2007 archive

Faithless: To All New Arrivals
11.09.
This is my church, and this is where house music had to evolve: melodic, four-to-the floor, uplifting music with guitars, vocals and other unusual stuff for club music. Throughout the years Faithless became one of the most influental band, with their unmistakable Maxi Jazz lyrics mashed up with Sister Bliss's and Rollo's hyper-clean sound. 'To All New Arrivals' continues the previous No Roots' flow, being less attractive, but still unmissable.

Alpha: Without Some Help
10.31.
The Melankolic guys coming from heaven are out with a remix album, made 'Without Some Help'. The 12-tracks album features along two Alpha-tracks ('The Way You Are' and 'Hope Goes Blind') remixes from Horace Andy, Receiver, Wendy Stubbs and Massive Attack's 'Inertia Creeps', to name but a few. While Don't Touch Recordings calls this release "the most anticipated release from Alpha", we're not sure that's better than their regular albums. But it's branded Alpha, so it's good.

Kiss And Fly: EP
10.31.
French author and composer Tristan joined together with several musicians to create "skin deep emotional music", as they label it. Their first EP succeeds during the first track: the usual moody pads, man and woman crossed vocals with some guitars are effectively filling the room, taking the listener with the music. As for the other three tracks, we just remember bing-bong-bla-bla-bla, as they lack very much originality. The production quality is very high, though.

Kriztal Entertainment Compilation: more pLUSH
09.26.
At last, we've found another A-ranked record: a compilation called "more pLUSH", from Kriztal. Kriztal Entertainment is a label dedicated to bringing quality, cutting-edge dance , downtempo, chillout, lounge music to the Americas and in the process introduce a new audience to the incredibly eclectic sounds of electronica. Well, if they don't succeed with pLUSH, then with nothing. Browsing through the album, we were amazed by the quality of the tracks from artists like Bitter:Sweet, Martin Böttcher, The Lushlife Project and Shine - but we could mention all the featured artist. Fans of De-Phazz, Supreme Beings of Leisure and alike, check Kriztal's site (or fly to Miami) to get their latest release.

Earthphish: Earthphish EP
09.23. 
We were quite surprised when we met Earthphish at their MySpace site, but we had to find out, that they look more "alternative-punk-rock" than they really are. Switzerland-based producer Donovan John Szypura and singer Aleksandra Mirjana Crossan are producing very fine and accomplished guitar- and vocal-led tracks (along with some participant musicians). To make things short, we liked all their songs (even most of them are more rock than trip hop), especially the moody "Frank". Give'em a click and check out what's going on in Zürich.

Gotan Project: Lunatico
07.06.
The weird guys with they weird hats and weird mixture of electronics and tango are back! Five years after their massively acclaimed 'La Revancha del Tango' here's the sequel: 'Lunatico'. Two albums were coming in between, a live and a remixed one - this last with one of the best songs ever made: Antipop Consortium's 'El Capitalismo Foraneo'. Anyway: nothing has changed. Lunatico recalls the familiar Gotan Project sound and is a true follow up of their unique style. The 12 tracks are not La Revancha's B-side, there's plenty of new ideas and melodies. They are actually touring the world - if they are near your town, don't miss them!

Electrobel: Trip-hop #1 compilation
07.06. 
Haven't you heared about Electrobel? Well, you definitely missed something then: it's an online underground electronic music community. From electro to drum'n'bass, over ambient til goa, house, breakbeats, you can find everything here - for free! And they are out with their first triphop compilation presenting 15 tracks of different artists. The production quality of the tracks are in most of the cases excellent, and you'll be surprised by songs of bands like Kidgoz, Illkinski, Neofile and our special favourite Owen. Check'em out!

Sleepthief: The Dawnseeker
06.26.
Justin Elswick, alias Sleepthief is out with his first album 'The Dawnseeker' on Neurodisc Records. His collaboration with diverse female vocalists "has yielded an album that is epic, mysterious, affecting and luminous" says the press release. Meanwhile we cannot argue with these attributes, we cannot label Sleepthief music as touching, or profound. More than eleven -some of the best- vocalists can be found on not less than 13 tracks: Kirsty Hawkshaw, Caroline Lavelle, Nicola Hitchcock and one of our personal favourite, Shelley Harland. Working with so much artists, especially on one's first album wasn't the best choice and more musical meaning could be put to less über-epic synth-pads which sounded cool in the eighties. Fans of Mandalay or so will like it.

Down the Dayz: Time to Pass
06.26. 
One of the rules of triphop music is that upcoming artists should not play Portishead look-alike. Except, if it kinda works, as in case of hungarian band Down the Dayz (hungarian triphop, our heart says woo-hoo!). Their first EP called 'Time to Pass' is filled with 5 tracks between "collegebandlike" and "havinggreatpotential" music. With a special eastern-european flavour and some charming vocals, it sounds quite authentic as cheerless young people with guitars. Check their site, download the tracks for free as long as you can...

Exponential presents: Collapsing Culture
05.31.
First take a multimedia artist, a teacher, a Buddhist, and a half El Salvadoran half Nicaraguan, all of whom are from Texas and then tell them to make a CD. The product would be the new Exponential release, Collapsing Culture. The album first catches with its exceptional covert art, which kinda shows what you will find inside: a rare mixture of urban and ethnic, a patchwork of modified and effected sounds and samples. The fully electronic album is very experimental: no sample was safe from cutting, re-arranging and effecting - you have to take some time to accomodate to the musical way of thinking, but it won't be hard, as Collapsing Culture is very catchy.

Tah Rei : Deep Light
05.31.
Essential Ancient is "a group of artists who's sole purpose is to unite our individual consciousness and provide the world with their interpretations of past and present musical soundscapes. All influenced by spirit, growth, friendship, family, humbleness, grit, records, technology, and you...". While this ars poetica could sound a bit corny, it through comes surprisingly well on Tah Rei's Deep Light album. The nine tracks are very very moody, with as less electronics as possible and loads of live played instruments. Deep Light is very close to the nineties' ambient tracks, with fine vocal and instrumental touches.

Thievery Corporation: Versions
05.17.
The Thieves are absolute workaholics: we are still playing their Cosmic Game, never having enough of their future-bossa and bam!, after touring around the world, they concocted 18 dubed-out remixes. We think that throughout the years, Rob Garza and Eric Hilton made the 'Thievery sound' one of the best around. The mix and mood of the tracks are endlessly enjoyable, moving between chill and dancing without breaking the flow. That's one of the reason, that we cannot raise 2 or 3 tracks from 'Versions' - every track has its place on the album, every artist is chosen and remixed with perfection. A must.

Black Era: The Point Of No Return
05.17. 
At last, some pure triphop music from an upcoming artist - stark, melancholic, simple and smashing. Naples-originated band Black Era are presenting their first album with 14 tracks, stuffed with excellent songs and instrumentals titled 'The Point Of No Return'. Yes, they really shouldn't turn back from here... To make things clear: this is a very mature, good sounding production, which could come out from the most famous hands. Tracks like 'The Black Page' or 'What About Us' must be rocking at a BE live concert. Only the vocal performance is uneven with the songs' qual (you cannot be tongued-tied and authentic at the same time), but the magnificent instrumental interludes stuffed with cool speech-samples are here to save the day. Go fast to their website to download the tracks for free! Yes, free, nuthin', niente.

Silver Atlas: Layover
04.27. 
There is more and more triphop-like music coming from the USA these days, mainly influenced by big names like Massive Attack and Portishead. Silver Atlas, formed by Alan Ruffin and Jason Lichon in Chicago steps in the line with their excellent recordings and brilliant (and sometimes too complicated) musical ideas. Although it's not exactly triphop, you should give a spin to their new album 'Layover', with very moody tracks tracks like 'Apart' and 'Joy/Blue'. You could find the sounds too harsh for chilling, but the excellent musical skills, especially the magnificent vocal performance will sooner or later create a unique and world-class recording.

Ramallah Underground
04.11. 
As you know, triphop.hu is more than happy to receive good downtempo music from every part of the world. We are proudly presenting you now some excellent music from Ramallah. You are probably not familiar with artists like Stormtrap, Aswatt, Boikutt, Paracat, Bukue One & Chakal, E.P., The Unpeople , Illaman, Roxy, Zona and Marginal - well, you should. Ramallah Underground is a contemporary artists' collective in a place, where there's no music industry and most music going around is traditional music. Aswatt, one of the leading artist says, "(the musical things) are a bit complicated... as all things are in Palestine". Despite all this, RU's tracks are very well produced, very enjoyable and melting in an excellent way their traditional musical forms with modern electronic music. If you are looking for some authentic and special music, don't miss to visit the Ramallah Underground and Checkpoint 303 sites for loads of free downloadable tunes.

Massive Attack : Collected
02.24.
"Massive!" - commences MA's first best of video album, with sixteen of the most popular tracks. And you don't want the CD to end - intro and outro ambiences, some of the tracks reworked (like the brilliant 'Safe from harm'), fine new subtile noises in the old tracks, marvelous! The CD includes three new tracks too: two versions of 'Live with me' and 'False flags'. There is no reason to live this CD on the shelf. Lot of live dates were announced recently concerning their summer-autumn tour, check their site regularly for confirmed dates.

All India Radio: Permanent Evolutions
02.24.
All India Radio began life in 1998 after founding member Martin Kennedy heard a friend’s badly recorded cassette tape of Indian street noises and decided it contained some of the most evocative sounds he’d ever heard. Taking his inspiration from the KLF’s classic 1988 album ‘Chill Out’, Martin fused the lo-fi cassette recordings together with KLF-inspired ambient soundscapes and All India Radio was born. The 3-members australian band is at his sixth album already. Permanent Evolutions is a fine, chill-out album with loads of ethnic flavour. A very fine listening for everyone.

We've got some italian triphop coming his way - the newcomer band Fabryka plays some sad songs backed by heavy electronics with distorted and lo-fi sounds. We'll, this is all we can say for now because most of the tracks aren't blowing away, but there could be something interesting in the future. Check their site and download their complete EP, along with an interesting extra: Portishead's Glory Box in a live version sung by lead singer Tiziana Felle, accompanied by some swing-ish piano.