Brooklyn Sweet Freakphony

Well, this is officially my first collaboration in more ways than one.

As some of you may remember, about 6 months ago, I made a little promo one shot for Scott over at Ramdom Thoughts, which was basicaly based upon an idea that me sweet sweeeeet Angel gave me. We were chillin' over at my flat one night when she mentioned the Beatnuts' tuned that was sampled on J-Lo's "Jennie from the Block". I wasn't familiar with the original so I googled "Brooklyn Bomb" upon her advice. I eventually came by a little instrumental jobbie, by some unknown artist that sampled several beats from various hip-hop superstars, that included the Beatnuts that I fell in love with immediately. This became the basis for my instrumental, and eventually after trying a few other instrumentals over the top of it, the Verve's legendary "Bittersweet Symphony" fitted it perfectly.

You have to remember, when I first went to Uni, my musical life revolved around house, old skool and d'n'b. I'd grown up hanging out at my mates' houses listening to the likes of the Smiths and the Roses, and even though I was in denial to be controversial, I did like guitar based/indie music, but it was all about the beats for me at the time. I went along to the V98 festival in Leeds more for the drinking than the music, but it all changed once I saw the Verve headline on the Sunday night. It's an old cliche about life changing moemnts but this was literally just that. I have no qualms about admitting, I cried me eyes out to the live version of "Lucky Man" and "History" still sends a shiver down my spine, but "Bittersweet Symphony" remians for me, THE defining song of the 90s, Needless to say, it's still my most favourite gig I've ever been to (and there's been a few now!) and the Verve's "Urban Hymns" is still in my top 5 albums of all time. It inspired me to learn guitar and wear flares. That's powerful music!

Anyway, so the promo was made with my trademark Colatron voices and samples, and it was well received, generating more traffic to the site, plus it earned a fair few downloads for a short piece. I had to try and make a full length track out of it.

So off and on, over the last 6 months, I've revisited the Acid Pro session, completing the instrumental part of things around the same time as I finished the EVP sessions. I just did not have a vocal to fit it.

An avid reader of the Island of Misfit Songs blog by the incomparable Butch Rosser (aka DJ Brother Darkness) in the US, I'd clocked a few months back that he occasionally posts a list of ideas he has that he'd like fellow mashers ot throw together for him. A few ideas have really excited me, but I've just never got around to making them. But on the last challenge, Butch had the genius idea of pairing Adina Howard's "Freak Like Me" (butchered by the Sugababes) with soul classic, "Mr. Big Stuff" by Jean Knight (which holds another special place in my heart ever since my good friend Kirsty was the Soccerette of the week on Sky Sports Soccer AM show a few years back and she had to do that catwalk thingy to it). In theory, a great pairing, but in practice, my laziness prevented me from putting the effort in to match the two.

Another of Butch's ideas involved matchign Biggie Smalls with the Verve - I've never been a Biggie fan as such, but as mentioned, I'm a HUGE Verve fan. The cogs were turning in my head. I have a Verve track, with a strong back beat made, hmmm.....

I dropped the Adina vocal in and well, excuse the French but shit me if it didn't virtually fit immediately.....

3 weeks later, playing around with various track placings/cuts, and looking for that final touch (I went for a home-made Bittersweet Symphony acapella to bring the anthemic lyrics back in) and here it is. I have to give a little it of credit to Angel, you are quite literally the best hon (you need to meet this girl - 6ft 2" of ex-model/dancer perfection, now signed to a NY rap label - she is simply awesome) and I have to give a whole load of credit to Butch for giving me the inspiration to take two of his ideas and mash them. A mash of a mash. Crazy. So yeah, this is essentially, Colatron & DJ Brother Darkness on the ones and twos. I love it, it's going back to the hiphop beats of early Colatron, and it's freaky like a monkey

Colatron & DJ Brother Darkness present....

Brooklyn Sweet Freakphony

featuring
Pharoah Monche - Simon Says (Intro)
Unknown - Brooklyn Bomb (feat. Slick Rick, Crooklyn Clan, Bad Boy, Beatnuts, Time Zone, Biggie, Jay-Z, Mase, Mobb Deep & Nas)
Adina Howard - Freak Like Me
The Verve - Bittersweet Symphony (both instrumental and DIY acapella)

and vocal excerpts from the following movies

Hideous!
Timerunner



MP3 Download Page Here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?gpd18kr2wjv

Don't forget everyone to check out Butch's blog. Its a cracking read with some wicked interviews on there too with some luminaries of the scene. It's over at

http://theisle.wordpress.com/

And show some love for me Angel over at MS&M records. And if you need more info on those movie samples, check out my favourite new site at

http://www.badmovies.org/

If anyone does know who did the Brooklyn Bomb mix, let me know; it's driving me nuts, and I'd love to give it a bit of credit.

Colatron's off to get tipsy and consider heading out to DJ Yoda tomorrow. I'm looking for inspiration for the next one...

Ciao for now