Pro-Teens x MFDOOM album coming

Melbourne's The Pro Teens have dropped a handful of singles off this album, and its out mid January. Preorder vinyl/digital on Bandcamp.

"Helmed by Hudson Whitlock, prolific drummer and percussionist of Karate Boogaloo and Surprise Chef, Melbourne’s The Pro-Teens is a collective of instrumentalists making weirdo instrumental soul records. Drawing from the community of musicians from bands in the College Of Knowledge orbit, The Pro-Teens’ incorporate the comic book stylings of DOOM and Kool Keith, the dark flavors of Gravediggaz and Wu-Tang Clan, and the cinematic composition of Galt MacDermot, culminating in an unorthodox patchwork of cinematic soul, boom-bap funk breaks and left-field instrumental textures.

‘MF TEEN: Your Concurrence In The Above Is Assumed’ recognises the legacy of rap’s Illest Villain, traversing MF DOOM’s discography and personas, flipping selections from Madvillain, MM.. FOOD, Viktor Vaughan, Danger Doom and more, taking care to ensure recognisable tunes such as Doomsday and Curls are represented alongside more obscure cuts such as The Gas Face, the Third Bass song that featured the first recorded verse from MF DOOM in his original moniker of Zev Love X of the ill-fated 90s NYC rap group KMD.

“The diversity of tones, moods, feels and arrangements was an intentional act to mirror the diversity within DOOM's own diverse musical vocabulary. We wanted to fluctuate between putting our own spin on DOOM's classic tunes as well as staying true to the original source.” - Bandleader Hudson Whitlock aka Libby Clique-Baité.

MF TEEN: Your Concurrence In The Above Is Assumed comes after 2021’s Snooch Dodd & The Pro-Teens - I Flip My Life Every Time I Fly, which gained BBC6 Music’s Album Of The Day honors after its co-release by College Of Knowledge and UK tastemaker label Mr Bongo.

‘Charsnuka’ was originally produced under the Metal Fingers moniker and used as the beat for the song ‘?’ from DOOM’s now classic debut album Operation: Doomsday. The Pro-Teens embrace the boom bap hip hop feel from the original tune, replacing the organ melody with distorted glockenspiel and beefing up the backbeat with old-school handclaps, overall maintaining the energy from MF DOOM’s beat and imbuing it with the soul of a live band. The track ends with triumphant applause from the band.

New Dam Native single out now

At the launch event in September at Flying Out for Dam Native's classic debut album KDRU re-release, main man Danny Haimona said the reissue had inspired him to finally share his new tunes with the world, and promised it was on the way and here it is. 

Next single in January, followed by a new album. 'Language of the heart'. 

MOKOTRON's debut LP has landed!

MOKOTRON's debut vinyl album has arrived, and it's awesome. The vinyl version has two bonus tracks, a couple of his tunes that were very popular on student radio - Tawhito, and Hīreretia Rā.

From The Spinoff: Mokotron reckons there’s no box to label this genre. Honestly, who’s gonna be brave to try and put the sounds of his latest album, Waerea, into one category? “The point was to put a flag in the ground for Māori Bass music as the logical next step in the evolution of dance music in this country and the ongoing cultural renaissance of our people,” he says. 

“To be honest it’s already happening: We have Netana, Lakeboon, Akcept, Caru, Lady Shaka, Samara Alofa, Huia, Te Manu, Ngāio Matariki, Kommi, Ahirā / Kōroto, Diaz Grimm, Wear Pounamu, Riki Pirihi and hopefully others stacking up an arsenal of anti-colonial subsonic artillery. I want Māori Bass to exist in my lifetime.”

From Flying Out: "MOKOTRON is a Tāmaki-based Māori producer from Ngāti Hine, who spreads seismic waves of low frequency Indigenous electronic music. Exploring ancient futurism through music, MOKOTRON imagines a reality without colonisation, where the ancestors transition from the ancient world into the modern, creating futures of hope juxtaposed with the hard realities of urban disconnection.

Following a string of sold-out short-run vinyl releases (Mind Control Krew, Tatau O Te Pō and Embrace The Bass) and award winning digital albums (2022’s TAWHITO and 2024’s THE UNITED TRIBES OF BASS) MOKOTRON returns with his new record WAEREA, delivering nine tracks of pure Dark Māori Bass.

The foundation of WAEREA is Te Reo Māori, traditional forms of song and chant, and the voices of puoro, colliding with breakbeats, bars and basslines to reflect the worldscapes of urban Māori."

Deepgrooves book chats and tings

I've been doing some radio interviews which have been fun, talking about my Deepgrooves book and playing music from the label. 

RNZ Music101's Charlotte Ryan had me in for a chat, and were played Sitting By The Phone (Unitone Hifi feat Teremoana), Hiphop Holiday (3 The Hard Way), and 'Sound Advice' (Breaks Co-op). 

95BFM Swapmeet show with Jubt got me up to spin some Deepgrooves tunes for an hour and talk, enjoyed it. Also did a fun interview with Josh on Radio Active's show The Vault. 

Martyn Pepperell wrote about my book in his weekly newsletter Beats N Pieces: 

"In the early ‘90s, a new energy was swirling through inner-city Auckland as a generation of New Zealand musicians, DJs, and vocalists embraced the then-nascent sounds of hip-hop, dub, ragga, house, trip-hop and street soul. Three decades so on, one of the best historical expressions of this era can be found in the discography of an independent Auckland record label that saw the future clearly and did the absolute best it could to speed up its arrival, Deepgrooves Records.

Over the last decade, the Auckland-based writer, broadcaster, DJ, archivist, and musician Peter McLennan (Dub Asylum, Hallelujah Picassos) has spent countless hours uploading music and videos from the Deepgrooves era onto his YouTube channel while conducting interviews and research towards his written opus, Deepgrooves: A Record Label Deep in the Pacific of Bass, and the People Who Gave It a Voice.

A soft format coffee table title with over 300 pages and a literal treasure trove of photography and album art, Deepgrooves: A Record Label Deep in the Pacific of Bass, and the People Who Gave It a Voice, documents the rise of one of New Zealand’s truly idiosyncratic record labels and also tells the stories of many of the key players and musicians involved, and just as importantly, expanding out into what they did next. Viewed together, it becomes clear that Deepgrooves was a crucial launchpad for a generation or two - a once-in-a-lifetime type thing.

Inside, readers learn about groups and solo artists like Fuemana, Sulata, Grace, Urban Disturbance, Freebass, Breaks Co-op, New Loungehead and Ermehn while learning about how record labels liked this operated during the era, the clashes between expectations, and the beautiful friendships and collaborations that came out of the friction, fire and fun of it all."

My book is available from Flying Out Pitt st, Real Groovy Victoria st, Flying Nun K Rd Auckland, and Flying Nun Cuba st Wellington. Or buy online from Flying Out, they ship around NZ, and overseas. 

DJ Aroha drops new haka-inspired tune

NZ-born, Melbourne-based DJ Aroha produced this incredible new track, inspired by Hana Rawhiti's haka in Parliament. It kicks. Free download.

'Inspired by Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke and her protest at New Zealand Parliament in response to the Treaty Principles Bill (Nov 14th, 2024).'

New Picassos tune alert!

Hallelujah Picassos release new single with a uptempo dancehall feel

"Here is this year's second release by the Picassos, Bring The Joy, out 8 Nov 2024. An uplifting melody evoking hints of Jamaican Dancehall, and a sprinkle of dub dust thrown in, thus the HPs stay adjacent and true, while Roland and the fellow HPs chant back and forth, in parts, throughout.

We’re slowly heading towards another album in the future, with each release. The Dutch word JammerPot is used, meaning ‘complainer; in English, and is a play on words.

Hallelujah Picassos are part of the amazing lineup of bands playing ‘ToneFest’, returning for the second year at Whammy on Nov 16th, 2024."

Ermehn - "STAY STRONG" featuring Sulata, Aqualei, Kas tha Feelstyle & E man

"A new track, ‘STAY STRONG’, features an unreleased 2008 vocal hook idea by Ermehn, which has been interwoven with a vocal sample from fellow mid 90’s Deepgrooves label mate Sulata, and expanded upon with new vocals from family and friends of Ermehn including Sulata herself, his daughter Aqualei, Hip Hop pioneer Kas Tha Feelstyle, and rapper youth worker E.man, and will soon be available on online platforms soon—a tribute to Herman’s music and his community."

This new song samples 'Mancini' by Sulata off her 1997 album Kia Koe, on Deepgrooves. She sings on the tune, too, it's a beautiful tribute to Ermehn. 

My book about Deepgrooves is coming!

I've been working on this book off and on for 12 years, and it's finally done! I'm excited and relieved. Out November 18 2024, details on it below. Book launch at Flying Out, 80 Pitt St, Friday Nov 22nd 4pm-6pm, author Q&A with Matthew Crawley.

You can order it from Flying Out, and from Flying Nun.

DEEPGROOVES: A record label deep in the Pacific of bass, and the people who gave it a voice.

Deepgrooves was a 1990s Auckland-based record label that released the first ever local hip-hop single to reach number one on the NZ charts with 3 The Hard Way’s ‘Hip-hop Holiday’, back when there were local radio stations with slogans like 'No rap, no crap'. At that time, some people in the media and the music industry genuinely believed rap/hip-hop was a fad and it would die out. Especially if they ignored it.

The label created forgotten classic records from Fuemana, Sulata, Grace, Urban Disturbance, Freebass, Breaks Co-op, New Loungehead and Ermehn, plus countless individual moments of funky greatness on the reggae and hip-hop vibe.

It was hugely influential and broke down barriers for those who followed like Fat Freddy’s Drop, Che Fu, Nesian Mystik, Shapeshifter, Ladi6, and many more local dance acts. It proved we could make great dance music right here in Aotearoa New Zealand.

This oral history looks into the many stories of Deepgrooves and the musicians, DJs and producers behind it, how they got started and where they ventured. It’s the tale of the inner city community in Auckland that gave rise to this scene.

Deepgrooves opened the door for a collective of talented young men and women who were largely shut out of the local music industry, and brought to life some incredible music.

“From the outside, watching Deepgrooves grow, and watching what they were doing was really hugely influential on what I was listening to. I connected to the fact that they were releasing music by young Maori and Polynesian acts – that was progressive for its time. The music also felt truly competitive on the global stage” – Kirk Harding.

“It’s easily one of the most important local indie labels of the post-punk era and one that paved the way for so much New Zealand music” – Simon Grigg.


Published by Dunbar Noon Publishing, 18 November 2024.​ Cover illustration and inside illustrations by John Pain, book design by Peter McLennan. 322 pages.

Contents:

Foreword by Simon Grigg
Introduction
1 Let’s take it from the top. And make some deep grooves
2 DLT: Bass, how low can you go?
3 Daniel Barnes: Talking rhythm and business
4 Mike Hodgson: The Projector Mix
5 Jules Issa, Mighty Asterix: The Twelve Tribes kids
6 Tierney and Lattimer depart, Sinclair and Submariner arrive
7 It’s FreeBASS! Not Freebase
8 Compilation stations in 93/94, plus a riot
9 Unitone Hifi vs Nemesis Dub Systems inna mashup stylee
10 Colony: Rest in pieces
11 Urban Disturbance: Figure these kids
12 Manuel Bundy: On the real
13 Andy Morton: Submariner on the beats
14 3 The Hard Way: Hip-hop holidaze
15 The brothers Grace
16 Lost Records 93-94: We have guitars
17 Jordan Reyne: Long way to climb
18 Fuemana: On the Phlypcyde
19 Simon Holloway: In the studio
20 Rip it up and start again: DIY takes over with Kaiun Digital
21 Sulata: Kia koe/for you
22 New Loungehead: Talking all that jazz
23 Breaks Co-op: Up on the roof
24 Lole: Feel like making an album?
25 Ermehn: Walls of steel
26 John Oz: From Slacker to Freaker
27 Justyn Pilbrow: Press Pause
28 The end: Sofa so good, so long
Appendix 1: Discography, music awards
Appendix 2: Pages from the 1997 Deepgrooves website
Acknowledgements, photo credits
End notes / Bibliography / Index

Check out Insurgentes Carismáticos, new album from Romperayo

In 'Insurgentes Carismáticos', Pedro Ojeda and his band once again deliver an electrifying fusion of genres, weaving together traditional Colombian cumbia with experimental and psychedelic elements.

The album offers infinite loops of multicultural sampling, drawing from the rhythmic and melodic history of Colombian music while incorporating sounds from across Latin America and Africa. With influences from 60s and 70s vinyl culture, Romperayo revives and reimagines these sounds for a new generation, all while maintaining an air of joyful resistance.

Pedro Ojeda says about the record:

"Insurgentes Carismáticos, like my previous LPs with Romperayo, represents a deep exploration of samplers, synthesizers, percussion, electric guitars, accordions, and soundscapes—all deeply influenced by the sounds of Latin American and African vinyl from the 60s and 70s. These elements come together to build on traditional, popular, and tropical Colombian music.

"Musically, my aim was to maintain a kind of popular language, ensuring everything stayed free of pomp or grandiosity. This journey was about doing things in a modest way, avoiding grand rhetoric and pretension, and instead focusing on music and sound as subtle, delicate expressions—easily spoiled if mishandled.

"Each song on this album was, at one point, a blank canvas on which I painted a caricature. The album consists of 10 caricatures—not paintings, but caricatures. And if this album were a film, it would definitely be animated and undeniably colorful."

Soul Jazz DJ's Pete Reilly and Abi Clarke interviewed, 1999

100% Dynamite! Soul Jazz DJ's Pete Reilly and Abi Clarke

Interview by Big Matt and Peter McLennan for Real Groove, 1999.

DJ's Pete Reilly and Abi Clarke look a little jaded, after flying halfway round the world. They're here in New Zealand to showcase their London-based label, Soul Jazz Records, then it's off to Australia for some more gigs. Abi's mum gave her some exercises for avoiding deep vain thrombosis - "she cut them out of the paper for me", says Abi - but they've had other worries on their minds. 

"It was a real cock up with the flights," says Pete, while making the tea, polite lad that he is. "Then the records didn't turn up for a few days. But they arrived today, thank god. It was lovely when we got picked up yesterday, we got taken straight out to Piha, that was fantastic, and we went up that volcano, Mt Eden, whats the Maori name for that?" Maungawhau. "Yeah, we were quite taken aback by how amazing the scenery is, especially Piha." Welcome to Aotearoa.

Soul Jazz Records grew out of a second hand record shop in London that sold soul and jazz, funnily enough. They have developed a fine reputation for the quality of their reissues of rare funk, Latin, reggae, jazz and soul. As the name suggests, the label started out specialising in jazz and soul, but has branched out in all directions, even releasing new recordings alongside the reissues. As well as travelling the globe representing the label behind the decks, Abi and Pete also work for the label.

"I work in the shop," says Abi, "that's my thing. Pete works downstairs on the label. He does the remastering, and promotes the clubs and the live things. There's eight of us downstairs, and everybody does a little of everything really. We all muck in a bit."

They both arrived at dj'ing through very different paths. "I used to have the misfortune, you might call it, to do a jazz warmup at a Northern Soul night," says Abi,"and they were just waiting for the northern soul, really! That was my first ever gig. I started DJing when these friends of mine hired a house one xmas. their families didn't really celebrate Xmas, so they hired this big old house, and the cd player broke, and they said anyone got any tapes? And I'd done a compilation just for myself in the car, and I said 'yeah, I got a tape'. It had a track on it by Webster Lewis, and this bloke Tim was there, he was a northern soul promoter, and it totally blew him away. He said 'when I start my club up again in a few weeks, will you play there?', and I just laughed, and went 'oh yeah!' My friend rang me the next week and said 'you know you're playing at Tim's club on Thursday, don't you?' and I'd never used decks, so I went round to my friends house that had some and had a little go."

Pete says he had quite a lot of records as a teenager, "and I left school, and just after that acid house broke out, and me and my mates started doing parties, and I was the one playing Baleric, and it was an excuse to play a mix of stuff. My mates were getting into House, and at the time the music you would hear was the Clash, and Gil Scott Heron and King Tubbys all mixed in, and I was the one trying to do more of a mix of stuff, and from there, I just got more into the funk and soul stuff."

The label grew out of record buying trips by shop owner Stuart Baker. "Stuart and this guy called Alec started a shop," says Pete, warming to his history lesson, "called Sounds of the Universe, in 1988 (the name changed along the way to Soul Jazz). Stuart started the label in 1991. At the time he was selling soul, jazz, funk, Latin, a little reggae but not a lot, and they'd noticed there was a demand for certain records, so they decided to reissue them. They had met a lot of people from going out on buying trips to the States, and not a lot of people were doing that back then, and you could like go to Eddie Bo's house and just buy records from them, and then, for the guys that own the rights, it was like 'well, why don't we reissue your album?' kind of thing. It was a reasonably easy thing to do."

However, finding the people who own the rights to these great tunes is not always so simple. "It gets easier in one respect," says Pete, "in that we've been doing it for quite a long time, so you get to know the people and who owns what, and make contacts with people at record labels. Quite often it involves a lot of international directory enquiries, and just phoning round saying have you ever heard of this guy, apparently he was the guy who ran the label. Stuart will have read anything that there is to read on it, so he's usually got a list of leads, like this person owned the label, and last he was in Houston or something, stuff like that. It's a bit of detective work.

"The reggae stuff is a bit easier to find who owns it, but not always." Indeed, some of the great reggae producers are notoriously protective of their back catalogue. "Everyone told us we wouldn't get Studio One stuff (from producer Coxsone Dodd), but we thought we'd have a go anyway," says Pete, "and we sent him some of the albums that we'd done, and initially he said no, then he got the albums, and he liked the fact that we did other stuff, like we'd done jazz, cos he said that was his first love, and that seemed to swing it. We said that we wanted to present the music to people in the UK, and to people who might not know anything about Studio One. We really liked the music, and we thought that more people would too, if we could present it in the right way."

The very successful 100% Dynamite compilations grew out of the club night of the same name. "We'd been doing it for about a year, and we thought it'd be nice to do an album of tracks that were big at the club, and a lot of them were Studio One," says Pete. "The club started looking at the link between soul and reggae, and we'd always played a lot of cover versions, playing the soul version next to the reggae version, stuff like that. We have a lot of people that say 'I'm into techno, and I didn't think I liked reggae, but one of my mates has got all those Dynamite albums, and they're wicked'. Which is always nice, cos that was part of the reason for doing it, not to say this is better, but just have a listen to it for a night and give it a chance." Once they've got permission to use a track, the next step is the mastering. "We usually remaster from the vinyl," says Pete.

However, finding a good copy can sometimes prove difficult. Is there ever a tune that is just too hard to salvage? "I don't know," says Pete, "you'd probably be better judge of that, when you hear them on the album! When we went to do Prince Buster's 'Girl why don't you answer', the record had a hole in it, an actual hole in the record we had to try and patch it up. We usually phone a few other people too, like Pete Holdsworth from Pressure Sounds, he's good, he's always got like 4 copies of everything. Usually, a couple of us might have them, but they're knackered, so its like 'have you a copy and is it in good knick and can we borrow it for a couple of days?' And we tell then what it's for, and they just say sort us out with some records."

The whole process of the licensing can take a long time. "With Chicano Power," says Pete, "that one took ages, cos you couldn't do a Latin rock album without Santana on it. CBS wanted like $10,000 for an advance for one track, just ridiculous. We've also just finished a follow-up to New Orleans Funk, called Saturday Night Fish Fry." They also run a monthly all nighter club night under the same name. "With the Dynamite nights, we played a little funk and soul, but only a little bit," says Pete. "We just wanted somewhere to play a little more funk and soul stuff really. We get guests along, like Andy Weatherall, Andy Smith, Portishead's DJ, David Holmes., and Dean Rudland, who compiles stuff for Ace, and we've got Marco Nelson doing the next one - remember the Young Disciples? He was in them. He's the bass player for Paul Weller now. "

For 100% Dynamite we have guests too," says Abi. "We've done a lot of stuff with Jerry Dammers (formerly with ska band the Specials). We get more skinheads and mods turning up when Jerry rolls into town! He was like the first guest we had at the opening night. He took a fair bit of persuading. The pub we did in, years ago, was an NF (National Front - extreme right wing skinhead group), and Jerry was like 'that's an NF pub, I can't play there!' And we asked him when was that and he said 1978. Its been a gay pub since then, so its obviously changed a bit since then!"

They''ve also hauled Mr Dammers along with them on their travels too. "We went to Ireland with him," says Abi, "and all these Specials fans were there, and he hadn't played Specials records for years, and he played them that night. It was funny, he was having to sign peoples arms, and we couldn't actually leave the building for about an hour after that, it was great. We've done New Yorica nights - we did one in Ireland. It was in an arts festival in a theatre, and I think some of the older people were expecting it was going to be a band, but it was me and Pete behind the decks! It think they were expecting an 8 piece Latin band! But you know, we managed. That was quite funny."

The quality of their compilations is very important to them, which helps the records find their way into the crates of DJ's who might not normally give reggae or Latin a second glance. "I've been to other clubs where the other person has been playing house or r'n'b," says Abi, "and they might have a Dynamite album in there. I think part of the reason that DJ's like them is that you can play them out. Pete's pressings are nice and loud, so you can play them in clubs. That's the problem with compilations now, so many of them have got great tracks, but they've got so many tracks on them, they're too quiet to play out." Their audience is not just an exclusive club of trainspotters.

"I think that a lot of the House DJs have got quite wide tastes too," says Pete. "Masters At Work really liked the New Yorica album (which is one of their topsellers), I think that's one of the reasons that sold so many, cos they bigged it up in interviews, saying this is our roots. That seems to cross over, that's a popular record in New York with the house guys."

We close the interview with a scan through the piles of vinyl Abi and Pete have bought from shops around our fair city. Abi has a pile of 45s, including Anita Baker -'great at weddings' she explains, and 3 eps by Aussie entertainer Rolf Harris with picture sleeves, which she is very excited about - 'My brother is going to love these!'