Future musics
the summer wrap up....
the summer wrap up has been nuts - haven't had a chance to sit back and relax for a minute now... no complaints from me tho!
last night was freesoul sessions @ jazz cafe in london - thanks to everyone who came down. on stage along with me were vanessa freeman, mystro, bembe segue, jason yarde, richard spaven and a couple of impromptu jump up guests - baby sol and a girl chatting with some serious vibe (anyone know who she was??). adam rock held down the decks and all in all we had a great fun night. it's possible that was the last freesoul sessions party in london for a while - i'm relocating (more about that below) in a couple of months and not sure yet that there'll be the right time/space to have another one before i go.
the last month has been here, there n everywhere... mid august we did a couple of shows in poland - one in a town square in plock and another at the boogie brain festival in szczecin. both were good fun and memorable for different reasons. in plock we had to go head 2 head with the support band who insisted that i clear my rig off the stage so that they'd have enough room to play. now if you havent seen my live setup, you need to know - that's no small request. it takes the best part of an hour to rig up... but i'm thinking, wow they must have an EW&F size band... horn section, percussion section, 2 guitarists etc etc, so let's try and find a compromise. so check the joke... in between the increasingly heated arguments going on back stage, i asked the stage manager exactly what their lineup is that they need me to de rig and move all my gear off stage. turns out they're an organ trio!!! organ + guitar + drums. we HAD to laugh.
the fest in szczecin was crazy - we had a polish goth/metal band before us (their outfits made rocky horror look like pre-school) and ltj bukem with conrad after. my radias synth was dead when we walked on stage to play - a potential disaster but luckily there was a korg triton close by and i managed to coax some heavy bottom end out of that ;) great vibes all round and as it is every time, really a pleasure to play and party in poland.
around the same time i also started work on an album i'm producing for dutch trumpet player rob van den wouw. rob saw me perform at last year's numoon festival in rotterdam - an improv collective who bring in guests for their annual festival. he liked what he saw and invited me to do a show with his big band (jan 9, 2009 in rotterdam... it's going to be off the HOOK) and in turn that led him to ask me to produce his new album. so i went over to amsterdam for a few days to do the pre-production - we hit a studio about 30 min outside the city. this spot is dope. a proper studio that in london i've only really seen the likes of at the BBC and spots like that. there's photos of prince working there in the early 90s and walls full of gold discs. so anyway, rob brought in some demos he'd put together - very simple vibes - chord progressions mainly. over the 2 days i built the beats, flipped the demos and we had 11 tracks ready to go for the next stage. the vibe is sitting nice already - after that rob took the preproduction (all just mpc and logic) and wrote horn parts to them.
next week i'm back in amsterdam to continue the project - we'll spend a couple of days recording rob and his band and then a week in editing and production mode. it's great to be working in such a focused way and with able musicians. i think you're gonna want to check this record when it's done :) check the label here.. embrace recordings
after that pre-production trip it was back to london and back in the studio. rinsed some little vibes with phlash - check the new phlash & friends single 'running'/'exaltaion' both of which i'm doing the music on - and nailed the remix for incognito. i'm really happy with how that one turned out. it's going to be on their japanese bonus disc release i think, and i'll be including it on melodius beats vol.2 - a compilation of my remixes and productions that should be dropping in the new year. thanks to bluey for reaching out to me to do the remix, and all going well i'll be collaborating with him for a track on the next incog album. nuff respect!
then it was a quick hit and run mission to dj in lisbon portugal. i hadn't been to portugal since a gig in porto in 2001 so it was nice to get back. big big big ups to johnny and the gola crew there - we did a party at a new club called change, right on the riverfront. the party was fun and it's always a pleasure to share some tunes. the madness was that i'd spent half the day getting to lisbon, then dj'd from 3-5am, had to be at the airport 7am to catch an 8am back to heathrow, then had to wait a few hours and catch an afternoon flight to LA ! somehow i managed that whole thing with no sleep too. lol.
i spent 4 days in LA, walking the beach every day, catching up with some friends there - and checking out the surroundings and areas with an eye to where i'm going to live. yes yes, it's time to switch up! LA is going to be home from november. i've been in the UK for about 10 years now and it's time for the next chapter. i'm really excited about what life stateside is going to bring - there's a few projects already in the pipeline and lots to jump on once i'm over there. london and europe in general is really special to me too, so i'm going to be touring back through as often as possible, 3 times a year all going well. but yeah, the sun is calling!!!! :)
upcoming... after the next 10 days or so working on rob's album in amsterdam, i'm playing batofar in paris sept 25 sharing the bill with platinum pied pipers, followed by sept 26 taking freesoul sessions to birmingham uk. for both of those shows i've got vanessa freeman, mystro and richard spaven with me as well as tawiah on the paris show.
oct 25 is the need2soul party in london @ cargo where i'm doing a live set with sharlene hector on mic, and after that another really interesting project:
8sixteen32 at the birmingham repertory theatre featuring the decypher collective. it's a theatre project by MCs and i've been asked to do the music for it. i've never worked in theatre like that before so looking forward to that one too. the season runs nov 5-8 in birmingham.
all going well there'll be a final freesoul sessions london party early november... news on that if/when it's locked in the usual places...
there's more going on, but that's enough of a slice of news for now!
oh yeah... the politik remix competition/album... is still in progress for those who are bugging to know whaablo with it. soon come soon come. results will be announced soon.
peace,
mashi
last night was freesoul sessions @ jazz cafe in london - thanks to everyone who came down. on stage along with me were vanessa freeman, mystro, bembe segue, jason yarde, richard spaven and a couple of impromptu jump up guests - baby sol and a girl chatting with some serious vibe (anyone know who she was??). adam rock held down the decks and all in all we had a great fun night. it's possible that was the last freesoul sessions party in london for a while - i'm relocating (more about that below) in a couple of months and not sure yet that there'll be the right time/space to have another one before i go.
the last month has been here, there n everywhere... mid august we did a couple of shows in poland - one in a town square in plock and another at the boogie brain festival in szczecin. both were good fun and memorable for different reasons. in plock we had to go head 2 head with the support band who insisted that i clear my rig off the stage so that they'd have enough room to play. now if you havent seen my live setup, you need to know - that's no small request. it takes the best part of an hour to rig up... but i'm thinking, wow they must have an EW&F size band... horn section, percussion section, 2 guitarists etc etc, so let's try and find a compromise. so check the joke... in between the increasingly heated arguments going on back stage, i asked the stage manager exactly what their lineup is that they need me to de rig and move all my gear off stage. turns out they're an organ trio!!! organ + guitar + drums. we HAD to laugh.
the fest in szczecin was crazy - we had a polish goth/metal band before us (their outfits made rocky horror look like pre-school) and ltj bukem with conrad after. my radias synth was dead when we walked on stage to play - a potential disaster but luckily there was a korg triton close by and i managed to coax some heavy bottom end out of that ;) great vibes all round and as it is every time, really a pleasure to play and party in poland.
around the same time i also started work on an album i'm producing for dutch trumpet player rob van den wouw. rob saw me perform at last year's numoon festival in rotterdam - an improv collective who bring in guests for their annual festival. he liked what he saw and invited me to do a show with his big band (jan 9, 2009 in rotterdam... it's going to be off the HOOK) and in turn that led him to ask me to produce his new album. so i went over to amsterdam for a few days to do the pre-production - we hit a studio about 30 min outside the city. this spot is dope. a proper studio that in london i've only really seen the likes of at the BBC and spots like that. there's photos of prince working there in the early 90s and walls full of gold discs. so anyway, rob brought in some demos he'd put together - very simple vibes - chord progressions mainly. over the 2 days i built the beats, flipped the demos and we had 11 tracks ready to go for the next stage. the vibe is sitting nice already - after that rob took the preproduction (all just mpc and logic) and wrote horn parts to them.
next week i'm back in amsterdam to continue the project - we'll spend a couple of days recording rob and his band and then a week in editing and production mode. it's great to be working in such a focused way and with able musicians. i think you're gonna want to check this record when it's done :) check the label here.. embrace recordings
after that pre-production trip it was back to london and back in the studio. rinsed some little vibes with phlash - check the new phlash & friends single 'running'/'exaltaion' both of which i'm doing the music on - and nailed the remix for incognito. i'm really happy with how that one turned out. it's going to be on their japanese bonus disc release i think, and i'll be including it on melodius beats vol.2 - a compilation of my remixes and productions that should be dropping in the new year. thanks to bluey for reaching out to me to do the remix, and all going well i'll be collaborating with him for a track on the next incog album. nuff respect!
then it was a quick hit and run mission to dj in lisbon portugal. i hadn't been to portugal since a gig in porto in 2001 so it was nice to get back. big big big ups to johnny and the gola crew there - we did a party at a new club called change, right on the riverfront. the party was fun and it's always a pleasure to share some tunes. the madness was that i'd spent half the day getting to lisbon, then dj'd from 3-5am, had to be at the airport 7am to catch an 8am back to heathrow, then had to wait a few hours and catch an afternoon flight to LA ! somehow i managed that whole thing with no sleep too. lol.
i spent 4 days in LA, walking the beach every day, catching up with some friends there - and checking out the surroundings and areas with an eye to where i'm going to live. yes yes, it's time to switch up! LA is going to be home from november. i've been in the UK for about 10 years now and it's time for the next chapter. i'm really excited about what life stateside is going to bring - there's a few projects already in the pipeline and lots to jump on once i'm over there. london and europe in general is really special to me too, so i'm going to be touring back through as often as possible, 3 times a year all going well. but yeah, the sun is calling!!!! :)
upcoming... after the next 10 days or so working on rob's album in amsterdam, i'm playing batofar in paris sept 25 sharing the bill with platinum pied pipers, followed by sept 26 taking freesoul sessions to birmingham uk. for both of those shows i've got vanessa freeman, mystro and richard spaven with me as well as tawiah on the paris show.
oct 25 is the need2soul party in london @ cargo where i'm doing a live set with sharlene hector on mic, and after that another really interesting project:
8sixteen32 at the birmingham repertory theatre featuring the decypher collective. it's a theatre project by MCs and i've been asked to do the music for it. i've never worked in theatre like that before so looking forward to that one too. the season runs nov 5-8 in birmingham.all going well there'll be a final freesoul sessions london party early november... news on that if/when it's locked in the usual places...
there's more going on, but that's enough of a slice of news for now!
oh yeah... the politik remix competition/album... is still in progress for those who are bugging to know whaablo with it. soon come soon come. results will be announced soon.
peace,
mashi
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