Aim - ‘The Force’ ft. QNC
taken from Cold Water Music (Grand Central, 1999)

Various Artists - ‘Easy To Be Hard’
taken from Hair OST (Polydor, 1969)

Audio bonus!

Galt MacDermot - ‘Easy To Be Hard’
taken from Hair Cuts (?, 1969)

So I’m blasting back onto the scene by leaning back on one of my favourite stimulus subjects: the British weather. The weekend just gone by was nothing short of beautiful, with blue skies and blazing sunshine making for some of the finest couple of days of the year so far. Throw this into the mixing pot with the dawn of my five and a half weeks of summer holiday and you’ve got a situation approaching fiesta status. Eff the torrential rain since then, ‘The Force’ is one of my go-to summer classics and well overdue for the deconstruction treatment.

I’m not sure how far Andrew Turner, more commonly known as Aim, has managed to extend his influence beyond British shores but he is without doubt one of the most high profile hip hop artists within a certain demographic here in Blighty. Teetering dangerously on the edge of what could be considered coffee table music, what’s surprising about Aim as an artist is that he has always managed to maintain a sense of credibility despite his particular aesthetic possessing clear mass appeal: yea, that trendy looking student likes to rock it at his afternoon shift behind the bar on a Saturday, but there’s enough substance to his discography to stop such incidents tainting the music for the more discerning listener (read: music snobs like me). All three of his studio albums are worth copping and his mix for the Fabric Live series was jaw-droppingly good: quite a musical career for a man hailing from Cumbria.

‘The Force’ is one of the most unabashed bangers in his discography and sees him team up with ex-JVC Force member Curt Cazal and long-term affiliate Q-Ball (who I don’t think ever played a part in the crew) who drop satisfyingly accomplished rhymes over a beat that has depth and momentum. The main groove is lifted from ‘Easy To Be Hard’ which can be found on Galt MacDermot’s widely-used soundtrack to the late ’60s musical Hair, a track and theatre production that I’ve mentioned before when discussing the Three Dog Night cover that formed the backbone of Nice & Smooth’s ‘Old To The New’. It’s a straight up loop of the first two bars with low pass filter applied that acts as the foundation of ‘The Force’, steadily built upon with multiple other layers that escape my realm of knowledge. This is frustrating as there’s plenty more at play here, with squealing horns, vocal sample and bouncy piano loop all featuring throughout the composition.

As such, this ‘deconstruction’ is a little redundant because it clearly doesn’t do justice to the musicianship on display. However, as a means to easing myself back into the blog game and presenting a track that may have passed you Yanks by, it suffices perfectly. To ease the guilt of my shallow analysis I’ve also thrown in an alternative version of the source material that I picked up on my digital travels at some point from MacDermot’s Hair Cuts, an equally enjoyable version of the song that is well worth the space on your hard drive. Let’s hope the clouds disperse again soon: ‘The Force’ is far too glorious to bump when it’s raining.

There’s nothing worse than reading bloggers’ apologies about being overly busy and not having time to post, but the guilt has got to me, so in essence this is an both an apology about the lack of activity around this way and an apology about the apology. That convoluted enough for ya?

School’s finally out for summer at the end of the week. Roll on Friday…

Freddie Foxxx - ‘Can’t Break Away’ & ‘So Tough (Mellow Mix)’
taken from Crazy Like A Foxxx (Fat Beats, 2008)

DJ Monster Crazy Like A Foxxx Preview Mix

It’s frustrating that hip hop as a genre seems to have suffered from industry bullshit more than any other over the last two decades or so, but thankfully it seems we’re reaching a point in time where people are realising that there is a demand for out of print and shelved releases from rap’s most dynamic years. The highlight for me in 2007 was the surfacing of the Ultimate Force LP, and it looks like 2008 will have a few treats in store as well, no less so than Freddie Foxxx’s previously unreleased sophomore outing Crazy Like A Foxxx, scheduled to drop at the end of this month.

I’ve been making do with the ridiculously hissy rip of the promo tape for a while now and even though the sound quality is incredibly poor, the caliber of the music still shines through: the whole album typifies the kind of rough, no frills, New York boom bap that made me fall in love with hip hop in the first place. I’ve tried to clean up the audio a little on the two tracks offered here to make them a little more listenable, but I’m literally busting to hear them in all their remastered glory. ‘Can’t Break Away’ features a lovely Curtis Mayfield guitar lick and beautifully rolling bass line that serves as the perfect opener to the album, and although the original mix of ‘So Tough’ that features Queen Latifah is slammin’, I’ve always preferred the ‘So Tough (Mellow Mix)’ that was also included on the promo tape. Whether this is the same ‘mellow’ mix as the one featured on the 12” or not is unclear to me, but Hip Hop DX suggest that there was a remix put together by Pete Rock so I guess this could be his work (although it doesn’t sound like the Chocolate Boy Wonder to me particularly). Ultimately, I can’t wait to see how the production roster is laid out track by track as the album is pretty much filler free and it’s something that has intrigued me ever since I stumbled across Crazy Like A Foxxx at the beginning of last year.

The album is due to drop at the end of the month on Fat Beats alongside the original demo version produced entirely by Buckwild, Showbiz and Lord Finesse (I think I just let out a dribble of sex wee), so there’s going to be plenty on offer for fans of that official rap shit. I’ve linked to the DJ Monster preview mix above that features largely the DITC-honed originals as opposed to the final album versions which gives a tasty overview of what to expect from the bonus disc.

Wipe the drool off your keyboard and brace yourself for one of the most exciting musical events of the year so far. I can only hope that 2008 holds more treats like this in store: Pete Rock Future Flavas remixes perhaps? I won’t hold my breath…

Apologies to all for the lack of activity here at FDB of late, there just seems to be a hell of a lot going on at the moment outside of my digital existence.  This includes a four day stint this week in Paris with a bunch of 40 12 and 13 year olds with school, so the drought will endure for the short-term (that’s real time, not the warped internet variety).  Visiting fantastic European city? Great.  Puking children on coaches? Not so much.

I’ll be back on Friday.  Hold tight for some revitalised energy here from then on in.  The summer holidays are just around the corner!

Marvin Gaye - ‘Cleo’s Apartment’
taken from Trouble Man OST (Tamla Motown, 1973)

I’ve been on a soundtrack tip pretty hard of late and although the vast majority of the albums that I’ve copped have been more than worth the price of submission, none have stood out for me as whole works as fervently as Marvin Gaye’s score to Trouble Man. The title track was one I was already familiar with as it stands as one of my favourite Marvin cuts of all time, but I’m ecstatic that I’ve now shaken myself out of a deep slumber to enjoy the complete score as it is excellent from front to back.

‘Trouble Man’ itself and of course the classic ‘T Plays It Cool’ are likely to be familiar material to you even if you’re not particularly up on Gaye’s discography, but there really isn’t a misstep to be found here. To me this is staggering, as music that is scored to be specifically twinned with the moving image can often suffer when removed from its visual counterpart, but the soundtrack to Trouble Man really does manage to stand on its own two feet and goes down for me as essential work from one of soul’s most charismatic and enduring figures. ‘Cleo’s Apartment’ is the song that has received the most rotation of late, a track that begins with harrowing strings before dropping into one of the most delightfully soulful pieces of music to have graced my ears in a minute ever. The layering of vocals is to die for, as is the gently twinkling piano part and booming claps that punctuate the groove. Spark a fat one and recline: this is sumptuous enough to completely melt into.

As bonus material, you should definitely check out the first of the following videos from Denver’s Boon Doc, who does a fantastic job of flipping the sample with real finesse. I think it was probably Dart that probably put me onto this guy, but I’m now a real fan of his sequence of YouTube videos where he displays genuine talent behind the boards; let’s hope he can make a full transition into the game ‘proper’. The second video is his latest installment, and although it has nothing to do with the post at hand, it’s so damn fresh that I’m chucking it in anyway…

…that is if embedding video was working properly. Grr… check the ‘Cleo’s Apartment’ flip here and ‘Smooth Beat 2008′ here. Damn Wordpress gremlins.