RECORD OF THE WEEK] Sebastian Paul – The Messiah Complex

Once again,it has been a distant past where I found it impossible to unravel a real musical gem due to the amount of things one can listen to, watch or read about. Honestly, I have to admit that blogging has been far away from my mind since everyone is connected to the same music networks these days.Let`s call it the “gentrification” of music.

On one hand,it is the evolution of discovering new music.On the other hand,listening to what we want cause’ its just there: be it on youtube,wherever streaming is possible or despite the quality of the music and the sound is.

In the landscape where everyone is a f*ing DJ,collecting music in any forms of the sake of collecting,everyone is a maestro, everyone saw everything, listened everything, know everything. And if you dont know you still can pretend to go pee and watch your smartphone for an answer u missed while talking. To this very day,I listen to a shitloads of music and unfortunately or fortunately,I still buy records.

 “I know”

I hear this shit all the time. So yeah im here alone writing about this fantastic record i bumped into.

The tune on is called LIFE IS A KILLER. And its like 16Bit eated Zackey Force Funk for breakfast and shit him like a mutant speaking Eprom. The release is rough, some stuffs reminded me the early Blue Daisy compositions i cherish, some would just fit perfect in any GLK voodoo dance, some you can make love with a billion times in a night…
Who is Sebastian Paul? A vocalist, producer, songwriter based in Los Angeles according to the only infos available.
Again? A beat producer from L.A.?

Yes its from Cali it smooth, funky and shrooms are flying.

How long have i not paid for a digital release on Bandcamp?
So many excel sheets or references i never bought cause u have simply no time and no rest for your mind.

Anyway.

Get to the link, click, listen

Enjoy it until it comes out from your worst enemy’s mouth.

 Its free its loud its funky

and scary

and poetic

and makes me super horny

[VIDEO] EL MAHDY JR LIVE IN MILANO (SAVANA#MASH) ‬

VIA URSSS

[DOWNLOAD] Jeremiah Jae – Good Times (Mixtape)

This might not popped out yet around big websites and all, but i gotta spread the word about this new mixtape by JaeR (one of the most talented cats on this planet….even tho’ im sure he has a clone….as you look at this AMAZING amount of AMAZING music he put out…)
Anywayhere it is, quite unexpected, but when u follow the man, it’s not really a surprise..

Taking inspiration and its title from the ’70s TV sitcom set in a Chicago housing project, Good Times features Black Jungle Squad regulars Oliver the 2nd, Tre, Isreal and additional production help from Oliver the 2nd, Lord Raja and Stones Throw labelmates Jonwayne and Knxwledge.

Don’t worry this is available right now, and for nothing else in exchange than a click or maybe if you care about spreading good word, a share on your social network? or / and maybe write him what you think at his twitter? or send a space pigeon to deliver some obscure 7″ u found at your mom’s cave? (ever heard about Konducta in India story?
Well maybe another time…)

GRAB THE TAPE HERE