The NBTMusicRadio Fantastic Themed Hours TWO:The MirrorBall Sessions

The MirrorBall Sessions

10 PM Berlin Time (9 PM UK / 4 PM New York)

From the 50′s RnB, to the 60′s Psychedelic soul, thru to hip hop, techno. electronica. From Progressive House to Dubstep, with huge shots of the best new Rap artists as well.

Featuring:

Kimicoh Kimico, Aloe Blacc, The O Jays, Freda Payne, Speech Debelle, Gift Of Gab, Roots Manuva, Jamie T, Matisyahu, Mr Fix DJ, Dragan Pejic, The Black Science Orchestra, Spanky Wilson, Paul Kalkbrenner, Goldie, Machinedrum, A Guy Called Gerald, James Curd, Louie Vega, Body Language, Sonar Pilot, Team Brooklyn, Dave Gahan, Bobby Collas, nina Simone, Esther Phillips, De la Soul, War, Aceyalone and RJD2, Louis Batey, Blow Flyy, Alice Russell, Godspeed,Dukes Go Up, Ify, Shabazz Palaces, James Brown, Bobby Womack, Last Poets, Apollo’s Sun, Chaptabois, Sly and the Family Stone, Harvey Mason, The Staple Singers, Eddie Floys, Dizzee Rascal,Jr Tha 4th, Skilf, LK, Soul Children, Mel and Tim, Johnny taylor, Chairman Of The Board, THEESatisfaction,Tardishead,Lo Fidelity All Stars, Plan B, Orbital, Scuba, Tove Stryke, Kay 2 and the Strange Days, Schiller, Renegade Soundwave,Eoin Hayes, Suuns, Domino Grey, Bassnectar, Edward, Visions Of Trees, Simian Mobile Disco, Cassius, Fresh Heir, MDNR, Anti-Crew, Copyright, Jazzie B, Levon Vincent, Mantronix,Elaine, Skream, Electritribe 101, Kid 606, Anonym, Aphrodisiac, Sleep Archive, Crystal Castles, Kele,Spiller, Alea Karin, Yana Rizhova,Ganesh, Carolyn Baron and BosBeats, Mos Def, Bennie King, Clayton Savage and Jay Quan, PLXDABOSS, Jam and Spoon, Maya Jane Coles, Drums Of Death, The Knife, Jamie Principle, Frankie Knuckles, LadyHawke, High Luxe, Jamie Sparks, Kimbro, Melogain

and MUCH Much More

http://nbtmusicradio.playtheradio.com/
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The NBT Review 97

Froghill Legend – Memphis Reigns
(DownWrite Records)

It’s been a fair time coming,the quiet anticipation for more of this mood jive building up as the months passed. Now that it is finally here, the presence is so strong that the tunes, the feel, the art seem to have been around, well for pretty much always.

Starting strafing in a shuffle hurry, this is their most undulating soulful thing, a sure swing; the slyest of grooves is ‘Errrrry’! Then we are back on familiar Reigns territory, half melancholy, half restrained anger but full of that fighting hopeful spirit,
songs to make your heart beat just that little bit faster, stronger.

There are touches of widescreen eastern cinema, a thud and shudder from wry romantic spirits, not afraid to let the songs sometimes float on the most delicate beautiful melodies, and other times drift hard on rough and tumble. This set is Oceanic,
full of calm and storm, both catching us by wonderful surprise.

‘We got to get these cats to start thinking outside of the box’ the fourth track, ‘Cloud Kingdom’ starts and
this is exactly why this music WORKS so damn well, I have said before and will say it again, what sets this collective apart is the willingness to skip the cliché, the easy formula that runs like a virus through much hip hop. Memphis Reigns
starts outside of the box, and seduces its way in. No pose no imagined chip on weak shoulders here.

Imagine Jay Z if he didn’t have to keep record executives happy while being chained to a idiotic Kanye West,
imagine Eminem before he lost the plot and with a far broader love of the many tribes of music and you are only half way to catching on to this set’s charm.

I am rather glad this got here at last; because, again I will be featuring Memphis Reigns in my ‘Best Of’ lists of the year.

www.myspace.com/mmechanics

Romelo Delossantos IS Memphis Reigns IS part of MindMechanics.

Read his column on the NBTportal website

http://nbtmusic.de/page4.php

The NBT Review 95

Sleepless Street – Peter Doran (Independent Release)

We are welcomed into this world with an earthy jolt of fierce blues. The ‚‘Hunter’s Sketches‘are frantic even nervous, the seductive unease as the beautiful breakdown approaches.

Then the calm, a vision of the serene holy that can be found in the ordinary, if you have soul for it, and this wistful regret (oh how memories shine different now) envelops the listener.

But don’t dare get used to the intimate only, the next song strives for epic, a sort of personal adventure set against a vast landscape  Conor Oberst does so very well layered subtle upon a heartbreaking melody that once heard is never lost. ‘Eternity’, is exactly the right name for this.

He constructs a gentle swing, a love song simply (complicated), about the strength of love, then old fashioned piano ballad, with a skill an equal to those old Carpenters’ tracks composed by Paul Williams. Note here must be made of the soulful minimal production by Filippo Gaetani, never overusing orchestration, always adding just the right touch of drama and emotion.

To those who often cry out, ‘they don’t make them like they used to’ when whining about how good the folk pop song was back in the day, just listen to ‘The Composer’ or indeed, any of these tracks, these are creations that will be equally at home nestled in the mainstream charts, or that romantic couples private playlist.

But if I have given the impression that this is gloss, forgive me, because there is a wounded rawness at the heart of this, a frazzled moody Phil Ochs ghost wandering the chords and the choruses. It’s just that Doran doesn’t need to be strident to get his thoughts across, his song writing is sincere and pure.

Leaving the very best till last, the title track, the love letter to a difficult child woman, the allure of the leaving the sane path, the way some people cannot be touched, even when we so wish to, cause they thrive in their difference. This song haunts and touches and completes a tantalizing set.

Find out more here:

http://peterdoran.bandcamp.com/album/sleepless-street

You can hear tracks from this album on NBT Podcasts from the 30^th Sept and beyond

http://nextbigthing.libsyn.com

The NBT Review 86

Face The Fact – Opus 1 (Westbound Media)

Insightful, refreshing, Opus 1 pulls no punches, as the finger clicking jazz guitar leads him into ‘Failure’, we realize this will be no empty brag festival, no false bravado, no self pity for his hard luck adventures. This is something different, pretty damn unique, brave even, because running the risk at being taken at face value, some may miss that this is a message of hope. That if you are AWARE of the Hell you may be stuck in, (some of that hell made by your own perceptions and faults) you can and MUST escape from it.

Mashadena squelches forward on the back of 80’s sounding synth and vocoder morphing slowly into a tense jive apocalyptic ice cool soundtrack, with shivering of dread. And yet so very danceable!

In Abstract Jazz, Opus 1 raps that his,’’ perspective is reflective of reality’’ and it this way he has of viewing then writing and singing about the world around him, the thoughts surrounding him, that elevate the tunes above so much that pours out these days in the modern pop universe.

Stand out track, No Love deserves to be a hit not only in hip hop clubs, but could easily find a home in alternative and adventurous rock clubs across the nations, it has that bold crossover appeal, embracing the intellect and the soul.

All in all each track here offers layers of thought provoking lyrics sown into a subtly produced bed of melody and instrumentation. The hooks creep up on you and the mood takes hold for ages after the last bass howl and strut has faded.

I for one certainly look forward to much more from this artist.

Listen for yourself here

http://www.westbound-media.com

http://opus-1.bandcamp.com/album/face-the-fact

Opus 1 will be featured on the NBT podcast going out on the 17^th August 2010

http://nextbigthing.libsyn.com/

If you use Internet Explorer you can stream snippets of a couple of the Tunes here

                               http://www.nextbigthing.co.za

  (After the intro Click on the ‘#Just want to look around# text it will take u thru to next page)

   A chart made up from browsers rating and listening to the song streams can be found here:

                                      http://nbttopten.podbean.com/

The NBT Review 85

In Another Life – Count To Fire (Independent Release)

From the loneliness of brief solo piano the band steps into another life where the room opens out into the big country, and the girl is young and moves with movie star yearning stuck in the tender moment of a first meeting made sad and beautiful with nostalgia. The innocence before desire sparkles across the scene and the guitar creeps in, takes precedence. The lovers dance, the time loop doesn’t seem to hold easy answers and the comfort is only in this memory.

All this and it is only the first track.

As the memories continue to weigh heavy, the singer finds the grey of his real rain filled day cannot compete to the grey shifting romance of the flickering screen, and when he sings of battles, it is that twilight time between chaos, when escape is almost possible and despair is almost a release.

I think that this is an album that longs for the bright, wide, open freedom, but with melancholy acceptance finds itself tethered to real world where the war is against giving up, where love does not find a way unless fought hard for.

It is in this delicate knowledge of what makes us regret, that a fine hope shines through.

Stand out track for this listener is ‘City Lights’ a slow building ballad, with an alluring soul feel reminiscent of My Morning Jacket’s Jim James when working for Monsters Of Folk. On here, as on many of the tunes, the skillfully orchestrated harmonies add so much to the power and heart of the tune, indeed you know you are listening to something that will stay with you for the longest time.

The band add colour to this set of ruefulness with shadings of Johnny Cash swagger and Long Ryder feistiness, but never distract from the mood that binds it all together, again in this era of the downloadable track versus the whole album debate, this demands to be listened to as a complete, satisfying whole.

Find out more here

http://www.myspace.com/counttofire

will be featured on NBT podcasts during August and September

http://nextbigthing.libsyn.com/

If you use Internet Explorer you can stream snippets of a couple of the Tunes here

                               http://www.nextbigthing.co.za

  (After the intro Click on the ‘#Just want to look around# text it will take u thru to next page)

   A chart made up from browsers rating and listening to the song streams can be found here:

                                      http://nbttopten.podbean.com/

The NBT Review 84

The Electric Mist – Metaform (Just Records)

Imagine if you will, an intimate adventure, where we try to capture the electronic soul from the ghost of a disco dancer. The ambiguous tale of the doomed and the sensual, told with a songwriter’s detachment, and a sound creator’s charm.

What is kinda thrilling about this collection is the way even languid slinky Soul, is seductively corrupted by an Indie Kid with a love  of noise and movement, and rock song hooks that prowl the spaces. And for once, the use of production tricks on the vocal add to the suspense, even the humanity in the songs, somehow the technician reveals a heart.

The Track OCD is a playful ambient miniature, Coldcut meets Lynch back at his place, for drinks and a sway around the statues. Like a lot here it hints at the hedonistic, the full on rave ruckus, but prefers the instability of the outsider.Elsewhere it’s pretty cool hearing an American take on the challenge of the Brit dance indie bands such as Bloc Party and get it totally right, this is indeed the Future Frolic.

Kele hire this guy for some remix work right now.

Metaform even finds a place for giddy theatrics crafting a piece in, ‘’It’s Gotta Be’’ that is all camp Soft Cell, totally free of the retro 80s prison though,  with slivers of Flying Lotus and other such innovators.

And in, ‘’Introversion’’ there is even a droll take on the sort of Instrumental dream pop that the Love Unlimited Orchestra would attempt, The Isley Brothers 3007. Smooth but not smooth, it goes down a treat.

This is not for the purists (of any genre) but then again what fun cool music really is? And will make as many enemies as life long fans.

Which one will YOU turn out to be I wonder.

Find out here: http://metaformonline.com/fr_store.cfm

Metaform will be featured on both NBT podcasts during August and September

http://nextbigthing.libsyn.com/

http://nbtdarkelectric.podbean.com/

If you use Internet Explorer you can stream snippets of a couple of the Tunes here

                               http://www.nextbigthing.co.za

  (After the intro Click on the ‘#Just want to look around# text it will take u thru to next page)

   A chart made up from browsers rating and listening to the song streams can be found here:

                                      http://nbttopten.podbean.com/

The NBT Review 70

The Happy Masochist

Rust – Apollo’s Sun (STLP)

Various New tracks from forthcoming new album: Falling Becomes Great

As the random begins we see the composer staring out at a shuffling past, the mood is ambiguous, seems lazy languid except, the pictures invoked are so well sketched, defined, so haunting, that when he says the word Fragile, we can only murmur, ‘oh yes, and continue watching, listening.

This is an album about an artist looking back, looking around, to push gently forward as he takes notes, sets those notes into jazz and soul beds, sometimes adds heartbreaking melodies, this is an album creating those heavy sunset thoughts, driving slowly towards that redeeming sunrise epiphany.

As the piano in the tune, ‘Life Cant be’ slides a benign tension across the room, the crackle and fizz of a master story teller sinks into the way we lean into this music, the harmony and seduction is total, and we know that when the silence comes, the only answer will to be to scrabble for a new set or replay, replay and find the different secrets embedded there.

Then on to Rust.

When the sun sneaks into a cold room, we can see the tattered posters on the wall, see the wounded proud dust collection of cardboard and plastic greatness, timeless artifacts, a record collection made for Saturday night hedonism and Sunday morning review. This music is at once removed from the laughter and chaos of the gathering and street night and, also as a detached memory , perhaps, very much part of it.

The Writers chosen name is apt indeed, when I hear his music I see the colour gold, sometimes, or fire low orange, or yes, the scary defeat and strangeness of Rust.

For music that sadness is a coiled snake within the machine, there is no angst here, or fuzziness, or strident complaining for better things deserved, but rather sonic snapshots of bits of a life not often glanced at in this preening sometimes nervously insecure genre.

I believe this music.

Then right up to date, done as recently as June if the details on the mp3 are to be taken as gospel, I’m Doing Fine, is a wry yet uplifting groove, an optimistic feel pulses through. For this artist, it seems he has decided that the BATTLE of being independent, be creative, being this storyteller is a delight in itself, not a giddy scream oh yeah delight, but something deeper, stronger.

Rewarding.

All these tracks , these EPs deserve exposure,  discovery is essential.

http://apollossun.com

You can hear tracks from the EPs on the next NBT Podcast this 23^rd June 2010

http://nextbigthing.libsyn.com/

                              If you use Internet Explorer you can stream snippets of a couple of Apollo’s Sun’s Tunes here

                               http://www.nextbigthing.co.za

                           (After the intro Click on the ‘#Just want to look around# text it will take u thru to next page)

                             A chart made up from browsers rating and listening to the song streams can be found here:

                                      http://nbttopten.podbean.com/

The NBT Review 52

(read a great review with Farrad on the NBT homepage.. http://nbtmusic.de/page4.php )

The Time Is Now – Farrad (Beulah’s Baby Entertainment)

Welcome to the Pop Dramatic, landing, bang in the centre of the smoke, wrapped in enigmatic articulate harmonies and covered by pressing bass squelch, Farrad displays his intent, his desire to capture our dance-Soul from the opening track, Misunderstood, a sly mix of Prince Gymnastics and the modern strut.

The cool thing is, Farrad doesn’t let the Tech, the FX and the Hustle drown out the soul, his sweet vocalizing holding sway, adding warmth to the extravagant arrangements.

And then the third track, an instant club classic, the one that makes you want to attempt complicated moves and boogie the night away, this is edgy delightful seductive bubblegum of the highest order, breathtaking and imaginative, simply Pick Your Face Up Off The Floor is one of the tracks of this year so far.

Now that he has captured us, the twist, the trip the worship of the beat continues, sure there are ghosts on this dance floor, in the neon reflections, but these spirits are fashionably in the NOW, fresh and alluring. With this set every track a potential single.

Listen out too for the electrifying ballad, Destiny, where the voice soars against shivers of strings, and some sultry gospel sneaks into the night waltz, and the surprise RocknNewWave of Twisted, where Farrad’s true sense of adventure shows itself in all its metallic sheen.

If this excellent collection isn’t enough for you, there is also a scintillating album of ‘’Pick Your Face Up Off The Floor’’ remixes available on Farrad’s Homepage.

http://farrad.com/

 Catch Trax from this collection on the NBT Podcast going out on the 16^th March 2010

http://nextbigthing.libsyn.com/

The NBT Review 48

Some Moths Drink The Tears Of Elephants – Boister (Piano Parasite Productions)

Ah this delightful disturbance, this redemption in the darkness. Do you know how ghostly carnival lights seem, from a distance, on a rainy night? This is the soundtrack to that feeling.

Produced by legendary maverick/storyteller Jim Dickinson, who once channeled the sweet twilight of Big Star into something eternal, this collection, seems to be ancient Pop, perhaps even tomorrow’s Americana, Though with wonderful contradiction,  there is a fragmented European soul breathing between the lines too.

It starts with a languid gasp perhaps sigh , definite slow motion thoughts catching up to the moment, the music subtly builds, the room the picture fills with detail, the story unfolds ragged yet elegant. Funeral music that makes you feel very much alive.

Then a lullaby morphs into a sly grin take on Brecht, the band swaggers, the curtains, windows, thrown open onto a vibrant street gathering, a party full of tension.

Then a drum thing that seems to be slowed fractured down sympathy for the devil grooving into horns and guitar, washing up against the vocals, then without noticing we have slid into a perfect rock song sway, a gift with gentle hooks that we will be humming months from now.

These are tunes that are built fragile, crafted intricate standing there, the title track: quick take a snapshot before it all falls down, but it never falls down, no matter how harsh the rhythms that swirl around it, rudely affectionate.

Then the weirdest thing: I hear the east, the far east, not east America, but also: I hear almost a ska thing going, I hear the islands, come on dance and Thank You.

Then invited into this strange tent at this strange market, we shiver into an exotic fumbling before the band throws another cruel ballad or three our way, and as they are wrapped in the most beautiful melodies, we catch them easy, we are captured easier.

Layered and complex, yet never contrived this is a near perfect release.

http://www.boister.net

Catch tunes from this release on the NBT Podcast going out on the 23^rd Feb 2010

http://nextbigthing.libsyn.com/

The NBT Review 47

Sheffield Streets   - Amy Allison (Urban Myth Recording Collective)

In this, the hardest thing is….

I must forget, ignore, her cult, her father, her partners, her history, the players, the craftsmen. I must disregard the many lines of text glowing from pc screens and smoldering on white paper press releases, and take the music the words the mood and the tension and write about that, forget the rest.

Her latest creation is like a cat that has not yet learned to purr, a cat that cannot fully relax, is coiled within its soul tight to the point of breaking, a cat who desires the comfort of love, of release, but the emotions the fears the memories do not allow it to reach that comfort yet. Which is wonderful for us, cause instead we are given these songs these gateways to this strange exquisite world.

She manages to make us nostalgic for places we have never been to, fall in love with ghosts of angels, and makes us want to kiss the totally WRONG type of person and flirt with those monsters we concoct in the mists of our fine delusions.

In many ways these are recipes for escape.

They are maps of dream worlds and sketches of broken hearts, scrawled pretty then crumpled up and thrown into the fire where they turn into jittering words that slide into tunes, which play gentle before us.

One of the albums of the year for me.

http://www.amyallisonmusic.com/

Listen to tracks from this album on this AND next weeks NBT podcast

http://nextbigthing.libsyn.com/