Ear Orgasm 1 - Dub FX

The lovely interwebs turned up this gem of an artist in a quest for new tunes the other day. Dub FX (real name Benjamin Stanford) uses only his voice, aided by a live looping & effects pedals, to create an rich layered and intricate live music. He touches on genres ranging from hip-hop to reggae and deep drum and base rhythms to create some of the hottest sounding tracks I have had the pleasure of listening to in a long time. 

More Dub FX stuff for your viewing/audio pleasure here.

Its really hard to put into words what it is like to attend Afrikaburn (The South African version of Burning Man and an official regional festival) and spend 6 days camped out in the middle of the Karoo. Absolute madness and bliss is the best I can come up with at the moment. 

For those of you who have been there is no need to explain that Tankwa Town is a wondrous playground filled with self expression, art, music and loads of other strange and wonderful sights and sounds. For those who have not been - im not even going to try and explain what its like, its just not possible. 

Getting back to normality has been a little extreme and im still feeling the decompression and will be feeling it for a while - the only thing that makes it easier is knowing I will be heading back next year….  

Death From Above 1979, with their lacerating bass lines and almost relentless rhythmic urgency, were the kings of the ‘dance-punk’ craze that was around in the mid 2000’s. With only one full length album (You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine) under their belts the band split up in 2005 - a massive disappointment as I thought I would never see them play live… 

It now looks like that disappointment is no more. Last Saturday (17th April 2011) Death From Above appeared (largely as a surprise) at Coachella 2011 and proceeded to belt out tracks like “Romantic Rights” and “Blood on Our Hands” like they never left the stage…

It seems the band is now touring again (with confirmed dates in the UK) - they are now back on top of my ‘bands I must see live” list… 

Cape Town digital-dub duo 7FT Soundsystem are fast becoming one of my favourite acts to have appeared on the scene lately. They have already made some waves locally and if you have not heard their debut album “God Shuffles His Feet” you are missing out.

Incase you are missing out take a listen here.

The brew of rolling bass lines, skanking rhythm and occasional 8-bit sounds that they firmly base on Jamaican roots music is something else. Anyway a couple of weeks ago they released an awesome ‘mixtape’ of sorts called “Honey, I shrunk the Dancehall”

Take a listen - you wont be disappointed.  

Captain Stu: Free Music

The first post out the block is always the hardest, so instead of rambling on and saying something cheesy like “Hello World!” (opps, I said it) I decided to link to one of my favourite local Cape Town acts, Captain Stu.

Not only are these boys good friends but damn fine musicians… they also give their music away for free.

So go grab a copy for yourself here.