The Groove Thief

This Saturday night (November 10th) I will be DJing with True Skool HK at their monthly rooftop party. If you’re in Hong Kong and like reggae, this is definitely worth going to - the scenery is great since Pier 7 (above the Star Ferry in Central) has a view of the whole city, and the music and vibes will of course be perfect as well. I’ll be playing a set of mostly modern tunes, with a focus on digital reggae, steppers dub, and other reggae-influenced beats. Since it’s public space it’s even BYOB until midnight, so come early and dance until late with 100% Reggae Dancehall! Only $120 at the door, which includes a free drink, and I’ll be joined behind the decks by DJs Ray Shizzle, Blood Dunza and Christian Da Phat Selekta. Here’s a recent mix of mine to get your ears ready for Saturday:

Concert Review: Tes La Rok & Heavy Hong Kong united under the banner of bass at Backstreet Live.  Drops and wobbles, covering the spectrum from sharp chest-assaults to deep dub-inspired thunderous booms, actually put the Heavy sound system in serious danger.  Openers Anadonic and N1D, with Rebearth MC spitting verses, dropped all shades of low-end theory, priming the audience for the Finnish headliner.  Starting with the “Bogle” riddim from Mungo’s Hi Fi, Tes La Rok included plenty of big bass tracks such as his own “Up In The Vip,” firing up the crowd with his melding of reggae vibes with overwhelming bass.  This then gave way to the machine-war soundtrack that is exclusively the sound of dubstep: pounding digital stutters over relentless bass-lines and the occasional break just to unleash full-power madness.  Blood Dunza continued his streak of super-late set-times, tragically at odds with this member of the Saturday-morning work force.  Overall a nice show despite the sound issues, which will hopefully be corrected for future heavy bass shows…

For plenty of tunes by Tes La Rok, please check out Heavy Hong Kong’s comprehensive artist feature.

Here are some tracks from the local/supporting artists, including a brand-new dubstep mix from Anadonic:
 

Elephant Revival play acoustic neo-folk, blissfully beautiful multi-layered music that is often completely chilled-out, yet thankfully for ears like mine they are not afraid of uptempo dancier tunes either.  Hailing from Nederland, Colorado, they represent my home-state well, and truly thrive in the live environment.  Given that, here are some recent live performances of theirs, including a spectacular full concert via DittyTV and a radio show courtesy of KBUT Community Radio.  As a bonus, there’s a nice remix from Emancipator cleverly called “Elephant Survival.”  This is intimate bluegrass played by master musicians, amongst the best of the current crop of future-forward new-grass:

Watch a full live show on DittyTV

The late Mickey Simpson is a relatively obscure reggae artist, but this absolute monster of a live acoustic recording ought to do a lot to change his public perception.  ”Don’t Cry” was Simpson’s biggest hit, and this touching, mournful live rendition lends maximum poignancy to the lyrics about sadness, poverty, and governmental failure within Jamaica.  For artist information, Reggae Spotlights provides a nice biography, and while the audio alone here is fantastic the video also shows some great vintage footage of both Simpson and Jamaica.  Much respect to 7FT Soundsystem for featuring this track on one of their recent mixes.  I’m featuring a fresh mashup/remix of this track atop a fierce dissonant riddim from Fira on my latest DJ mix, which should be out soon!

Dirty South vs. Trance.  Bird Peterson.  Drankenstein Live!  Pushing genre boundaries, this third volume, in what will hopefully be a never-ending mixtape series, continues to drop southern rap anthems atop equally anthemic epic trance tracks.  What could be a clashing train-wreck of wrong steps is instead legend-waitforit-dary.  Sure, not every mashup is a true banger, but this puts virtually all other rap-techno cross-breed hybrids to shame.  Given that this came out 20 minutes ago I haven’t been able to listen to everything yet, but the track-listing combines highlights from both previous installments while also bringing in some new material.  This is filthy in all the right ways, especially if your inner raver got to appreciate the classic trance the first time around…

Scratch is a 2001 documentary about hip-hop, so while it isn’t music in the sense that I usually review, it is quite relevant and features a lot of great songs and DJs.  Through extensive interviews, live performance clips, and archival footage, the film follows hip-hop from its birth to its modern form - that part hasn’t really changed much in the last decade.  If you’ve never seen this, it is well-produced and full of great music and important figures throughout the evolution of hip-hop.

Watch Scratch on Google Video

As a bonus, here’s Scratch: All The Way Live also on Google Video, the follow-up live performance documentary from the tours inspired by the original film.

DJ Vadim’s Live In Hawaii is a bass/dubstep mix, but probably should be called deepstep.  The basslines are thick and hearty, the dubbed out vocals and effects produce a hypnotic effect, and this set must have been simply massive on proper club speakers.  Vadim plays with all ends of the sound spectrum per usual, delving into jazz, dub, hip-hop, grime, soul, and reggae along the way, while riding a slow tempo until it explodes.  Features Joker, The Bug, Massive Attack, and Frank Ocean alongside plenty of originals (including a stripped-down & bass-heavy re-edit of the always epic “Terrorist”).