A couple of independent artist efforts pop-up in the latest BeatConscious set: Dub & Dubber 08: 2008:04:20: Dubset.

A big shout-out to emch who appears to be the organizing spirit behind SUBATOMIC SOUND SYSTEM and DUB CHAMPIONS. I saw one configuration of this loose confederation of players at the 2008 Winter Music Conference where Emch (turntables and sample triggering), Rhiannon (vocals) and Amon (drums) added spice and smooth vibes to the Miambient afternoon at The Standard Hotel. You can catch their full story and see if they will be appearing anywhere near you by visiting one of their online outposts:
www.subatomicsound.com
www.myspace.com/subatomicsound
and on www. youtube.com/subatomicsound

I understand their music is available worldwide on iTunes, Emusic, Beatport, Calabash Music &
elsewhere.

Another dub stalwart is Toronto's Dubmatix -- check their website HERE for information on concerts, links to free music downloads and even some nifty wallpaper for your computer. Dubmatix is one of the hardest working groups in the business and I'm pleased to bring their music to new listeners.

Spring produced lots of new releases and many of them made their way to me ... Independents Suite 2008 is the result.

All India Radio is among the most well-represented on this set. The set opens with the gorgeous melody of Let me Remain -- one of those tunes that sticks in your head -- and they appear again later with the very Portishead-influenced Persist. This Australian group has never sent me a release I didn't love ... they are well-represented online also: check them out via any of these links:

http://www.allindiaradio.com.au
http://www.myspace.com/allindiaradio
http://www.last.fm/music/All+India+Radio
http://www.pandora.com/music/artist/all+india+radio
http://www.ilike.com/artist/All+India+Radio
http://allindiaradio.imeem.com/
http://www.bebo.com/allindiaradio

Gary B was last featured in March, from his new release Step into the Sunshine .. the two tracks featured this month were ones I found on a couple of 2005 compilations, both soulful, sexy and deeply grooved. Scroll back up thru the Declaration to March for a link.

Toronto's KUSH has been around for a while, but they just found me recently via the Live365 version of the BeatConscious stream. Their 2004 set, Streams of Consciousness Vol. 1 has passages strongly reminiscent of Miles and his seminal album Sketches of Spain. A second track, from 2002's Temptation Sessions release also appears. More information about this group at their website: http://www.kush-music.com

The good people from the Aardvark Records label sent a basket of tracks, including songs from Torso's Naked Came the She Squid, Staedler & Waldorf from the 2008 release No Way Home, and Chris Hale's Together from Day and Night -- this track will surprise you if you stick with it. Find out more about this UK label at http://www.aardvarkrecords.co.uk


And finally, the folks at 23records have reinvented Fila Brazillia as The Cutler with a new, self-titled album that dropped to me in late May and to the public now in July. This is some very muscular stuff, as the track Pickaxe amply demonstrates. For more information, visit the Steel Tiger Records website at http://www.steeltiger.co.uk/ and The Cutler website at http://www.thecutler.com/ as well as the ubiquitous myspace connection: http://www.myspace.com/iamthecutler

Of course, not everybody comes to me ... sometimes I go out looking. After the Baltimore Boogie Man dropped a couple of items from CNET's music.download site, I decided I'd better investigate their offerings ... and so I direct your attention to tracks from Lovespirals, DJ Eurok and Rados and remind you that the music.download site is a legal outlet for artist self-promotion -- do check them out.

Finally, of course, a BeatConscious set would hardly be complete without a Warheads track: this time I'm spinning a tune from the Killed in Action album and as a special treat for me, jrs contributed my first-ever drop which you'll hear as the lead-in to their tune Bomb Tested.

Busy month! Hope to do as well for you again next time ....

The new mix for October, Isla Mujeres, featuring female vocalists of all styles and persuasions, has four primary sources for the independent artist tracks that appear in the set:

Sterling Angel (John Sterling and Angelique Sirois) can be experienced via the web site http:\\www.sterlingangel.com ... and, no doubt, via future sets on BeatConscious ... they have revived triphop in a sexy, intimate way.

From the good people at Lola Waxx Records (and Pamela, in particular ...) I got news of the Independent Soul Divas release, which dropped in early September ... you can check out all the goodies at lolawaxx.com or just jet on over to the myspace page for news about the Divas' release ...

From the Euro netlabel ELECTROBEL, I picked up the TripHop-01 release -- not sure if that is still available, but you can see what's on offer from this French/Belgian/UK collective by visiting them at http://label.electrobel.info/

Finally, I was contacted by a friend / producer / publicist for Andie Hahn with an intro to her music ... as yet, though, no web presence to report to you ... I'll keep you posted if and when I learn more (and I hope to hear original material from Andie sometime soon.)

Although I like to keep the focus of this thread on truly independent artists (little or no label support, or self-label releases) and help you find them online, I should note that lots of the other tracks on Isla Mujeres were sourced via emusic.com, which specializes in small label and semi-independent artists ... visit the emusic.com site to see what a huge variety is out there....

quote:

Originally posted by MadameFLY:

I was contacted by a friend / producer / publicist for Andie Hahn with an intro to her music ... as yet, though, no web presence to report to you ... I'll keep you posted if and when I learn more (and I hope to hear original material from Andie sometime soon.)

Find more on Andie Hahn at http://www.myspace.com/AndieHahnmusic. What I do know is there are only a handful of singers who have managed to get me to throw my entire skill set and connections at their project. Who knew one would be this 16-year-old soulster from Sacramento, CA? I was outta the artist development game for YEARS and then bam...ENTRE ANDIE HAHN! Originals are in the works. Keep checkin' for her and thanks for the play!

so much amazing info in here Thanks Madame!!

Thanks to Marlibar for the hat-tip ... more of the same in today's post...


In the post from July 5, 2008, above, you'll find information and links for a number of artists that also appear in the July 2009 Indie mix, BOOK:ENDED -- including All India Radio, KUSH and Aardvark Records. That post also references http://music.download.com, which is where I found the group Bassment ... here's the write-up from Last.fm:

quote:

Bassment-the brain-child of Melbourne-born, Bristol-based trip-hop/illbient producer Dan Tout - began as an antidote for boredom. The boredom caused by long, slow hours of soul-destroying work . In between drinks, work and study, beats were constructed, forgotten about, de-constructed, considered during work and study, played backwards during drinks, re-reversed and then, finally, re-constructed and left in an old PC to rot, or delete themselves, or whatever things do in prehistoric computers. That is, of course, until the collaboration of Nicola Watson - exquisite, insightful lyricist; gifted, soulful vocalist and thieving, obnoxious drunk - that culminated in the release of bassment’s delicate, moody debut album ‘nothing.’

This all took place in Melbourne - bassment’s spiritual home. Or at least that’s what it would be if he believed in all that mumbo-jumbo. Instead let us call it his permanent home. Either way, as soon as he had saved enough cash, bassment quit his soul-destroying job and followed his ears towards the home of trip-hop & drum n bass, via a long detour through South-East Asia caused by a build-up of wax in the navigational instruments. Immersing himself in the local culture and volunteering at the Basement Studios youth project where Roni Size made his name have resulted in a definite shift in direction towards dark, funky drum n bass.

A link to a website is provided there also, but it appears to be a dead-end ... which is a shame ...

This year, the All India Radio release is called A Low High, and as usual, it's full of mesmerizing tunes, a downtempo delight from the ambient tip ... though the one I've used in BOOK:ENDED grooves a little harder than that.

Aardvark Records this year had a number of interesting tunes for us, but I found myself focussed on a short number by Kel Pritchard called "Western Sky" ... spaghetti western atmospherics with samurai overtones ... its brevity is part of its allure.

And of course, the beautiful minds at KUSH continue to create compelling music, full of both standard jazz influences and dance floor rhythms. This year they came out with a triple-threat release which also included Martin's Miracle, ambient so profound it comes with a warning against driving while listening ...

I signed up last year with the AheadPR folks and they delivered in spades recently with music from Sierra Hurtt ... here's what they tell us about her:

quote:

Songwriter and vocalist Sierra Hurtt has been performing and recording since the tender age of 4. The daughter of award-winning songwriter, Phil Hurtt, Sierra grew up in the cradle of Philadelphia Soul ... she is often compared to Joni Mitchell, Carole King and Sia - among others ... her debut EP is entitled 8 or 80 ... read more about her here: http://aheadpr.com/member/sierrahurtt

The voice of Horace Andy has been associated with some incredible music, including his participation on joints for Massive Attack back in the 90s. Don't Touch Records recently released Horace Andy & Alpha - Two Phazed People, which includes the track "Storm" ... if this track isn't huge, it won't be because I didn't tell people about it. Find out more at http://www.donttouchrecordings.com ...

The excellent team at RadioDirectX is responsible for my discovering Emar -- here's a bit of what they have to say about her:

quote:

EMAR (pron. Ehm-Ahr) is an international electro-dance, world music & new age artist. Born in the Balkans and raised in Canada, EMAR‘s multicultural influences inspire her to sing and record in several languages including English, Serbian, Hindi, Persian, Arabic and Church Slavonic. If you like Electro-dance, World, and New Age you will love EMAR. Think - Enigma, Buddha Bar & Delerium, then add a hint of Shakira & Sarah Brightman. On her debut album, EMAR: Sacred Soul, released September '08, EMAR worked with three renowned producers to create her ethereal, spiritual sound: Genie Award-nominated - Sean Eyre, Canadian Music Awards winner for Best World Music Group '07 & JUNO Awards Nominee '09 - Andrew McPherson of Eccodek and noted film composer - Igor Vrabac. Playing on five of the album’s tracks is World Music multi-instrumentalist - Boris Sichon.

Her album Sacred Soul is available via CD Baby (I haven't yet found an online presence, but will update this when I do.)

Finally, beatmixing.com's own Douglas turned me on to Ugress -- a prolific Norwegian group whose web presence offers a satisfyingly large assortment of their music for download (check it out here: http://www.ugress.com/media_music_free.asp) ... the track "Isolation" which I featured in BOOK:ENDED is not representative of their work, but comes from the deep-space ambient tip of what they do ... well worth your time to check out the entire range of musical offerings on their site.

I believe that's it -- questions welcome or any additions you find to the information I've posted here ...

This message has been edited. Last edited by: MadameFLY,

Since the last post, there's been a muted indie presence on the show (I've been crate-digging as much as listening to new things) but two items should be mentioned:

In the show Where I Am Instead, I used a track from the Andromeda Island album Ambient Garden -- I found their work available on archive.org, home to the Archive of the Internet (no doubt a somewhat selective compilation, given the billions and billions of pages now extant on the web.)

And in the lastest show to be added to the stream, Exotica Redux, appears a song from violinist Anna Schaad entitled "Happy" from her album Dream Within a Dream. Hearing this track originally was sheer coincidence ... it was incidental music filling the space between two stories on PRI's show "To the Best of Our Knowledge" ... needless to say, I loved her sound and Googled her immediately ... her violin work makes me think of Scarlett Rivera's work on the Bob Dylan release Desire from back in the 70's ... turns out adding some violin to rock and dance music is an excellent idea ....