Friday 30 April 2010

Ryukyus Roots.

The next 5 days is the Japanese holiday they call "Golden week" and for the last few years the mytea@om crew have headed off to Taketomi-jima in the Yaeyama Island group south of Okinawa, much closer to Taiwan, than mainland Japan. We always stay at a lovely family Minshuku in the town "Nohara Suo" (tel-85-2252) and every evening after a hard days sunbathing and delicious Okinawan dinner, the fun begins when free bottles of awamori appear, the 3 stringed sanshin comes out and a good old Okinawan singsong begins. Back in 2001 the first edition John Potter's book "The Power Of Okinawa" came out, which i never did pick up a copy, but now a completely revised, expanded and updated 2nd edition has surfaced with more chapters and more interviews with the people involved in making roots music from the Ryukyus. One such duo Ryukyu Underground, who are Keith Gordon, originally from the UK but now resident in Okinawa, and his cohort, American Jon Taylor have been fusing the sounds of the Ryukyus with contemporary westernized studio technology to bring a whole new sound to okinawan traditional folk music..Lifting two tracks from the 2005 Ryukyu remixed collection.
Njoy!

East Is East (Chaos Luda Coral Mix)









Sefa Utaki (Lelonek Mix)






Saturday 24 April 2010

Do The Astral Plane.

With such great new muzik popping out at every turn this year,it's becoming difficult to catch up with it all....what with the pace of life taking an upswing over here with our gorgeous new addition recently, I will endeavor over the coming weeks to post up the stuff that's been seen rockin' the walls of mytea@om's HQ.....One such (soon to be released) LP deserves extra special praise in the way it has been executed. Cosmogramma by that enigmatic LA producer of fine abstract wonky beats & riddims Flying Lotus.


A self-described "space opera" the long player 17 tracks in total is overflowing with the skills of harp prodigy Rebekah Raff and string arrangements from Miguel Atwood-Ferguson...The quality of this project has broken all known beatscene boundaries from every imaginable angle...."Do the Astral Plane" is my personal favorite here, a future boogie classic!
Released on Warp on the 3rd/4th of May. They are giving away 3 recent non album tracks....how nice!


Download







Wednesday 21 April 2010

R.I.P Guru-San

Sad news indeed today..Keith Elam (AKA) Guru-san has died in hospital aged only 43 following a battle with cancer.



Tuesday 20 April 2010

Ancient Marks.

National Geographic photographer Chris Rainier spent seven years traveling across six continents and much of the Pacific Ocean documenting what it means to mark the body in ritual and initiation. Rainier and filmmaker Ethan Boehme team up to bring Rainier's beautiful photographs of exquisite tattoos and sacred scarring rituals around the world poetically to film. With music by Anoushka Shankar.


Friday 16 April 2010



Great night Wednesday...still buzzin'

Thursday 8 April 2010

Wednesday 7 April 2010

Tropical Disco


Two heavy Tropical bangers to heat up the summer dancefloor from the Sofrito Specials label. Specialists in mixing up Afro disco/funk flavours, heavy Cumbia and Carnival rhythm re-edits which they release in extremely limited quantities..First up from last summer is "Palmwine Disco" from the Tropical Discotheque Volume 2 EP. Then "Tabou for the People" dropped on the Tropical Soundclash EP this January. For the bumping & jumping out there!...Njoy.

(download)








A1.Christina Lover (Sofrito Edit)
A2.Palmwine Disco (Hide and Smile Edit)
B1.La Rosa (Frankie Francis Edit)
B2.K-Dansé (Frankie Francis Edit)
SOFR003



(download)








A1.Rift Valley Groove (Tropical Treats Edit)
A2.Cumbia Colombiana (Tropical Treats Edit)
B1.Ca Ça Yé (Frankie Francis Edit)
B2.Tabou For The People (Sofrito Edit Feat. L Barrabas)
SOFR005

Monday 5 April 2010

Things ain't right.


Dropping a dope funky soul/jazz floorfiller from Esther Marrow, or Queen Esther Marrow on the legendary Fantasy records 1972...with, get this!..Bernard Purdie, Jimmy Johnson and Idris Muhammad on drum duties, Richard Tee piano, Cornell Dupree on guitar, and Ralph McDonald on congas, what a line up!..going out to my man CV in Barcelona.

(download mp3)









1.women in the window
2.ghetto
3.trade winds
4.turn on to jesus
5.rainy night in georgia
6.thing ain't right
7.ask me to dance
8.and when i die
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