If you’ve visited this page more than once over the last year and however many months its been running you’d have probably noted that there are a couple of pivotal moments in terms of ‘wonky’ that are constantly referred to. Be it the two Up My Alley Beatnicks 12”s (number 3 is reportedly mastered and imminent by the way…), Rustie’s Jagz The Smack EP or either of the Beat Dimensions compilations, we like to give a lot of thanks to the curators for introducing us to a wealth of talent that is now blossoming; people like 1000Names, 00Genesis, Jackhigh and fLako... Or basically the backbone of some of the most interesting ‘beats’ we’ve heard in 2010.
Tropical Heat Vol. 1 comes from the mind and passion of one Coco Bryce - someone we were ecstatic to get interviewed on here recently - and his fledgling Myor imprint. As the ‘Volume’ signifier in the name suggests Tropical Heat is the first in a series of 12” compilations; and featuring 6 producers it wields tracks from Coco himself, the first ever Sonic Router mix giver: Rekordah, Slugabed, Nino, Harmonia signed skwee producer Mesak and Saccage & Insence. With each producer bringing their own particular brand of warped hip hop to the table whether its rooted in skweee or simply in boom bap and madcap quantization, its hard to pick stand outs though personal highlights come in the form of Nino’s funk laden ‘Ready To Rock,’ Sluga’s swampy hysterics on the somewhat contemplative ‘Here You Are’ and Rekordah’s straight banging drum work on EP opener ‘Sometimes.’
The compilation pretty much induces the same kind of excitement that those early Beatnicks 12”s did in me and its unquantifiably reassuring to learn that there are people out there still willing to invest in a physical product for this kind of music. Hopefully the sign of more to come, this collection comes highly recommended.
Words: Oli Marlow
Out: Now
DOWNLOAD: V/A - Tropical Heat Vol 1 - Snippets
Link:
http://20shotsequence.blogspot.com/
