Home again, hoppity hop.

I have finished university! Quite a frightening prospect in fact; I kind of feel rudderless after how many years of education treading a much trod path. Oh well, I'm home. Well, for a week. Time for free cooked dinners, clean sheets and the snuffles of much missed pooches.

It's also my sister's birthday, which brings me onto my first port of call (apart from a happy 25 years of age for Miss Rosemary): Joanna Newsom.



You see, I bought my sister (being an avid vinyl collector) her new album, Have One On Me on triple 12". And it's a bloody great album. I know a lot of people feel let down by the changes in her voice, direction, and less focus on her harp. However, her new(ish) voice is beautiful, at times reminiscent of an early falsetto Joni Mitchell, sometimes she shifts into the powerful ranges of Cat Power and at others she manages to pitch high into the old fairy tale appeal seen in the The Milk-Eyed Mender. It is unfortunate she can't do this often any more, due to the development of vocal chord nodules she suffered from prior to this albums release, but luckily that whimsical charm is there for all to see on two other albums and EP's, especially Ys, often quoted as her most revered work to date.

She is also really hot.

I cannot recommend this album highly enough. In my opinion, at least, it deserves several listen-throughs, don't resort to the nowadays common practice of skipping through or purchasing singular tracks on iTunes. Buy the whole thing, buy it on CD, even better, buy it on vinyl. To give you some idea of the album's quality, here is one of my favourite tracks, 'Good Intentions Paving Company':



And here performing ''81' on Jools Holland:



Other bits of interest now. There's a couple of adverts surfaced recently that caught my attention. Sorry if this is old news, I'm not the biggest watcher of TV...

Firstly, O2 have used Jaylib's (J Dilla and Madlib) first version of 'The Red' in an advert. I say first version, as Jay Dee was sued for the use of a sample he didn't ask permission for, thus the album version differs, and in my opinion suffers. Props there to O2 on two counts. Here's the advert:



Second on the list is the new Nike advert. If you're not excited enough already for the World Cup, this'll do it. I'll be posting more and more footy related bollocks as this we get into June. HD enabled here for its full glory:



My, my, this is a long post. And I've posted next-to-no hip-hop or beats. Well, I'll leave you with some top Brazilian hip-hop from Marcelo D2, featuring his own son, awww. Peas and gravy lovers.

Nearly damn done.

Woah there! One blasted exam left, and it's a doozey. 'Rich and Poor in Roman Society' may sound simple enough, but when faced with an arrogant, useless, post-Mussolini-esque-psuedo hell-wench, well, we get problems.

Anyway, I'm less stressed and blogging is back. On the way: a brand spanking new mix (featuring a remix/mashup by my tender self), my first fully produced tune and extracts from my novel... Maybe. Right now I'll just chat balls and link you some cool stuff ya'know.

MARK DOOLING (lol!) AKA Marshal William Darling, Martial, "The Great Mustache Hope", also my first ever blog follower (check check), though I think Creepy Mr TC is on this shit too (and first). Love you. Anyway, Dooling has a blog too, it's called Viking Massage, god knows why...

Blap blap. Also another universityillayally friend of mine has one too, he goes by the name of Michael, and his is pro. Check out the wonders of Hot Calamari!

None of my other friends are remotely productive, so until they get off their slotherly, sofa burnt backsides they ain't getting no shout out. That's right, not a whiff. Snap.

Treats from me to you:



Who's that fella? Yeah! It's Debruit! Wooh! The genius behind that stomping post hip-hop/electro meets afrofunk badness that only the French do well. Anyway, he's great, and recently had a Fact "download-of-the-day" in the form of the beautiful remix of Grovesnor's Taxi. Unfortunately, due to my tardniess, this way a few weeks ago, so you canee get it off Fact anymore. Help is at hand, however, get the track here!

Check out a snippet from his Heart Beats 4 Haiti EP too! (Old news I know, but what can you do?)

Snippets "heart beats 4 Haiti" produced by débruit by dEbruit

Cracking.



And who's this chap you ask? That's right! It's our old friend, Shafiq Husayn! Recently, I have been playing to death a tune of his latest LP which, admittedly, isn't the greatest record, but this badboy is something else. Chilled vibes with seraphic vocals from the adorable Fatima:



And, that's all folks! I will actually be back soon. Till then, don't eat bloody baked beans!

Apologies.

For not posting anything in absolutely ages. Stuck in dissertation hell. When it's a little less chaotic I'll acquiesce to self-glorifying urges and write some more bullshit. Bis dem, adieu.

You've got water, but he's got holes.

Thus is the eternal battle of rock, paper scissors. And so, regardless of all conceivable efforts, something will always trump your greatest play. What is this in reference to? Well, I don't have tell you that, but it's a motif that is perpetually applicable. The meander through life inextricably leads to competition, and we inevitably can't always win. This seems ill-suited to questions of confidence, but aside from capricious splatterings of emotion, it's also coincidentally true for the coming "job-hunt", a phrase I find rather perterbing, in part due to the fact I hope not to be roasting my future employer over an open campfire with a fork and pot of pepper readily available.

Anyway, now that musing has gone, which may have been interesting for some, but more likely confusing for most, I'll get on to points of interest from my amazing life.

First off, shops. People often wonder where to buy clothes from. For women it's pretty easy, for blokes, not so, especially if you grew up in somewhere with a population less than half a million. Though, if this is the case, you're probably happy with your body warmer, big hair and polo-shirt collar turned-up. A complete generalisation, but if you currently reside in some shit-pot of a so-called "university town" masquarading as a centre of culture (yes, Reading, I'm looking at you), then you'll understand.

Well, fear no more.

Here's a few beauts for you to be going on with: first off, simples. I'm talking kicks. If you haven't heard of Size? by now you've got problems. Probably the best "high-street" store to buy sneeks. You can also find a selection at Urban Industry, which is a generally good all-round clothes shop anyway. For t-shirts check out SP:UK. These guys print the best designs that get sent into them, so you can not only buy cool shirts, but also get your own printed, and paid for, nice eh? Pretty sweet as well is Super Superficial, though you're better off tripping down to their store on Carnaby Street, as the online shop is pretty wank.

My all round favourite shop of the moment though has to be Lazy Oaf, infamous makers of the burger hat. Not only do they sell some fresh to death shit, but they're pretty damn nice people too. I mean, check this e-mail they sent me about the impending arrival of a sweater I ordered:

"Hi Jonathan

Thank you for ordering from Lazy Oaf. We have packaged up your goodies and have sent them out to you today. Most items are sent recorded delivery and will require a signature so please keep an eye out for your postie.

Love Peace and Hair Grease,

Lazy Oaf"

Just great.

Finally, some interesting stuff to wet your whistle.

Trailer for the upcoming HBO mini-series The Pacific, from the creators of the fantastic Band of Brothers.


An unreleased tune from the man of the moment, HudMo.


A video for my favourite song of all time.


Love, peas and gravy.

Onedeck; Mix One.

Woop! Finally finished my first mix. Ableton went a bit spazzy in the middle and messed the tempo up, but apart from that it sounds OK. It will be on Soundcloud soon, but the faulty uploader coupled with my crappy internet is causing all sorts of problems right now.

The tracklisting is as follows:

1) Blue Daisy ft. LaNote: Space Ex
2) Loops Haunt: Joplin
3) Shlohmo: Post Atmosphere
4) Bullion and Paul White: Get Familiar
5) Hudson Mohawke: Star Crackout (intro)
6) Jose James: Blackmagic (Untold Remix)
7) Om Unit: Lightgrids (Illum Sphere Remix)
8) Hudson Mohawke: Star Crackout (exit)

Download or listen to it here!

Something or nothing.

I'm not sure which. Depends on what you think of my capricious ramblings. Anyway, much belated news (you can't blame me, I've already stated I'm a slacker), I have a radio show! With my friend/housemate/personal slave Jim. Just did you second show, which if you listened, you'll know was quite the disaster. Mainly due to technical difficulties, and in part to my caffeine addiction. Regardless we played some bangin' beats as is our style.

You can listen, every Thursday at 11am, here.

Apart from that, I haven't been up to that much. Been dissertation-ing away, improving my culinary skills and generally straight west coasting. Thus, this will be a rather short post, as I am relatively uninspired right now, but I assure you I'll update as soon as the next epiphany strikes me. I was going to write something about my recurring dream of my teeth falling out whilst talking to hot girls, but I think that deserves a topic in it's own right, before I go all Freudian on your ass. So, here's some interesting shit to keep you all entertained:







That is all. Peace and love.

Oh snap, it's 2010.

Yeah, so it's 2010. I forgot/couldn't be arsed to list a load of great things about the past year, or how my birthday was. So here is just a general ramble with little in the way of epiphanies or philosophical thought.

I did however see Hudson Mohawke for the first time at Fabric last Friday, and he literally blew my socks off. I think dubstep is dying; it was a good "stepping" (get it?) stone for a plethora of new genres, but it's pretty lame in comparison to said offspring now. Thus I've been delving deeper and deeper into the realms of the weird; genres that don't even have an official name yet. One such genre is what people are calling autonomic. I don't really wanna DJ this stuff, but wow, it's good. I got bored of D'n'B when my poor ears and braincells were being pilfered by horrendous "jump-up" and that's when the transition to dubstep began. However, this kind of drum and bass, more influenced by techno than Hype and the like, is just plain awesome. Artists like Alix Perez, Spectrasoul and Calibre are really sending this genre places, and if you haven't yet checked it out, do so.

Mainly though I've started spinning, well, I don't know what to call it. Collectives like LuckyMe don't really like giving it a name. It's been called post-hiphop, leftfield hip-hop, and "wonky"...which is a pretty gash name.

Whatever, it's great.

I don't know where it began, I don't know where it'll end. As someone recently asked a quantum physics professor, "How long is a piece of string?", to which said proff responded: "However fucking long you want it to be, to be honest." And that wasn't even a piece of string random in length, it was a certain length, like, 10 inches, but apparently that doesn't matter. It's all perception, like, a blind person can't even see the bloody string, let alone measure it. Well, he could, but then he couldn't see the measurements, so he couldn't. Unless they were in braille. Anyway, I digress.

I'm talking about artists like Hudson Mohawke, Rustie, Slugabed, Jamie Vex'd, Heralds of Change, KenLo Crqnuques, Zomby, maybe like James Blake, FMF, Nosaj Thing. See, I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure it's all J Dilla's fault though. Just go to Numbers in Glasgow and have a look.

In other news, look at this:



Wow. I'll be back with some more hyperbolic bollocks some time next week. Till then, take it easy.