I came across this very poignant speech given by Marc Hollander of Crammed Discs after winning the WOMEX Award in 2004. Its lenghty, but worth every bit your time. His insightful deduction of music, culture, and “the biz”, really resonated with me. He’s been taking risks and “genre bending” successfully for over 25 years.
Memento Audre Semper all the way! (remember to dare always)
Quality, creativity, impact. Since its introduction in 1999, the WOMEX Award has been honouring world music on the international level. Musical excellence, social effectiveness, commercial success, political impact, lifetime achievement - any or all of these might make one a worthy recipient.
Life is what music is all about … or should that be: music is what life is all about?
With 225 albums and 200 singles, Marc Hollander´s Crammed Discs is one of the seminal players on the world music field. They brought us genre heavyweights like Zap Mama, Taraf de Haïdouks, Hector Zazou and Mahmoud Ahmed, as well as the new wave of Brazilian sounds that make up their sub label Ziriguiboom: Cibelle, Zuco 103, Trio Mocotó, and Bebel Gilberto, to name a few.
They were behind fusion milestones such as the Electric Gypsyland long player, Zazou Bikaye, Bel Canto, The Honeymoon Killers. They are the market force behind electronic music innovators like Carl Craig, 4hero/Tek 9 or DJ Morpheus & his Freezone series. And they will surely come up with more of the same quality in the years to come.
If you care about your independence, artistically or economically, you have to be twice as creative as others, three times as gutsy, four times as persistent that´s the story of this community. Small units of adventurous, free-thinking minds with an attitude and a lot of ideas coming together to fuse the different genres and create a unique musical vision, (more…)
When we first had the idea to start (yet another) music BLOG, possibly the fastest decision we made in the development process was who to devote our first post to. And in order to make it a proper first post, I have two exclusive tracks, an exclusivo mix and an interview with the one called Drop The Lime. Since December, roughly, Drop The Lime has been my (and our) favorite producer. Literally every DTL track that crosses my path has the ability to pound dancefloors into submission through his gargantuan beats and eye-wiggling bass.
The guy gained a lot of notoriety a couple years ago in the breakcore scene with a bunch of big hits and has since moved on to a more party-friendly sound. He’s about to blow up huge with his upcoming release on Institubes under the pseudonym Curses! (sorry, we can’t give you guys that one) and catapult him to the upper eschelon of dance music. His music somehow manages to incorporate elements of just about every EDM genre since 1982 and not in a gimmicky or tacky sort of way. One track will have a b-more drum line with with a dub-step bass line and a distorted new electro lead with a house/oldskool chipmunk vocal overtop, but all you notice, though, is the fact that it just knocked your pancreas out the back of your ribcage and your roll just kicked back in from about 3 years ago.
Production aside, DTL is a brilliant DJ and the head honcho of Trouble & Bass, which throws one of the finest monthly parties (of the same name) in the whole of the good ol’ U.S. of A. Go to the crews blog (troubleandbass.blogspot.com) to see pictures of clearly is a wall-sweating, sign-making, bass-facing good time. Trouble & bass’s other residents, Mathhead, Shadetek, and Star Eyes will definitely be receiving some hype from us in the near future so watch out.
“I Want 2 Know” is def a signature DTL banger. Featuring a straight forward housey beat and a woobly bassline that will satisfy the grumpiest of junglists as well as a nice, choppy vocal and a rough, distorted lead. This one has been a major part of my sets in the past month and really lends itself to keeping the energy going after a big build.
For those of you who lean towards the housier, techier side of the spectrum, “Good Inside” will fit well in your sets. Due to its rawness and endless energy, this tune will find itself comfortably resting next to Green Velvet or T. Raumschmiere (off the top of my head) as well as a lot of the more mainstream electro house. Don’t let me tell you how to use it though, because this one is a fantastically versatile utility track.
We cant stop there! So here’s a fantastic mix made exclusively for the TM crew made by the man hisself, Drop The Lime, complete with more exclusorama tunes from DTL as well as the likes of Surkin. Also, it has plenty of old-skool hardcore classics (at my request, I’m a dork for that stuff) which will make the yoots wish they were 10 years older.
Be sure to keep an out for DTL’s upcoming on Institubes as well as Trouble & Bass records. If you’re ever in New York, be sure to swing by a Trouble & Bass party. And for all our Chicago readers, Drop The Lime will be playing Friday, March 30th at base 10 and Trash Menagerie’s party, Algorhythm @ Lava Lounge.
After all this, are you still craving more of that DTL? Well we are too, so I decided to do a little (or not) interview with the man and see what hes all about.
Interview with Drop The Lime
Local Hero: So lets kick it off with the basics. When did you get started in electronic music and what got you going?
Drop The Lime: Really, What got me going was jungle music and then after jungle then I got into early hardcore and hardcore breakbeat stuff and I was probably about 14; I’m young, I’m 26 now. That kind of stuff just got me so hyped. I was always into music. I had been playing guitar since I was 7 and recording stuff even around then. Then when I heard these pirate radio tapes of, like, DJ Hype and Andy C and stuff. Friends from London imported them and gave me the tapes, they said check out this shit and I said, “Oh my God this stuff is amazing! Like what the hell is this?” It made me angry. It made me jealous and want to be making it myself.
So, yeah and at the time, I didn’t realize that I was going to rave parties. I went and saw Chemical Brothers when I was like fifteen at some party that I went to just see Chemical Brothers, and my friends were like, “Let’s check out Chemical Brothers. They’re cool. They’re electronic music.” I thought, OK cool. And we go and there’s like all these other DJs. It’s in a warehouse and they’re playing a surprise show in Queens. And I was like, “Wow! What is this? This scene’s fucked up. This scene’s like scary. Are people allowed to be here? Is this supposed to be happening right now?” And then as I met more friends and people would be like, “Do you go to parties? Do you go to parties?’ And I’d be like, “Parties? Yeah I go to parties. What?” And then slowly I realized that this was a whole scene. This is a rave. This is a rave party. (Laughs)
LH: So, I’m not too caught up on when things happened in New York. Were these like those Sonic Groove parties or was this after that whole scene?
DTL: Were these, like, the storm parties, you mean? Are you saying, like, Frankie Bones and that stuff?
LH: All those guys, right.
DTL: Yeah, No this wasn’t. This was definitely after that. Like, right after that, though. I wasnt around for those parties. Because these parties started to get shut down and moved away from Brooklyn and more towards Queens.
And, yeah, that’s where I was going. And there was still a lot of stuff in Brooklyn. Kids would be like, “Yeah. Those were the good old days.” Like Frankie Bones would (more…)
