Unexpectedly awsome songs

Have you ever come across something that just surprises you? I was doing "research" on Youtube (avoiding cleaning up the apartment) and came across some songs by the San Francisco Drum and Bass duo Bachelors of Science . These guys are making the kind of DnB that I've been yearning for. Soulful, textured with the right mix of beauty and ruggedness that got me in to electronic music in the first place. Their website is well laid out with a load of sample tracks and the option to buy either vinyl or mp3s. Here is the track that blew my mind "Song for Lovers" from their new album Science Fiction.



I am definitely picking up this on wax in a few days.

Speaking of songs that just hit right I have been meaning to post this one since I first started this blog. Its Omni Trio's "Torn" released by Moving Shadow back in 1995.

I remember going to the old Music Now/ Bohemia store on M street in Washington, DC and hearing this record for the first time. It was a cold day and the sun was going down. It was raining and the fogged over second floor windows at Music now were catching the traffic light. I must have had about a dozen records in the bin at the listening station. The songs seemed to eb getting progressively more monotonous. That combined with a growing hunger almost made me leave the shop with out listening to the rest of the picks. Then I pulled this track out and started smiling from the first loop. It starts out with Omni Trio's (aka Rob Haig's) distinct scatter shot drums and warm basslines then drops in to one of the most unexpectedly twisted mix of breaks and synth stabs. I was a very happy camper that day.Music Now may be gone, replaced by Yoshitoshi, and Rob Haig have made his last Omni Trio album but the song is still as fresh as the first day I heard it.

Unfortunatly I can embed the video but you can listen to it here

This song was also on Omni Trio's The Deepest Cut CD which features other Omni Trio classics like "Renegade Snares" and "Rollin Heights"
A little bit of trivia: there was an error made on a bunch of copies of the record. The B side was supposed to have Nu Birth of Cool on it but had another recording of Torn in its place. This was a good thing for me since one side of my copy got scratched in a late night mix session.

to bring things down a bit on this rainy Sunday here is a classic cut from the film Rockers with Kiddis I performing "Graduation in Zion". It also has some scenes of a Jamaican record factory and Hosemouth getting paid by Dirty Harry.



So tell me what tracks have hit you in just the right way? Post up in the comment section:)

The Class of '94

Ever since I was a kid listening to the drum core at Howard University from our old row house on Gresham Place in DC I had always had a love for music. I grew up overhearing my fathers dub and reggae collection, my mothers soul and R&B music and my grandfathers voice as he practiced for his choirs yearly presentation of Handels Messiah. Around 9 or 10 I began to listen to the hip-hop mix shows that ran late night on the radio stations betweeen DC and Baltimore and began to immerse myself in the culture or rhymes, beats, b-boying and graff (in appreciation if not execution). I made tapes by the dozen, collecting mixes, editing out the commercials putting in other tracks together and so forth. I would collect old cassets that my brother or friends would throw away, put scotch tape over the square holes on the top, and copy over them with my own mixes. I guess I was kind of obsessive.

But one day just about every thing changed.

I was maybe 13 and my brother tossed me a tape to record over that came with a copy of URB magazine. I thought it was just some house mix (I had a rabid hatred of house at that time) but gave it a listen anyway. It opened up with some one talking about "Original Dancehall Jungle is there" and the "junglist massive". That person was General Levy on M-Beat's "Incredible" the first Jungle song I ever heard (peep a cut of the video). The beat was unlike anything I had ever heard, dense, bass heavy, mix of dancehall and something mildly futristic.

however it was the next track that made my jaw drop and my mind turn in on itself trying to process what I was hearing. It was Shy FX with UK Apachi's Original Nuttah. take a listen.


the fact that I can hear this song almost 14 years later and it still gives me a chill is a testament to how ground breaking the track is. It was as if everything that I loved about all of the different genera of music that I listened to was distilled in to a single moment of, well, ecstasy. There was the heavy bass lines that was reminiscent of the dub that I would hear echoing thru the house, the multi layered percussion that sounded like a drum core on speed, the rapid fire patois of UK Apachi bridging the lyrical gap between hip-hop, reggae, and street preacher. The speed of the track was the answer to what I felt was killing hip hop, slow tempo and predictable beats.

If that was not enough, on the other side was Goldies "Inner City Life" an unapologetically beautiful team up between the vision of Goldie and the engineering skill of Moving Shadow founder Rob Playford. I could write for hours on this song but I think I will let it speak for itself.





And thus my journey through the Jungle began.

Friday mini Update with Burning Spear (for those not at the WMC)

Ok so I was all et to hit up some events this weekend in NYC, and went over to the Break Beat Science board to see what was going on, little did I know that most of the djs that I was hoping to catch are out of town for the Winter Music Conference in Miami. I don't blame em, especially after seeing some of the line ups in Vice City.

So I'm in a sun soaked mood even though its gray out here in New York. To get all of us through thi Friday night here is a bit of Burning Spear. The song is Walk from the 2005 album Our Music

you can get the album at Amazon.com

Ok so seems that the technical difficulties at the Kitchen Sink are mounting but that does not mean that I'm going to give up. So I'm going to hit you off with some classics, some unheard of sounds and something that might require a bit of translation.


First up is the legendary Hip Hop crew Boogie Down Productions. I was first introduced to BDP and the master MC KRS 1 via their Edutainment album which contained the classic "Loves Gonna Get Ya" and rather epic for its time "7 Dee Jays". That album combined with the 1992 release Sex and Violence provided the sonic foundation to the three years I spent in Columbia, MD. I am pretty sure that this video clip of "My Philosophy" and "I'm Still #1" was from the performance recorded for BDP's 1990 Live Hardcore Worldwide album, which is as far as I can tell the first live Hip Hop album ever. (If I'm wrong enlighten me in the comments section). By the way, the "I'm still #1" section is all freestyle. Sickness. And check the reaction of the crowd, the call and response. Thats real hip hop.



Ok to be honest I don't know much about this next MC, The Last Emperor. I came across this video of "Secret Wars" by chance a few months ago.Marvel vs. Hip Hop with the Earth as the prize! He has also done a track with KRS-1 and Zack De La Rocha from Rage Agains the Machine called "CIA" that is bangin'.


And now time for something a little different. When I was in Miami last October on vaction that timed itself between a pair of hurricanes, my girl and I were in a south beach chinese restaurant that had MTV Latino blasting on a pair of flat screen sets. Now I was bracing my self for a bunch of reggaton but was surprised when the first video we saw while waiting for our order was "Pal Norte"by Calle 13. Calle 13 is the brainchild of two Puerto Rican half brothers Residente and Visitante. They have been thrown in to the general reggaton category but simply consider there music urban, drawing from a variety of influences from traditional Puerto Rican roots to contemporary hip hop. "Pal Norte" is one of those few songs that has a banging track and beautiful lyrics. For those whose Spanish is as bad as mine here is a link to an English translation.

Welcome to The Kitchen Sink Podcast Blog. Here you will be able to find track info,notes and general rants and reviews of artists and music featured on the Kitchen Sink Podcast. Hopefully the first episode will be uploaded by the end of the week. It Will feature a variety of sounds, from Jungle to Hip-Hop and maybe even some funk and rock thrown in to the mix.

I hope for this show to be both a showcase for new music and also a bit of a retrospectives for classic jams that might have been missed or unappreciated the first time around.

I have to give mad thanks to my man Macedonia and his podcast Both Sides of the Surface. His site www.bsots.com has been active for several years and there is a long archives of his shows at the Podsafe Music Network. I figured if he can pull this off with a full time job wife and kids then I really don't have any excuse anymore. So stay tuned and get ready to be hit with everything... and the Kitchen Sink.