L-Vis 1990. English bloke. One of the most innovative and talked-about producers of the year, with the talent, creativity and artistic vision to back it up, not only through music but also video and artwork (he is responsible for the massive Riton and Dance Area videos, as well as his own, supported by Michel Gondry's production company Partizan). Championed by blogs, sitting on top of a pile of hypemachine and resident advisor charts, the buzz on L-Vis' releases (on Mad Decent, Dress 2 Sweat) and remixes (for Riton & Primary 1, Buraka, Crystal Fighters, Gucci Vump) is the kind that comes once a year and changes the face of underground club music. We could spend hours explaining how he is the new incarnation of UK bass / club culture and how he blends years of garage heritage with post-modern tribal house, but it's a lot simpler than that: L-Vis 1990 is his own music genre. He's a true phenomenon, and the sensation that we are witnessing the imminent explosion of a massive success has never been so tangible.
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Slightly heavier than your average Sound Pellegrino release while still maintaining focus on groove as our primary criterion, this single marks our first exploration of "riddim" territory, AKA we're definitely taking the Eurostar to this one. Somewhere in between UK funky and dark African rave lies Compass, a strong, obvious, destructive and fierce hit that could be interpreted as a punchy follow up to L-Vis' previous single United Groove. Already played by the whole universe from big name BBC Radio 1 DJs to Grenoble techno aficionados, Compass is bound to become a must-play, and we'd like to apologize in advance for the loss of your dear little bedroom speakers. On the infamous "virtual flip", Zahonda serves as the bubbly, quieter yet lethal house tool. Obsessive, repetitive and muddy, it's the chant of Mother Earth reclaiming the dancefloor, or something to raise your arms and worship the Sun to.
The Compass remix is provided by none other than Christian Martin, half of the notorious Martin Brothers and one of the heads of best-in-class San Francisco-based house label Dirtybird. This is another case of "we are so psyched to have one of the inspirations behind the creation of Sound Pellegrino do a remix for us". His take on Compass results in an amazing slice of detailed, elegant and vicious electro-tech that will surprise and win the favors of DJs from all around the spectrum. London's Greena remixes Zahonda into an immediate funky DJ friendly stomper that will leave crowds all shook up, wrapping up this essential single that will undoubtedly give to young underground prince L-Vis 1990 the well-deserved title of "King of Bass".
- Teki Latex
There are times In the carreer of a top international DJ/Producer where things get a little bit out of control. Times when the glitter, the glam and the fame get a little out of hand. Times when the whole "travelling from the hotel to the jet, and from the jet to the 5000 capacity venue via a helicopter made of gold" - thing kinda blurs one's vision of day to day reality. In times like these, it's important for said DJ/Producer to take a step back, return to anonymity and focus on the music that keeps the underground clubs buzzing. The sweaty, dirty, forward-thinking, genre-defying, risk-taking house music that drives the cool kids crazy. That is exactly what the mysterious entity hiding behind GUCCI VUMP is doing with the release of Sha! Shtil!, The Boogieman and Casablanco on Sound Pellegrino.
If we wanted to tell you who Gucci Vump was, let's just say we get into some big fat legal trouble with legions of record company people, managers and agents and it would cause an unprecedented diplomatic incident. He is such an important and heavy money-generating figure in the international DJ scene that every piece of information regarding every single one of his release shakes the whole industry up. It's an amazing and exciting thing but we feel that such a media tsunami would turn Sound Pellegrino into a relentless money-making-attention-grabbing-hype-creating machine and ultimately cause more harm than good to the label. The humble little craftsmen of house music that we are much prefer to keep it on the down low. Therefore Gucci Vump's mysterious identity shall not be revealed.
Evidently there has been a lot of talk and speculation surrounding this release and the identity behind the alias "Gucci Vump". People have not quite nailed it yet and all the names that have been thrown around the internet in the last couple of months have all revealed themselves to be phoney. The mystery remains, and the buzz is growing, as gucci vump appears to be playlisted by more and more VIP DJs from around the globe, leaving people asking "who is this guy and what the hell is a Vump?". Mystery and controversy are one thing but when it comes to the music itself, Gucci Vump delivers.
Sha! Shtil! was inspired by a traditional Klezmer song telling the story of a Rabbi dancing like a madman to get rid of the demon in him. According to the general feedback we received, from tastemakers to regular weekend clubbers, the track is a smash hit capable of pleasing every dancefloor. People are just too happy to hear that lady sing in Yiddish, and the production is so crisp, it makes it the perfect tool for every dj to turn the techno party into RABBI-DOME VOLUME FIVE.
Totally in touch with the current interest in local scenes and the merging of fhe folkloric and the futuristic, gucci vump adds a political dimension to the "conceptual sample" game by using bits and pieces from both Jewish (as we heard with Sha! Shtil!) and Arabic traditional music on the same EP. The Boogieman could be the background for a fantasy Indiana Jones pursuit scene in a bazaar that ends up in an indian pit of snakes. And when he received Casablanco Orgasmic instantly described it as "Raï meets UK Funky". The comparison is a little bit "pulling it by the hair" as we say in French, but the tracks are two immense bangers.
On remix duties we have the man of the moment L-VIS 1990, known for his recent releases on Mad Decent and Dress2Sweat, building anticipation for his forthcoming Sound Pellegrino release Compass/Zahonda by providing a deadly yet classy take on "Sha, Shtil!" including one of the most venimous typhoon-shaped basslines heard in a while. Last but not least, Downtown, one half of star duo Renaissance Man, re-invents The Boogieman as a brilliant dubby tech house odyssey complete with sitar stabs and menacing howling noises, a guaranteed hit on deeper dancefloors.
Already supported and played by the likes of Sinden, Erol Alkan, Annie Mac, Fake Blood, Feadz, Edu K, Style Of Eye and many others.
Our Finnish friends and Sound Pellegrino members Renaissance Man have just wrapped this exclusive mix for Sixpack France, making it the third installment in a quite irregular series of musical projects, initiated in 1998 with Feadz' Stagnation Reversed mixtapes, followed by Orgasmic & Tekitek's Sixpack Anthem EP a couple of months ago.
Stream or download this hour of sparse and less sparse house, including a couple of exclusives and special edits by the boys themselves.
This mix will be soon paired with the super limited release of a tee shirt designed by Finland studio Kokoro et moi (also responsible for Renaissance Man's logo and identity), and honestly I'm just posting this with the hope that Lionel will send me one... Medium s'il te plaît...
-Emile.
It's that time of the month again, no not THAT time of the month,
Although I'm sure that wouldn't stop our main men Teki and Orgasmic from "stunting on hoes", they're not that naaaasty and they ain't no pussies, ya heard? The time of the month we're refering to is more about the resulting joy you experience after having heard the awesome mix that the Sound Pellegrino Thermal Team spent cooking up in ,what I can only imagine is, a sweltering hot Parisian basement. There's so much heat canned into this 50 odd minute mix that when Teki tried to upload it the internet broke...True story. With exclusives from every promising act of the moment, from our Island bound companion L-vis 1990 to the elusive Gucci Vump, this here mix is guaranteed to get you all sweated up. Ladies get buck naked, fellas do you best to keep your clothes on. Please. For god's sake.
Get your mix here
Mike Gnacadja is the type of producer who needs balance in his life. When Luca aka Curses! aka Drop The Lime introduced him to us under the name Mikix The Cat, little did we know that a week later he would start bombarding us with a neverending stream of amazing tracks, each belonging to a cryptic, unheard-of subgenre of house. While unleashing his hard bass-driven rave bursts as Mikix for Luca's label Trouble & Bass, Mike kept his lighter, more playful side away from the public ear, but not from the Sound Pellegrino Thermal Team's hard drives. Influenced by the sparse sounds of the house music of Now, as well as a rightful return to the African rythms of his Beninese roots, channelled by his move from Paris to Berlin, a new face of Mike Gnacadja was born, we decided to name it Momma's Boy (after the restaurant in Curb Your Enthusiasm).
Instantly praised by world class DJs such as Edu K, Andy George, Worthy (who will soon drop another Momma's Boy release on his wonderful imprint Anabatic) and many more solely on the basis of his remix of Douster's "For Weirdos Only" and a couple of Myspace tracks, Mike is ready to show the world what Momma's Boy is made of with the release of his Sound Pellegrino EP: Wedouwedou / Give It Up.
ling a drunken cross-eyed bird's tweet with a build up that would make Magilla Gorilla jizz strawberry-banana-flavored smoothie in his pan
"Wedouwedou" was the track that made Orgasmic and I jump out of our seats and scream "Mike is ready". A slow-burning tech-funk groover that turns into a pumping mini fuzzy synth freestyle resembling a drunken cross-eyed bird's tweet with a build up that would make Magilla Gorilla jizz strawberry-banana-flavored smoothie in his pants.
Orgasmic and I had an argument about whether "Give It Up" should be the A side or not, but things like that don't really matter anymore with digital releases, do they? Anyway I believe "Give It Up" is the hit of the EP. Banging yet subtle, evil yet pointing towards the direction of "a fun jam", this track is like a sprinkle of hagelslag on an already delicious piece of toast in the middle of a well-furnished musical Dutch breakfast.
Speaking of Dutch, Rotterdam's Kid Kaio has been a hero to us for quite some time now, precisely since his collaboration with Lucky Charmes on the hit "Plain Dots", which we banged all year with unbounded pleasure. His remix of "Wedouwedou" is as tribal and bubbly as one would expect, while introducing a surprisingly deep and dubby mood. Here's what twitter-happy gangster house DJ Brodinski had to say about it:
brodinski @TekiLatex kid kaio Rmx amazing Prog House trance deep crack mafia music. love it. @MIKIXTHECAT
As a matter of fact Brodinski likes this EP so much he decided to include bonus track "Betowe" on his freshly dropped Bugged Out mix-CD. "Betowe" mixes deep minimal rhythms with tribal drums and chants, much like a lot of house music being released this year, except these chants are sung in the very dialect spoken by Mike's family, and I'm not even trying to get all "authentic" on your asses but Momma's Boy flips those vocal samples like no one will ever be able to, period.
- Teki Latex.
> Free download: MOMMA'S BOY - Give It Up
Surely you've heard of our stove-hot sublabel Sound Pellegrino, Zombie Disco Squad and Douster's releases have been blazing dancefloors worldwide since the beginning of the year now it's time for men of the moment Renaissance Man and American housemaster Havard Bass to get a turn. We've sanctioned two heavy releases to get your body jacking throughout the summer months, both are out now exclusively in digital format, get buying!
Renaissance Man
First up are Renaissance Man, who's "Spraycan" (out on Dubsided) absolutely blew up the WMC this year, the finnish duo deliver a massive EP to add to your Sound Pellegrino collection.
How catchy is the tongue-in-cheek vocal sample in "What Is Guru"? Soon, even your mother will ask you to burn her a CD of "that Krishna song". But once the novelty's gone, what makes this track a hit is the impeccable and original production, serving a groove reminiscent of Akufen's early radio-chopping work.
It's so good that Riva Starr, one of artists who helped define this new sound we keep writing about, came up with an infectious percussive remix which will prove itself more than useful for DJs who aren't feeling the whole vocal/spiritual breakdown thing.
Harvard Bass
We got to know Harvard Bass through Johnny Love from Guns 'n' Bombs back in december 2007 when TTC flew to California on a quest for the perfect hamburger (shout out to In & Out). We closely followed his career since then, inviting him to remix our "Sixpack Anthem" on Institubes and watching him gather massive support from DJs like Crookers, Brodinski, Christian Martin, Jess & Crabbe, Acid Girls, Fluokids and many, many more. It's finally Harvard Bass's time to shine
Tracks from Buenos Aires french expat Douster have been around on everybody's hard disks and playlists for ever, but thanks to Sound Pellegrino and Dan Haaksman's Man Recordings it is now Douster's time. He is finally getting actual official releases. With “For Weirdos Only” and “Freak Mode”, Douster moves one step away from his early banging fidget works to venture into pure house territory, and the result is a wonky banjo joyride backed with a jacking burst of pure energic groove. Warm and cold, perfect for the early summer days when you can hang out in a tee shirt all day but still have to wear a jacket at night.
We asked Das Glow from Institubes (Sound Pellegrino's proud "big brother label") to remix “For Weirdos Only” and in typical Das Glow fashion he named the first draft "Doustin Hoffman" and the second one "Doustin Timberlake". With his final file, he attached a picture of Mr. Potato Head dressed up as a Halloween ghost.
On the virtual flip, Momma's Boy (Trouble and Bass alumni Mikix The Cat's housier alias) provides a slow-boiling party-starting version of "for weirdos" ideal for hula hoop training sessions that also works as an introduction to Momma's Boy's forthcoming EP on Sound Pellegrino.
Douster's offering is available now as a digital only release.
