Inna Reggae Style 001

Been listening to A LOT of Reggae recently, and I still find it refreshing how it never grows tiresome, as there is still such a treasure trove of wonders to be discovered from a genre which is soon to be coming close to being 50 years old.

I've been on the search for good Reggae cover versions of Non Reggae songs, and have found some absolute beauties along the way, and its proof to how wonderful a genre Reggae is when you realize that a hell of a lot of the covers sound so much better than their original recordings.

There is something about the Reggae sound, about the vocalists and their style of singing that turns the songs they are singing around, makes them sound like they have more meaning to them and generally just makes the music sound BETTER

So this is the start of a new feature called 'Inna Reggae Style, where from now I'm going to start posting two Reggae covers every couple of weeks, starting this week with two covers of Radiohead and Kraftwerk that on paper you would not expect to work, but seriously do.

BBC Jungle Documentary

This documentary from 1994 is a look at the then burgeoning and still fresh as you like Jungle scene, which was infiltrating the UK from all corners, setting off into a journey which would expand and become what we now call Drum n Bass today, a multi million pound industry which is imprinted in the UK's Dance Music consciousness.

Its a hugely entertaining watch, with some great footage of Shy Fx in the studio with UK Apache at the time of 'Original Nuttah', DJ Rap record shopping, Fabio and Bukem discussing the scene and a whole lot more. Anyone with a passing interest in Drum n Bass/Jungle needs to check this right now.

Drumstep

If theres one style of music currently dividing opinion like never before, its the emergence of what is now being labeled as 'Drumstep', a mutated hybrid of Drum n Bass and Dubstep which seems to be spreading throughout the country at a rapid pace.

Half time Drum n Bass is nothing new and certainly no big new invention and has been around for quite some time, and one of my favorite producers of the early millennium was Amit, who was a pioneer of a completely different form of 170bpm nastiness to the 'Clownstep' that was so prevalent in the middle of the decade.



The difference with the half time stuff that is getting bandied around now is the huge and obvious influence from the 'Brostep' side of Dubstep, concentrating on mid range face melting and bass face inducing torridness, and it really is proving to be a marmite style of music, with people either absolutely despising it, or DJ's such as Grooverider (who is showing it major support on Radio One) calling it the next big thing.

Personally, I really like some of it, and I think it can certainly add a new dimension to both scenes, and some of you can't doubt will send gurning kids absolutely apeshit on the dancefloor. The recent Kanji Kinetic E.P on Tigerbeat6 is a fine example of how this style can be employed to devastating effect, and below you can find a video of the full track, and below it, how it went down when I dropped it a couple of weeks back when I went on to do an extra hour after Caspa at Thursday Club at The Masque (wait for the drop). I'll try and post a few mixes soon.

The Electro Wars

Looks like this could be a pretty interesting watch...


The Electro Wars Final Trailer from Stephen Alex Vasquez on Vimeo.