Like number 21 I come. It’s that time again, new Adtrax full of mostly new music and some ole corkers.
Coming out of the blocks like a frustrated Dwain Chambers this month and straight in with the ignorance.
First up – The new Hip Hop project from PORTISHEAD’s GEOFF BARROW on the greedy Stones Throw label. Cast of thousands on that album and pretty strong throughout but this-uns my favourite featuring MED and GUILTY SIMPSON and containing loads of PORTISHEAD samples cos if you’ve got it flaunt it.
After that a double swig of pure trash talking firstly from the 20 year ole young missy Azaelia Banks who does this deviant ‘trying to sound really fucking annoying Annie’ however, the beat from DIPLO is fully charged Batacuda business that distracts from the nonsense while we await the instrumental! Then the first ever appearance of the generally underwhelming SWIZZ BEATS on Adtrax which is representative of a bit of an uplift in production quality and creativity coming from the dirty south types, this one sees MPC fingerbob ARAAB MUZIK on the boards.
After that two interesting remixes from Soundcloud, one from AT fave KAYTRADUMUS and then the super talented Frenchman MADI BEATS completely flips COMMON’s ‘Doin It’ on it’s arse (Shame he couldn’t edit out some of COMMON’s homophobic tendencies)

Then we slow it down and make things much more discerning. Beautiful M-PHAZES production for the forthcoming JEAN GRAE album and one from the gorgeous great big jazz-man-bear GREGORY PORTER, ah caramel over ice cubes. Continuing with the Jazz influence after that, a track from SINITUS TEMPO featuring the beautiful voice of KITTY WONG and a STEPNEYesque song from the new QUANTIC SOUL ORCHESTRA album featuring the blonde nuclear power station known as ALICE RUSSELL.

Marvin Gaye remixes normally fail and I suppose this one does as well but it’s a glorious fail I reckon as BREAKBOT cut ‘Heard It Through The Grapevine’ into ribbons leaving the vibe of the original only identifiable by its dental records. On a similarly over the top, tie your tee-shirt into a knot and get on a table steez, my new man-crush KON (of KON & AMIR pedigree) gets on remix duties for MAYLEE TODD’s ‘Hieroglyphics EP’ before it’s two months on the trot for DOC DANEEKA and ABIGAIL WYLES from their excellent new record. Anything and everything by TROPICS is generally mutts nuts and so big up the clever man/woman who asked him to mess about with ‘Reunion’ by M83 – killer, we follow that with the succinctly christened ‘Tesselation’ by CACTOPHAGE, described on their Bandcamp as ‘Spacious psychotropic zones of reverb and melodious intent’, indeed.

Last four are – a track from Beatmaker INSIGHTFUL’s killer album ‘Feathered Son’, free in it’s entirety on Bandcamp (link below in the full tracklist), a cover of DRAKE’s ‘Take Care’ by vocalist PARIS JONES and then two nuggets from what I keep calling crates but aren’t, so two from my IKEA Expedits – the funk-jazz psychedlic-soul gumbo
of BOBBY BOYD CONGRESS and a track illustrating what happens when you force HOWLIN WOLF to plug his guitar in to Chicago’s electricity supply and put him in a room with Chess Records genius musical arranging team of CHARLES STEPNEY and GENE BARGE.

Hope you enjoy, more soon.