If Soma label chiefs and tech-house producers Stuart McMillan and Orde Meikle ever had a wet dream for their musical successor, the often-dubbed “producer‘s producer,” Alex Smoke is it. Smoke fits snugly as the missing piece of McMillan and Meikle‘s family puzzle, particularly as a next-generation Slam (McMillan and Meikle‘s well-minted production name). Like Slam, Smoke‘s winds his techno and tech-house into tight, minimalistic funk. But Smoke‘s pieces also play with rougher elements like glitch (“Brian‘s Lung”) and experimental noise, slicing up his sweeping trance overtones. Check “Passing Through” to marvel at how organic a simple blip can sound.
The Cars Are The Stars Fragments
It‘s always interesting when indie rock bands try their hand at ambient atmospheric. France‘s The Cars Are Stars-formerly known as Playdoh, but Hasbro shut that down-offers one of those efforts. Most of Fragments is dreamy as hell; some pieces, like “Ardor,” are stunning in their fastidious attention to the tiniest sonic detail (check the barely-audible scraping sounds). Unfortunately, the chunky vocal tracks are less engaging. Nostalgia flows freely on this album, and it does its work: Fragments makes you long for a place you‘ve been-or maybe somewhere that you haven‘t been yet.
A Race Of Angels Broadcast No. 1
Peace, love, and soul from a slightly mysterious collective channeling Motown, folk, and just a dash of Soul II Soul. Deliciously uplifting, all songs (barring the intro number) are driven by a tender, quavering tenor, with synths and strings swelling to grand effect on “We” and “Michael & the Force.” It all builds to a splendid finish with “Love Is the End,” an epic, pulsing slab of downtempo that is both insistent and charmingly hesitant before it breaks down into a spaced-out echo-fest. A Race of Angels is truly a race unto itself.
Various Artists Full Body Workout
‘Bout ready to jack? Good, because these eight tracks are all about getting down. Catwash (Parisians DJ Wild and Christophe Carrier) kicks it off with banging acid and hand claps, while Sweden‘s Martinez gets ominous with a clicking that starts simple and jerky before building to a nicely swinging match of synth ping pong. Californian ex-pat Chelonis R. Jones builds a moody balance with vocal snatches and murky bass as the Afrilounge collective rocks the cowbell. Simple and sparse, none of these tracks will amaze with technical wizardry, but they are all devastating dancefloor tools. It ain‘t intellectual-it‘s Physical.
Various Artists Colour Series 2: Blue
Freakin‘ Freerange! Like Strictly Rhythm in the late ‘80s or Mo‘ Wax in the early ‘90s, you can pick up practically any Freerange release and be guaranteed a winner. Here they do the compilation work for you, pulling together selections from label mainstays like Shur-I-Kan and Trevor Loveys plus new (to them) names like Kirk DeGiorgio and King Kooba. What do they all have in common? Shiny, sleek synths, percolating on Atjazz‘s remix of Subjekt‘s “Be My Chicago” and warmly enveloping on DeGiorgio‘s “Cosmic Peasant;” huge, rubbery bass drums, pounding relentlessly on Switch‘s “Get on Downz” and making a warm bed for swinging snares on Brett Johnson‘s take on Shur-I-Kan‘s “Generations.” Specific sounds aside, these songs all share one important trait-they‘ll show you hell of a good time.
Dubble D Reachin‘ Out
Danny Ward (Dubble D) knows drums. From the crisp four-on-the-floor disco on “Super Hi” to jazzy, brushed breaks on “Big Fish” to the swinging, rim-shot driven “Switch,” with Flora Purim working her vocal magic, Dubble D flexes the skills he‘s honed during well over a decade of session drumming. Not surprisingly, he‘s made a few friends during his career, and many of them show up for this album-Nightmares on Wax, Canadian singer Kate Rogers, and hip-hoppers Qball and Curt Cazal all do their thing on this solid debut, which takes in all styles of groove.
Platnum Rock Me
Sonar Kollektiv turns their sights squarely on crossover R&B with this debut from Platnum. Focused on vocalist Ruth Maria Renner, who not only sings but programs beats and produces (with help from DJ Illvibe and Monk), Rock Me is somewhat hit or miss. But when it works, like on the bass rumbling and music box tinkling “Sweet City,” the slow-burn grind of “Greatest,” or the boogie romp of “She Won‘t Do It,” Platnum is as good as gold.
Living Legends Classic
Unlike most long-running extended hip-hop crews, the Bay Area‘s Living Legends still seem to really enjoy working together. Just one year after their more compilation-like Creative Differences, Murs, The Grouch, Eligh, and company return with a more collaborative effort, produced primarily by Eligh and with an average of five MCs on each cut. While the opening, the Madlib-produced “Blast Your Radio,” is the undisputed highlight, Eligh‘s Kanye-on-crack beat for “Tears and Pain” and the lyrical introspection of “When I‘m Gone” make Classic a more consistent, if not better, effort than Wu-Tang, Freestyle Fellowship, Hieroglyphics, or Boot Camp‘s last group albums.
Hezekiah Hurry Up & Wait
The man behind the Beat Society producer roundtables, Philly rapper/producer Hezekiah makes music somewhat akin to Jay Dee‘s downtempo, neo-soul-ish hip-hop, and his debut album sounds somewhat like J Dilla‘s solo record Welcome 2 Detroit-without the random forays into things like samba and Kraftwerkian electro. While multi-layered productions like the Pete Rock-ish “Gypsy Slang” sound good enough to stand alone as instrumentals, I can‘t help but longing for more guest spots from folks like Grand Agent, Chief Kamachi, Bahamadia, and Stiffed‘s Santi White in place of Hezekiah‘s Will.I.Am-like rhymes.
Big Noyd On The Grind
They don‘t come much harder than Big Noyd. Even as his Mobb Deep boys Prodigy and Havoc have bent hip-hop‘s status quo to their grimy thug-isms over the past decade, Noyd has remained independent and under the radar, too raw for radio. While he might not do Mobb numbers, Noyd has a better album in On The Grind than their recent cookie-cutter disaster, Amerikaz Nightmare. Free of wack A&R direction, Grind‘s beats (courtesy of Havoc and Ric Rude, with one from Alchemist) often evoke the grittiness of The Infamous, while Noyd keeps things rugged with his 2Pac-ish flow. Some more vivid storytelling and more consistent production on the album‘s second half would have been nice, but this Grind is solid nonetheless.
