‘Cookie Dough’ is the new album from Wildcookie, aka Freddie Cruger and Anthony Mills

Since his last release on Tru Thoughts in 2006 Freddie Cruger, aka Red Astaire, has been busy travelling the world as a DJ and releasing music on his own label, Homegrown Records – one of these releases was the debut, and now extremely rare, Wildcookie 12”. The “Drugs EP” received support from Gilles Peterson on BBC Radio 1 and the lead track, “Heroine”, also features on ‘Cookie Dough’. Wildcookie is not a one man band though; each one of Freddie’s ultra-crisp productions and sophisticated synthline melodies are backed with the pitch perfect, often freestyled, vocals of Anthony Mills.

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Space Invadas is a project of two well-known artists: Katalyst and Steve Spacek. Their debut project Soul Fi is coming out on BBE.

Two great souls come together in space. After releasing two huge radio hits in 2009 — “Original” and “Life” — and the radio smash & film clip “Done It Again” in 2010, Space Invadas are about to release their LP, “Soul Fi” on BBE records.

space-invadas-imaginist

With a lengthy loop of his classic track “The Sound” sampled without his authorization, Kevin Saunderson responds with grace.

From Kevin Saunderson:

Dear friends, fans and members of the music industry:

Today I’m giving away as a free download one of the productions I am most proud of : “The Sound” – Reese & Santonio (KMS) 1987

I recorded “The Sound” back in 1987 and released it on my own KMS Records label. It was a massive hit at New York’s Paradise Garage and in Chicago and of course Detroit. Once it hit the UK it became one of the earliest Detroit anthems right acround Europe, a huge underground record across the globe – a true desert island techno track. It is such a special record to me because it was one of my first really successful productions and I hope that you all will enjoy this free, fresh digital download of my original 1987 version.The reason I have decided to give this track away for free is because of a situation that recently developed involving the unauthorized sampling of “The Sound” by Italian producers Giacomo Godi & Emiliano Nencioni (Supernova) in their release “Beat Me Back” on Nirvana Recordings. It came to my attention that they are licensing and selling, with considerable success, this track which is nothing more than a continuous loop of the main hook from “The Sound.”

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The “Caliventura EP”, out on March 15th , features remixes by Cut Chemist, J Boogie, Jeremy Sole, Daedelus and DJ Day

The “Caliventura EP”, out on March 15th , sees US based producers
Cut Chemist, J Boogie, Jeremy Sole, Daedelus and DJ Day giving
the remix treatment to a handful of tracks from Quantic and His
Combo Bárbaro’s immensely acclaimed ‘Tradition In Transition’
album. The EP also features an alternative, previously unreleased
version of the album track, “Albela”.

This essential EP comes in a full color picture sleeve featuring a
photograph taken in Colombia by the celebrated LA-based
photographer B+ (Mochilla), who has become a key contributor to the
Quantic aesthetic in recent years, and whose critically acclaimed body
of work includes the famous shot for DJ Shadow’s ‘Endtroducing’.
Inside the beautiful sleeve, you’ll also find an exclusive download card
with all five vinyl tracks available on mp3, plus five bonus goodies.
‘Tradition In Transition’, released in Summer 2009, was the inaugural
LP from the newly created Combo Bárbaro, a band of unsurpassed
international talent formed by Will ‘Quantic’ Holland to bring life to his
new musical vision. Heralding more of a progression in sound than an
outright change of direction, with his Combo Bárbaro, Quantic (who
had already released more than ten albums and sold in excess of
100,000 records) set about mining the lesser-tapped musical sources
from the Caribbean, Latin America and Africa and fusing those
rediscovered psychedelic, experimental and rhythmically rich sounds of
the past with deep funk and soul elements and folkloric vocal styles.
The album release immediately garnered a huge amount of acclaim, with
positive reviews and features appearing in magazines across the genres
and around the world, including Q, Mojo, The Independent, XLR8R,
Notion, iDJ, Songlines, DJ Mag and more. The band have toured the
UK, US and Europe to rapturous responses, delivering a scintillating live
display, and Summer 2010 saw them perform at Glastonbury festival,
featuring on BBC TV’s main coverage of the festival. Quantic also
appeared on radio shows including KCRW, NPR, Nemone (BBC
6Music) and the 6Mix, with live band sessions for Craig Charles (BBC
6Music), Mark Lamarr (BBC Radio 2) and Gilles Peterson (BBC
Radio 1). In this period, the ever-prolific producer also revealed the
second album from his dub-reggae influenced Flowering Inferno
moniker, the highly praised ‘Dog With A Rope’, which came out in July
2010.

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MIAMI BASED Mr. Pauer DEBUTS HIS ALBUM OF “ELECTROPICAL” BEATS FROM CUMBIA TO ELECTRO, DUB TO FUNK, INTO ONE COHESIVE SIGNATURE SOUND

Mr. Pauer – Soundtrack – Release date: February 15, 2011 by Mr Pauer

Mr. Pauer (Toto Gonzalez) is a globetrotting DJ/Producer and remixer born in the Caribbean city of Puerto la Cruz, Venezuela, who is now based in the sunshine funk of Miami, FL. Ever since Mr. Pauer moved to Miami over 18 years ago, he has helped the city develop a burgeoning scene of international music through his long-running DJ residencies, and the Fabrika brand (http://www.fabrikalink.com).

Mr. Pauer’s musical influences are as diverse as rock, electro, new wave, house, tropical and cumbia, which runs the gamut; creating a dynamic musical explosion in his production and live sets. His debut release, Soundtrack (out February 15th) is a collection of songs that are loosely defined as “Electropical” beats. The production value is aimed at inviting you to dance, despite cultural backgrounds; very typical of his

DJ sets and crowds. “Living back in Venezuela I grew up listening to Anglo and Spanish rock, my mother used to listen to boleros, my dad to traditional Venezuelan music, my older brothers to American 80’s pop, and to socialize I had to learn how to dance salsa and merengue. Magically after years, I connected dots unconsciously creating an array of sounds that identify with the culture I grew up with,” says Mr. Pauer. There’s no wonder that the Miami New Times called him, “…perhaps the most international of all Miami DJs.”

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A Hawk and A Hacksaw seeks to create and document an ecstatic sound much like the village bands of old, with the communal aspect of folk tradition and musicianship the key factors.

A Hawk and A Hacksaw have found themselves performing in places and situations straight out of a Jonathan Safran Foer novel:  deep in the Romanian hinterland,  recording with Fanfare Ciocarlia; on the streets of Amsterdam and out on the Jaffa road, performing to both Hassids and Palestinians; in a sculptor’s tree house outside of Budapest; and at a Jewish wedding in Pittsburgh with a young boy staring transfixed at the band, tears streaming down his face.

The desert mountains of New Mexico seem an unlikely home for a band that specializes in its own blend of music from the former Yugoslavia, Greece, Turkey, and Romania. But as the new album CERVANTINE (L. M. Dupli-cation; March 8, 2011) reveals, there is more to the connection than the untrained eye can see. On the title track, the group explores the mariachi influence on Romany brass that flourished thanks to the Latin American soap operas popular across Eastern Europe. “Europeans inspired Mexican brass and now Mexican brass inspired Europeans,” says band founder, accordionist, and percussionist Jeremy Barnes. “In New Mexico, we grew up hearing all this brass music, hearing mariachis.”

There is something connecting what may seem like distant points on the map: The Balkans and New Mexico, thanks to an odd tie Barnes and band mate and violinist Heather Trost felt on their travels. “Northern New Mexico is a beautiful ecosystem of cultural clashes and mixings, that really remind us of the Balkans and Transylvania,” says Trost. “There are very few ‘cultural climates’ like this in the world, and I think it’s something we try to reflect in our songs.”

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In an effort to inspire cooperation in an age of divisiveness Chicago’s prolific street artist (originator of “Go Tell Mama, I’m For Obama”) Ray Noland has released a print titled, “THE FUTURE IS…”. This print imagines America, not as it is but as it could be (without the Sarah Palins cashing in on hate). The fifty multi-colored states are reconstructed into the universal symbol of love — the heart. Ivy, which gets its symbolism of connections and friendships because of its propensity to interweave in growth, pierces through the country instead of an arrow. More info. here

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