Kavain Space, better known as RP Boo, will release Established!, his fourth album for Mike Paradinas’ Planet Mu, on September 17. The album’s opening track, “All My Life,” is now available and can be heard below.
Regarded as one of the founding fathers of footwork, the raw, frenetic offshoot of Chicago house music, Space taps into his ghetto-house roots and takes another giant leap forward on the 12-track full-length that he describes as having a “battle track mentality.”
Big Shot got an advance listen to Established!. Among a selection of exhilarating sample tracks like “Another Night To Party,” we discovered “All Over.” It’s a righteous reconstruction of a famous British musician’s ’80s reimagined from a Windy City perspective. (You’ll have to pick up the album to find out more.)
While Space is coming out with his guns blazing on his long-player, all he wants to do is to spread positivity. “I want the listeners to really get close to something beautiful, to enjoy with family and friends.”
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As the heartbreak of the past 15 months lingers in our collective consciousness, it’s heartening to see a creative finding their voice.
Since the start of the year, Iranian-born producer/multi-instrumentalist/musical journeyman Reza Safinia, who was raised in London and lives in Los Angeles, scored HBO Max’s Warrior and presented his piano-driven, neo-classical album, Yin. On July 16, Reza will issue Yin’s electronic-fueled companion, Yang, on his Music & Texture label.
Ahead of the album’s release, we’re thrilled to world premiere “Vitruvian” from the 11-track affair. It’s an epic, bittersweet instrumental filled with crashing waves of heavenly pads and hellish atmospheric synth melodies. Reza orchestrates the melancholy cut to conclude on a tense and rousing crescendo. In the end, you’re left emotionally spent with your body racing with adrenaline, almost as if you’ve just stepped off a wild rollercoaster ride. Trust us when we say that this is peak-hour fodder for one of Acid Pauli’s shamanistic DJ sets.
Reza had this to say about the song: “Vitruvius was an architect who had ideas about sacred ratios in design that were made famous by Leonardo da Vinci’s drawing ‘The Vitruvian Man,’ the image of the man in a circle showing the proportionality of his limbs. I was thinking about that design in all of nature when I wrote this track. It was the second track I recorded on the album and it defined a lot of the areas I was going to explore in the other tracks.”
Hit the play button below and enjoy.
Image by Christopher M. Fowler
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In 1998, Gerald Simpson (a.k.a. A Guy Called Gerald) released “Voodoo Ray,” a groundbreaking acid-house single that went on to become one of the most influential club tracks in history. The song decimated dance floors around the world and later appeared on Simpson’s Hot Lemonade album released the following year on U.K.-based Rham! Records. The now-classic track rose to number 12 in the U.K. charts and has remained ubiquitous. However, Simpson has consistently maintained that he was never paid by the label that released his music.
Simpson’s claim about nonpayment resurfaced in May when Funk Butcher tweeted: “Did you know that A Guy Called Gerald has not made ANY money from Voodoo Ray?…”
The exchange set off a chain of retweets and comments by shocked fans. Rham Records, which Simpson says has been restarted by the assistant of the original owner, replied that the allegations were false:
Thirty-one years later, Simpson has launched a Crowdfunder campaign. He’s asking fans to help him pay legal costs to secure payment for his recorded work.
“My work is blatantly being taken advantage of, again, and it’s time to end this. There is no agreement between me and this new company, verbal or otherwise, and I’m reaching out to you, asking for your help to stop this crook who is stealing from me,” wrote Simpson.
“While I now have everything that I need to mount a legal challenge, I need your help to cover the legal fees. It looks like it’s going to take about £20,000 to turn this around.”
Big Shot reached out to Rham Records via email for comment about Simpson’s claims. The label replied with the following statement: “We are aware of Gerald Simpson’s social media posts, we refute the allegations and his recollection of events. And we are continuing to pay any royalties that are currently due to him. No further comments.”
What’s interesting to note is that after Simpson split from 808 State and clashed with co-founder Graham Massey over songwriting credit for “Pacific State,” he recorded a biting retort to the group called “I Won’t Give In” found on his phenomenal 1990 album Automanikk. It will be interesting to see how the closure of this issue will affect Simpson’s music going forward.
Image via Wikipedia
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Revered Spanish DJ/producer/Sincopat label boss AFFKT (real name: Marc Martinez Nadal) will release his third full-length album titled The Big Picture this summer via mobilee.
Ahead of the full-length’s release, AFFKT has dropped the album’s first single, “Let It Burn,” featuring Sutja Gutiérrez of The Fruhstucks. The cut is also available with a remix by Santiago Garcia (listen below).
AFFKT describes the single as “a composition where I tried to create a balance of styles and stay halfway through Indie and Eletroclash, musical genres that influenced me a lot when I started making music in the mid/late 90s… It is a direct song which seeks simplicity and perfect forms. His lyrics fit perfectly fine with the album concept, they are somewhere between light and dark, but definitely optimistic.”
The Big Picture will be released digitally on July 30. Vinyl junkies will be able to get their hands on the LP on August 13.
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