Monday 18 May 2009

Human Beat Box versus Auto Tune



The art of beat boxing seems to have got a much higher profile and recognition as an art form recently. Partly due to the higher profile of artists such as Rahzel, Kenny Muhammad,Matisyahu and Kila Kela not forgeting our personal favourite,Biz Markee.
Highly rated UK human beatbox,Shlomo , recently became a resident artist at the South Bank and performed classical music with a human beat box orchestra.
PRESS RELEASE: HUMAN BEATBOXER BECOMES ARTIST IN RESIDENCE AT SOUTHBANK CENTRE

Rudey Beat Box

Now the purpose of this article is to showcase the talents of our own walking drum machine, Rudey Beat Box, who you may have checked out in our video section. (See video below of Rudey in the studio.





Rudey has that amazing ability to do do several simitaneous noise with his mouth and reproduce singing and beats at the same time. This ability is not new and decends from an ancient Indian tradition of 'talking drums' and immitation of percussion instruments. Make sure you check out his myspace page : http://www.myspace.com/rudeybeatbox

We recently relented and bought the vocoder like effect Antares Auto Tune, despite being already extreamly bored by the overuse of the technique by T-Pain, Lil'Wayne and the rest.
We think the trick with this effect is to use it in a minimal fashion and experiment with it. In that spirit we recently got Rudey to lay down some oral gymnastics in the studio and see what the results sounded like all auto tuned up! See what you think by selecting the recording (Track 18) on the reverbnation player on the sidebar. The recording has no other effects on it and was recorded in one take with no overdubs. Rudey will hopefully be doing a video tutorial on Beat Boxing on these pages soon, so check back.

Thursday 14 May 2009

PARTY HARDER!



Gabriel from the heatwave just sent us this great bashment refix of Donaeo's 'Party Hard'. Featuring verses from dancehall MCs Capleton, Vybz Kartel, Danny English and Rubi Dan.

The link is below :

DONAEO PARTY HARD HEATWAVE BASHMENT MIX

Gabriel has also written an excellent article on the Jamacian Bashment scene getting down to funky house. Check it out

Tuesday 12 May 2009

LION I : MANY VOICES LP






We are very proud to announce the arrival of Lion I's debut album 'Many Voices', especialy as we were lucky enough to be in the studio in Portman Road when he recorded it. Not that he needed our help; Lion produced the whole album largely by himself ; triggering the record button in the control room and then running into the booth before his drop came in. ACO also contributed to the production and judging by his reception at this years Mayday Festival, his new material had one of the biggest reactions of the whole day. Sorry YT, you were good but you'll never have the energy of this young (18) bashment producer, DJ and singer who melds grime and reggae together with passion and intensity.


Not only a sick producer and artist, Lion I has ben producing a great series of DVD mixtapes under the name 'Out In Da Stix' (Vol1 & 2 out now) as well as his own promotions and events.


More of his music is on his Myspace page ( http://www.myspace.com/lioni ) and im sure you can ask him for copies of his album if you contact him via his page.


For now enjoy some of his video pre views and highlight track (for us) 'Run Like Mascara' is in our reverb nation player. I am sure BLS & Lion I will be teaming up soon for some exclusives for you.




Lion I came to our studios in Camberwell last year and blowed us all away with this freestyle :

COOLY G


We dont bother with 'snarking' here at BLS when there is such fantastic new music and talent out there.
We are very excited to discover this exciting new female producer (at last)
She's from Brixton, a semi pro footballer and a top tribal house DJ and producer. Her beats & productions have a shuffling, shifty quality reminicent of wookie and land somewhere between UK Funky and Dustep. Now on the Hyperdub label who release new track 'Narst' (Narst ; abbrievation of nasty, meaning good. Eg 'That new Cooly G track is narst bruv!') is out now on 12". If you want somthing now from Cooly G then download the mix below by Cooly G herself. (Follow the violet link)


1 Cooly G - Weekend Fly
02 Martin Kemp - No Charisma
03 Sami Sanchez - What
04 Fingaprint - Print Rolla (Cooly Special)
05 Fuzzy Logik - Safari
06 Cooly G - Narst
07 Audio Halls Beat - Dougs Wana
08 Mista P - Funky Interlude
09 Cooly G - Dis Boy Pt 4
10 Mista P - Physic
11 T. Williams - Tight
12 T. Williams & Smokey - Dub
13 NB Funky - Riddim Box (Sami Sanchez Remix)
14 Unknown - Unknown
15 Halo & Kemal - African Dream
16 Hard Soul - Self Religion (Believe In Me)
17 Bopstaz at Work - Always Into Journey
18 DJ Gregory - Vasefa Argy Mix
19 Cooly G - Hard
20 Slisonic - Can U
21 Cooly G - Love Dub Refix
22 Dennis Ferrer - Touch the Sky
23 DJ Gregory - Attend 2
24 Frank Rodger - Nothing Feels the Same
25 Jovonn - New York City Banger
26 Iza Tonic - Full Eclipse


(Above) Cooly G in the Studio

We would love to work with Cooly G and would happily let her loose on our back catalogue for remixes. Definately an artist worth looking out for.
Cooly G is on myspace at : http://www.myspace.com/coolyg

Thursday 7 May 2009

MAYDAY FESTIVAL 2009





The sun shone, the crowds came out in force and Ipswich demonstrated it's wealth of musical talent and diversity in celebration of International Workers Day.

Two of our London acts, Spice and Jamail and Katanya ( http://www.myspace.com/katanyauk) & Luca (http://www.myspace.com/bonetmusic) and got a wonderful responce from the crowds in Alexandra Park and we also saw fantastic performances from some of the acts we are working with in Ipswich such as Lion I, PEP's and B.E.L.I.E.V.E. There was also great performances by our friends DJ Breeze, DJ KC, Tanner and Emkay

Missile Sound did a great job of hosting the urban stage again this year and check out thier website for more video's and photo's of the event (http://www.missilesound.co.uk/)

A highlight for us was the open mic contest that saw our boss man, Culture, get to the last rounds despite being three times the age of the rest of the contestants, before humbly bowing out to some of Ipswich's best young spitters (Well done to our very own Shottboy who just missed out on getting the cup to Crisiskid)

Check out the videos and slide show below















BELOW : Katanya & Luca and Spice & Jamail warm up for the event at BLS Ipswich HQ before the event