MORLACK: Where Do You Get Your Funk From (2011) + Free downloads

MORLACK: Where Do You Get Your Funk From (2011) + Free downloads
I like Morlack’s release titles. Last time he was ‘taking it to the zulu’ - this time he wants to know where we get our funk from. Er – hang on Morlack – I’ll do the questions – where do you get yours from? Your cover would suggest Betty Davis with bigger guns…what’s that? Seventies P-funk - uh-huh - Tone Loc, yup, The Red Hot Chili Peppers – I see and…INXS. Really? Oh, I get you…guilty pleasures and all that. And then you beef up the rhythm section in a twenty-first century party breaks stylee…? Well, that all seems to hang together rather well my friend. Thus it is that…READ FULL POST @ MONKEYBOXING.COM

BOX ROCKET: Avalanche Psychiatrist (2011) Free download

BOX ROCKET: Avalanche Psychiatrist (2011) Free download
Long before Frape, happy-slapping and shanking innocent passersby, the box rocket (along with sniffing glue and a gentle game of British bulldog) was one of many forms of more innocent youth entertainment. Oh wait – that was a pocket rocket wasn’t it. Still, you wouldn’t want to call your mid-tempo breaks project ‘pocket rocket’ nowadays though (if you were Ewan Hoozami and Dave Remix - as indeed Box Rocket are) since a quick google reveals this to be a contemporary form of battery-powered lady entertainment. Mind you, ‘box rocket’ can hardly be described as a safe handle in 2011 either as…READ FULL POST @ MONKEYBOXING.COM

THIEVERY CORPORATION feat. MR LIF: Unified Tribes (2011) video

THIEVERY CORPORATION feat. MR LIF: Unified Tribes (2011) video
It’s all about the funky horns and rhymes here as Chilled Stateside combo Thievery Corporation team up with Boston rapper Mr Lif to deliver some mellow ire against the thievery of corporations…READ FULL POST @ MONKEYBOXING.COM

SLYNK: Ghetto Funk presents Slynk EP (2011)

SLYNK: Ghetto Funk presents Slynk EP (2011)
The Ghetto Funk label’s ‘artist series’ of wax EPs continues apace and next up is Oz producer Slynk whose four-tracker sees the light of day early in the new year. The Brisbane-based dj/ producer dips into seventies and eighties disco and soul and nineties rapapellas (Q Tip and Screechy Dan for example) to keep it as resolutely upbeat as its predecessors. Lest that make it sound like…READ FULL POST @ MONKEYBOXING.COM

JOHNNYPLUSE: This Will Twist Your Head (2011) Free download

JOHNNYPLUSE: This Will Twist Your Head (2011) Free download
‘Tis the season of giving and here’s JohnnyPluse, boss of Irish label Bulabeats, coming over all Santa-fied here with free fourteen-track LP. If you’re the sort of person who doesn’t have enough breakbeat remixes in your life this’ll twist your head and probably your melons too. JP’s basically remixed his way through the punk and post-punk seventies (Blondie, The Clash and The Jam), the overblown and self-indulgent eighties…READ FULL POST @ MONKEYBOXING.COM

MONKEYBOXING.COM - Top 10 Albums of 2011

MONKEYBOXING.COM - Top 10 Albums of 2011
N.b. This chart was compiled using a highly complex algorithm based on what has been blaring out of the monkeyboxing speakers most often in the last twelve month period...

1. TOM CARUANA PRESENTS - Wu Tang vs Jimi Hendrix ‘Black Gold’

You can’t put a mash-up album at number one! And yet here this is. And yes - it is that good…READ FULL POST @ MONKEYBOXING.COM

MONKEYBOXING.COM – Top 10 Tracks of 2011

MONKEYBOXING.COM – Top 10 Tracks of 2011
N.B. This chart was compiled using a highly complex algorithm based on what has been blaring out of the monkeyboxing speakers most often this year...

1. Ugly Duckling – Elevation

Massive UD dancefloor banger off the new LP…READ FULL POST @ MONKEYBOXING.COM

THE MILK: B-Roads (2011) + ‘B-Roads’ (Byron bootleg)

THE MILK: B-Roads (2011) + ‘B-Roads’ (Byron bootleg)
“We got to stick to the B Roads” sing The Milk on soulful new single B-Roads making out like they aren’t travelling down the sliproad onto the motorway of mainstream recognition. The only way they could possibly be more conspicuous on their ‘journey’ would be if they were travelling on some sort of luminous ‘fame bus’ with a destination reading ‘The top.’ Currently being bummed by all and sundry (the NME, Zane Lowe, Huey Morgan), the band do actually have some pretty good reasons for all the attention…READ FULL POST @ MONKEYBOXING.COM

JSTAR: The Unlimiters ‘Loophole’ (JStar remix) + ‘One Life One Hope’/ ‘Taxi Damaja’ (2011)

JSTAR: The Unlimiters ‘Loophole’ (JStar remix) + ‘One Life One Hope’/ ‘Taxi Damaja’ (2011)
JStar’s a man I like to keep tabs on and he’s been keeping himself busy lately with a number of projects – and here are two of them. The most recent of these sees him dub-versioning The Unlimiters’ reggae cut Loophole. You know the sort thing – more echo than a Victorian public toilet and bass so tangible a couple of stoned white-dreads are actually using it to sleep under. This appears on…READ FULL POST @ MONKEYBOXING.COM

DJ QUICKIE MART feat. WAX/ GOTHAM GREEN/ JES HUDAK: Roll It Up (2011) Free download

DJ QUICKIE MART feat. WAX/ GOTHAM GREEN/ JES HUDAK: Roll It Up (2011) Free download
RATING: 5/5
New Orleans DJ Quickie Mart and friends Wax, Gotham Green and Jes Hudak pick up where Cypress Hill left off back when they were good with Roll It Up – a funk-based number off rapper Wax’s Eviction Notice LP extolling the virtues of Mary Jane. Interestingly, these now seem to include a pleasing fragrance (according to Hudak’s rnb vocal-style hook – “Don’t it smell good?”) a…READ FULL POST @ MONKEYBOXING.COM

THE SOUL SNATCHERS: Scratch My Itch (2011) Album release details

THE SOUL SNATCHERS: Scratch My Itch (2011) Album release details
Many are those who attempt to recreate that original funky soul sound but there are few who actually manage it as well as The Soul Snatchers whose new LP Scratch My Itch is released in February. The official video preview of the new one (see below) would suggest you can expect plenty of ‘huh’, quite a lot of ‘uhh’ and a bit of ‘get down!’ along with fat horns, wah-wah chops and big breaks. Anyone who’s…READ FULL POST @ MONKEYBOXING.COM

GHETTO FUNK ALLSTARS: The Icons Vol. 2 (2011) Free download

GHETTO FUNK ALLSTARS: The Icons Vol. 2 (2011) Free download
Looks like Christmas just came early in the ghetto funk universe for here is volume 2 of their ‘Icons’ series. And, ‘What is in Ghetto Claus’s bulging sack?’ you ask – like you need to. Basically twenty tracks from eighteen big scene names remixing names of big scenes of yesteryear.…READ FULL POST @ MONKEYBOXING.COM

RACKABEAT & BAR-LOW: The Rack & Low Show podcast (2011)

RACKABEAT & BAR-LOW: The Rack & Low Show podcast (2011)
This is only the third podcast inside a month that I’m posting about since I said I didn’t normally post about podcasts – which all goes to show how much of a handle I’ve got on what I do. Anyway, here we are and here’s Rack & Low a.k.a. Rackabeat and Bar-low, two dj/ producers from Bristol whose track Get Down is due out on the Riddim Fruit label. Until that happens - check out their Rack & Low Show podcast - the purpose of which…READ FULL POST @ MONKEYBOXING.COM

BIG M Presents: More Banging Artists (2011) 12”

BIG M Presents: More Banging Artists (2011) 12”
Big M’s latest wax project hops between sub-genres like a right beat slut. It delivers an wobbly uptempo Bollywood ghetto funk from Nynfus Corp, a straight up funky breaks version of funky soul staple Hold On I’m Comin’ from Nev Scott & Waynessential, mid-tempo Nu-Yorican breaks from The Breakbeat Junkie and finishes up with Uppercut Continue’s dubstep exploration of ‘that night’ when Charlie Sheen’s crack became famous.…READ FULL POST @ MONKEYBOXING.COM

STEREO BEATZ VS MYNIEMO: Planet B Girl(2011)

STEREO BEATZ VS MYNIEMO: Planet B Girl(2011)
Just in case you thought BigM had gone ‘too hip-hop’ with the recent dope of their Dee & Kamy four track EP, this dropped the other week. Despite a title which conjures images of chicks in shelltoes and fat dungarees with baseball hats on backwards Stereo Beatz & Myniemo’s Planet B Girl is actually a bit of acid-synth-fuelled big beat. Fresh Andy lightens the…READ FULL POST @ MONKEYBOXING.COM

BBE/MILLION DOLLAR DISCO: Al Kent presents The Best of Disco Demands (2011) + track list

BBE/MILLION DOLLAR DISCO: Al Kent presents The Best of Disco Demands (2011) + track list
With The Best Of Disco Demands Al Kent looks to have put together a superbly comprehensive set of lesser-known disco gems. Now, although I largely regard disco as having treacherously slipped the knife between the ribs of funk and soul in the late seventies and (worse) laid the groundwork for house music, it is true that I do like the odd disco track. And you get no fewer than fifty-four on this …READ FULL POST @ MONKEYBOXING.COM

JOHNNY PLUSE: The Market Street Cut Up (2011) Digital release/ remixes

JOHNNY PLUSE: The Market Street Cut Up (2011) Digital release/ remixes
Not quite the East End gang brawl it sounds like, Johnny Pluse nevertheless brings along enough remixers for this digital re-release of 2009’s The Market Street Cut Up to almost make it worth starting a ruck. There are eleven mixes available from…READ FULL POST @ MONKEYBOXING.COM

CHART - December 2011

CHART - December 2011
(NEW) =1. GonesTheDJ – Done Nothin
Super-disco badass rework of lesser-known Stevie funk cut……READ FULL POST @ MONKEYBOXING.COM

KAZAHAYA: Soul Is Yours (2011)

KAZAHAYA: Soul Is Yours (2011)
Right, this is just taking the piss – there have been more decent hip-hop albums and projects out this year than in the last five years put together which makes 2011 officially the year that proper hip-hop was resurrected. And here’s Japanese producer Kazahaya with the latest proof of that in the shape of Soul Is Yours. …READ FULL POST @ MONKEYBOXING.COM

DJ MONEYSHOT: Jehovah’s Witness (DJ Moneyshot’s Boot) (2011) Free download

DJ MONEYSHOT: Jehovah’s Witness (DJ Moneyshot’s Boot) (2011) Free download
Heads up as Moneyshot cracks one out for Christmas here in the shape of Jehovah’s Witness. Far from being someone who knocks on your door with a copy of The Watchtower at…READ FULL POST @ MONKEYBOXING.COM