What's On

Micael Bell - The Ring (2008)

Oh man has it been a week already? I don't have anything in the pipeline this time so lets gather 'round the fire for a good old fashioned what I've had on the last couple of days, it's been a while since we've had one. Starting off with another relic of my early 2000s mission of grabbing anything chill I could lay my mitts on. Blu Mar Ten's debut album is a big departure from their Drum & Bass output before it, there's a lot of house, downtempo and ambient laden throughout this one. I still think that some parts of it are a little rocky, but I'll be damned if I still don't absolutely adore the one-two punch of the opening track (Home Videos) and Drive, it's seen me through many a hazy morning after.



Dug The Deadbeats out of storage as well, and there's a similar story with them too; their first LP Lounging showed promise but had a couple missteps here and there. Fast Forward to 2010 or so when I'm checking out some Nightmares On Wax mixtape and see them come up again, and in that 9 year gap they managed to come through with one of my favourite hip-hop jams in a long time. It ain't incredibly complex, but it don't need to be, if anything captures the soul of their second LP Made In The Shade, it's You Never Know.



I went back and read my review of Mind Bokeh from '09 too. And something I mention is how the 1 minute intro for Excuses is a tad excessive for me. Thankfully I also have the EP version which cuts it down to a much more light 26 seconds. It's this version I fell in love with originally actually, watching the music video over on youtube; Bibio's hazy delivery, the off kilter beats and the video's gorgeous chromatic aberration had me sold from the get go. I still think it's one of the strongest offerings Bibio has, and a nice into to the hip hop side he occasionally dips into



-Claude Van Foxbat