…Ah, but it’s always a fine state to be in, and there’s always such fine locations to do it in. Yes, that’s right, it’s another tenuously linked gig update!

First up, next Wednesday 1st December, Eric will be demonstrating what are fast becoming known as the longest arms in DJing (although he blames the “damn photographers and their fish-eye lenses”, but we know better don’t we, children?), at Pretty Vacant in Dusseldorf, who are celebrating five years of existance with four special nights. First time in Dussedorf, and first time in Germany since January, so should be pretty special!

Next up, Eric will be spinning out a stones throw away from home at The Concorde 2 in Brighton on Saturday 11th December, as part of “Open Fire”, one of those festival-in-a-club beanos, and well worth attending as all proceeds go to the local MS treatment centre. Full line up details here!

Finally, Eric’ll be heading north on Friday 17th December to Manchester, for a party underneath the brand spanking new studios of Unity Radio – Not sure of the line-up yet, but it’ll be interesting for sure, and proceeds go to Amnesty International, which is always good!

More to come, but if you’re in any of those vicinities, hope to see you soon!

PS Don’t forget we’re still after your clips and photos to make the video for “Body Jump” – See here for details!

Direct Download: MP3 or FLAC

Okay, a few friends have been asking me to do one of these mixes for a while, so here goes – it focuses on the deeper, funkier and sometimes jazzier end of 70s West African music (okay, Congo is Central Africa, but let’s not split too many hairs) – I’ll do another mix of the more intense stuff sometime in the future.

Docteur Nico & L’Orchestre African Fiesta – Zadio (Congo, 1967)
The Funkees – Acid Rock (Nigeria, 1971)
Bola Johnson – Buroda Mase (Nigeria, 1970s)
Ogyatanaa Show Band – You Monopolise Me (Ghana, 1970s)
Gnonnas Pedro & His Dadjes Band РLa Musica En V̩rit̩ (Benin, 1979)
Alhaji K Frimpong – Kyenkyen Bi Adu Mawu (Ghana, 1976)
Don Isaac Ezekiel Combination – Ire (Nigeria, 1970s)
Thony Shorby Nyenwi – No Wrong Show (Nigeria, 1978)
The BBQ’s – Aya Lolo (Nigeria or Ghana, 1970s)
Sahara All Stars – Alikali Adajo (Nigeria, 1970s)
Super Mama Djombo – Dissan Na M’bera (Guinea-Bissau, 1970s)
Peter King – African Dialects (Nigeria, 1979)

I didn’t intend to focus so heavily on Nigeria & Ghana, just tried to get a mix of some of my favourites that flowed well. I’ll be giving this a good few spins myself for sure, so it was definitely worth the effort! :D

The original vinyls of these tunes are worth mighty dollars, so these have been grabbed either from the many fine blogs posting this rare stuff or from the great series of compilations on Soundway Records – Thanks to them for making such excellent music more widely available!

That means YOU!

You should be well aware that we’ve been putting together videos for the entire “Uptime/Downtime” album – the project is coming along quite nicely, thanks to the sterling efforts of the directors involved, but now it’s time for YOU to help us out!

Yup, that’s right – There’s only one video left to make for “Uptime”, and that’s “Body Jump”.

Now we thought it would be a rather splendid idea, rather than edit together existing footage, that we get YOU (yes, YOU) to send us stuff, which we’ll edit together into the final video, thus showing an excellent cross section of Kleptones fans from around the world.

We thought we’d have two options:

1 – As befits the subject matter of the song, we want you to send us video clips of yourself, or your friends, or your family, or your pets or whatever…) either JUMPING or DANCING. If you want to mouth some of the words of the tune too, that’s cool, but the action is the main thing – use your excellent imaginations…

2 – If you can’t video, then we’d like you to take a picture of yourself (or your friends etc…) holding up a sign that says “Kleptones” – yes, you can add witty messages, just as long as they’re clearly visible – remember quite a lot of people will end up watching the video on a little YouTube size screen.

That’s it. Really simple, innit?

Doesn’t matter what you use – your phone is fine, better quality cameras are great if you have them.

For uploading / sending, we’d recommend using a free no-registration service like WeTransfer, but whatever suits you best – If you want to upload it to Vimeo or Flickr first and send us the link, that’s fine too…

Send anything and everything (including questions, if you have them!) to this address:

bodyjump@kleptones.com

So please, please, help us out, return the favour for all the free tunes we’ve given you and make us a quick pic or vid – the more we get the better it will be and we will love you for it, what’s more you’ll be immortalised on the “Uptime/Downtime” DVD (and maybe even end up as part of the live AV show)!!!

(Also it will give us the confidence to launch another, considerably more insane project with you all next year…)

Remind yourself what “Body Jump” sounds like here

The deadline for submissions is Monday 6th December EXTENDED TO 10th January 2011 – Now there’s no excuse!

PS Three new DJ dates: 01/12 Dusseldorf, 11/12 Brighton, 17/12 Manchester :)
details on the site – full info in the next post!

Direct download: MP3 or FLAC

Another contrast for HC 11 (Isn’t it always though? ;) – This time something a little more dancefloor-friendly, but with a twist, as we enter the world of Moombahton.

I’ve been following a few blogs over the last couple of years that promote a range of “Global” dance music. A variety of different styles from around the world, some of which I liked and some I didn’t care for, but it’s always interesting hearing what people around the world are getting off on :)

Through these blogs and the producers I’d discovered there and then followed on Soundcloud, the name “Moombahton” started popping up in the tags. I heard a few things I liked, but then I read this article by Wayne Marshall that gave me the backstory to it’s creation. I’d recommend reading the whole article, but in essence the sound originated (as did Cumbia Dub, I believe) through playing slowed-down European dance tunes, some of which had already picked up on certain offbeat snare rhythms – a very “now” style in Euro-house – listen to Afrojack, for example, who provided the remix that, slowed down, gave the style it’s name (“Moombah”).

But, as is often the way with a style that gains a name so early in its gestation, a lot of people aren’t really that sure exactly what Moombahton is yet, but as with something like dubstep there’s a template; a tempo (roughly round 110) and a rhythmic guide (in this case, the flying offbeat snares over the 4/4 that provide the necessary syncopation).

This obviously is the brightest of green lights to many a producer, who can quickly adapt and remix their own and others work to suit.

So naturally this tweaked my brain considerably, as I’ve been enjoying quite a large chunk of slower dance stuff recently (the “slow house” and “cosmic disco” styles which operate around 110-120 and sometimes slower – not a marked, or new, difference in tempo (more a reversion!) but considerably different to euro-house’s 130 and dubstep’s 140). There’s something that resonates with me also around that tempo – it definitely allows for a bit more space and groove – better to actually dance to, rather than just bounce. However, the tempo has prevented me from DJing the stuff, as crowds generally view it as a warm up to something faster and harder, rather than the main course.

Reading Wayne’s article left me highly inspired to experiment with mixing at that tempo, using the Moombahton tracks that I liked and also adding slowed-down versions of tunes that I already had, some of which I’m not so keen on playing out in their original form as they’re a bit too intense (and also there’s a lot of peeps that do it better than me!).

In the spirit of the speed this sound seems to be mutating I wanted to do it very quickly (also grabbing the inspiration while it was there!), so I spent Friday working my way through a pile of tracks, mostly taken down 15-20bpm (although the odd one pitched up!). It was very surprising to find what worked best – quite an across-the-board selection indeed. I assembled the tracks and spent the weekend jamming with them and putting together this mix (recorded live, but tweaked and edited in Ableton afterwards), which is about 40% “genuine” Moombahton tracks and remixes, and the rest my own slow-down edits, samples and added percussion.

I think it sounds pretty good indeed. I’ve certainly achieved what I set out to do, had a blast doing it and am looking forward to experimenting some more. Have a listen and see if it suits you! :)

01 Sabo – Jesus Creates Moombahtron
02 Stereo 77 – Moombahton 1989
03 Kid Kaio – We Don’t Give A Fuck (Uncle Jesse Fuckin’ Moombahton Edit)
04 Frikstailers – Cumbia Kamisama
05 Switch – A Bit Patchy (Kenny Dope Mix – Kleptones Edit)
06 Mark Knight & Funkagenda – Shogun (Jimpster Remix – Kleptones Edit)
07 D.Ramirez, Mark Knight & Underworld – Downpipe (Kleptones Edit)
08 Technotronic – Pump Up The Jam (Da Fresh Goes To Miami Boot – Kleptones Edit)
09 Moombahtron – Get Stupid (Redlight Remix)
10 Lloyd Banks – Beamer, Benz Or Bentley (Skeet Skeep Edit – Kleptones More Edit)
11 Hostage – Badman Sound (Kleptones Edit)
12 Abe Duque – Acid (Kleptones Edit)
13 Square One – Vesuvius (Justin Martin Remix – Kleptones Edit)
14 Beat Pharmacy – Drifter (Drifting Drums Mix – Kleptones Edit)
15 Alter Ego – Fuckingham Palace (Dirk Leyers Remix – Kleptones Edit)
16 Retrohandz – Turn The Bass Up (Calvertron Remix – Kleptones Edit)
17 Diskjokke – I Was Go To Marroco And I Don’t See You
18 L-Vis 1990 – United Groove (MJ Cole Remix – Kleptones Edit)
19 Benny Benassi – Satisfaction (Afrojack Remix – Morningstar Edit)
20 Hostage – Otis (Kleptones Edit)
21 Audion – Noiser (Kleptones Edit)
22 Ghost – Ghost 2000 (Kleptones Edit)
23 Lykke Li – Get Some (Combo Edit)
24 4hero – Mr Kirk’s Nightmare (Kleptones Edit)
25 Billfold – Knockin’ Boots (Bill’s Fr33ky Edit)
26 Crystal Fighters – I Love London (A-Mac Moombahton Remix)
27 Outlander – Vamp (Kleptones Riff Drop Edit)
28 Emvee – Glitch Dub (Kleptones Edit)
29 Yolanda Be Cool – Afra Nuts (Kleptones Riff Edit)
30 Joey Beltram – Energy Flash (Kleptones Edit)
31 DJ Shadow – Scatter Brain (Kleptones Edit)

Work continues on The Videotones project, with an army of stars bringing every track from “Uptime/Downtime” into your vision. We’re getting close to the end, but still there are a few tracks left to do – if you’re visually inspired and you’d like to contribute, email us and we’ll have a chat!

Major thanks go to Tim Dabringhaus from Blofeldcine, Brad Mackey from Crappy Logo, and Tom Beg for their excellent work below. It’s getting really exciting seeing the pieces of the jigsaw slowly assemble in front of our eyes :)

Direct download: MP3 or FLAC

Haven’t done one of these in…well, far too fucking long. Sorry about that. This time taking a dip into the slightly murky world of groove-influenced 70s rock – an odd time for many artists, some of whom really weren’t known for, or quite sure exactly how to “get funky”, but it produced some interesting tracks for sure. Some things you might know, some things you might not, some are edits, some don’t need editing!

Dire Straits – Once Upon A Time In The West
Suzi Quatro – Can’t Trust Love
Danny Edwardson & Seamus Sell – Stuck In
Bob Dylan – Gotta Serve Somebody
Ian Hunter – Bastard
Ace Frehley – New York Groove
ZZ Top – Cheap Sunglasses
The Equals – Mystic Syster
Bad Company – Burnin’ Sky
Thin Lizzy – Johnny The Fox Meets Jimmy The Weed
Area Code 615 – Stone Fox Chase
John Lennon – What You Got
Nazareth – Born Under The Wrong Sign
Steve Miller Band – Macho City
Fancy – Wild Thing
Czerwone Gitary – Coda
Sweet – Funk It Up
Status Quo – Don’t Drive My Car

Hope you like it – shouldn’t have to wait as long for the next one, I promise :) x

If you’ve been following on Soundcloud, you might have noticed that we’ve been sticking up a few experimental remixes and edits like the one below – there’ll be more to come, so it’s worth keeping an eye there too!

2 Live Crew ft. Mannie Fresh – I’m 2 Live (The Kleptones um-bia remix) [Direct Download]