Journey to the UWS

UNS 002 – UWS

This one is a bit belated by totally worth it. Trust me. 🙂

The next installment of UNS took me to New York’s Upper West Side. It was a lovely warm day in spring and the sun was shining. Cruising along Broadway, eating at Papaya’s, chilling with Tom and imaging Kramer walking in and Elaine complaining about her hair and finally having a lie down at the Colombia campus benches.

I’ve never really been a through and through UWS type of dude. It’s always felt like a poor man’s UES to me, and you know how much I love the UES. Well you don’t, but I am telling you now, I fucking do, and I will find Woody Allen one day.

Anyways, here you go, enjoy!

Tracklist:

1. Lemon D – I See Sunshine
2. Vtgnike – U Tebya Takie Glaza
3. Lemongrass – Cafe De Paris
4. Paul Hardcastle – It Must Be Love
5. Patrice Rushen – Where There Is Love
6. Gentle Persuasion – Gotta Lotta Love
7. Tassel & Naturel Feat. DJ Cam – Drivin’
8. Double Dee – Found Love (Reprise)
9. Mary J. Blige – Good Woman Down
10. Swamburger – Womanside
11. Jay-Z – Moment Of Clearness
12. Problem Kids Feat. Ashley Beedle – Mardi Gras
13. Joss Moog – Room 27
14. Adrian Hour – The Reason (Desos Remix)
15. Curtis Hairston – I Want You (All Tonight) (JM After-Session M&M Mix)
16. Evelyn ‘Champagne’ King – Love Come Down (12″ Version)
17. Candi Staton – Young Hearts Run Free
18. Streetlife Originals – Sidewalk Story
19. Hackman – Carry On (Dub)
20. DJ Koze – XTC
21. WILLIAMS, Boo – Teckno Drome
22. Pascal Viscardi – Lakefront (Worker Union Remix)
23. Profundo & Gomes – Sexophonic
24. DJ Qu – Loveboxx
25. Mood II Swing – Move Me
26. DJ Qu – SS1
27. Jacob B – Rave In The Cave
28. D FUNC/MARCEL HEESE – Patience
29. MUNK – Purple Dust
30. Hefner / Cosmos – Dive Into You (Tom Middleton Vox)
31. Billy Shane – Hold Yor Heart
32. ANDRADE – Optimistic
33. Streetlife Originals – Sidewalk Story
34. Mountal – Would You Be Mine?
35. Eli Escobar – NY So Hi
36. Butch – Praise The Lord
37. Steffen Deux – New York Sun
38. DJ W!LD – All About You
39. Jazz-N-Groove – Do Ya (Tribal Jazz Mix)
40. Life On Earth – Can’t Give You Up (Joey Negro Club Mix)
41. Palms Trax – People Of Tusk
42. Entro Senestre – Rosegold
43. Art Of Tones – Queue De Cochon
44. Sello – Bla Bla Bla
45. Kim Brown – Ternevej
46. Theory Of Happiness – Relax (Soothing Club Mix)
47. Toni Martin – Deeper (Blaze Deep Mix)
48. Brothers’ Vibe – Take Me 2 The Raw
49. Munk – Hot Medusa (Kai Alcé Dub)
50. Pal Joey, Beautiful People – I Got The Rhythm (Club Mix)
51. Helvert Feat. Elif Bicer – Neu
52. The Bird And The Bee – Runaway
53. Grant Nelson – Season Of Jack
54. Grant Nelson – Spellbound
55. D. Ramirez & Mark Knight – Colombian Soul (Gabriel And Dresden Tuscan Soul Reconstruction)
56. Red Grey Purple – Music Matters (Mark Knight Remix)
57. Moodymanc – Joy
58. The Far Out Monster Disco Orchestra – Mystery (Instrumental) [Feat. Arthur Verocai]
59. N.U. – Do It Again (Touchsoul Edit)
60. Jack J – Something (On My Mind)

Urban Nomads – We Make Music

Folks, its not hidden a secret that I am a part time Urban Nomad by profession.

Urban Nomadic Sessions 001

What do us Urban Nomads do I hear ya ask?

Simple, we traverse urban settings, admiring cities, architecture, noise, markets, music, people, shops and most importantly, our built environment.

Our activities include but not limited to:

• Finding cool hidden gems, in my case the focus is on architecture and food.
• Chilling in coffee shops and coffee related establishments. We can spend tons of hours in these places.
• Walking in unknown parts of whatever city we happen to be in. We do that to discover new things, but also because it expands our understanding of our environment. It sometimes puts me in trouble. Worth it.
• Our nomadic nature means we cannot get too attached to one city, place or setting. But we often do.
• Running new routes around the city and seeing things at 20 km/hr while your heartbeat is at 100 bpm.
• Attending gigs, going to museums, enriching ourselves culturally.
• Airports
• Metro/Subway/Tube inspiration
• Finding cool hidden gems when we run of things to do
• Make/be music as you listen to music.

And this brings us nicely to my latest project.

You might have been with me long enough to know about Kay-Ville, District Funk and then Disco Blasphemy. These were awesome shows which were broadcast and had their fun in their sun. Time for something new.

My latest is a no brainer. One of the main accessories of the discerning Urban Nomad is his headphones and music selection. It is highly unusual to find me walking random parts of Paris’s Courbevoie or New York’s Lower East Side without my headphones on, banging tunes, taking it all on.

When I often playback some tunes, it elicits such a strong feeling of a particular setting that I often can no longer but associate that track with that place. And hence my idea – put together tracks I play while hopping about places in one mix and see what that sounds like. And thus ‘The Urban Nomadic Sessions’ is born.

The first session takes us to one my favorite parts of London and where I have so many fond memories, Islington, up Naaarrffff.

Representing N1, N4, N5, N6, N7, N8, N16 and N19, with a silent ode to the gunners! Here we go!

Tracklist:

1. Grüün – GrüünGrüünGrüüün
2. Deetron Feat. Ovasoul7 – Out Of My Head (Dub)
3. Roman Flügel – More & More
4. Aaron FIT Siegel – Tonite (DD Mix)
5. Rachel Row – Follow The Step (KiNK Mix)
6. Doc Daneeka – Everyday
7. B.G. Baarregaard – Tocame
8. Olivier Giacomotto – Together
9. Martijn – Strada 23
10. Flori – SU-3150
11. Moodymanc – Joy (Ralph Lawson Dub)
12. Dave Seaman – Private Education
13. JC Williams – Need No More (NY Stomp Remix)
14. Koelle, Elli – All You Got (Richard Seaborne Dub)
15. Prok & Fitch – One Of These Days
16. P A U L I E – Spread Love (Holmes Price Remix)
17. Climbers Feat. Yasmine Azaiez – Left Your Love (Director’s Cut Signature Mix)
18. Jacob Bech – The Kibosh
19. Pablo Bolivar – Destination Novgorod
20. Softwar – Believe
21. NY’s Finest – I Can’t Wait Till Tonight
22. James Welsh – Horse Fight
23. JimmyTheTwin – Party Down
24. Surrealism – So Much
25. Matthew Collins – Nobody’s Fool (Young Hand Remix)
26. System Of Survial – Iper Island
27. Jesse Rose – Alone
28. Benoit & Sergio – House With 500 Rooms (Dub)
29. Sasse – Flushing Meadows (Mark E Remix)
30. Jens Bond – Two Seconds Of Silence
31. Chamboche – Into The Murk
32. Phil Weeks – Stay Stayin
33. Daniel Steinberg – 1981
34. Dalson – Back Home
35. Joe Morris – Elysium
36. P. Laoss – Play My Music
37. White Wolf Worx – MFED
38. System Of Survial – Shaking Slow
39. B.G. Baarregaard – C.R.A.Z.Y
40. Alkalino – Have A Ball
41. Crazy P – Cruel Mistress (Ron Basejam Remix)
42. The Groovers – Make Me Feel
43. 78 Edits – Don’t You Know
44. Mario Basanov – More For The Less (Pablo Bolivar & Maurice Aymard Remix)
45. Closed Paradise, Tesla Boy, Sasha Anastasov – The Daulphin
46. Martijn – Sestriere
47. The Groovers – Where You BelongB

Jazz Cognoscenti Move To The Incessant Disco Rhythm – Disco Blasphemy 017

Jazz Cognoscenti Move To The Incessant Disco Rhythm [Disco Blasphemy 017]

In an ode to one of my favourite paintings of all time, and inspired by the changing of the seasons, the new Disco Blashpemy is now up!

The original piece done by an unknown Flemish artist sometime around 1620 is an absolute marvel. A series of paintings and art works within one massive painting that visualized an imaginary setting where many of the artist’s favourite paintings lied. It’s currently on display at the ‘National Gallery’ in London.

The tracklist will be posted online shortly. In the mean time, jack in and chillout!

https://soundcloud.com/inhead-kay/jazz-cognoscenti-move-to-the-incessant-disco-rhythm-disco-blasphemy-017

Album in History: Shakatak – Night Birds

'Night Birds' - Sounds ahead of their time (from space?)

In the long, diverse and sometimes even seemingly pedantic world of Jazz history there have been certain artists that have gone on to be so instrumental in expanding and diversifying the genre that they have created sub-genres solely revolving around their sounds. And while obvious names like Herbie Hancock, George Duke, Frank Zappa and Bob James immediately spring to mind, other relatively low-key performers like Shakatak have been just as influential. It is that very notion which makes defining Shakatak’s sound such a difficult task, not that I believe in “defining” and “labelling” sounds anyways!

After the racially fuelled disco-demotion nights, which exposed deep social problems that characterized much of the late 70s / early 80s period in mainstream America, a sound which fused the four on the floor electronic time signatures with elements of jazz, funk and disco was born, we now refer to it as post-Disco! At the time it was just a natural reaction to a movement characterized by its rejection to the notion that cultural America was changing, and that racism and homophobia were on the decline! Counterculture was taking over the American youth, culminating in anti-globalization collectives which had already established itself in the 60s largely as a youth movement sprawling from the disenfranchised social fabric destroyed initially by Nixon and later the Raegen years, or as brother Gil Scott-Heron called him, Rae-gun!

Musically, this was perfect fertile grounds to develop Disco, which hate-riddled demolition nights aside, wasn’t really developing all that much as it was. That’s not to say that several offshoot genres hadn’t already taken a life of their own by then. Giorgio Moroder had already developed his own brand of Hi-NRG Disco (exemplified in his collaborations with Donna Summers), and kids in Detroit and Chicago were listening to Kraftwerk and already discovered that 808s and 303s are more than just pretty Japanese machines that make robot sounds. What the disco demolition nights did however, was exponentially speed up that process, and in a matter of years dance music witnessed arguably its greatest evolution to date.

In England, that change was profoundly felt, and while in the later years of the 80s it was manifested in the meteoric rise of Synthpop, especially in northern parts, Jazz-Funk was the genre of the moment in the early to mid-years of the decade. ‘Night Birds’ in many ways exemplified that era, yet somehow came at a time when Jazz-Funk was both quite unknown to the wider public and largely rejected from Jazz’s inner-circle. Smooth Jazz pioneer Bob James faced similar objections from the Jazz community when One, Two, Three and BJ4 were released, even though he never claimed them to be Jazz in the first place!

‘Night Birds’ as an album achieved limited commercial success initially despite it’s quite obvious pop connection (and one hell of an awesome cover art work!). But this was never about sales, what makes this album so special is the ineffably rich compositions and instrumental innovativeness spearheaded by the band’s pianist Bill Sharpe. George Anderson on the other hand provided that killer brass so evident in Streetwalkin’. A spectacularly well harmonized eclectic album with just the right amount vocal hooks covers everything from early day Bossa jazz to swanky jazz-funk, which it largely put on the map!

Shakatak – Streetwalkin’ – Kay’s ‘One Very Cold Yet Funky Morning’ Edit