Nocturne Records Blog

New Music Monday: Interludes After Midnight

Rowan — Tue, 15 May 2012 03:15:58 +0000

This should be a no-brainer for most, but for the off chance that some of you have never heard of Blockhead, it is my duty to now blow your mind. Actually, I’ll let Blockhead blow your mind instead, check out this track off of his new album, just released this month:

If you are new to Blockhead, then you are a huge disappointment to me. Interludes After Midnight is his fifth solo album, so you’ve got some homework. As a huge Blockhead fan, I would highly recommend checking out his latest release whether you’re a life long fan or just heard of him today. He is a true master of intricately layering samples, and has a knack for moody downtempo joints. More info about the dude, as well as his entire discography here or just hop on youtube and listen to basically everything there. Enjoy.

Future Sounds from Way Back

Josh — Tue, 01 May 2012 09:02:35 +0000

Yikes! Seems like we missed a few New Music Monday posts. Well to be honest, I knew it was coming, everyone is pretty busy with work and the various projects we have on the go. Personally, the majority of my time has been and is currently spent working on my next full length release, and while progress is slow and arduous at times, I really can’t complain. When I am not digging for new samples or trying to string them together I am doing research in the form of listening to some of my favorite artists. Currently and for the majority of the time I have been working on this album I have really only had three people/groups in the rotation: RZA, Bonobo and Portishead. Hopefully the influence comes out a little in the music.

I am currently about four tracks into the album and it’s turning out pretty good to my ears (which doesn’t mean much at this point since I have heard every song about 500 times). In terms of instrumentation and music theory I have learned a lot since my first release which is something of a blessing and a curse. It was much easier when I didn’t know anything and everything was by ear and ear alone. But at the same time the knowledge has allowed me to really advance my sound and capabilities while creating new stuff.

So, while you will hear me playing a few more instruments than on Archaeology the majority of the album will still be sample based, and even the things I play live I try to distress and blend by running to tape and treating as if they were samples. Among the many reasons I wanted to keep it sample based there are two major ones. The main being that I don’t feel like I am even close to mastering the art of sampling, every time I work on a track I learn something new and secondly, I feel like I owe it to the small group of adamant supporters and people that keep Archaeology on repeat . As I said though, progress is slow, and I can always find a reason to go back and change or work on a track some more. However, with each track I complete the consecutive song becomes a little bit easier in certain aspects.

I will try to keep everyone updated as I work on the album. Hopefully next time I post I will be much further along but no promises. The only promise I can make for now is that it will be in the works. Since this is something of a apology for the lack of New Music Monday’s here are a few tracks to keep you guys busy for a couple of minutes. Just a few songs I have had on repeat for a while. Enjoy!

New Music Monday: Through Windows

Rowan — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 08:36:21 +0000

When I describe music that I love I like to use words like superb tuneage, or vibe-alicious maximus, or even uber chill-a-tron. But these words just don’t quite do Crookram justice. I just stumbled onto this dude like 3 days ago, and already he has become one of my top new music discoveries of 2012. I’m kind of one of those really picky music nerds, so finding a whole album that is strong from start to finish, is a huge deal. I did some non-creepy cyber-stalking of Crookram just to get a little more information to share, and hopefully learn a little about the mysterious Dutch producer, unfortunately there is not a lot of info available. He’s from the Netherlands, that is about it. Oh yeah, and he makes phantasmagoric music, what else do you need to know?

I sometimes dread describing music with mere words, but here are a few buzzwords that pretty much generalize Crookram’s style: downtempo, cinematic, sample-based, psychedelic, library funk, gorilla, awesome. One of the things I love so much about his album Through Windows, is the diversity. Drink half a bottle of red wine, listen to the album start to finish, and basically take a little music journey, with your friendly Dutch tour guide, Crookram at the helm. You’ll laugh, you’ll wig out, and at the end I bet you’ll be weeping in a puddle of your own tears to the emotional, yet stunningly beautiful final track I Saw You.

I would highly recommend anyone with a penchant for instrumental hip-hop, electronic, or downtempo trip-hop to check out Crookram. With his entire discography available for “name you own price” you can’t go wrong.

A Little Something Like

Josh — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 04:52:41 +0000

I have noticed recently that there has been a significant lack of people hounding me about when my new album is going to be released. I can only assume this is because unless you know me personally or have picked up on one of my few enigmatic facebook posts in the last few months that you probably just didn’t know that I have a new project in the works. Well, now you know.

This will be my first full length album in about 4 yrs, and it is already turning into something quite different than what i usually do. For starters it’s taking about 600% longer for me to finish this one, cause I want it to be real good and cause shit is real hectic over here. Secondly, I have been amassing tons of new (by new I mean vintage, used, or broken) gear, so you are going to hear a variety of instrumentation, as well as some unusual sounds that I’ve developed in my top secret underground sound laboratory.

I’m also hoping that this next album will have more of “live” feel. I’ve been getting a lot killer feedback and support from the Nocturne crew, especially Josh, who will be mixing/mastering this shit if I ever finish it. So hopefully he can polish whatever kind of turd I end up with. There’s a good chance that a small string ensemble will make it onto a couple tracks, and I am going to try to get some horns on at least one track, but no promises, as that has been a seemingly impossible endeavor, thus far.

Note from Josh: If you are a string and or horn player and want to hit the studio for a few days, get in touch.

I am also pretty jazzed about a collaboration I recently did with up-and-coming producer Supplington, which will most definitely be one of the top tracks on the new release. if you don’t know who that is go here immediately.

Basically, I can’t wait to finish this album so that I can start sharing it with the world. I am super pumped about everything I have so far, although I have much much more to do, and I think the best is yet to come. I’m just not even going to try to give an estimated release date. Every time I try to do that I just grossly underestimate, so I will say this: I am around 90% done with half of the songs. The other half is a hodge-podge of about a billion song ideas that I’ve been sifting through, trying to determine which are best suited for this project. So, just to be safe, I will say it will most likely be released within the next 13-16 yrs. Stay tuned for more updates, like whether or not I get my recently acquired vintage Hammond tone cabinet working…

New Music Monday: Look Around the Corner

Josh — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 23:03:12 +0000

It should come as no surprise to most of you that we are big fans of Quantic and Tru Thoughts records. So we were super excited when we heard that the label had paired the producer, musician, DJ and composer with singer/songwriter Alice Russell and they were working on a new album. If you are a fan of electronica, soul, bossa nova, funk or basically any other genre of music, chances are you have heard about Quantic’s latest project with Alice Russell. The collaborative effort Look around the Corner was released via Tru Thoughts on April 2nd. Showcasing a mix of soul and blues with overtones of folk and gospel Look around the Corner also features Quantic’s Combo Bárbaro who form the core of the backing band.

The album is available now from iTunes, Amazon, Juno, HHV, Etch Shop and any record store that stocks Tru Thoughts. You can also check out a live recording of the title track below, and if that isn’t enough there are a few more videos to be seen and you can use this as a jumping off point.

New Music Monday: Locked Down

Miran — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 08:48:12 +0000

If you have been following David Simon’s amazing HBO series Treme for the last couple seasons you might have caught a glimpse of this funky fellow while watching one of the episodes where Chief Lambreaux is recording an album with his son, the fictional trumpet player Delmond Lambreaux.

Nerd Alert: If you have no idea what the hell I am talking about here, stop reading this immediately and go watch the first two seasons of this incredible series. This show has opened my eyes (and ears) to a slew of musicians, old and new, from the New Orleans music scene to which I was previously clueless about.

This pimp looking motherf@#$er goes by the name of Dr John, The Night Tripper. Born a thousand years ago as Mac Rebennack, he has been active in the New Orleans music scene since the 1950’s. He originally started out as a guitarist, until he got his left ring finger shot off in a brawl (what?!) forcing him to switch to piano. Aside from looking like one, he was actually a pimp for a brief time as well. There are a million articles on the interwebs covering his life in detail, so I am going to skip that here but if you are not familiar with his story he’s absolutely worth looking up. I actually spent an entire evening doing this. And no, I don’t have a life.

The reason I am telling you all of this is that a few days ago I found out that Dr John is about to drop a brand new album produced by Dan Auerbach, better known as the guitar playing half of the soul-blues duo the Black Keys. If you don’t know who the Black Keys are by this point, I seriously can’t help you here and you need to go back to living under your rock. With the aim of creating an album that would sound like a mix of Dr John’s earlier records, and a bit of soul, psych, and ethio-jazz, Dan put together an incredible cast of musicians to help him make this record. He called up the bassist Nick Movshon and keyboardist/horn player Leon Michels of the El Michels Affair, as well as the drummer Max Weissenfeldt from one of the first deep funk revival bands to come on the scene – the Poets of Rhythm. If the first single is any indication they definitely hit the nail on the head in terms of what they were trying to achieve and this record is going to be unreal. Check it out below.

The record is called “Locked Down” and it comes out today. Don’t sleep.

Field Recordings

Josh — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 07:16:34 +0000

Photo By Khalik Allah

It has been a while, both Miran and myself realize that we have not been keeping up the blog as much as we would like, but it is not without good reason. I have been steadily working towards my next release and although progress is slow it is in the works. Lots of sample digging and excavation. Rowan has also been working towards his next full length which I plan to help mix down and do some recording in the upcoming months. We are going to try to make an effort over the next little while to keep everyone updated with progress pictures and other Nocturne related news as Rowan and myself work towards getting you guys some new music.

Also, In case you missed the newsletter we currently have a deal going on with the Pawn Shop vinyl EP. When you order a copy we will also include a download code for the previous full length release. Lastly, I wanted to let everyone know that the picture used in this post is from NY based photographer Khalik Allah, you should head over here and check out his photography. Khalik got in touch recently and hopefully we will work together on some Nocturne goodies in the near future.

The Snipe Hunt Part 3

Jacob — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 23:29:43 +0000

Read part one here
Read part two here

The next day, calmer and heavily sedated by some of the finer narcotics Hong Kong has on offer, I started to get curious. Whose box did I have? Why was it given to me? Where the fuck did the old man go? And was it just a coincidence Pawn Shop wanted me in Thailand? The label hadn’t heard from Pawn Shop in almost six months, and no one besides me knew I’d bought a ticket for Thailand a week earlier. Despite myself, I was intrigued, and I went back to the actual pawn shop. It was closed, and it never opened, not while I was there.

I spent the rest of Hong Kong in a jittery daze, shaken by the encounter at 126 Tung Choi. I’ve invested a lot of time trying to forget it, but I’m pretty sure I did actually hear the story I’m about to tell you.

My last night there, filled to the gills with the cheapest overpriced wine a foreigner can buy, I stumbled back to the pawn shop, very drunk, and very sure I was going to get my money back. I don’t know how long I stood there, hammering my bloody knuckles into the door, before a girl came out of the back of the 7-11 screaming at me to stop, and brandishing a steaming mug of god-knew-what at me. When I told her I was looking for the old man, that he owed me $250, and that if she knew those sadistic fucks from Pawnshop, she’d better tell them I was coming for them, she laughed and her face got a little sad and patient, like I had become her slightly brain-damaged nephew. She passed me the mug, and in between sips of scalding briny coffee, told me the pawn shop had been closed since before the new year, the old man dead as long.

She showed me an obit on her Ipad, same man, same pawn shop, backrooms emptied and storage shelves gutted, but I didn’t believe her until she told me how he’d been diagnosed with lung cancer, but instead of getting treatment, he kept working and smoking, coming into the 7-11 three or four times a day, buying the same pack of Marleys, as though nothing had changed. That sounded like the right kind of stubborn bastard to me.

Apparently, right before he died, the authorities came and tried to force him to the hospital, but he refused. He kept saying something about having one more thing to do, one more thing he had to do, no leaving. The cop who’d told her the story swore he also heard the old man muttering on about demons with drums, and bad loans, something about the wrong blood.

Leave it Pawn Shop to lure me into a haunted pawn shop. And leave it me to get played by a ghost.

The next morning, I got on my flight to Thailand, now rerouted to Bangkok. I hated myself for doing it, but I had no choice; Pawnshop had sent the label a message- we have new music, come get it. I was the lucky guy who was gonna come get it.

The scrap of paper was a Bangkok phone number, out of service of course, but the guy who drove me to the airport had a cousin who worked for TT&T, he tracked it down for me. It was for a pawn shop in Bangkok that had burnt down a month before.

Yay Bangkok, here I come.

Fuck me.

Midnight Run: Guest Mix by Hugo Kant

Miran — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 20:54:36 +0000

I discovered Hugo Kant’s music about six months ago when I first heard his independently released EP “Searching London”. The EP contained three moody instrumental tracks consisting of subtly layered samples intertwining with flute melodies and ominous grooves. Needless to say, I was immediately hooked and I started poking around the net looking for more information about this artist. What I found out was that Hugo Kant is a musician/producer from Marseille, France and that the EP was only a prelude to his upcoming album titled “I don’t want to be an emperor”. (The album is out now, and its definitely worth a purchase. You can get it from Hugo’s Soundcloud or Bandcamp.)

His Soundcloud profile also linked to his Mixcloud account on which hosted some of his mixtapes. These masterfully crafted mixes seamlessly blended tracks from some of my favorite artists into hour long head-nodding sessions and I would often find myself hitting replay as soon as they were finished. So when Josh and I started talking about approaching some guest DJ’s and producers to do mixes for the Nocturne Podcast, Hugo Kant was definitely one of the top names on my list. Anyways, long story short, we got in touch with Hugo using the power of the internets and, even though he is insanely busy these days playing shows (check the video below), he agreed to send us this mix for the podcast. Enjoy!

His bio as seen on the Bellring website:

Quentin Le Roux (aka Hugo Kant) is a french multi-instrumentalist / producer. He was born on June 15 1976. He started to study music (piano and classical guitar) at the age of 5 at the National Music Academy of his childhood’s city : Avignon. During his teenage years, he co-founded the psychedelic jazz rock band Güs Weg Watergang with three school friends, composing and playing keyboards, samplers, clarinet, flute, then bass guitar. Since 1996 to 1997, he studied at IMFP (professional jazz school) in Salon de Provence and in 1997 Güs Weg Watergang released their debut album and did many gigs. In 1998, they moved to Marseille, where Quentin co-founded “Le studio des Sirènes” (recording studio) with his brother, Matthieu Le Roux. He worked with him as a sound engineer as well as session musician and art director on some projects. Güs Wëg Watergang then produced four singles in preparation of their second album but split just before the recording sessions at the end of 2001. Then, he played with many bands (Latin, Latin Jazz, Song) as instrumentalist and arranger , staying five years with David Lafore Cinq Têtes (french singer) playing keyboard, flute, flugelhorn and accordion until 2007. With this band he did a show at the famous venue “L’olympia” in Paris in 2007.

In 2005, he met Samenakoa and joined the funky Brass Band, composing, playing flute and flugelhorn. He also worked on the release “Don Juan” by Oshen producing three of the tracks (V2 music) and “Lokito” by Lokito (autoproduction).

In 2006, he joined Nuestra Cosa (Electro Jazz), Farenji (Ethiopian Electro Jazz), released “Voyager léger ” with Samenkoa, and he gave, his first solo concert as Dr_Kant (Electro Jazz) at “Un peu d’Alice II” Art Festival. 2007 sees the release of “Souk” with Samenakoa, the free album “Clockwise” with Picture Shop (electro, sound design) in collaboration with Christophe Ménassier (aka Home K1, sound designer), and worked on “II” by David Lafore Cinq Têtes released by the french label Opera-Music.

In 2008, he joined Glôôt (Jazz Rock) and O.M.O (Balkan Jazz / Song Brass Band) and gave many gigs with Samenakoa. During 2009, he worked on “The March” with Samenakoa, doing a lot of production and arran- gements on this album, released in december. He stopped playing with the band Glôôt to keep more time for his other projects.

In 2010, he decided to start his own project under the name Hugo Kant. Reworking some old tracks and composing new ones to have a good track list for his album. On May 13, 2011 he released his debut “Searching London” EP (3 tracks) soon followed by his debut album “I don’t want to be an emperor” by Bellring on June 27th.

Get it in iTunes or download it directly here.

Track Listing:: 01 Hugo Kant – Nocturne; 02 Frenic – The Monolith; 03 Pawn Shop – Midnight Run; 04 PapaDose – Brooks Was Here; 05 Kabanjak – Follow the Storm; 06 Triberg – Himmelreich; 07 Hypoetical – Staring At My Eyelids; 08 DJ Signify – Bollywood Babies; 09 Nostalgia 77 – Only Hush; 10 Brombaer & Phole – Globo; 11 The Herbaliser – The Hard Stuff; 12 Herma Puma – Cyckle; 13 The Cinematic Orchestra – Channel 1 Suite; 14 Mr Cooper – Two; 15 HashFinger – A1.August11; 16 Roger Molls – You; 17 Xploding Plastix – Omar Sharif Bonanza; 18 40 Winks – Wise Up; 19 Radio Citizen – Night I; 20 Hugo Kant – I don’t want to be an emperor

The Snipe Hunt Pt 2. – The Long Thin Cigarette

Jacob — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 09:34:02 +0000

The place was a narrow turn out of the noise, set deep into a stone wall, fronted by a large metal green door with some characters, Chinese and English, slopped across it.

The door swung open under my fist and a long thin cigarette poked out and then withdrew. I followed it in.

Surprisingly, pawn shops in Hong Kong are not like they are here*. There’s no retail. Instead of the usual pile of CD players, VHS tapes, Chainsaws and Weed Whackers, pawn shops in HK simply contain a tall counter, behind which sits a short man on a tall chair. I’m actually sure of this, that there is a small wrinkled baleful little man sitting smoking in his tall chair in every pawnshop in Hong Kong.

The man in the chair stared at me blankly while I shat out what I hoped was a story about a hapless tourist looking for an assuredly legendary band of skilled but eccentric musicians who despite their fame and wealth, frequented pawn shops like his, because they preferred their instruments to have been used by others. he never even blinked. I’m pretty sure they all do this, whether or not you speak gibberish Chinese and believe stories that are clearly too stupid to be told to strangers. Negotiation tactics.

He stayed that way, frozen in smoke, until he heard me say my name. Suddenly he flinched, shuddered, and coughed and spat in my direction. I shut up and watched him pull a large, creaky leatherbound from under the counter. He lit another cigarette off his last and started slowly fumbling through its crumbling yellow pages.

So for a while, he flipped pages, I wondered what was keeping me rooted to my spot, and nothing much else happened. Then, with a satisfied grunt, he spun around, hopped off his chair and disappeared into the back, floating through the dark on a cloud of smoke. When he came out, he had a small wooden box and a much smaller piece of paper. The paper he slid onto the counter. It was a pawn ticket. 1718HK$. $250 Canadian.

I reached for the box, but the old man was already back up on his chair, cigarette in hand, box underarm, mute as a dodo.

So. I needed to find Pawnshop. Pawnshop wanted me here. Here was ten years worth of low-grade tobacco smoke and a small wooden box.

What was in the box?

I stood there a long time, convincing myself the box held something important, something that wouldn’t fly out the moment I opened it, something that wouldn’t immediately infect me, possess me, or otherwise tamper with my eternal soul. Something Pawnshop needed. Something I needed.

With great reluctance, my budget crumbling before my eyes, I cracked open my wallet, regretfully counted out seventeen hundreds and a twenty and put them on the counter. The old man popped down, disappeared the money somewhere into his torso and pushed forward the box, indicating with a nod and a twist of his lips that it was now my privilege to open the box and suffer its contents.

The box weighed almost nothing. It was tiny, the size of a tissue pack, made out of balsa wood, dark brown, with strange markings, insignia, burnt into the sides.

I closed my eyes, said prayers I hadn’t had to since I stopped taking bathtub acid, and opened the box.

Pure rage surged through me, eyelids to toes.

It held paper. One little scrap of it, curled in on itself, looking like some musician dick’s idea of a fucking joke. Haha, Fuck you. The old man chortled. Fuck you too.

“See you in Bangkok. 02-1540542-45 PS”.

At that point I wanted to kill something, preferably something beautiful and cute that could be slowly strangled. $250! The Taxi! The waste of my fucking time! My Vacation! My Budget! Fucking BANGKOK!!!

I hate Bangkok.

I hate pawn shops.

I hate Pawnshop.

I began formulating a story. Something to do with an outbreak of avian flu, criminally under-reported, rampaging through the Hong Kong night. A missing uncle and his rare parakeet, wasting away in the Alberta winter. A special record auction in Tennessee. Whatever. Anything to get me out of it with my job intact.

I turned to the old man, put on my best angry-raging-racist-slav-who-WILL-fuck-your-shit-up face and prepared to get my money back. He just smiled and kept on smoking. Right. Well. I still had my dignity?

I swallowed hard, grabbed my very expensive wooden box, turned slowly around and began the long journey back to the hotel. As I pushed through the door, I heard the old man say, ‘thank you’. In English. Plain everyday English. English we could have been speaking the WHOLE TIME!

Again Rage. Red homicidal wipe out rage. I had to kill that greasy son of a bitch.

Except there was nobody there. When I turned back to confront him, the old man was gone, vanished into thin air. I vaulted the counter, kicked over the chair, smashed random surfaces and yelled a few times, but nothing happened. There was no smoking, no English, no small man hiding anywhere.

Fucking Pawnshop.

To be continued…

*They just offer an exchange service. The shit you stole for cash. In the rare case you aren’t a fiend and you did actually need a loan to buy your baby some formula, the pawned items can be purchased back for the original exchange price. plus the interest fee. Of course. Most pawn shops in Hong Kong only accept jewelry, gold watches and valuables these days, items which don’t depreciate.