Solaa tore up a packed Beach Road last night .. brilliant. Simon from Rastawookie and P-Bass Expressway guested on trumpet and bongos for most of their set too. And Janny - lead singer of Rastawookie and one of Sydney’s top reggae/soul vocalists - joined in for a verse as well. I love gigs like that where there’s a jam going on and artists jumping up to collaborate. That’s what live music is all about .. the crowd loved it and were screaming for more when the Beach Road’s midnight curfew came around. (Someone should carpet-bomb the surrounding neighbourhood with valium.)
Meanwhile … 1Xtra’s Bass Awards have duly congratulated the dnb heavyweights in the 06 … No big surprises. A bit disappointing TC trumped Benny Page for best breakthrough producer.
Cyclic Defrost have an interview with Kid Koala, where he talks about the arduous nature of sample-based production and using turntablism to create music:
“Back on the last album I wanted to do a ska track. That was something that took like several weeks to find all the notes and then bend them into the harmonies I was hearing. Then I realised, ‘You know what, you can just get a reggae band and do that in one afternoon’. So let me just put it this way, it’s the most tedious way of working ever. The only more tedious craft would be animated film. Sometimes I’ll go and see some guy who just plays a wine glass for his show and then I’m just green with envy.”
And it looks like it’ll be a big year for Blak Twang: two new singles and a new LP .. a re-release of 96’s seminal, but extremely rare, Dettwork Southeast LP.