collars up

This post and the next will be somewhat of a recap and/or review of the Soul Clap and Nicolas Jaar gigs at Bar25 on Monday. Check the bottom for downloads.

Soul Clap: Collars Up

The Bar was half full when I arrived 1.5 hours into Soul Clap's 4 hour set. I had been listening to the beginning of their set at home waiting for something to pull me there sooner. It was Jaar who was the not-to-be-missed act after all. Then over the radio I heard Mau's Maulongated Discofied Tribute of Fleetwood Mac's Brown Eyes, so I put on my shoes and got on my bike.

Erown Byes (MAU's Discofied Tribute) by mau

I happily paid the 5 euros entrance, got a drink and easily made my way up to Eli and Cayce (Soul Clap). Eli was in control and in an 80's groove. As the sound system at the Bar is sub-par I had no trouble chatting to him between mixes about everything from slow-tempo jams, the tracks he was playing, his love for Berlin and the sub-par system itself. Regarding the latter, he couldn't care less as it was the infamous Bar25 after all and his first time playing there, although he said he did play at Bar24 recently. Regarding the former (slow-tempo), he stated with confidence that slow house was "catching on" and that club promoters don't hassle them about dropping the tempo. He said that their sets typically drop to around 90 and generally never go over 120 bpms. I guess when your some kind of representative for slower house music as Soul Clap and anything Wolf + Lamb is, promoters book you for that very reason.

Some notable tracks they played are as follows:

Metro Area - Caught Up



808 State by Pacific State was a pleasant surprise and very appropriate for the vibe of the room the time it was played.



They played Alan Smithee - Blue Blackness (Masters at Work Remix) but I cant find it to embed here, so here is the Smooth Edit, which is also ace and similar to the one they played.

I urged then to play some newer tracks and they eventually responded with an absolute dynamite unreleased track called Principles by Benoit and Sergio; a track that will make you want to stay close to their myspace for release info.

They also played their new remix of Kathy Diamonds' Love Saves the Day. The original is nice too.

But throughout the 2.5 hours of Soul Clap's remaining set, I wavered constantly between being blissed-out and impressed by the melodic house and annoyed by the hip-hop influenced and overly-Americanized music they played. With 4 hours to kill they needn't stick to one style of course, but their foray into hip-hop and R&B sampled music was jarring when juxtaposed with their tasty Wolf + Lamb vibe. Of course with tracks like Extravaganza, their rip-off or remix of Jamie Foxx's R&B hit, I shouldn't be surprised or disappointed when that sound made its way through the Bar's boxes repeatedly throughout the set. But I was. Its nothing against hip hop or R&B, I would never attack a genre, its just that I find the attitude behind or infused in the songs to be off-putting at the least and nauseating at worst. I mean Soul Clap's Extravaganza is billed as a guaranteed "ladies-report-to-the-dancefloor-for-booty-shake" anthem, but is this a good thing?? Maybe in Texas, or Chicago where Soul Clap are from, but not in Berlin. Of course the piano work, drums and synth work are great in Extravaganza, but the vocals instantly put the listener inside a rap video, where drinking and dressing expensively, bragging about one's unremarkable and likely fictitious accomplishments, political and social unconsciousness and sexism are rewarded and enshrined as 'the good life'. That is to say that music infused with this attitude seems to only contribute to the ills of the world, through everything from shit product promotion to amorality. I wont rant further, although much more needs to be said - huge statements like these should not be without factual and philosophical support, however, this is a blog - a medium based on freeform editorialism. So then lets just be clear on what I'm not saying; rap and R&B music can be great (without egoism, sexism and hyper consumerism) and Soul Clap are not bad, (although for me they would be better if they toned down the gangster attitude - wearing sunglasses while you dj in a club at night is just childish at this point, Cayce). Having a hip-hop influenced set, with rhymes is often a nice variation, lets just try to keep the rhymes about socially positive themes and not about ego-stroking.

Downloads

Right Click, 'Save As'
Fleetwood Mac - Brown Eyes (Maulongated Discofied Tribute)
Nicolas Jaar - Airdrop 19 Podcast, Jan 2009


Fileshares:
Metro Area - Caught Up (4shared)
Kathy Diamond - Love Saves the Day EP (incl. Soul Clap and Mario Basanov remixes) (Filestube)

feeling good

So Nicolas Jaar is back with a free Edits EP (although they are actually remixes). Perhaps the most consistent producer working today, he never ceases to impress. Hit the download button next to whatever track you want. Or go to RA and download all of them zipped up and read the controversy and backlash about the Soul Clap Edits.

Nicolas Jaar • Edits LP by Clown and Sunset

Cant choose a favourite here; either Feeling Good or Stay in Love. And if you are in Berlin this evening, you should probably head over to Bar25 to see him and Soul Clap throw down. Soul Clap are playing from 6 - 10 pm (Berlin time). Then Nico from 10 on. Still unsure if he will be playing live or dj'ing, but either way, it will be worth the 5 euros. I will put on my journalist hat and try to get some quotes, pics or rumours from the guys or just random people. If you cant make it, tune in to Bar25 radio at the appropriate time and hear whats being played live.

In my last post I meant to include a download of Soul Clap's Conscious. So here it is now.

vinyl only vol. 1

So this is the first installment of a vinyl-only series; a series that grew (and will continue to grow) simply out of my frustration for not being able to find digital music. I suspect the reason is because most of it is limited edition pressings of mostly bootleg edits, but I havent been able to verify that at this point.

A prime example is this scorching Bowie edit. This is the stuff I am seriously into. They call it anything from slow-house, nu-disco, disco edits and rock edits. The point is that the bpms stay roughly between 102 and 118 and sweet muted or scratchy guitar riffs are looped and layered to create a repetitive, building and then climaxing sonic landscape. Which interestingly is not far off from original 'house' music. A 'slow house' dj recently told me that the average bpm of old school classic house was 112 - 118; which is really amazing because, as he quickly added and as some of us know all to well, if its lower than 124-5 its not (or hardly ever) being played in a Berlin club. I think this generalization can be sadly stretched to fit most club/dance scenes, obviously excluding the hip-hop and R & B 'club/dance' scenes. The point is, I think its time we re-examined our ideas and (likely biologically ingrained) habits surrounding dance tempos, because it seems we can be very comfortable grooving along at say, 104 or 110. Of course there will and should always be a place for high tempo shuffles, but it shouldn't be the appetizer, main course and dessert. Right?! An interesting thesis topic that just came to mind would be to examine the tempo of various ceremonial dances and drums patterns in various native and aboriginal tribes and clans across the world. We could also note the factual, alleged, or even desired subjective experience resulting from or correlating to the tempo and use that as a another variable in our study of modern dance music tempos. Doing this would allow us to get a sense of the historicity of the plus 124/5 bpm standard and possibly (I would say likely) support my argument for the comfort and importance of slower tempo jams.

Anyway, this was supposed to be about hard-to-find vinyl-only releases and it turned into a rant about bpm's. I was actually going to save that rant and formalize it with examples and references in a slow-house post. Oh well. Maybe I will still do it.

Ok back to the Bowie Bootleg - Duff Disco edits Fame.

Duff Disco - Fame (buy)
DUFFDISCO001 - Fame (Preview) by duffdisco



Soul Clap are really awesome sometimes. They have a few vinyls out of housed-up bootlegged samples of classic tracks. I posted one already back in May, but I have two more for you. In their 'Pop Edits' EP they shake up two stellar classic lamentations: Fleetwood Mac's Dreams and Chris Issac's Wicked Games. Not sure if they are technically 'edits', more remixes I'd say, but either way, nice.

Soul Clap - Pop Edits (buy)
Pop Edits by Soul Clap


Here's another Soul Clap Edits EP where they turn the 80's classic 'Conscious of my Conscience' by Womack & Womack into a deep and chuggy detroitesque house groover on the A side. The B side is their reworking of 'Love Light in Flight' by Stevie Wonder. Its descent, but not as good as the A side. And actually The Revenge had recently reworked the same Stevie Wonder song calling it 'Night Flight' from the EP of the same name (more on The Revenge later). Notice how the remixed or edited versions have titles that relate to their original source - a sure sign of proprietary violation. We can even map the boldness of the remixer/editor by the similarities of the two track titles in question, that is, if we had lots of time on our hands and felt so inclined.

Soundcloud says you can buy these tracks on beatport, but actually you cant. Julius Morelius, a soundcloud commenter says "im so glad i bought it on beatport now they retired it and you cant buy it no more in digital". But still its curious, right - are mp3 stores in the habit of retiring mp3's? I will do some investigating and let you know.

Soul Clap Edits - Wolf and Lamb Black Label (buy)
Conscious Edit by Soul Clap

Love Light Edit by Soul Clap

Check out the Womack and Womack original.. Outstanding!!



So I had this next one on my list of hard-to-finds, after spotting it on Phonica but as I was writing this out I checked again and found it. Amazing what time can do for down(free?)loaders - everything is available eventually.

Two big names in the world of disco-related music are Woolfy and DJ Spun.
The A side is Sir Woolfy's pitched-down version of Street Man by Brooklyn Dreams, a 70's disco band. The folks over at Sleazy Beats see eye to eye with me about dropping the tempo and in their review they welcome "the sub 110 tempo of this one, along with the moody vocal and disco strings". They call it "a definite warmup winner".
The B side is DJ Spun's on 'Straight To The Bar' a track that Sleazy Beats feels "hits the bullseye in terms of musical elements: fat-ass bassline, snappy woodblocks, cowbell, delightfully reverbed claps topped off with an especially dreamy organ riff and an irresistible monumental slap-bass discobreak".

Woolfy & DJ Spun: Watchawannado Vol.2 (buy) (download)

A-side: Sir Woolfy - Brooklyn Creams


B-Side: DJ Spun - Straight to the Bar



I have a couple more vinyls to put in this post, but I think that might be enough for both me and you at this moment. So i think vol. 2 will be up soon.

laid back

laid back - baker man (soul clap edit)

Baker Man Edit by Soul Clap