After almost two months and many delays (for which I apologize), I finally took some much needed time to write another episode of SDFY's series, Dopamine Overdose. The last episode's centerpiece was Oneohtrix Point Never, whose indescribable music I tried to describe in best way possible and tracked down his influences which had impact on his fascinating and intriguing work.
For today's episode, I decided to focus on not just one single artist, but a whole label - and the label I am going to cover is London-based Hyperdub Records, which gradually emerged over the past few months as one of my favorite labels. Additionally, the label is celebrating its 10th year anniversary this year and as many other music websites, I am taking advantage of this special occasion and jumping on the bandwagon to talk about the label's history, artists and its importance.
Hyperdub was founded in April 2004 by Steve Goodman - who goes by the stage name Kode9 - in London. Kode9's single Sine of the Dub was Hyperdub's first official release, featuring his long-time collaborator Spaceape:
Fun fact: Kode9 has a PhD in Philosophy and also published a book Sonic Warfare: Sound, Affect, and the Ecology of Fear.
As Kode9 comes from the background of jungle, breakbeat, 2-step-garage, D'n'B, but also Dub Reggae, it is no surprise that his label's vision had these particular genres in mind. Neon Red Sign (my personal favorite Kode9 track) is another example of these influences coming together
BURIAL
While the Hyperdub crew has always consisted of very talented artists, there is no doubt that their most important signing which helped profoundly to put the label on the map is the remarkable (and also mysterious) artist Burial - stage name of William Bevan, a producer from South London - who eventually became one of the most important figures of electronic music today, since there is no denying his profound influence. Until 2008, Burial was completely anonymous until he revealed his name and posted a picture of himself on his Myspace page. However even today, there are very few interviews with Burial and only two photos of him in total, as he wants his music to maintain the mystery vibe, which makes it more magical.
Burial released his debut EP in 2005 titled South London Boroughs and what followed was his first full-length eponymous album Burial, released in 2006. The album was released to critical acclaim, ending up on many year-end lists. By this time, Burial has developed his innovative dark, cold and industrial sound with heavy jungle and 2-step-garage influence. Additionally, Burial used a lot of vocal samples in his music. He described in an interview that his technique was to pitch down female voices, and pitch up male voices.
There was something weirdly fascinating about Burial, and it made a great music to listen to while walking around the town during cold and rainy winter nights.
After Burial, he announced another LP set to release in 2007, called Untrue, which was preceded by another EP called Ghost Hardware (the title song eventually wound up on the album). Ghost Hardware build up huge anticipation for his sophomore album, as it sounded much more progressive. While Burial still maintained his signature dark sound, he incorporated elements of ambient music, but also much more emotion, which resulted in his music sounding...better.
Untrue was released in 2007 to rave reviews, and became one of the most important albums of the past decade, ending up nominated for Mercury Music Prize. The praise focused on the incredible production and sound engineering which set a very unique dark atmosphere.
"I would sit around waiting for night to fall, wait for summer to end. Or I would go out, wait for it to get dark, and then I'd go back and work on it, sort of hypnotise myself."
For me, personally, Untrue is one of my favorite albums of all-time. As a bit of an audiophile user of high quality headphones, I seek out setting of an atmosphere in songs and Burial's music, especially Untrue, gets the job done in a brilliant way. It makes me want to ask myself: "How the fuck can someone produce this?!"
Fun fact: Burial said that Untrue was completed in just two weeks. While I do recognize some elements of repetition which may be an evidence of it, and I still cannot wrap my mind around that fact.
Respect to all Hyperdub artists, as Burial is not the only reason why the label is one of my favorites. However, few people ever come close to creating such a legacy as Burial has been creating during one's career.
Here we are, at the last part of today's first edition of Dopamine Overdose. In the previous part, I brought Jimmy Castor and Ebony Rhythm Band to your attention. Those artists are truly excellent and if you haven't so, I recommend you to check that part (Part 3) out.
However, in this part, I have for you two most likely unknown to you, but truly MAGICAL names, and those are Demon Fuzz and Black Merda. The song on top is actually a Demon Fuzz song called "Hymn to Mother Earth." I discovered it just two days ago, but to me, it already is my new favorite song because it's without a single doubt a true masterpiece and the best piece of music (if we don't count Amnesty) I've shared today.
So who are Demon Fuzz? This is one of those instances where typical music genres fail to describe the music and it hard to categorize. Some websites call Demon Fuzz psychedelic funk, som call it afro-rock.However, I think Small Town Pleasures Blog description is the most accurate:
Released in 1971 the band’s only album, the extraordinary Afreaka!, demonstrates their excellence in playing psychedelic soul, dub-heavy funk, progressive rock, Afro-jazz and black acid rock.
Whatever it is, "funk" is the core of their music, and that is the reason why I am posting about them today.
Here is another really great track, called "Message to Mankind" :
lessMTVmoreTMV blog:
The group received little to no attention in their 18-month span, even in the underground British festival-scene, and only now/the past decade have they received attention from various club DJ's/artists sampling their work.
I go back to this album all the time, it incorporates so many styles seamlessly and sounds fresh each listen -- solid production, tight musicianship -- the works. The album features some cover-songs (which I think were bonuses on the re-issue), like the R&B staple "Mercy", but I always come back for their originals like "Disillusioned" -- a tight bass line, tasteful/complimentary keys, with spot-on vocals and flow.
Really great album, give it a chance if unfamiliar.
The track "Disillusioned", which is, of course, fantastic as well:
We could talk about Demon Fuzz and their remarkable album Afreaka! all day, but we need to move to another great band, called Black Merda, who consider themselves to be the first all-black rock band active from mid-1960s to early 1970s. However, their music was also not pure, 100% rock, and their music still contained heavy elements of funk.
Digital Meltd0wn blog:
In 1966 the group was introduced to Jimi Hendrix, who would have a profound influence on the trio's approach to music. They began to drift away from their previous sound, choosing to refashion themselves as a rock power trio in the same vein as The Jimi Hendrix Experience. In 1967 Anthony Hawkin's brother Charles was also inducted into the group as a second guitar player to broad the group's sound. The group would continue to evolve, drawing inspiration from the newly emerging hard funk and soul scenes.
The Jimi Hendrix influence is hard to be overheard, like in this song called "Reality" :
I agree with Digital Meltd0wn that the music is like a mix of Jimi Hendrix and Funkadelic. Both of us wonder whether the sound of this group did make an influence on Funkadelic, which is actually quite likely. In that case, the influence would be quite heavy.
Looking back in hindsight the group is fondly remembered as one of the pioneering groups of the black psychedelic rock and heavy funk scene, paving the way for groups that expanded on their idea and would eventually eclipse them in fame, such as Fundadelic and The Bar-Kays. I consider Black Merda's self-titled debute album to be their best, and it ranks alongside some of my favorite forgotten groups that merged psychedelic rock with funk, soul and blues.
One of the most well-known and my personal favorite Black Merda songs, "Cynthy Ruth"
And at the end, I want to share their whole compilation, The Psych Fuck of Black Merda. When I searched for their music on YouTube, I found out that this compilation is by far their most viewed video (430,000+ views in a year). No wonder, the compilation is pretty damn great:
And that is all folks for the first edition of the new series, Dopamine Overdose. We hope you enjoyed it and discovered new favorite artists. If you have an idea on how to improve this series, we will be glad to hear it from you. I would like to thank you all for reading!
In the first two parts, I introduced you to Amnesty and told you about my goal of finding artists with a similar sound, and afterwards I revealed my first finding: Kashmere Stage Band.
In this part, I have two other names for ya: Jimmy Castor Bunch and Ebony Rhythm Band.
You may not be familiar with either name, although Jimmy Castor and his Bunch are actually not as underground as they may seem. Their album It's Just Begun made some noise on Billboard charts in the year of its release, 1972, and two singles off that album were very successful as well: The title track "It's Just Begun", and his biggest, RIAA Gold-certified hit, "Troglodyte (Cave Man)", which you can listen to here:
No singing, only a story about a caveman looking for some dancing action. (Dat groove tho...)
The character Bertha Butt Boogie mentioned in Troglodyte even gave him an inspiration for another groovy track with a bit silly lyrics, "The Bertha Butt Boogie"
Jimmy Castor Bunch - The Bertha Butt Boogie
And of course, here is "It's Just Begun":
This last track being my personal favorite by Jimmy Castor. Of course, another unstoppable groove, and it really reminds me of Amnesty's music, specifically their song "Love Fades." And the hook is just crazy. 'SDFY Recommends' stamp all over it. And if we look at Castor's legacy, of all the artists I have covered (and will cover) in this week's edition of Dopamine Overdose, Jimmy Castor is the most successful and influential one. If you are interested, you can read his biography on his official website.
Moving on from Castor, we have here Ebony Rhythm Band, another excellent rock influenced funk band. Record-Fiend blog gives an exceptional summary of this band's music and all the data I have about the group I have gathered from that blog:
Contrary to today's prevailing view about the decade, it was not necessarily a good thing to be an ahead-of-the-time musician during the 1960s, especially if you were black and living in a provincial Midwestern city such as Indianapolis.
...
The Ebony Rhythm Band was one such group. Their fondness for mind-expanding rock music is apparent on the sides collected on [their compilation] Soul Heart Transplant. And while this influence prevented them from being well-received in black nightclubs where patrons had more traditional tastes in music, it did help distinguish them as an extremely innovative unit for their time.
"Drugs Ain't Cool" :
"Drugs Ain't Cool" is a fantastic, just under 3 minutes track, where a first-time-listener's ear can already catch the rock influence on their funky sound. Record-Fiend blog lets us know about an amazing piece of trivia about this track in their write-up:
The Ebony Rhythm Band's lone 45 "Drugs Ain't Cool" b/w "Soul Heart Transplant" offers a tantalizing taste of what a full-length album by the group might have sounded like as both numbers put their collective influences on display. Believe it or not, the A-side was the winner in a contest held by the mayor of Indianapolis for the best anti-drug song, which netted the musicians $800 as well as the opportunity to perform in front of a municipal building in the city's downtown area. In what would have been a major disappointment to Nancy Reagan and the whole "Just Say No" crowd, the band apparently displayed a bit of hypocrisy by performing the song (influenced by the Spencer Davis Group's "I'm a Man") while stoned on marijuana.
Also, the other song they are talking about called "Soul Heart Transplant" here. It's equally AWESOME.
(Record Fiend):
On "Soul Heart Transplant," ERB comes off as a Midwestern version of the Meters, especially due to Townsend's absolutely wicked guitar playing and Watson's impressive percussion work.
Read the whole story here, I truly recommended because it is very interesting.
Thanks for reading Part 3. Part 4 is going to be the last part of today's DO edition, but it is also going to feature two AMAZING bands, so DON'T even THINK about skipping that part!
In the first part, I revealed that the band Amnesty inspired me to make the first episode of Dopamine Overdose to be Funk oriented. The songs I will be posting today are not just going to be funk oriented, but very similar to the style of Amnesty. The truth is, quite recently I decided to explore that funk style more and I hoped that I would discover artists with a similar sound with songs that would be just as good as Amnesty's album Free Your Mind.
The results were pretty good: I found a few bands who in fact do sound a bit similar to Amnesty, but of course, they still have their own style which helps to make their work unique. The first band I came across is called Kashmere Stage Band, which was "as an elite performing unit of the student band at Kashmere High School from the late 1960s until 1978." (From Wiki)
Listen to their song, "Scorpio" (which I even posted yesterday)
From Yo' Grandparent's Music blog:
This group is literally Kashmere High School's school jazz band from 1968 to 1974. A lot of Southern states, especially Texas and Louisiana have a history of really shitty academics, and incredibly good music programs, either to complement the football teams or just because Texas and Louisiana have always been filled to the brim with musicians. Conrad Johnson, the band leader, attended an Otis Redding concert in 1967 and decided to change the whole sound of the band, realizing the new musical revolution occurring in the States especially in the South shouldn't leave Kashmere H.S. behind. Kashmere is located in Kashmere Gardens, a historically black neighborhood in Houston, and has been the site of major musical groups from Houston, such as Archie Bell and the Drells. Enjoy this record!
This song is called "Kashmere":
Fun fact: "In February 2008, thirty original members of the Kashmere Stage Band, all in their mid-50s, reunited for the first time in over three decades to pay tribute to their legendary leader, Conrad "Prof" Johnson, who was 92 at the time. The story of Prof, the exceptional music program he built, and the historic reunion of his former students was captured in a feature-length documentary film, Thunder Soul, narrated by Jamie Foxx, released in theaters on September 23, 2011." (From Wiki)
If you like this band, I recommend you to check out their compilation Texas Thunder Soul 1968–1974.
Dopamine Overdose is a weekly series by Some Dopamine For You intended to introduce our readers to various obscure songs and artists in a specific genre of music. Each Sunday, we pick a genre and we will be posting songs from that genre for the whole day.
Welcome to the first official episode of our new series, Dopamine Overdose. As I already mentioned in the announcement yesterday, our first episode will be Funk oriented, and I will be going through many different styles of funk: Deep Funk, Jazz Funk, Afro-rock Funk,...you name it.
What gave me an inspiration for this episode is the band Amnesty. If you happen to be a long-time fan of this blog, you might already know that this is not the first time I am posting about this band and that the only album they created - titled Free Your Mind, released in 1973 - is to me an amazing masterpiece, and one of my personal favorites.
The album deserves to be listened in its entirety, however I know that most of you have short attention span, and for that reason, I will try to pick at least the best songs of the album (but once again, the whole album is a MUST-LISTEN).
Listen to the title track, "Free Your Mind" :
Fun fact: the album was recorded in 1973, but was shelved and released more than thirty years later in 2007!
To describe this fantastic album, I am going to use the accurate descriptions of the label 700 West, which states that the album is "a melting pot of early 70s psychedelic funk, jazz, rock and vocal harmonies."
From Nowagainrecords.com:
This previously unreleased anthology comes from the same sessions as “Free Your Mind”. In 1973 Amnesty recorded five hard, vocal funk numbers alongside some ballads and a handful of demos based around nothing more than guitar accompaniment. Only two songs were ever released; Amnesty’s biting, difficult-to-categorize prog/rock/soul/funk stretched far beyond Indianpolis’s bounds and the band didn’t have a label to take them to the next level.
Track 2, "Love Fades." As 700 West puts it, this song is "steeped in funkadelic flavours that wouldn't be out of place on Cosmic Slop."
The P-Funk influence on this album is very strong. Nowagainrecords.com:
Obviously influenced by, but by no means simply imitators of, the sound of early Parliament and Funkadelic, Amnesty also responds to the grooves of Earth Wind and Fire and Sly and The Family Stone in their own way. Finally made available thirty three years after they were recorded, these songs are funk arranged with dangerous complexity and performed with precision – arguably the most unique funk to originate from Naptown, and some of the best music of its kind.
However, one of the album's highlights is without a doubt the acoustic song, "Trouble Will Remain"
700 West:
Not only does Free Your Mind showcase the talent of a greatly overlooked funk act, it is also a damn fine record for your average funk listener.
It sure is, and I completely agree with it. The fact that it is so not well-known and that it had been shelved for more than thirty years make the listening experience simply priceless, and the album is definitely stamped with "SDFY recommends."
Today on Dopamine Overdose, I will be posting artists with a similar sound to Amnesty, so you have definitely something to look forward to!
SDFY presents - Dopamine Overdose: SDFY's weekly guide to obscure music
Dear readers,
I would like to introduce you to our new weekly series, called Dopamine Overdose: SDFY's weekly guide to obscure music.
As you all already know by now, SDFY posts at least one song everyday (we apologize for being a bit lenient lately) from all kinds of music and we do not differentiate ourselves from other blogs by focusing on just one genre. This is not going to change, since for us everything is music and we want you, the readers, to see it the same way and discover all the possible ways of how music can sound. That is one of the missions of our blog, Some Dopamine For You.
However, we've decided to dedicate one day of the week to posting songs and interesting info about (primarily underground, but maybe also mainstream) artists from a genre we determine each week (or each two weeks?). So for example, this first episode in the series is going to be Funk/Deep Funk oriented, and that means that whole day we will be posting songs, full albums and the background information about the songs/albums/artists from the genre of Funk. As we stated earlier, it is great to be open-minded and not see any borders, categories and rules in music (because there are not any anyway), but at the same time, we feel like it is a good idea to introduce our readers to one particular genre regularly and allow you to explore it deeply, as it may be one of the important missing pieces to your music puzzle and will make you appreciate the bigger picture (music) even more than before.
We believe that you are going to love this series and we hope that thanks to this you will discover your future favorite artists.
Also, if you have some tips on how to improve this series, or have some suggestions, DO NOT hesitate to send me a message!
The first Dopamine Overdose is going to happen tomorrow, Sunday, 6th of April. Theme: Funk/Deep Funk
