We’ve already mentioned this little baby on the blog before but with a week to go before it fully drops, we thought it would be a nice time to refresh your memories on probably one of this summer’s most solid albums.

People who’ve stumbled across this site before will no doubt know that the artist otherwise known as Domu (or Dominic Stanton to his mum) has been a major favourite of ours for some time (for a full blow-by-blow lovefest of how much we rate him check here). The fact that under his many aliases he’s gone and produced some pretty fine records of the soulful persuasion (plus some down right bangers too), has meant that we never leave the house without packing at least one or two of his tracks into the record box (You know, for when you need to up that ante a bit)

Well now, looking over his immense, genre-defying back catalogue of material, it seems the good folks over at Tru Thoughts agree and have seen fit to round up a double disc set of his previous tracks for a timely revisit. So after initially pulling a similar stunt for original Tru Thoughts artist Bonobo, and then following it up with comps from Quantic and Nostalgia 77, the fourth in the “One Offs, Remixes & B Sides” series sees the label cast the net a little wider to pull in Domu and the work he’s produced for numerous labels over the past nine years, including his own Trebleo label.

Over the two CDs (split between original productions and remixes) and the 27 tracks, you get just about every conceivable angle of the Domu sound, whether it be the broken beats and low slung futuristic soul he’s become primarily known for, or rather the off kilter hip hop or underground house/proto disco sound he sometimes veers into. For instance on the first disc, the soulful “Message To Omar”, a 12″ released on Archive back in 2000, and the sublime ballad “Last Time” from his debut album Up + Down featuring Nicola Kramer, rub shoulders with the devastating bruk anthems “Worldwide” and “Save It”, plus new track “Springbreak” (included here for the first time and worth the price of admission alone). Over on the Remixes disc, you get a multitude of Domu’s essential reworks including his takes on The Rebirth, Maddslinky, Jazzanova and my personal favourites, his remixes of “Man With The Movie Camera” for The Cinematic Orchestra and “Take It Low” for UK hip hop outfit Broke ‘n’ English. And with much of the music featured taken from many of the labels which made up a significant part of the sadly now defunct Goya distribution stable, it is the first time some of these tracks have even been made available on CD (namely because many came out as strictly vinyl-only releases).

With its far reaching emphasis on Domu’s various production styles, the collection is pretty effective in showcasing the man’s talents and influences, and is a perfect introduction into the minds of one of the UK’s most skilful producers, DJs and remixers. Sure, there’s some other tracks that could of been added (I’d have pretty much liked either “Arrival” or “Unfazed” from his Return of The Rogue album to be sneaked in there), but you know it is really pretty comprehensive as it is.

To get a taster of the whole album, check the tracklists for both CDs and listen to the edited MP3s below to find out what you’re missing. Then hop on over to Tru Thoughts’ EtchShop to order yourself a copy next Monday. While your on that voyage of discovery, you might like to pass by Domu’s blog to catch the man in his own words. It’s normally a pretty entertaining read.

Streams & Tracklist

Domu – One Offs, Remixes and B-Sides – Tru Thoughts (TRUCD196)

CD1

1 Domu – Collecting Dust

2 Domu – Message To Omar

3 Domu – Last Time (feat Nicola Kramer)

4 Chaka Domu & Lady Yolanda – Mash Up [The Dancehall Mix]

5 Nicola Kramer – Best in Me

6 Jinadu – Turning the Tide [Original Mix]

7 Domu – Springbreak

8 Domu – Something New

9 Domu – Quarantine

10 Domu – Dangerous Times

11 Domu – Worldwide [Original Mix]

12 Domu – Taking Flight

13 Domu – Snake Eyes [Edit]

14 Domu – Save It (feat Face)

CD2

1 The Rebirth – Talking Me Down [Domu Slow Remix]

2 Spanky Wilson & The Quantic Soul Orchestra – Waiting For Your Touch [Domu Remix]

3 Bukola – Hypnotised [Domu UMOD Mix]

4 AC Lewis feat Ndidi Cascade – Tickles [Domu Remix]

5 Daedelus – Impending Doom [Domu Remix]

6 Small Arms Fiya feat Ayah – Gotta Decide [Domu Remix]

7 Maddslinky feat Jenna G – Somethin’ Extra [Domu Mix]

8 Nathan Haines – Tell Me [Domu Vocal Mix]

9 Unforscene feat Alice Russell – Don’t You Worry [Domu Remix]

10 Simon Grey – The Galáctica Suite

11 Jazzanova – Soon [Domu Vocal Mix]

12 The Cinematic Orchestra – Man With The Movie Camera [Domu Slow Mo Mix]

13 Broke ‘n’ English – Take It Low [Domu Remix]

A cheeky extra (not on the album)

AC Lewis feat Ndidi Cascade – Tickles [Domu Dub]

In celebration of the album launch next week, Domu will be playing two UK dates this weekend which you really should try and reach if you’re in town (he really is a sick DJ) . On Friday he’ll be guesting at Moog in Nottingham with two of our favourite Midland’s DJs, Beane (check his latest radio show for a deeply dug Domu special) and Mark A from Soul-Buggin. On Saturday, its the turn of the Market Place where he’ll be joining the legendary Mr Bongo soundsystem and the brothers Kev and Graham Luckhurst for the official launch party. Word is the vocal talents of the UK’s Vanessa Freeman will be in the building, there’ll be copies of the album on sale and they’ll be plenty of freebies in the house as well. Well recommended I reckon. For full details, check the flyers below.

So sometimes we get sent an MP3 straight out of the blue. You know something from an artist we’ve never heard before, that actually turns out to be pretty sick. This would be one of those cases in point. Full respect to Alex Nut at All Young Kings for this one, whose new kid on the block, Eglo Records, have been causing quite some damage in DJs records boxes of late, courtesy of its quality roster of talent incorporating the likes of  rising stars Floating Points, Fatima and Shuanise.

With this two track release, FunkinEven AKA Stevie J is the latest addition to that family and enhances the UK label’s already burgeoning reputation as one to watch when it comes to futuristic soulful beats. Currently residing in West London, the beat maker, hot stepper and provider of the funk Stevie J (who in homage to his home land, the cosmic location Funkineven 1956, has taken on its title for his current incarnation) fuses the electronic sounds of house with hip hop, soul and rare groove to bring you a true melting pot of future dancefloor funk.

Both tracks offer something different but both breathe quality (which sad to say is becoming a thing of the past with the current vogue of MP3 throwaway culture). ‘Mad Swing’ is a straight up synth-laden, funk infused hip hop track with female (possibly Muhsinah?) vocal refrains layered deep in the mix. “You!” on the otherhand is a little more uptempo, with a glitchy feel and snatches of that 80s sound (reminds me kind of what Pepe Bradock  could do if unleashed on a Dam Funk record). All in all a killer two tracker. Cop both tracks in question below for a limited time only.

Downloads

Download Stevie J AKA Funkineven 1956 – Mad Swing
Download Stevie J AKA Funkineven 1956 -You!

In the meantime, for those that don’t know, you can catch Eglo label boss Alex Nut’s weekly radio show ‘Mixed Nuts’ on London’s Rinse FM 1pm-3pm every Saturday, where he drops his own definitive mix of underground beats, off kilter hip hop, future soul and dubstep. And for more of the same, make sure you get your hands on his recently released Rinse 08 mix CD. It’s a banger.

Y’all know we love our house music on this site, so when Bopstar dropped us a link to the latest FACT Magazine mix on Twitter, we were all over it. The 55th installment of the mix series (which has already brought through some heavyweight pressure from many of the big names on the underground music scene) features Detroit young lion Kyle Hall doing his thing on a Detroit house tip.

The 18 year old producer first entered our universe while we were digging through the fine Mood & Grooves record catalogue in late 2008 and we happened across their latest release, Kyle’s The Water Is Fine EP. Listening through the EP, our ears pricked at the absolute monster 9 minute A-side wonder that is “Create Your Own Existence”, pulled it out and then literally span it on our radio stream until an inch of its life (it might still be on there come to think of it).

Having surrounded himself in his tutoring with the likes of Detroit cats Rick Wilhite, Mike Huckaby and Omar-S (the latter having recently produced a mixtape comprised solely of Kyle Hall productions), he’s in good company, and is definitely one to watch in the Motor City’s  underground house new guard.

You can read FACT’s full length interview with Kyle on the their site but in the meanwhile get the mix from the link below and put it on spin. Tracklist looks good, don’t it?

Kyle Hall FACT Mix 55 – June 2009

Ratio – Centralized (Substance Rework) [Central]
Stephen Brown – Sustain [Affected Music]
Duplex – Vivid Array [Frantic Flowers]
Mr.V – Circle Track [Sole Channel]
Brown Study – Cereal Numbing [Unknown]
Murr – Watching You [Public Transit]
Omar-S – Strider’s World [FXHE]
Filsonik – LuvHolik [Unknown]
Mike Clark – Natalie Lacosta [White Label]
Omar-S – Oasis #11 [FXHE]
Ibex – Bok Choy [Planet E]
DJ Rhythm – Rhythms Groove [Unknown]
Kai Alce – M-7 [Mahogani Music]
3chairs – Misty City [Three Chairs]
Lazy Fat People – Pixel Girl [PlanetE]
The Rurals – Sorry [Peng]
Kyle Hall – I <3 Dr. Girlfriend [Wild Oats]
Andres – A3 Untitled (from Andres II) [White label

Download Link

As an aside, if you love that Detroit sound and live in London town,  you might be interested to know that Mr Alex “Omar-S” Smith will be DJing at Corsica Studios in Elephant and Castle this coming Friday night for Bleep. Full details can be found here.

The man like Flying Lotus pulled out another essential Brainfeeder podcast late last night which I caught and rebroadcast on our Twitter. After giving it a second listen this morning on the commute (it had me getting in at double time, which was useful, cos I was 20 minutes late!), thought it might be worth highlighting here, as this one really is just plain ridiculous. One of our favourite DJs Simbad is on mixing duties and this 71 minute mix has everything you could ever need: Burial-esque dubstep, deep house, banging future music, all interwoven with clever movie and news samples. No tracklist unfortunately (Simbad actually posted a tracklist up this afternoon on his myspace) but when he ramps the whole thing up around the 35 minute mark, it really does take it to whole nutha level. Heavily recommended as its a banger.

Simbad Supercosmic Revolution Vol.1 Mixtape – June 2009

Mount Kimbie – Maybes
Pangaea – Router
Klic – Karaoke
Giant Rain – Mind
Untold – Dante
Tritone – Meditate Cartwheel
Steve Lawler – Kalimba (Shed Mix)
Kubo – Mad Decent
Zomby – Strange Fruit
Mark Pritchard feat. Om Mas – Wind It Up
Stereotyp vs Al Haca – Boss it
Harrison Blakoldman - Graduation
Flying Lotus – Do The Astral Plane
Marsmobil – Patience
Map.Ache – Clouds Over Clowns
MXM – Move Me
Unknown – Bonus Beat
Efdemin – Acid Bells (Martyn Dark Mix)
Bugz in the Attic – Booty la la (Landslide Dubplate)
Floating Points – JW Beat
Shed – Ithaw
Geo – The Chain
IG Culture – Solution

Download MP3

Check the Brainfeeder site out if you haven’t already, cos its worth it. The Take podcast, which is more on a beats tip and dropped a while ago, is also a worthy addition to you iTunes folder.

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In the absense of any of our own London spam in the coming weeks (well apart from the boat party… but you know about that already don’t you?), we thought we’d widen the net and bring in some things that look that little bit interesting. You know, the kind of things you should really try and reach if you’re into your underground soulful sounds (which you must be cos you happened across this site). Anyways, first up to bat is Karen P’s Broad Casting.  Read on…

Red Bull Music Academy and Karen P return to Cargo next Thursday to host the second installment of 2009 of Karen’s  quarterly Broad Casting sessions. After checking some of her previous curated shows, where a veritable whos who of the underground and contemporary music scenes have featured (including Little Dragon, Robert Owens, Jimi Tenor, Mulatu Astake, Heliocentrics, Tony Allen and the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble to name but a few), you just knew this was going to be a bit special. And anyone whose been checking this site for a while, will also know we love a bit of Latin spirit too.

So imagine our surprise when the flyer dropped into our inbox and we saw that not only has she gone and put Stone Throw‘s leftfield recording artist James Pants on the bill, but she’s also gone and whacked one of Salsoul’s true legends on it too, that’s right Mr Latin Soul himself, Joe Bataan. Remarkably this event marks his first live show on British soil, and on the night Joe will be collaborating live on stage with James Pants, a performance that will be recorded live for Red Bull Music Academy Radio. As part of the stage show, former Tru Thoughts goddess Alice Russell will be also adding her usual luscious vocal talents to the backing band, which will also includes members of the UK Latin Salsa band, Grupo X. But wait, it doesn’t just stop there, this line up runs deep…

Providing the hip hop and soulful spaced out beats will be Willie Isz, another collaboration, this time between Jneiro Jarel (of Shape of Broad Minds and Dr Who Dat fame) and Khujo Goodie (one quarter of that Southern  hip hop outfit legendary Goodie Mob, the same group that spawned Gnarls Barkley’s Cee-Lo Green). They’re due to release an album on Lex Records on 16th June entitled Georgiavania and the boys have chosen Broad Casting as their official UK launch party.

In the Cargo garden, Dante’s Fried Chicken BBQ will be cooking up more goodness with UK vocalists Jamie Woon, Andreya Triana and GoldieLocks in attendance. Rounding off the bill is of course Karen P, who will be DJing with James Pants (when he’s not on stage)

Looks good don’t it? Advance tickets are £9 and you can pick them up from the Cargo website.

* There ends this public service announcement *