For those of you who haven’t been following this part of Lisbon’s music scene, Kuduro is a musical style that was born in Angola in the early ’90s. The Lisbon branch of Kuduro — Lisboeta — has become a high-energy form of electronic-dance-music that’s now breaking into the mainstream. The popular kuduro band Buraka Som Sistema is in the Portuguese pop charts and has videos on MTV there.
Dublin, Ireland’s Pasta Masta sent me this DJ Mix which skillfully glides through hip-hop, soul, dancehall, dubstep, boston-bounce, funk, rock, and a bunch of other genres.
I was recently invited to spin-up a set over at Northwestern University’s radio station; WNUR 89.3 FM. My man Jeekoos runs the Part Time Suckers (PTS) radio show there and diligently records the guest DJ sets. He’s got what seems like hundreds of them archived on his website.
Here’s another installment of me going on about some under-remembered electronic subgenre of the past–this time the focus is on Belgium, and New Beat. Long before house music made it out of the Midwest, Belgium had a thriving electronic music scene (they called it Electronic Body Music, or EBM, and it was basically a dancier variant of Industrial—think Front 242, à;GRUMH…, Luc Van Acker, Neon Judgement, etc.). They also had a lot of embarrassing Hi-NRG and Euro-Pop (which I also adore, but you can probably guess how Luc Van Acker felt about it). As a response to these up-tempo dance-pop formats, a DJ by the name of Fat Ronnie (real name Ronnie Harmsen) started dramatically slowing down his records. He’d take 45 rpm pressings of tunes in the 135-155 bpm range, and play them at 33rpm +8, bringing the tempo down to 95-120, and then mix them with EBM, some Italo-Disco, New Wave, and what not. By 1986 the “Go Slow” DJ style was blowing up, and you had a lot of DJs throughout Belgium playing this way, and even making purposefully slow records to mimic this sound. At first some people were just calling it “AB music” (after the Ancienne Belgique, a famous concert hall in Brussels where Fat Ronnie played), but eventually the term “New Beat” took hold.
A few of the New Beat DJs (most notably Marc Ickx from A Split-Second) starting incorporating some early Chicago House tracks into their sets; clocking in at 115-120, they were the perfect tempo, and though they were black and American and disco-driven, there was an element of weirdness to them that fit perfectly with Belgian EBM. Soon Acid House was blowing up in Belgium (and being heavily incorporated into New Beat tunes), and it was through this that the first imports started to make their way to the UK (and Ibiza). In fact, Belgian imprint R&S was the first label outside the US to release Joey Beltram, Juan Atkins, Suburban Knight, 2 In A Room, and a load of other US artists.
A lot of the initial New Beat tunes were pretty poppy, but by 1988 the acid house influence had merged with EBM aesthetics to give Belgian techno a much harder edge. It’s from here that the “Belgian Hardcore” sound of the early ’90s evolved (think “Dominator” by Human Resource, “Take Control” by Lords of Acid, or anything with a hoover in it), and ultimately Dutch Gabba/Hardstyle/Jumpstyle. It’s easy to forget just how many huge names in techno come from this country of only 10 million people: Praga Khan, Lords of Acid, 2 Unlimited, Technotronic, CJ Bolland, Frank De Wulf, Milk Inc, 2 Many DJs, Hooverphonic (and that’s not even counting one-hit wonders like Human Resource, Set Up System, Convert, and the like). Perhaps as much as the Americans or the British (and certainly more than the oh-so-fashionable Germans & French), Belgians are responsible for today’s electronic dance music culture.
Now that I’ve gotten all that off my chest, I’ll leave you with a mixtape (and I do mean TAPE, as in two sides, 90 minutes) of Belgian New Beat (with a few non-Belgian tunes of the era thrown in for good measure), and a link to a really good (but unfortunately Flemish-only) resource for this music: http://www.muziekarchief.be. And before anybody says it, yes, I know I left out Telex. Sorry.
My boy Starkey is keeping BUSY lately! This guy is one of my fave dubstep producers at the moment. (But then again, would I have put out one of his records if I didn’t like him?) VERY recently he came through with the Street Bass Anthems Vol. 2 comp on Seclusiasis, and now he’s got TWO new releases of his own, a 12″ on Starksound and a digital EP on Slit Jockey. I AM LOVING HIS ISH LATELY! Peep a sample tune below:
Tel Aviv’s Soulico crew has been on our radar for minute; dropping a series mashups, tracks, and mixes as part of the JDub records camp (Balkan Beat Box etc.). They recently sent us this hot party mix consisting entirely of their own blends and we think you’ll enjoy it:
Speaking of Boston-bounce, Flack’s also got a recent DJ mix in which he blends together a bunch of said genre with dubstep, b-more, hip-hop and other stuff. It’s called — appropriately enough — Dub Step Bounce and you can get it over at his site.
Murderbot and I ventured out to Zebo and Hess’s Can I Kick It party last night. It turned out that Manny (AKA DJ Magneto AKA ERS One) was the guest DJ. It was like a junglist convention in there, yet no jungle was being dropped.
Seems that ‘Bot and I aren’t the only ones who have become fed up with the macho posturing, and lack of fun in the jungle scene. I’m really glad to see everyone’s eclectic tastes coming to the fore. Manny played a sick set of golden-age-hip-hop, electro, old-school house, pop, techno, freestyle, and early rave tunes, while Zebo and I discussed the merits of keeping genres moving during a set.
Jungle will always be one of my all-time favorite forms of music, and I assume now that the neo-rave movement is entering its post-new-rave period that old-school jungle’s resurgence is just around the corner. In the mean-time, lets keep our ear to the ground, where the branches of the jungle and breakcore scenes have dropped seeds that are growing the roots for the next generation.
This dropped into my emailbox this morning:
hi dj c,…massive respect, nice to see the website runnin in full effect, heres a mix you may be interested in;
DJ C @ Beat Research in Cambridge, Mon. along-side DJ Prezdivka, DJ Flack, and Wayne&Wax. Come holiday dance-party w. us! http://bit.ly/br12Twitter ->2008/12/28
Hello Boston! Bassic party rocked 2nite! Big up to Jam2, Dabu, Damien, Flack, Ripley, C3, and everyone else who was in the house! Twitter ->2008/12/28
DJ C in Boston @ BASSIC, Sat. MASSIVE BASSLINE PRESSURE @ Goodlife Bar
28 Kingston St, Downtown Boston: http://bit.ly/bassicTwitter ->2008/12/23
Lisbon, Portugal’s DJ Manaia sent us this mixtape chock-full of kuduro, baile-funk, mashups, electro-house, hip-hop and more. It’s a crazy-fun one:
Dublin, Ireland’s 
I was recently invited to spin-up a set over at Northwestern University’s radio station; 
Here’s another installment of me going on about some under-remembered electronic subgenre of the past–this time the focus is on Belgium, and New Beat. Long before house music made it out of the Midwest, Belgium had a thriving electronic music scene (they called it Electronic Body Music, or EBM, and it was basically a dancier variant of Industrial—think Front 242, à;GRUMH…, Luc Van Acker, Neon Judgement, etc.). They also had a lot of embarrassing Hi-NRG and Euro-Pop (which I also adore, but you can probably guess how Luc Van Acker felt about it). As a response to these up-tempo dance-pop formats, a DJ by the name of Fat Ronnie (real name Ronnie Harmsen) started dramatically slowing down his records. He’d take 45 rpm pressings of tunes in the 135-155 bpm range, and play them at 33rpm +8, bringing the tempo down to 95-120, and then mix them with EBM, some Italo-Disco, New Wave, and what not. By 1986 the “Go Slow” DJ style was blowing up, and you had a lot of DJs throughout Belgium playing this way, and even making purposefully slow records to mimic this sound. At first some people were just calling it “AB music” (after the Ancienne Belgique, a famous concert hall in Brussels where Fat Ronnie played), but eventually the term “New Beat” took hold.
My boy 
Tel Aviv’s 
Dub 4 sent me his September ‘07 mix full of 
Podcast Feed
RSS/Atom Feed
Recent Comments