DOWNLOAD: Merka - Another Place (Badlands Blam! Remix)
British breaks producer Mark Ford -- Merka to his fans -- is not one to subscribe to limits. He's intensely prolific, following up two 2007 albums with Make & Do for Fat! Records, and his style of breaks incorporates disparate sounds in new, surprisingly catchy compositions. His latest single, "Another Place," is a prime example, waffling between spacey electronica, pitched up funk, and woozy Latin breaks without taking a breath. Three remixers stretch the tune even farther: The PlimSouls transform the Latin breaks into an tech-house groover; Kid Blue snatches tiny samples to punctuate his swollen electro sound; and Badlands, who turn in my favorite remix, hue closest to the original while nudging it closer to rave aesthetics. Don't be limited -- make sure to check out all four versions.
Sounds like: Prefuse 73, Mike Monday, Daedelus
Merka - Another Place (Badlands Blam! remix)
Merka - Another Place (Kid Blue remix)
DOWNLOAD: FreQ Nasty - Peacemaker (DUB) (feat. Propa Tingz)
FreQ Nasty, aka Fiji-born, New Zealand-raised Darin McFayden, was the producer behind "Creator," Santogold's supersonic swingbomb single that detonated many a dancefloor in '08 and just might be the best track on one of the year's most extremely well-received albums. While that beat was arguably his big break, Nasty has been making moves in the drum and bass and breaks scenes for over a decade, producing and deejaying an impressive amount of diverse, subsonic material that not only informed his work on "Creator" but also the labyrinthine, genre-hopping mix he made for Fabric this year, Fabriclive.42. "Peacemaker" appears in its original form in the early minutes of that mix, but this dub version--a grinding amalgam of dancehall, breaks, fidget-house, and high-energy dubstep--is tipped to appear on his pending new artist album, due sometime this year but still lacking an unconfirmed tracklisting, release date, or label. If "Creator" and his Fabric mix are anything to go by, he'll be shattering enough basebins and year-end lists to make us forget those gnarly white dude dreads.
Sounds like: Santogold, Diplo, Switch
DOWNLOAD: Filastine - Fitnah (feat. Jessika Skeletalia Kenney)
The press release and biography for Barcelona-based producer Filastine reads like a pitch for a Current TV travel show: "You might have caught him at a club in London, on a junk raft floating down the Mississippi, at Shambhala festival in British Columbia, at a tiny breakcore party in Osaka, or in front of forty thousand at the Boulevards festival in Casablanca." Rather unsurprising then that dude isn't just peddling some stock dance rhythms for satin-shirted masses, instead working a bass-driven brew of breaks, blasts, and globally-culled melodies, exemplified here on "Fitnah" from his new album Dirty Bomb (out in February through DJ /rupture's Soot label.) After a collage of Theremin whine and handclaps, the tune brings itself to its feet with Whack-A-Mole percussion hits and coarse synth throb, vocalist Jessika Skeletalia Kenney laying Middle Eastern smoke over it all. In days when songs like "Arab Money" get dissected for their supposed intentions, it's nice to hear some globally adventurous music that isn't trying to be anything other than itself.
Sounds like: El Guincho, DJ /Rupture, DJ Signify
Filastine - Fitnah (feat. Jessika Skeletalia Kenney)
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