Atlanta hip-hop has never been short on variety, and its latest offspring, Collective Efforts, only adds another shade to the city’s expansive palette of sounds. With their R&B-styled hooks, harmonious flows, and smooth beats, these MCs could easily pass for crooners. But it’s not love ballads that they’re laying down; with their “medicinal” music, they’re out to heal the souls of listeners living in troubled times. The CE crew isn’t likely to appeal to every hip-hop head, but their soothing new album further proves that you never quite know what will come out of ATL next.
Various Artists Unruly Club Classics Volume 3
Lyn Collins’ soul hit “Think (About It)” is to Baltimore club music what the amen break is to drum & bass. If you didn’t know that-or if your introduction to the ghetto-tech-like beats of Bmore club came via the Hollertronix crew’s “discovery” of the style and Spank Rock‘s ascension-you’ve been hoodwinked. This 13-track set is an archaeological dig of some of Charm City’s staple club trax, which have been tearing up the club for over a decade now. If you’re still dumbfounded, and the names “Hammerjacks” and “Paradox” don’t ring with familiarity, the DJ Scottie B mix disc is good for what ails ya.
Cancer Rising Search For The Cure
West Coast hip-hop strikes back! Well, upper-upper West Coast, that is. Straight-outta-Seattle heavy spitters Gatsby (son of legendary producer Larry Mizell) and Judas, together with DJ TilesOne, form the Voltron robot of Cancer Rising. Ripping through 13 cuts of caustic MPC-meets-live-instrumentation hip-hop, the trio brings the brouhaha with a searing amalgam that conjures vibes of Jurassic 5, Dujeous, Blackalicious, and Eminem. Note to all the non-believers: Check the ruff ‘n’ rugged tag-team jawn ” Check.” Seattle is on the come up, fa’ sho!
Voom Voom Peng Peng
As collaborations go, it seems unlikely that any is more democratic than Voom Voom, the joint effort (pun intended) of Peter Kruder, Christian Prommer, and Roland Appel. With the warm, electro-jazz glow of Trüby Trio and the laid-back, stoned-and-throned kingdom of Kruder & Dorfmeister set against Fauna Flash’s energy and drive, Peng Peng is an album out of time and place. Future-retro-ist? With tracks perfect for Manchester ’88 (“Roger”), Berlin ’06 (“Keep the Drums Out”), or anyplace, any year, 4 a.m. (“Sao Verought”), that just may be the case. Electronic albums equally fitted for the dancefloor and drive home come rarely; Peng Peng covers both in the same track.
Various Artists Bay Area Funk 2
Sometimes it seems as if rare funk weren’t a limited-supply fossil fuel, but something that appears whenever Ubiquity subsidiary Luv N’ Haight snaps its crate-digging fingers. How else could the world have previously missed out on pre-ConFunkShun band Project Soul’s party groove “Ebony,” or Northern soul diva Mary Love’s chunk of funk “Born to Live With Heartache?” To be cherished above all others, however, is San Francisco T.K.O.’s driving soul-funk drug-ode workout, “Acid Lady”-worth the price of admission alone, and making this one of the funk comps in a year that will certainly see more than its fair share.
Various Artists Fabric 27: Matthew Dear as Audion
In Matthew Dear’s hands, every record is deconstructed to an elemental status: Bubbling water, crackling flame, resonating stone, rushing wind. For his alter-ego Audion’s Fabric mix, Dear claims he attempted to recreate the winding corridors and conflicting sounds of a multi-room party at the London club-and he’s succeeded with aplomb. Tracks don’t so much mix in as approach the disc in a sort of Doppler plod, and by the time Seth Troxler’s bad-trip “Backclap” gives way to Ricardo Villalobos’ “Chromosul,” even the brightest afternoon will have you punching cab-company numbers into your mobile in a happy daze. Fabric 27 is one of the most original mixes of late, and a must-have for Dear fans and fans-to-be alike.
Various Artists Nickodemus and Mariano Present Turntables On The Hudson Vol. 6 (Remix)
Nickodemus and Mariano’s riverside soirée has always been a community affair. Hoisted upon the sails of a converted tugboat, TOTH has been New York’s top Friday night hang for six years. To celebrate, a host of friends contribute remixes of tracks from the first five editions of this compilation series. Regular guest DJ Sabo drops a bangin’, bass-loaded intro entitled “Sixtro” with TOTH percussionist Nappy G behind the mic and timbales. Local dubsters Beat Pharmacy refreak “Jump” while Dublex Inc. tweaks the already stellar “Free Souls.” Latin and Middle Eastern vibes abound; Candela All-Stars find themselves in good hands with Matthias Heilbron, and Nicko joins Matt Stein on “Faruk’s Funk,” a killer slice of Arabica from legendary ney player Omar Faruk Tekbilek. Chillfreeze and Radio Mundial’s Jean Shepherd round out this impressive roster. By the closing track, “The Circle” (Zeb’s throbbing mantra touched up by Jugoe), this stereo journey proves as danceable and personal as the party itself.
MC Rai Raivolution
Where Algerian street music meets hip-hop, raî emerges. As likely to be heard in Algiers as in urban Paris, the style-and its young practitioners like Faudel and Sawt-el Atlas-borrows rap’s rhythmic beat structure in a contemporary headnod to the work of singers Khaled and Rachid Taha. What MC Rai holds over all of them is the focus on seriously skilled production and driving low-end. Raivolution is an intense homage to Arabic folk with shards of dancehall, hip-hop, and occasional flourishes of rock. The merging of string sections and darbuka in such loaded beats-capped off by Rai’s supremely intense vocals-points toward new musical directions in North Africa.
DJ Kiva Featuring Anthony Mills Interboro Tectonics
In dedication to the Brooklyn streets he canvasses daily, Kiva dubbed his sound StuttaStep to showcase the many global influences in this here Babylon (even his studio name, Adios Babylon, pays respect). Heavily focused on broken beat and D&B, with flavorful bass and head nods to reggae and Afro-Cuban rhythms, Interboro Tectonics plays more like a compilation of several artists merging and building a warehouse of sound. Vocalist Anthony Mills, still rolling from his gorgeous Ghettotrance release, gives this industrious exploration a welcome touch of soul. Just as his hometown streets are boundless, Kiva is equally limitless in his futuristic laboratory experiments.
Various Artists Pop Ambient 2006
It‘s hard to go wrong with Kompakt’s annual offering of selected ambient works-especially if you last dug the genre during FSOL’s Lifeforms era. Catch up with luminaries Ulf Lohmann (here with the hypnotic hum of “Burning Bright”) and The Orb, and relative newcomers like Tetsuo Sakae’s and Mayuchi‘s Pass Into Silence project, whose “Iceblink” unfolds like a first wondrous gasp on E. The CD’s three additional songs-notably Klimek’s “Gymnopedie #1,” with its mellifluous harp-are essential, but all tracks beg LP-style slow listening. Guitars and strings float un-tethered throughout, supplying enough “pop” to please both new romantics and the quasi-conscious.
