Central Station: Fine Grains Records

Glasgow based creative social network 'This Is Central Station' kindly asked me to divulge some words about my new music and design initiative, Fine Grains. A brief re-cap on DO IT! collective and look to the immediate future and long term goals of Fine Grains are covered in the piece. You can have an overview of the Fine Grains project from the website here. To read the 'This Is Central Station' article click here.

Images: Fine Grains inverted logo, printed stickers and Inko playing live at Fine Grains Records web launch at Turkish Delight, Oslo 2012

MUSIC: RA REVIEWS

With just a few weeks until Sonar Barcelona time, June 16-18, and to coincide with the announcement of RA's  anticipated off Sonar events and special tenth anniversary celebrations - what better time to have a brief look over some of the releases I recently reviewed for the RA website.

It would be no understatement to say that Brian D'Souza aka Auntie Flo is somewhat of a pioneer in Scotland's highly reputed and tightly packed electronic music scene. From being one of the first promoters to bring Riccardo Villalobos to UK shores, embracing AV and live multi-DJ performance via his Edinburgh night Pogo Vogue and most recently holding down residencies at two of Glasgow's most acclaimed nights serving new world music (Afro Futures) and dark underground italo and Detroit respectively (Slabs of The Tabernacle). When not playing alongside the likes of Shackleton, T Williams and Mike Paradinas -  It was just a matter of time until a label worthy of his quality took the next logical step in putting out his own productions.  Check out the review of his full debut EP for Huntley and Palmers here. Auntie Flo plays live at DO IT! Abz on the 13th May!

From one new independent label to one that has managed to reach out to heads into dubstep, house and hip hop through some heavy bubbling underground releases. Run from the Dublin based record store, All City is the creative endeavour of Olan O'Brien - a true digger and finder for new and old musical gems. Somehow each release on the label manages to weigh up the sound of now with something that reminds us of the music we loved yesteryear - a vision no less apparent than in the first EP from the collab. series featuring jazzy beats magician Mike Slott and the dubbed out machine city techno of Martyn. A glittery space beats journey on one side and a straight down the road 4x4 club journey on the flip - just how they used to make them. Read about the EP in detail here.

Likewise released on All City, Krystal Klear is apparently a, one a few it seems, heir to Dam Funk's future boogie throne. He does his reputation some real good here with this solid release capped off in style with an old school piano house remix from HudMo. Check out more track info here.

LA MIXETTE#53: URAKI RIDDIM

Lamixette#53 Uraki Riddim by La Mixette on Mixcloud

Back in January, Musique Large honcho Fulgeance gave me the chance to put out a mixtape for his excellent La Mixette series. Fulgeance is a live performer, producer, label boss and early pioneer of the current 'beats' movement. Armed with an MPC and do it yourself ethic - he has a real modern day hip-hop spirit and is one of the people who inspires to keep putting in the hours organizing events, buying vinyl and generally supporting all other like-minded creative souls. Musique Large plays home to the funky, tropical and boombap sounds of Debruit, Rekick and Fulgeance himself. His own productions vary from boogie, hip-hop to funk. I reviewed his latest EP release on Musique Large a few months back for RA, you can read the review here. Heads up for those that didn't know, support this inspiring guy and his excellent label. Below are some Fulgeance vids and a Low Club guest who we will be seeing soon at DO IT!