Listen to any modern r&b playlist and it becomes easy to forget that it wasn’t long ago that soul and hip hop existed as separate genres of music. And while I think both would have benefitted by sticking to their corners, this recent heatwave has exposed a patch of nostalgia that reminded me how exiting it was to watch the transition play out in real time.

Dubbed “New Jack Swing” in a Village Voice interview with the genre’s Godfather, Teddy Riley, who had come up producing artists like Heavy D and Kool Moe Dee, and by creating the classic instrumental for Doug E Fresh’s “The Show”. Riley applied the same production flair and love for the 808 to upbeat popular soul vocals, which married Hip Hop and R&B together forever, for better and for worse.

Nearly a couple of decades later, whether or not the music stands the test of time might have more to do with your level of involvement in the scene. Not since the jazz age has a culture developed such a sophisticated range of formalized dance steps, an involvement that required you to practice beforehand and create choreographed routines, and not just ad lib the moment. Where the original swing kids had Duke Ellington and the Astoria, jars of gin and Zoot suits, we New Jacks had Teddy Riley and wine coolers, Ikeda overalls and polka dot shirts, but those distinctions faded away the first time you ever jumped your own leg, then landed in the splits.

Johnny Kemp – Just Got Paid
Keith Sweat – I Want Her
Hi Five – I Just Can’t Handle It
Boyz II Men – Under Pressure
2 0’Clock – Gotta Get That Girl (12″ Version)
Johnny Gill – Rub You the Right Way
Luther Vandross & Janet Jackson – The Best Things In Life Are Free
Guy – I Wanna Get With U
Ready For the World – Yo, That’s a Lot of Body
Samuelle – So You Like What You See
Bobby Brown – Don’t Be Cruel (Remix)
Tony! Toni! Tone! – Let’s Have a Good Time
En Vogue – Hold On (Edit)
LL Cool J – The Boomin’ System (The Underground Mix)
Bell Biv Devoe – Word to the Mutha! (WBBD Remix)
Another Bad Creation – Spydermann
Wrecks-N-Effect – New Jack Swing
Heavy D & the Boyz – We Got Our Own Thang (Teddy Riley Club Mix)
Raheim – Does Your Man Know About Me
Ralph Tresvant – Sensitivity
Al B. Sure – Nite and Day
Troop – Spread My Wings
Flex – Hard To Say Goodbye to Yesterday

Electric Adolescence – New Jack Swing (right click to download) 60 mins/ 320 kbps/ 109MB

As part of this heatwave induced nostalgia trip I’m on, I also threw together a quick mix of guilty pleasure summer rap hits, hoping that nearly a year running this blog will have finally afforded me enough street cred to put Color Me Bad on a mix.

Candyman – Knockin’ Boots
Color Me Badd – I Wanna Sex You Up (Smoothed Out Mix)
LL Cool J – Around the Way Girl
DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince – Summertime (Remix)
Brotherhood Creed – Helluva (Mo’ Betta Mix)
A Ligher Shade of Brown – On a Sunday Afternoon
Dream Warriors – Ludi (Double Trouble Club Mix)
Marley Marl feat. Heavy D – Fools In Love
The Jungle Brothers – Spark a New Flame
De La Soul – Talkin’ Bout Hey Love
Ghostface Killah feat Slick Rick, RZA, Raekwon – The Sun
Take 6 – Don’t Shoot Me

Electric Adolescence – Summer Rap Hits (right click to download) 30 mins/ 320 kbps/ 68MB

Perhaps some songs are thorough enough that any supplemental text would just be wasting space.

Wire – Heartbeat (right click to download) 3:16 mins/ 224 kbps/ 5.25MB

Jesus loves the Republican party because the Republican party loves Jesus. He loves the Republican party because He believes the second amendment is more important than the first, that military spending is holier than heathcare, and that the government has no right to regulate corporations, but has an obligation to regulate homosexuals.
 
Jesus watches Fox because he likes his news delivered by professional wrestlers. He thinks America was better in the fifties, and can’t understand why so few black people agree. He one of millions who bought Sarah Palin’s book, and one of hundreds who read it. He doesn’t think Glen Beck is crazy. Jesus Christ has a reoccurring nightmare about Michelle Obama’s arms, and wakes each morning with clenched fists and the American Flag he wraps himself in drenched with sweat.

Neu! – Weissensee (right click to download) 6:46 mins/ 128 kbps/ 6.21MB

Fans of their earlier work should be quite pleased of the (currently available for pre-order forthcoming Books Album, The Way Out. While much of the album has the outfit refining a sound cultivated over a series of experimental yet unalienating albums, they forge a new sonic territory somewhere between Sgt. Peppers and Prince Paul.

The Books – I Didn’t Know That (right click to download) 5:10 mins/ 320 kbps/ 5.92MB

The Books – The Story of Hip Hop (right click to download) 4:30 mins/ 320 kbps/ 7.74MB

For those that slept, the first single from the album was included in the Raised In Cassettes mix a while back.

With decades having lapsed since Michel Hutchence’s impeccable hairdo outpaced the 90210 sideburns as the north star of white guy grooming, is seems surprising to regard the sometimes overpolished radio darlings as being ahead of their time, but this lesser known single from the bands early days could have just as easily been a blog-era hit. A cool reminder that any band that ends with the lead singer killing himself invites a revisit to their back catalog.

Let’s not pretend we’re too cool to dig the hits.

INXS – To Look At You (Extended Version) (right click to download) 6:32 mins/ 320 kbps/ 14.9MB

INXS – Need You Tonight (Mendleston Mix) (right click to download) 7:04 mins/ 320 kbps/ 16.2MB

INXS – Guns In the Sky (Kick Ass Mix) (right click to download) 6:02 mins/ 320 kbps/ 13.8MB

If you’ve ever had the pleasure of spending time with a Canadian you’ll know that we’re sorry. Not for anything in particular, just generally. If you bump into one of us on the street, we’ll be the ones to apologize, to a point where it makes you wonder what a country with relatively clean hands has to feel so bad about.
 
Like any country with running water and a stock market, we have had a checkered history with the original tenants of our land, and several run-ins with the French, but never has a country fetishized their sins as thoroughly as Canada has. Our airports, government buildings, and public places use Native art the way Persian homosexuals use leopard print, and everything we read is coupled with a French translation, even though I’m personally more likely to have a conversation in Tagalog. We put more money towards art funding than any country in the world, with a wildly disproportionate amount of that going to multicultural artists and projects, to a point where we haven’t just turned our guilt into an art form, we have adopted it as a national identity so pervasive that it makes one wonder what would be left if all that went away.
 
In the end, I still prefer living in a country that settles its grievances with art funding and tax policy as opposed to settlement camps and suicide bombers, and I like having the French language around, if only for aesthetics, but with America acting like Al Pacino during the last few minutes of Scarface, the Middle East fighting their way back to the seventeen century, and Europe looking like a great sweater that has seen one too many winters, maybe my countrymen can celebrate this Canada Day by grading the world on a curve, and letting ourselves off the hook.
 
A little glimpse of the part of our culture that doesn’t involve nature, gentrification, or winter sports, here’s a mix of some Canadian rock and new wave from the eh-ties.

Trooper – The Boys In the Bright White Sports Car
Gino Vannelli – Black Cars
The Parachute Club – Rise Up
Platinum Blonde – Situation Critical
Loverboy – Working For the Weekend (Demo Version)
Martha & the Muffins – Swimming
Men Without Hats – Pop Goes the World
Gowan – You’re a Strange Animal
The Payolas – Eyes of a Stranger
Bruce Cockburn – Lovers In a Dangerous Time
Honeymoon Suite – New Girl Now
Rough Trade – High School Confidential
Glass Tiger – Someday
Chilliwack – My Girl
Doug & the Slugs – Who Knows How (To Make Love Stay)
Kim Mitchell – Patio Lanterns
Corey Hart – It Ain’t Enough
Barenaked Ladies – What A Good Boy
The Tragically Hip – Wheat Kings
Stompin’ Tom Connors – C-A-N-A-D-A (Cross Canada)
　
Authors note: if anybody is thinking about writing a comment about Bryan Adams being excluded, or the Barenaked Ladies and Tragically Hip not being from the eighties, you might want to spend that energy explaining to your father why he shouldn’t expect grandchildren.

Electric Adolescence – we spell canada with lower case letters (right click to download) 45 mins/ 320 kbps/ 103MB

Taken from the second volume of an off genre remix project, cinematic dubsteppers Mount Kimbie get a deep and minimal 4/4 treatment by Tama Sutro & Prosumer.

Mount Kimbie – William (Tama Sutro & Prosumer) (right click to download) 7:37 mins/ 320 kbps/ 17.4MB

Do you remember those old block parties? The girls hangin’ out on the stoop doing the wop? Do you remember the battles at Union Square? Kool Herc at Sedgwick Ave? Saturday nights above the rollerskating rink? Remember the Bridge Wars? The untouched white trains and the fat rope chains? What about the New York City Breakers and the Rock Steady Crew? Remember the “yes yes ya’ll”s and the 808 loops?

Me neither, but I’ve seen some shit in magazines that made it all seem pretty fly.

Sleeze Boys R N The House – Sleeze Boyz R N the House
Otis Clay – Love Bandit (Electro Vocoder Mix)
Clarence “Blowfly” Reid – Blowfly’s ABCs
Ray Gun Omics – Project Future
The Russell Brothers – The Party Scene
Kurtis Blow – AJ Scratch
Run DMC – King of Rock
The Fat Boys – Fat Boys
Grandmaster Flash – Larry’s Dance Theme
The Classical Two – New Generation
Levi 167 – Something Fresh to Swing To
MC Mitchski – Kool DJ Red Alert Is a Great Man
Grandmaster Melle Mel & the Furious Five – Internationally Known
The Sequence – Funk You Up (Long Version)
Frankie Smith – Double Dutch Bus (12″ Version)
The Rocksteady Crew – Get Back Baby Brother
Strafe – Set It Off
Zero Hour – The Dark Side
B Beat Girls – For the Same Man
Ose – Computer Funk
Extra T’s – E.T. Boogie
Steinski – Everything’s Disappeared
Gucci Crew – The Dating Game
Kevie Kev – All Night Long (Waterbed)
The Mary Jane Girls – All Night Long
The Kryptic Crew – Jazzy Sensation
Toddy Tee – I Need a Girl
B.O.S.E – Let’s Jam (Slow Jam)
Cherlie D – Your Love is Dead

Electric Adolescence – I’m Not From the Streets but I’ve Seen Photographs (right click to download) 60 mins/ 320 kbps/ 137MB

I don’t know much about the broad behind these vocals, but when I hear this song I want to learn to knit and make her a sweater. And just to prove it’s not purely sexual, I’ll even make the dude a pair of mittens.

More than just a passing fancy, the song was also featured on my best of last decade mix.

Alaska In Winter – Horsey Horse (right click to download) 3:16 mins/ 320 kbps/ 7.47MB

Forged from the same spirit as that YouTube video of the fat kid playing with a lightsaber, here’s a playful slice of unhip-hop for those who sacrificed the ability to please a woman in favor of dreams of a galaxy far away.

Sir Oj – Lightsabermass (right click to download) 3:08 mins/ 320 kbps/ 7.18MB

A product  of the puckish Italians Do It Better label, Glass Candy doppelganger Farah recreates the sentiment of an unsent letter confessing an unrequited crush on her gay best friend.

Farah – Gay Boy (Vocal Mix) (right click to download) 5:51 mins/ 320 kbps/ 13.4MB

A thunderous applause bursts from the stands of the ancient arena. With his head drenched in sweat from the simmering Spanish sun, the matador deftly shifts in place as the bull passes like a hostile freight train. Securing his stance on the vibrating sand, he subdues the beast with a stroke of his satin cape. His sword rests heavy on his waist, and the volume from the crowd seems suddenly cruel.

Flying Canyon – The Bull Who Knew the Ring (right click to download) 3:12 mins/ 320 kbps/ 5.32MB

Unlike any other veteran rap act, the idea of rating the Digable Planets current output against that of their heyday is hardly laughable. Just as their easily digestible debut gave way to a more intricate and enduring sophomore release, the group’s afterlife has been riding a similar tide. 

Not that negotiating this post-Planets output has been easy. Ish “Butterfly” Butler seems to be deliberately keeping his comeback a secret, with the music press curiously playing along. 2004’s Cherrywine project spawned a grimy basement funk session that should have blown-up like a disenfranchised teenager in the Middle East, but went all but unnoticed. I then must have blinked during last year’s release of the lurid and unstructured Shabazz Palaces, which emerged as more aggressive and, true to form, more challenging than the music that paved its way.

Arranging this selection of Digable Planets remixes and rarities against highlights of Ishmael’s subsequent projects presents the same progression from accessibility to experimentalism that marked those first two albums, with the recent output comfortably standing on the same footing as anything the group did before and above anything anybody else does now.

Digable Planets – Intro from Amsterdam Reunion Tour
Digable Planets – Nickel Bags of Bites (Excerpt)
Digable Planets – Dedicated
Digable Planets – Where I’m From (Aural G Ride 12”)
Digable Planets – Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like That) (Crashing Giant Step Mix)
Digable Planets – Excerpt from CurrentTV Interview
Digable Planets – Nickel Bags (Sneak A Beshu Mix)
Digable Planets – Appointment at the Fat Clinic
Digable Planets – Califlower (Spiddyocks Go West)
Digable Planets – Three Slim’s Dynamite
Digable Planets feat Guru – Borough Check
Digable Planets feat. Jeru – Graffiti (Noise)
Digable Planets – Dial 7 (Axioms of Creamy Spies)
Digable Planets – 9th Wonder (Amina Remix)
Tek 9 feat. Butterfly – Gettin’ Down Again
Camp Lo feat. Butterfly – Swing
Cherrywine – See For Miles
King Britt feat. Cherrywine – The Sound
Cherrywine – Dazzlement
Shabazz Palaces – N. Splendored/ Find Out
Shabazz Palaces – Capital 5, Recorded After Hrs at the Gun Ballad Resource Centre
Cherrywine – 16th Minute
Cherrywine – Sleep Pretty Girl
Digable Planets feat. Lester Bowie and Melvin Watson – Flying High in the Brooklyn Sky
Digable Planets – Where I’m From (DJ Bonus Beats)
Digable Planets – Excerpt from CurrentTV Interview
Digable Planets – Marvin, You’re the Man

Electric Adolescence – The Many Moons of Digable Planets (right click to download) 60:00 mins/ 320 kbps/ 137MB

Based on the single and a dramatic new video referencing Charles Burnett’s remarkable film, Killer of Sheep, I’d suggest Shabazz Places is poised to turn things upside down had I not made similar claims about Blowout Comb and Bright Black just before hip-hop devolved into genre of ring-tones. This time I’ll at least put my oar in the water with some bonus material taken from the group’s appearance on Seattle’s KEXP radio.

Shabazz Palaces – Live on KEXP (right click to download) 20:00 mins/ 320 kbps/ 45.8MB

As hip-hop heads know, the habit of producers and DJs saying their name, usually the year, and various ‘uh’ and ‘uh yeah’s, throughout a track has been as longstanding a tradition in the genre as date rape is in college fraternities. 

On one end of the spectrum is the DJ Clue approach which, for those that aren’t familiar, involves yelling shout-outs over the entire track with an echo effect apparently designed by black business-owners to keep white people from loitering outside. At the other end, Pete Rock takes a less invasive approach, and as far as I know invented the practice, with stoned and subtle flourishes that tend to add more than they subtract. Saying that, when asked to remix the new, Beatlesesque Yo La Tengo single, you’d think he could have taken the cue from producers like Brian Wilson or Martin Hannett and left the mic off on this one.

Yo La Tengo – Here to Fall (Pete Rock Remix) (right click to download) 6:11 mins/ 160 kbps/ 7.08MB

After spending several days confined to a squalid motel off a disused highway, waiting for the phone call that was supposed to end this nightmare, you’ve ignored his advice and left your room in search of cheap cigarettes and something to drink. Exiting the corner store, you notice a man emerge from the shadows of the parking lot, too thin and well-dressed to be so unafraid in such a dangerous neighborhood.

You race to your car, your shaking hands struggling to unlock the door. A shot rings out, and your windshield explodes with a hailstorm of cubed glass. You reach under your seat- in place of your father’s pistol you find a note from her, which contains the word “sorry”, but couldn’t be less of an apology. Another shot rings out.

Swayzak – Buffalo Seven (right click to download) 5:12 mins/ 128 kbps/ 4.76MB

In aid of getting the locals hyped about his appearance in Vancouver Saturday night, here’s the titular track from Dave Aju’s lovely 2007 Ep. Dedicated readers will fondly remember the inclusion of Aju’s “Crazy Place” in our best of the decade mix.

Dave Aju – Love Always (right click to download) 6:57 mins/ 320 kbps/ 15.9MB

You’ve been at the wheel for as long as it takes to see the sun rise then fall, and to have your exhaustion turn to a peaceful complacency. The perfection of the song on the radio prompts you to wake your friends in the backseat, now asleep in a nest made of Taco Bell packaging, comfortable sweatshirts, and each others limbs and shoulders. Riding shotgun, even your best friend has broken her promise to stay awake and keep you company. Having shared so much over the last few days, you take the private moment as the last of several highlights on what you will eventually describe as the best roadtrip ever.

David Hasert – You Can’t Put Your Arms Around a Melody (right click to download) 7:19 mins/ 192 kbps/ 10MB

Using no more beats per minute than it takes to make ones shoulders move, this tribal burner from the recent Guillaume & the Coutu Dumonts album induces an irreverent state of mind that might prompt you to crack a beer with breakfast, skip work to take photographs of clouds, or tell that certain someone how you really feel about them and not give a fuck if they break your heart. 

The single from the album presents another highlight in the form of the duet with Electric Adolescence favorite Dop, which was included in last month’s mix.

Guillaume & the Coutu Dumonts – Radio Novella (right click to download) 4:58 mins/ 320 kbps/ 11.3MB

With vinyl aptly regarded for its sonic warmth and potential for album art, cassettes never gained the same fetishistic regard, regarded by many as an inferior stopgap between the adoption of records and compact disks. That said, this conventional wisdom is currently under siege by the growing trend of lo-fi bands running their recordings through analog tape as a means to remove the pristine polish and sharp edges that have dominated production since the personal computer became our generation’s electric guitar.

If the jury is still out on the issue of sound quality, it has surely adjourned on the fact that cassettes remain the greatest media for compilations, differentiating itself from digital mixes in the same way an original painting differentiates itself from a print. I’ve been lazily bridging this gap by creating digital mixes then dubbing them to cassette. My recent session has amounted to a schizophrenic bedroom mix, reflecting the severe extent to which my musical tastes are currently lost at sea.

How To Dress Well – How Could This Have Happened?
Atlas Sound – Reminder (Excerpt)
WU LYF – Concrete Gold
Cults – Go Outside
E and E – Gate
Shabazz Palaces – N. Spendored/ Find Out
Grand Puba – Get It (Caspa’s 80Eighties Remix)
War – Junk Yard (MTY Re-edit)
Guillaume & the Coutu Dumonts & Dop – Can’t Have Everything
Narcotic Syntax – Romantic Infinity
Onze – Bambam
Bobby Kondors – The Poem
Blunted Dummies – House For All (House 4 All Robots Mix)
Matthew Herbert – Manchester
Thomas Bjerring feat. David Skog – 2.45
Pogo – Lost
The Knife – Tomorrow In a Year
Time For Dreams – Breathlessly (demo)
Farah – Gay Boy (Vocal Mix)
Microphones – Mt. Eerie
Diamond Vampires – Friday Nights
Instra:mental – Let’s Talk
Boswell – Escape
Coyote Clean Up – Can’t Shake the Full Moon
Double Dee & Steinski – Message To Young People
Double Dee & Steinski – We’re In a Lot of Trouble
El Michels Affair – Mystery of Chessboxin’
Public Enemy – Contract On the World Love Jam
Junior Mafia – Get Money (Remix)
Erykah Badu – Turn Me Away (Get Munny)
Trus’ Me – Can We Pretend?
Warpaint – Billie Holiday
Wildbirds & Peacedrums – Today/ Tomorrow
Color of Clouds – Haunts Me (Acoustic)
Consequence – Farewell (Excerpt)
Cryo – Guantanamo Bay (Excerpt)
Dragging on Ox Through Water – Lilacs Sprang From These Apes
The Books – Beautiful People
Paul White – Anchor Records
The Wind-up Birds – There Won’t Always Be an England
Dr. Octagon – Blue Flowers (Instrumental)
Martin Buttrich – You Got That Vibe
Spiritualized – Angels Sigh (Alternate Mix 2)
Microphones – Do Not Be Afraid (Side B)

Electric Adolescence – Raised on Cassettes (right click to download) 80:00 mins/ 320 kbps/ 183 MB

As cool as a liquid nitrogen Slurpee, early eighties coldwave electro outfit The (Hypothetical) Prophets pour over the personal ads with a glam cadence that plays like a moody cousin to “One Night In Bancock”.

The (Hypothetical) Prophets – Person To Person (right click to download) 6:08 mins/ 128 kbps/ 5.62MB

That said, I’d be remiss not to post an alternate recording of the seedy tale of a professional chess player too obsessed with the board to appreciate the world around him.

Murray Head – One Night in Bancock (Alternate Mix) (right click to download) 3:29 mins/ 320 kbps/ 4.33MB