The Infesticons, Bedford Park
Big Dada

Bedford Park is a long overdue coda to a project poet, rapper, and musician Mike Ladd began way back in 2001. Back then, he posited Infesticons as a revolutionary force battling corporate interests and mainstream sellouts (or “Majesticons”). He’s still righteous – check out the M.I.A.-inspired “Bombs Anthem” – but his palette has expanded beyond East Coast underground rap and electro-funk. R&B (“Forever Anthem”), avant-rock (“Blockin’ Door Anthem”), and even a trap rap parody (“Hang It Up Anthem”) fuel this scattershot yet undeniably exciting exploration of the contemporary music scene.

L.A. producer Thavius Beck is back with Dialogue, a new set of dissonances and noise experiments. Oddly, it comes out in the UK and Europe next week (October 5) via Big Dada; however, Mush Records does not have a domestic release date yet. I’ll let you know when that changes.

(October 29 update: The U.S. release date for CD/vinyl is January 26, 2010. However, it is already available on iTunes and other digital retailers.)

In the meantime, here’s some insight from the Big Dada website:

Beck spent 2007 contributing production work on Saul Williams’ Niggy Tardust full-length with Trent Reznor. In 2008, he entered the studio with new LA resident K-The-I???, producing K’s entire full-length Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow. …

Between studio sessions, Beck was taking to the road, traveling Europe and the United States as both artist and DJ. His superb live hip-hop beat construction has earned him much recognition among the electronic music community, eventually leading to sponsorships from M-Audio and Ableton, the creators of ubiquitous beat software, Live. Beck’s relationship with Live has grown to the point that his tour stops often include him booking Ableton Live instructional workshops in many of the cities he stops in.

In late 2008, Beck wrapped up recording his latest solo full-length, titled Dialogue. Unlike previous efforts, which have featured appearances from Saul Williams, Cedric Bixler-Zavala (The Mars Volta), Subtitle, and many more, the only voice on Dialogue is Beck’s own. Across fifteen tracks, including two instrumentals, Thavius cleverly critiques many of America’s ills with a dry, satirical wit that never falls into preachiness. “I think an MC should be able to draw on their life experiences and translate them into meaningful songs, maybe even grow a bit after reflecting on it during the song writing process. The writing and recording of Dialogue was a very therapeutic process for me for those very reasons: I took what I was going through in my life and put it on paper; I released my demons and let them dance over my beats.”

Sonically, the album reaches new heights for Beck. Taking months to mix, Dialogue is Beck’s biggest sounding album to date. Every track bleeds immediacy with warm bass kicks and aggressive highs that sound something like if the Bomb Squad had called Miami home. On his production influences, Beck notes: “I really like prog-rock, weird jazz/rock fusion hybrids, heavy metal, industrial stuff, etc., but I also like soul and funk, older hip hop, grime, some roots reggae. There was an earlier period when I was really influenced by drum-n-bass, and the more pretentiously named Intelligent Dance Music.”

For fans of iconoclastic music of any stripe, Thavius Beck presents Dialogue, and proves that the only musical boundaries he sees are ones he has already left behind.

Here’s the track listing:

• 1. “Intro/Cracking The Shell”
• 2. “Away”
• 3. “Go!”
• 4. “Money”
• 5. “Violence”
• 6. “Burn”
• 7. “And The Beat Goes On”
• 8. “Painful”
• 9. “Hardcore”
• 10. “IDC”
• 11. “Sheepish”
• 12. “Transmission”
• 13. “Sometimes”
• 14. “Pressure”
• 15. “4 Part 2″

British hip hop fans stand up: Juice Aleem, an oft-recurring guest on Big Dada product throughout the decade, will finally get a longplayer of his own. Set for release on September 1, Jerusalaam Come combines Aleem’s eccentric, ragga-inspired rhymes with dank, grimy beats. Think New Flesh for Old and Roots Manuva (whom, alas, do not appear on this one).

Here’s a better explanation from the bio:

Juice Aleem, long-acknowledged as one of the finest MCs the UK has ever produced, finally goes solo. The sometime New Flesh and Gamma frontman who has also worked with Coldcut, Hextstatic, Evil 9 and Adam Freedland amongst many, many others, has decided that at last it’s time to go for self.

“Jerusalaam Come” is the result – thirteen tracks of varied beats and broad musical influences held together by Juice’s unique lyrical style and mental dexterity. Largely produced by Gamma/Shadowless legend Blackitude, it’s an album which is both as raw and as sophisticated as the minds who have made it. …

There’s no pretence with Juice Aleem – the working title of this album “This Is Not For Everyone”. If you’re not interested in lyrical intelligence, in hip hop, in MCs with something to say, in Blackitude’s skank-funk, in ragged intellect, in ideas, in difference, in coming correct, then you may as well give it a miss. It’s an over-used phrase, but in terms of what hip hop is supposed to be about, Juice Aleem is the real deal. If you prefer the fake deal, the trendy bullshit, constant novelty without substance, then turn off now.

Want more? Here’s the track listing:

• 1. “First Lesson”
• 2. “Straight Outta B.C.” (feat. Cipher Jewels & Blackitude)
• 3. “The Fallen (Gen 15.13)”
• 4. “Who Is He?” (feat. Tomz & Blackitude)
• 5. “Rock My Hologram”
• 6. “U4MI” (feat. Afua)
• 7. “KunteKinTeTarDiss”
• 8. “Higher Higher”
• 9. “You Shut The ____ Up”
• 10. “The Killers Tears”
• 11. “Church Of Rock”
• 12. “Blues Block Party”
• 13. “Sang Real”
• 14. “Tings Get Heat Up”

After announcing its reunion in 2007, Anti-Pop Consortium has finished its fourth album, Fluorescent Black. Set for release via Big Dada on October 13, the disc arrives just in time for the equilibrium-disturbers’ performance at All Tomorrow’s Parties NY, as well as panacea for a hip hop world overdosing on hipster rap. (September 22 update: The release date has been moved forward to September 29.)

Here’s the press release, because those things can explain these things much better than I can:

Six years after they parted ways to pursue separate projects, Anti-Pop Consortium have reunited and recorded their fourth album Fluorescent Black, slated for release October 13th on Big Dada Recordings. APC, who took hip-hop by surprise with their 2000 debut, Tragic Epilogue, proceeded to make a name for themselves as one of the genre’s premiere boundary-pushers with Shopping Carts Crashing (2000) and cemented their status as luminaries with Arrhythmia (2002), say they reunite enriched by the time apart. “We’re grown men,” says Anti-Pop’s Beans. “So our acceptance of our differences has allowed to bring all that more magic to the table. We’re stronger now and the music is better for it.”

When Anti-Pop Consortium’s Beans, M. Sayyid, Earl Blaze, and High Priest parted ways in 2002 to pursue other projects, they left a gap in hip-hop no other group was entirely prepared to fill. 2002′s Arrhythmia was proof enough that if any other group of MCs could match the collective’s left-field adventurousness or their lit-caliber lyrical dexterity, none had produced a record that both pushed the envelope with experimentation and made heads nod. As Dusted Magazine put it, Arrhythmia “throws down the gauntlet to the rest of indie hip-hop – yeah, it’s one thing to spit complex vocabulary like a thesaurus, but how about you make your music move?” Anti-Pop Consortium disbanded shortly after the record was released and nearly seven years later the challenge posed to hip-hop by Arrhythmia remains largely untouched. With Fluorescent Black, APC return to continue push boundaries and challenge their contemporaries.

Here’s the track listing:

• 1. “Lay Me Down”
• 2. “New Jack Exterminator”
• 3. “Reflections”
• 4. “Shine”
• 5. “C Thru U”
• 6. “Volcano”
• 7. “Timpani”
• 8. “The Solution”
• 9. “Get Lite”
• 10. “NY to Tokyo” (feat. Roots Manuva)
• 11. “Superunfrontable”
• 12. “Born Electric”
• 13. “Apparently”
• 14. “End Game”
• 15. “Capricorn One”
• 16. “Dragunov”
• 17. “Fluorescent Black”

On Monday, Big Dada released UK verbalist Speech Debelle’s debut Speech Therapy to positive reviews. However, physical copies of the album — produced by Wayne Lotek of Lotek Hi-Fi — won’t see a U.S. release date until later this summer. (The iTunes version is tentatively scheduled for June 9.) If you’re in America, try to restrain yourself from downloading a pirated version and check out the press description below.

There’s a reason that Speech Debelle’s debut album is called “Speech Therapy” and that’s because she speaks straight from the heart, with complete intimacy, as if only addressing one person. As if she expects the record never to be heard.

Perhaps in some way, that’s not an unreasonable assumption. The 25 year old South Londoner has been through the mill both before and since she started working on this set of recordings. The oldest song on here is called “Finish This Album”. It was the tune she first played when she visited Big Dada almost five years ago. Its theme is that she has to hold it together, look after herself and try to get the record done, as if the act of finishing will somehow liberate her from the problems in her life. It’s both intimate and epic, moving back and forth between the personal and political, the mundane and the spiritual. It’s a journey acoss London and a journey across her life thus far. Speech is both young and old beyond her years. At the age of twenty five her fragile voice can make her sound like a teenager, but she’s packed in enough experience to last most people forever.

But now, finally, everything has come together and the record is here. “Speech Therapy” is a statement of intent. Speech doesn’t need to shout to make that clear. This is a record which sounds like no hip hop record has sounded before. Its sonic palette is informed by the intimacy of her thought and the fragility of her voice. She always knew what she was trying to do but it took her time to find the tools to make what she heard in her head.

Here’s the track listing:

• 1. “Searching”
• 2. “The Key”
• 3. “Better Days”
• 4. “Spinnin’”
• 5. “Go Then, Bye”
• 6. “Daddy’s Little Girl”
• 7. “Bad Boy”
• 8. “Wheels in Motion”
• 9. “Live & Learn”
• 10. “Working Weak”
• 11. “Buddy Love”
• 12. “Finish This Album”
• 13. “Speech Therapy”

Here’s the video for “The Key”:

Toronto, Canada duo Thunderheist is preparing to release its self-titled debut on March 24 via Big Dada.

Thunderheist hit the same sweet spot as former Big Dada (and now Warner Bros.) group Spank Rock. However, producer Grahmzilla and rapper/vocalist Isis manage to  stand out amidst a very crowded field. Grahmzilla assembles a nice slate of hard bass and disco beats while Isis, though narrowly focused on club shenanigans, at least enlivens her tropes with witty lines and a memorable voice. The duo’s demos have been floating around for the past two years, so the full-length marks the end of a long buzz-building campaign.

Here’s more:

Grahm and Isis began Thunderheist as a project to throw a wrench into static hip hop conventions and explore their love for the dancefloor. They are far more than an electrorap act grounded in rap, bass, and electro, but are also entrenched in disco, funk and R&B, crafting their own, brand new definition of future pop music. More than anything, there’s something infectiously unpretentious and genuine about Thunderheist. They like going out and having a good time and have made the records to reflect this – party music for people who really like partying. Already being played by the likes of Pete Tong, Annie Mac and Annie Nightingale on Radio 1, huge on Myspace, loved by Pitchfork and Vice as well as Elton John (actually we made that shit up), 2009 is set to be a thunderous-ass year for them. Thunderheist is gaining speed and bandwidth, one byte per second, and heading straight for tera status. Get ready for it.

• 1. “Sweet 16″
• 2. “Nothing2Step2″
• 3. “Jerk It”
• 4. “LBG (Little Booty Girls)”
• 5. “Bubblegum”
• 6. “Slow Roll”
• 7. “Space Cowboy”
• 8. “The Party After”
• 9. “Freddie”
• 10. “Do the Right Thing”
• 11. “Red Whine”
• 12. “Cruise Low”
• 13. “Anthem”

Thunderheist, “Sweet 16″

Thunderheist, “Sweet 16 (Eli Escobar Remix)”

Ten years ago, UK journalist Will Ashon launched Big Dada as a subsidiary of famed electronic imprint Ninja Tune. After a few promising 12-inch singles by the likes of Abstract Tribe Unique and Saul Williams, the label made its first major statement in 1998, Black Whole Styles. A lot of American heads — including myself — didn’t start caring about UK hip-hop until that compilation. We paid particular attention to its breakout star, Roots Manuva.

A decade later, Big Dada has accumulated an incredible string of artistic successes, most recently Spank Rock’s debut YoYoYo. Diplo, Mke Ladd’s unfinished Infesticons trilogy, TTC, New Flesh for Old, Wiley, Cadence Weapon, MF Doom’s King Geedorah project, Busdriver, cLOUDDEAD…the list of cutting-edge musicians Big Dada has supported is a long one.

On November 27 in the U.S. (October 15 in the UK), Big Dada will revisit its history with Well Deep: 10 Years of Big Dada Recordings. The compilation features two CDs of key tracks, including an unreleased cut from Diplo (“Now’s the Time”). It also includes a DVD packed with a label documentary, a bunch of music videos, and a video megamix that you can play at your next Fader party.

The two-CD track listing for Well Deep: 10 Years of Big Dada Recordings is below.

CD 1:

1. Roots Manuva, “Movements”
2. Ty, “The Tale”
3. Infesticons, “Night Night Theme”
4. Roots Manuva, “Colossal Insight”
5. cLOUDDEAD, “Dead Dogs Two (Boards of Canada remix)”
6. New Flesh, “Wherever We Go”
7. Ty, “Wait a Minute”
8. Majesticons, “Fader Party”
9. Lotek HiFi, “Percolator”
10. TTC, “Dans Le Club”
11. Roots Manuva, “Witness (1 Hope)”
12. Diplo, “Diplo Rhythm”
13. Spank Rock, “Sweet Talk”
14. Wiley, “My Mistakes (Xxxchange mix)”
15. Part 2, “Hard Times”

CD 2:

1. Wiley, “50/50″
2. New Flesh, “Stick & Move”
3. Infinite Livez, “Worcestershire Sauce”
4. NMS, “Super Pretzel (Diplo Damage)”
5. Infesticons, “Monkey Theme”
6. Gamma, “Slang Teacher”
7. Diplo, “Now’s the Time”
8. Busdriver, “Beauty Supply & Demand”
9. King Geedorah, “Anti-Matter” (feat. Mr. Fantastik)
10. Ty, “Look for Me”
11. Shadowless, “Killer Apps”
12. Bigg Jus, “King Spitter”
13. Busdriver, “Unemployed Black Astronaut”
14. Lotek HiFi, “Can’t Believe”
15. Ty, “Closer”
16. cLOUDDEAD, “Physics of a Bicycle (Peel Session version)”

www.bigdada.com
www.myspace.com/bigdadarecords