Wednesday 30th November 2011 / 8.00pm La Bodeguita, London SE1

Directed by Oscar winner Leon Gast (ʻWhen We Were Kingsʼ), ʻOur Latin Thing (Nuestra Cosa)ʼ is simply the greatest salsa documentary ever made.

In the early 1970s, a group of musicians were about to take salsa music to the four corners of the globe – The Fania All-Stars. Centred around an incendiary gig at one of promoter Ralph Mercado’s fantastically popular Thursday night jams at the Cheetah in New York in August 1971, the film documents the raw Nu Yorican Latin sound at its zenith. Starring certified legends including Willie Colon, Ray Barretto and “El Cantante” Hector Lavoe and directed by Oscar-winner Leon Gast (ʻWhen We Were Kingsʼ), the footage is spliced with atmospheric street scenes on rubbish-filled stoops and crumbling bodegas in Spanish Harlem, documenting a city on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

To celebrate the filmʼs first official release on DVD by Strut Records / Fania, Shook and Strut present an exclusive London screening at La Bodeguita, a vibrant restaurant and venue in Elephant & Castle Shopping Centre, on Wednesday 30th November at 8.00pm. You can eat rice and beans and drink ʻtill your heartʼs content, just like at a block party in ʻEl Barrioʼ. And try to fight your feet from moving if you can.

OUR LATIN THING (NUESTRA COSA) + DJ Duncan Brooker (Strut)

Tickets: £5 door / £4 in advance at www.ticketweb.co.uk

Resonance fm – OST May15th ShookMag by wearepodcast

To make this all more visually appealing, here’s some covers from records played.

Thanks to Jonny Trunk for inviting us and Paul Camo? for uploading the audio.

With our FUNK FACTORY special covering some of the baddest bands on the planet (Dap-Kings, Breakestra, Whitefield Brothers, Lefties Soul Connection, Cookin’ On 3 Burners & Malcolm Catto of the Heliocentrics) and our focus on PLANET MU, whether we’re cold lampin’ with the original funki dred JAZZIE B or sweating to the tropical rhythms of GWO KA and TUMBELE in Martinique and Guadeloupe, SHOOK #07 goes deep in the science of rhythm. The launch of HOMEGROWN, the first major exhibition of UK hip-hop, is our excuse to go back in time with London Posse, Demon Boyz and many more. We get the DATA REDUCTION from ZOMBY and gOnj@$ufi. MAX ROMEO tells us how he almost burned down the offices of Island Records, HUDSON MOHAWKE talks about making tracks for Rihanna, while Stefan Lakatos remembers learning to play the trimba from MOONDOG. For all you jazz heads, CARL CRAIG, MARCUS BELGRAVE and WENDELL HARRISON give us the rub on the resurrected TRIBE RECORDS project; we get a dose of Ancestral Soul from BODDHI SATTVA; Guilty Simpson, Black Milk, Dilated Peoples, Planet Asia and more salute HEX MURDA; we smoke Cohibas in Cuba with GILLES PETERSON and blaze blunts in LA with GASLAMP KILLER, SAMIYAM, HOUSESHOES & RHETTMATIC. Plus TERENCE BLANCHARD explains all about his difficult choices post-Katrina. Elsewhere, we feature FELA! THE MUSICAL, we surprise NNEKA, find out all about the CANDY MACHINE, travel the world with DREPH, celebrate the release of STILL BILL and raise a toast to 30 years of VAGUE. So shut yourself away this Christmas with a copy of SHOOK and a bottle of brandy, and be a soul adventurer, travelling to places and spaces far and wide in the musical omniverse.

Oh, and we’ve got some very special subscriber offers this time around so make sure you check out our store for details.

Splicing genes by day, beats by nights, Floating Points is a scientist of sound, molecularly breaking it down.

Riding a meteoric wave through the underground scene, his hit song ‘Love Me Like This’ has accumulated tens of thousands of hits via various online portals. The response at London hotspots Deviation and Nonsense was unlike any other: crowds went wild, reloads were demanded, crowds went wild again. Initially available as a free download, it later got reworked with live parts and made available on vinyl via R2 Records, as it continues to supercharge dancefloors.

Juggling his musical making with a PhD in Molecular Genetics —specifically an interest in the neuroscience of pain at a molecular level — Sam has developed a distinct, signature sound using component parts in ways that go beyond the instruction manual: he has previously captured sounds as seemingly drab as a toilet seat or kitchen door and reconfigured them into a bass or snare drum! Another factor in his distinctive sound is the way Floating Points songs tend to move around a central tone or tonic. “Certain aspects of harmony at the moment really get to me.” he expains “Especially a lot of altered stuff, a lot of Modal stuff. And the French Impressionists, Debussy, Ravel, Fauré, Duruflé, Les Six, but most  importantly Messiaen. Messiaen is every day, the most important to me.”

French choral traditions aren’t a typical muse for electronic musicians, yet Sam’s schooling [at Chetham's School of Music] grounded him in some epic Chamber compositions. Olivier Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of Time) is treasured by Sam, a work he “doesn’t listen to lightly”. Penned in 1940-41 when Messiaen was a prisoner of war, the piece premiered to 400 POWs and guards, prompting its composer to later say “Never was I listened to with such rapt attention and comprehension”. Sam explains the structure in the opening movement (‘Liturgie de cristal’) “It’s all loops! He has a rhythmical loop, and a harmonic loop on the piano; seventeen rhythms and twenty-nine harmonies. At the end, it stops in its tracks, gazing into eternity”.

Such insight casts light on the remarkable rhythmic and harmonic patterns which frequent Floating Points music. “I turned to writing dance music because it’s quite immediate, you can sit at your PC, then a week later play it in a club. Writing Classical music is hard! It’s slow, you can’t always find an orchestra!”

Read about the Floating Points Ensemble and all other things eglo,  including talk with Alex Nut, FunkinEven, Fatima and Shuanise, in SHOOK 006.

myspace.com/floatingpoints

soundcloud.com/floatingpoints

“The woman is the gateway to a country. If the women are OK, then it means that society has a chance of being OK too.” So says JR, the Parisian street artist, who arrived with his team in Rio de Janeiro in August 2008 to work on the
Brazilian leg of WOMEN, an international project in which he takes portraits and then pastes them in giant black and white format on the side of buildings, buses, empty swimming pools and rooftops. He calls them photo-graffs, a nod to his days as a graffiti writer in Paris.

To date, WOMEN has launched photographic “interventions” in Liberia, India, Cambodia, Kenya, Sudan and Sierra Leone. In Brazil, JR decided to cover the side of a favela with a wall of its women’s eyes and faces that can be seen from all over the city.

The word favela is a word many people know, but its roots lie in a place now called Providência, a morro (hill) that sits overlooking the city docks behind Rio’s Central Station, made famous by the Walter Salles film of the same name. It is here, where the word favela was born, that JR is going to work.

Read on in SHOOK 006.

JR Art – Photographe

jr-art.net

Read on in SHOOK 006.

D.Ablo: Sweet Female Attitude ‘Flowers’

Analog Jones: la-33 ‘Gozalo’ and Oriol ‘LW’

Guynamite: Bell Biv DeVoe ‘Poison’

Charley Boy Kofi: Sticky ft Ms Dynamite ‘Booo!’

In preparation for this weekend why not finetune your dancing?

As well as this Sunday, parties will be happening (weather permitting) on 16th and 23rd August, 2-10pm, £2 entry, in the garden of Cafe Mosaic in Archway (24 Junction Road, N19 5RE). For extra whens & wheres find the Boglewaltz Facebook group.

Music that needs to be heard on vinyl, so much depth! The 12″ is available from tomorrow on Planet µ. Track it down.

‘K&G beat’ remains my favourite floatingpoints concoction.

More on floatingpoints and his Eglo family in Shook 006.

A – King Midas Sound – I Dub

AA1 – King Midas Sound – Ting Dub

AA2 – King Midas Sound – Too Long Dub

What’s the King Midas Sounds setup? How did you and Kevin decide to work together? How does KMS differ from your own material?

King Midas Sound setup is me and Kevin [The Bug]. We listen and talk about lots of music and we write alot of songs. I was a big fan of Kevin’s Jazz Satellite compilations and then he heard a poetry ep I did as Chocolate Art. We were both enquiring about each other at the same time. A friend put us in touch and I’ve worked with him on Techno Animal and the first and second Bug Albums.

How’s the King Midas album shaping up?

Our influences span the range of music from Boards of Canada to Vincent Gallo. Gregory Isaacs to Rhythm and Sound. King Tubby to Will Oldham. It’s aimed at making good music and people will dance if they like and listen at home if they like. I definitely see it as a new level of work and conversations that Kevin and I have been having for about a decade.

What role do you see vocals playing in these sounds? As an instrument enhancing the sonic layers? Is it bass poetry?

The vocals play the role of a sonic lullaby. Soothing yet appealing. The lyrics are not as metaphorically dense as my other work. We wanted the vocals to be simple but not simplistic. There was also a sweetness of lovers rock that we were trying to achieve with the vocal tone. To sound and say more with less.

How important is the role of radio in the music?

Internet is the new radio. You can get radio shows on the net, not in real time now. Some radio shows allow you to edit artists from the playlist. Radio still spreads the word to focus new listeners to the artists web presence and product.

How would you relate the development of technology to the differences between drum n’ bass / UKG / dubstep?

Music popularity is a spiritual thing. If the music resonates with people’s spirit people will support it. Drum and Bass /UKG/dubstep are all the same spirit with an intergenerational vibe connected to the sonic roots of reggae and hip hop.

How important has the role of theory/criticism been in the rise of dubstep?

I am no dubstep specialist but I believe dubstep would live without theory. Dubstep is the culture and theory is the analysis.

What does it mean to you to be on Hyperdub? How does the label differ from others?

It’s a label that cares about music and musicians deeply. It’s also about progressive music and progressive artists. So it’s really good for us to be there. There were other offers to sign for more money, but we wanted a musicians label. We wanted a label manager that that loves music and thinks business that’s what Steve had. Big thinking.( say in the style of Jay Z’s ‘Big Pimpin’)

Is there a danger in electronic music that musicality becomes irrelevant?

Music becomes irrelevant when you ignore what you personally really feel and let the music becomes decided by a committee. That goes for all music not just electronic.

How important is dancing in electronic musics? And is it a shame that the sophistication of sounds is rarely matched by the sophistication of dancing?

The sophistication of sounds have nothing to do with dancing. It’s all about rhythm. No one told Afrika Bambaataa that people won’t dance to Kraftwerk. If it’s in time with peoples heartbeats people will dance whether it’s electronic sounds or a clave.

What music/raves/film/things are exciting you of late?

Music: Micachu and the Shapes, Dimlite, Doug Hammond

Raves: Bash

Film: The Wrestler, Waltz with Bashir.

myspace.com/kingmidassound

myspace.com/rogerrobinsonmyspace

rogerrobinsonbooks.com

For those of you who’ve made it all the way to the bottom, here’s a free MP3 of Mr Robinson’s Unsticking (Dobie Remix) from the Armed and Beautiful EP. Watch the wordplay “I’m scanning dictionaries just to understand her…”.

Featured in DJ sets by Dixon, it’s not chance that has led Innervisions, to plan a 12″ of his later in the year, placing the South African’s name in a catalogue alongside Henrik Schwarz, ÂME and Château Flight. ‘The Bright Forest’ gets me as stoked as the first song of his I heard: ‘The African Subway’, dropped by Tony Nwachukwu at Plastic People. Both songs build and romp with exceptionally well-tuned sonics.

Time spent at the Red Bull Music Academy seems to have added even more excellence to his already remarkably developed skills. Definitely an artist to keep a distant eye on. RA have some words with him, plus the immenseness of his material can be heard on his MySpace and in an exemplary DJ mix for RBMA.

myspace.com/culoedsong

Culoe De Song – Catalunya Calling (on RBMA)

Catalunya Calling tracklist:

Cei Bei – I need you lord (Chicago Groove Mix)
Siji – Irijano
Blackcoffee ft Bucie – Turn Me On (Blackcoffee Remix)
David Harness – The Rythmn
Goyumo – Ojo
Chris Perez – Singularity
Raw Artistic Soul ft Ursula Rucker – The Light (Dub)
Rhythmic Elements – Spirit of a warrior
Culoe De Song – Super Afro
Blackcoffee – 100 Zulu Warriors (Culoe De Song Remix)

For more info visit soulisticmusic.com. MP3s of Culoe’s can be purchased via AFROdesia.

More on Culoe in SHOOK 005!