After Ascension it’s Ramadan now. Because of this, there is the The Nights of the Ramadan festival in Berlin. The first event of this festival was a concert of the first big band of the Arabic world . The Syrian Big Band played some classic Big Band tunes more or less in an Arabic style, but the band also covered some well-known Pop or Rock tunes, for instance by Led Zeppelin. Being a bit too sedate at first, they became quite impressive afterwards, especially after the break because of the sunset, and after the rain shower. The darling of the public was the beatboxing bassist (I’m the bassist only. ), who was bound to an encore. I liked very much the performance of the female singer.
Because of this impression, I was bound to select some Big Band sounds from my archive in turn. I do not have anything from The Syrian Big Band, but the music from the films Murder on the Orient Express, Lawrence of Arabia and Carry On Spying as well as the music by Tommy Dorsey & His Original Orchestra is also quite cool, isn’t it?
While The Syrian Big Band played a Led Zeppelin song, Hector Zazou, Barbara Eramo & Stefano Saletti have published a new album with lots of covers of famous Pop songs in an Arabic style. The album comprises many 1970’s Disco classics like Donna Summer’s I Feel Love , Y.M.C.A. by The Village People, Stayin’ Alive and Night Fever by the Bee Gees, Anita Ward’s Ring My Bell as well as Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive . I like this album.
Furthermore, I selected some Arabic Electronica between Techno & House (by The Kasbah Rockers & Bill Laswell, Oryx, Roger Abboud) and Dubstep (L-Wiz). In between some radio sounds from the Palestine, some curious by The Forgotten Fish Memory Orchestra, some reflective by The Forty Thieves Orkestar from London, traditionals from the Iraq, a classic by Natacha Atlas, Breakbeats from Prague by Le Pneumatique who performed a quite cool and phat concert on the “Karneval der Kulturen” (carnival of the cultures) in Berlin on Whitsun 2010, also some Asian and Arabian Breakbeats or Dub sounds from London by Fusing Naked Beats, Jah Wobble and Temple of Sound. The Punk classic Rock The Casbah by The Clash is interpreted by Rachid Taha.
Happy Fasting!
Links
In the following, there is the link for the listening pleasure @ Mixcloud as well as the playlist.
→ Weiterlesen “Flying Sparks 2010-08-13: The Ramadan Orchestra”
On a Sunday night in May I listened to some new (mostly) Dubstep stuff. In the following some information about this.
Last week, Balkan Beat Box were again in Berlin to present their third album Blue Eyed Black Boy. My first impression was that the predecessors had more catchy tracks. Anyway, I like their fusion of different cultures and music styles because it represents the more innovative approach of Balkan music in my opinion.
Same place (Festsaal Kreuzberg) two days later, there was the record release party of the Berlin band Jahcoozi’s third album Barefoot Wanderer. My current favourite track on it is Close To Me which has been already remixed by Milanese. He did it in a laid-back Dubstep approach. Before Jahcoozi’s gig, their beat master Robot Koch presented some of his solo stuff. In my opinion, some more song structure would be helpful. My favourite on this evening was his cover of the track People Are Strange by the The Doors.
Finally, the debut long player from David Starfire has been published in Germany. He has been already known from his digitally released mini EP at Six Degrees as well as from some remixes and DJ sets in the conglomerate of Asian Beats, Breakbeats, Dubstep and Mashups. His debut album is as manifold as his previous work. A highlight is his Dubstep interpretation of The Beatles’s Hey Jude .
Related to him is the work of the Shiva Soundsystem crew from London. DJ Nerm and D-Code released an album with various collaborations last year: Phasmatis In Machina – Asian influenced Drum’n'Bass, Dubstep and other Electro tracks from London’s Electro East.
Badawi contributes an arabic influenced monster on a 12″ to the Dubstep scene. Breakage as well as Scuba explore the capabilities of Dubstep: While Breakage is based on Drum’n'Bass, Scuba investigates the connection to Techno sounds. This approach reminds me of the Berlin production by Moderat from last year (by the way, Rusty Nails is a really beautiful track).
More new interesting Dubstep was released from Mutt (who previously has produced beautiful DnB), DJ Madd, Cardopusher and Riz MC. The latter both were released by True Tiger, known from transglobal influenced Dubstep tracks on the Around The World 12″s and by Sukh Knight, respectively. Pinch’s release of Get Up stems from his album Underwater Dancehall where Dubstep was heavily enriched with vocals, whereby most of the Dubstep releases are instrumentals or with only samples.
I very like the work of Geiom. His new 12″ Sugar Coated Lover is a conglomerate of Dubstep and Garage with some nice percussion samples.  He will be DJing in Berlin on June 5: at the “We Want More Bass” party of the Freak Camp crowd @ VCF.
Various Production were active again. They remixed a track by The Hundred In The Hands.
In the following, there are the links for the listening pleasure @ Mixcloud.
→ Weiterlesen “Flying Sparks 2010-05-02: On a Sunday Night in May”
I’ve just browsed through some nice music on a Sunday evening in April… It resulted in a mix between cool jazzy, Latin, Balkan and Bollywood tunes, I hope.
One of my all-time favourites is the track I Love My Baby by the United Future Organization, here in a Norman Cook & Ashley Slater remix. The track got a new reverence by the The Jivers on the Jazz & Milk-Compilation Jazz & Milk Breaks Vol. 3.
Recently, I listened to the remix compilation I Like It Like That of Fania Latin classics in more detail. I already had put the remix of La Lupe’s interpretation of Fever into my 2009 review. Now I discovered another track on that compilation: Ray Barretto’s O Elefante in the SSH remix is really cool!
Miss Platnum’s If You Were Mine was also already in my 2009 review. She used a sample of a cool Bollywood tune which is on the Bombay Connection compilation Bombshell – Baby of Bombay: Kahan Hai Woh Diwana .
Apropos cover versions: Listening to the Balkan track of Fanfare Ciocarlia, I remembered Cake’s interpretation of Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps . Then another one, perhaps? – Okay, the version of Sunray… Finally I digged out an older track from Fatboy Slim and one from Moby.
Here the links for a listening @ Mixcloud:
→ Weiterlesen “Flying Sparks 2010-04-11: On a Sunday Night in April”
  
Finally, I managed to finish my little work about a music-oriented review of the year 2009. It’s been a while since New Year’s Day, but good music keeps to be good music, doesn’t it?
Let us review some of the highlights of music, I caught in 2009. The focus is set on Dubstep as well as on Global Beats music somewhere between Baile Funk, Cumbia, Balkan, Asian Beats, Pop, Funk, and Electro.
The review is split into three parts. The first part is mainly in German language only.
- Culture & Politics 2009,
- Dubstep 2009, and
- Global Beats 2009.
We leave the Dubstep world by this set and slow down under 140bpm. The feeling keeps faster. Here some of my highlights between Tango, Baile Funk, Cumbia, Balkan, Asian Beats, Pop, Funk and Electro. What I like to call Global Beats.
Here the links for a listening @ Mixcloud:
→ Weiterlesen “Flying Sparks 2009 Review, Part 3: Global Beats”
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