Categories
Features

Feature: Dubstep Warz

Just listening to this Mixcloud of Mary-Anne Hobbs’ legendary Dubstep Warz Breezeblock show back in ’06. Hobbs has always been pushing new electronic music and her influence in helping Dubstep to the forefront of the British music scene was immense, and this show was pivotal. Amazing mix, get it done!

 

 

 

 

Update. You want a sign of how Dubstep has ‘made it’? Check out the breakdown in Britney Spears leaked new single. That’s right, Dubstep is ‘the cool breakdown section’ in Britney Spears new track.

Britney Spears – Hold It Against Me

Categories
Features News

Feature: Cloudkicker

I don’t know who Amy is, but maybe I should love her too:


Cloudkicker – Amy, I Love You

Categories
Playlists

149 Spotisfaction Friday – 7th January 2011 – Spotimy

Happy 2011 one and all! We’re back, feeling refreshed for the new year, and we hope you are too. We’re changing things up slightly for this year, moving our content pacing more towards a blog – we felt your playlists were going by too quickly and that editing the site was taking more time than just fricking loving the music thats out there. We want our content to seem less segmented and more relevent. To help us along with this, please welcome onboard Kev Atkinson, the loving creator of so many playlists and reviews in the past, as a new editor.

Now, for the new year, we’d like to introduce you to a great site that keeps you up-to-date with everything that’s been newly released on Spotify in the UK that week. I personally don’t think Spotify’s ‘What’s New Page’ is much help at all – http://www.spotimy.co.uk fixes this, listing everything added week-by-week. Spotimy also sorts reviews found online from many of the country’s blogs, magazines and newspapers and so is a great tool to enhance your Spotify experience. We like.

Their ‘Best of 2010’ playlist is fantastic and gets us off to a flyer!

James

[Note to Joe and co at Spotimy – used a bit of editorial licence here guys ;D, I know you submitted your November review playlist, but we wanted to feature your site and your Best of 2010 Playlist!]

Categories
Reviews

Review: Dreadzone, Scala London

Photography by Mike Eccleshall

Dreadzone concluded their epic 27-date Eye On The Horizon winter tour this weekend, and I was there to catch their Scala show on Wednesday 8th. Frontman MC Spee might have been worried that a midweek set in the capital might not be the extravaganza it should always be, but gets it spot on when asking the crowd “do you get the feeling that Wednesday night turned into Saturday night about half an hour ago?”; tonight was a knees up, a celebration of Dreadzone’s incredible 15+ year career that had Scala bouncing all night long.

They set the tone early with Love, Life and Unity, showing that the material on offer this evening will stretch across the full span of their career. Ever eclectic, ever full of life and energy, they blaze through a spell-binding set encompassing every influence, every corner of Dreadzone’s sound. And though the crowd is a mix of both young and old (indeed, MC Spee took a particular shine to a young girl whose 21st birthday it was), everybody was onboard tonight, showing that Dreadzone’s ability to cross generations and cultures is absolute and has never waned.

Categories
Playlists

147 Spotisfaction Wednesday – 8th December 2010 – James TAE

Wednesday Wednesday Wednesday. We skipped a Monday because Mondays generally suck ass, and also because we’re real human beings with Christmas shopping and spare days holiday left.

But we’re back today and straight on it, and I present you with a, if I say so myself, a banger of a playlist. I’ve done a third installment of my Dubisfiction series, and this time I’ve gone for upbeat, high tempo dub, electro and a touch of breakbeat. Hopefully this will get your bloodpumping on this cold, chilly December morning.

James

Categories
Playlists

146 Spotisfaction Friday – 3rd December 2010 – Ben Mercer

Friday. The end of the week. Time to listen to more music, wind down at work (amirite?), and get ready for another weekend of resting, loving, playing.

Playing being the operative word, because tomorrow, Saturday the 4th, it’s the final of the World Series Of Pong! Now I love a bit of Ping Pong, except when I lose because my team mate is a big gayer, but to big up the competition at the Tooting Tram and Social in South London, Ben Mercer has put together an entirely Pong-based playlist which is so hilarious I had to feature it. Described on their blog as ‘a combination of pun based team names, beer, banter, dance-offs and pong‘ and with DJs and live installation art through the day, it’ll be hilarious, so even though I’m not in the competition anymore I’ll see you down there.

Click on for more deets about the competition. Enjoy the playlist.

James

Categories
Features

Feature: Is Tropical, Competition Winner!

Hey all, thanks for the submissions for last weeks competition to win Is Tropical’s new single. I asked you:

What was the first Kitsuné compilation, and in what year was it originally released? The first person with the right answer here, on Twitter or on Facebook will get the single! Winner revealed tomorrow.

The answer was Kitsuné Love, 2002, and the winner was Thom Lavelle. Well done Thom – the single will be winging it’s way over to you shortly!

Stay tuned for more giveaways soon.

James.

Categories
Reviews

Feature: Is Tropical, Competition

Is Tropical. 2010 has been the year for Bandana-wearing punk-pop-electro. Having toured with Egyptian Hip Hop, Good Shoes and The Big Pink early in the year, Is Tropical then spent the summer recording their as-yet untitled debut album, signed for Kitsuné and then supported The Mystery Jets in their late Autumn UK tour. On 22 November they released the Kitsuné debut single South Pacific, and it’s a track that captures a summery, optimistic feeling in-keeping with the tracks name, the season it was created, and the growing momentum of the band.

Light, semi-glitchy and ultra low-fi beats, even the vocals are sketchy, giving the track, along with its jaunty synth lines, a childlike, innocent, unpolished feeling. There’s an ethereal, dream-like quality that makes it very easy to conjure images of sun, sea and sand, brightness and optimism. For a November release, this is about as summery as it gets.

Categories
Playlists

142 Spotisfaction Wednesday – 24th November 2010 – Rhys Howell

Arg mad rush over here today, so a very late playlist. But hopefully it means you’ll all chill out this evening and listen to this one in the comfort of your own home. We’re very busy these days thanks to the success of the site, and are looking for more contributors to provide us with playlists and articles, and to give us a helping hand to start publishing more of our articles. So, fancy being a part of running a blog? Love making playlists or writing about music? Then contact us! Facebook or Twitter us, or send us a message through the site, we’ll be delighted to hear from you.

Now, todays playlist is brought to you by Rhys Howell, and it’s a delightful classical playlist to smooth you over the hump of the week. Enjoy!

James

Categories
Playlists

139 Spotisfaction Wednesday – 17th November 2010 – Dave Christensen

Hey hey Spotisfaction crew! Bit of a rush of things this morning so I may have to be brief. I’d like to echo Dave P’s Black Ops shout out – add me on Xbox live (Mr Strangent) for some zombie nonsense. Saw Holy Fuck on Monday night at the Electric Ballroom, absolutely incredible; I’ve been a very lucky boy for amazing gigs this year, and long may it continue.

Still always need your playlist submissions. You don’t want to hear from me all the time do you? We love all the quirky little playlists and all the reasons you guys listen to the music you do, so all those playlists you’ve got saved on the right hand bar of your Spotify account? Think about submitting them!

Now, on to today’s playlist, a great showcase of the Old Guard still making great music, from Dave Christensen.

James

Categories
Reviews

Review: The Mystery Jets, The Roundhouse London

The Mystery Jets have had a good year. Off the back of their third album proper, Serotonin, in July, William Rees and Kai Fish made a guest appearance on The Count & Sinden’s hit track After Dark, which was a mainstay on dance/indie playlists for most of the late summer. Since then, they’ve been on tour literally non-stop since mid-September, playing 38 European gigs since starting off with a double-header at New York’s Mercury Lounge on 14/15 September. They bring this mammoth tour to a close with a home-coming gig at London’s Roundhouse tonight, with signs of tiredness starting to set it.

Categories
Playlists

136 Spotisfaction Wednesday – 10th November 2010 – James TAE

It’s Wednesday, the hump of the week. You look like you need another playlist – if you’re like me, your entire life is spent listening to music, and each day is a joy because of it. We’ve got some great live reviews coming up: yours truly will be going to see Fenech-Soler at London’s Heaven this evening, and the Mystery Jets at Camden’s Roundhouse tomorrow evening. Spotisveteran Dave Prowse will be seeing 3 Daft Monkeys at Gloucester’s Guildhall tomorrow evening too, following my review of them a fortnight ago. Keep your eyes peeled over the next week or so for these.

Now, today I have done a playlist generated exclusively by my Last.FM page, taking the top 20 artists and making a playlist from them. I’m going to start doing this more regularly, and perhaps every few weeks will submit a playlist of my ‘most listened to’ of the proceeding week. For now, this is the top of everything I’ve listened to, so read on for the blurb.

Categories
Reviews

Review: Unwritten Pages – Pt 1

Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, of the Mars Volta, said of progressive rock: “We are really tired of those labels and questions. Concept album? How can any huge project that takes up most of your life for a year not have a concept?” and it’s fair to say that Unwritten Pages, too, is lifted straight out of the bedrock of conceptual progressive rock.

The conception of Frederic Epe, a vocalist and instrumentalist of seemingly boundless imagination, who has been able to group together some of the finest musicians working in Europe’s progressive rock scene to create debut album Noah, he has been living and breathing this project for the last 5 years, and true to progressive form, the album is dense, challenging and carries a tense conceptual sci-fi narrative.

Categories
Playlists

135 Spotisfaction Monday – 8th November 2010 – Kev Atkinson

Morning all. Hope you had a good weekend? I had a weekend of mixed fortunes – my computer died on Friday and shows no signs of recovery; I went to Craven Cottage to watch my team (Villa, the best team the word has ever seen, the chant confirms) decimate Fulham and then concede deep in injury time for a draw; then had a killer night listening to Jackmode at Counter Culture – still going strong and still plenty more to go, get yourself down to London Bridge asap.

Today’s playlist is one designed to be off the cuff, totally random and the essence of putting your MP3 players full library on shuffle. In an effort to tidy up the look of the post, I’ve split the tracklisting in two, hopefully it makes sense and looks a little tidier. Now, I’ll hand you over to Kev.

Categories
Playlists

129 Spotisfaction Monday – 25th October 2010 – James TAE

Goood moorning Spotisfactionnn, gooood moorning eeverybody.

Hope you’re all well. London is both sunny and absolutely freezing at the moment, I think it’s going to be another iced-over winter. I’m looking forward to the days when I don’t have to come to work because of it. Then I can work on playlists all day, which is why we’re all here, right? Of course, you don’t want to hear from me all the time, and truth be told neither do most people here at the site, so make sure you get your best (and worst) playlists submitted to us. Check the Submission Guide on how to do so. Keep those playlists a-comin’!

My playlist today is entitled Poets Union, and it’s a collection of songs featuring my favourite verses, lines, spits and flows. You might look at the list and think that there are some dubious choices, but hopefully I present here an appreciable bunch of lyrics and performances. By way of a blurb, I think I’ll quote a favourite line or two from each of the songs. You can just leave this here and listen to the playlist, or read on for these snippets from the songs.

Take it easy
James