When Howie B helped kick start the whole trip-hop thing in the 90s, did he still think it would be a ‘thing’ a quarter century later – or that – as with new single, Thats Down, he’d still be making it? I say trip-hop, the presence of Chinese DMC champion, DJ Wordy, and his turntablist skills along with an ambient electro/ techno sound palette pushes the envelope enough you’ll be
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Tag Archives: downtempo
HOWIE B feat. DJ WORDY: Thats Down + video
HIP CUT: Hip Society
That ol’ early Shadow/ Krush sonic template continues to stand the test of time and while it might not have been flavour of the month for – oohh – at least twenty years, you can rely on there always being a few LPs a year worth a listen. Indeed, Hip Cut’s Hip Society is the second in two months, the other being DJ Moya’s II305 – and what are the chances (?) – Moya himself turns up on one of the
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DJ MOYA: II305
Long-time MB readers will know that while the greater proportion of what gets featured on the site is aimed squarely at the dancefloor, occasionally something a little more chin-stroky makes it past MB’s strict door policy. That of which we speak goes by many names of course – instrumental hip-hop, downtempo breaks, trip-hop and (if you’re James
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NAANVA: Rivulet EP
Back awhiles just over a year ago, a track by the name of Flowers Of Spring landed on the monkey’s virtual doormat from someone called Naanva. All preconceptions of this being some sort of world music project instantly dissipated as a Cotton Club-style jazzy intro quickly became imbued with the sound of b-boy drums and then it was all about how the jazzy influences alternated
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KENO: Around The Corner
Rating: 
The new year is finally upon us but what lies around the corner from producer David Hanke? Appropriately enough, it’s a new sample-based cinematic downtempo LP entitled Around The Corner under the nom-de-plume Keno. Which means that ‘the producer with a thousand names’ (well, alright five at least) has added yet another moniker to a growing list that already includes
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JON KENNEDY: Enchantica (2017)
While you wait for the next full-length release from Jon Kennedy, he gets his trip-hop on with atmospheric new single Enchantica. The track is built around all-enveloping organic bass and drums as washes of sax and xylophone drift in and out of focus along with what might be a cut-up vocal loop from Bobby Darin’s version of Nature Boy wafting around in the background too. The
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CHRISTIANA: Lights More Lights (MANOSJMT edit)(2017) Free download
Not a man to sit idly and twiddle his thumbs when it’s colder than an inuit’s outside toilet, Manosjmt has been having a fiddle around with 70s and 80s Greek folk singer Christiana. Not literally you filth mongers! I meant he’s tweaked her old folk pop hit Lights More Lights by dint of adding a dusty break and created a slinky lil downtempo disco funky number. You can fit this one right in there
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AFTERNOONS IN STEREO: Echo Valley (2016)
Afternoons In Stereo takes a trip down jazz canyon on sixth LP Echo Valley which fuses multiple genres with, well, jazz, obviously. The title track (and opener) is a beatless Rhodes piano mood piece that swiftly gives way to the crisp breakbeat intro of City Of The Future and its jazz fusion vistas. Eames In Dub by contrast juxtaposes spacey echoes with jazz disco beats
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MANOSJMT: Garifalle (2016) Free download
As likely to mix swing as funk, and rock n roll as soul, Athens-based producer Manosjmt gets on a funky downtempo tip for his latest effort – Garifalle which samples the back catalogue of Greek band Peloma Bokiou. The band originally came together in autumn 1970 and their first single was Garifale, Garifale-Min Kles (Don’t Cry) – a.k.a. the sort of thing that might turn up on a
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SKINSHAPE: Oracolo (2015)
Rating: Skinshape (a.k.a Will Dorey of Horus Records) follows-up his self-titled debut LP of last year with an impressive end-of-year effort that falls out of the psychedelic tree and hits every single branch on the way down. Oracolo combines sixties American roadtrip psychedelia with its slightly more pastoral English sixties cousin, throws in a healthy smattering of the more organic
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