Welcome once more to Audio Flare, this is the second entry under the new regime of 'titles taken from Hamlet' and much like Hamlet, Audio Flare this week is chock full of Danish princes, comedy gravediggers and murder most foul.
Can't teach comedy like that.
In reality though, today's blog contains two acts.
Act One: Donae'o
Donae'o (meaning Gift from God) is a UK Funky scene singer, songwriter and producer making good noises in underground music, especially in London.
Just by way of definition, UK Funky is a recently emerged underground dance scene in the UK with its influences from UK Garage, soul, afrobeat and usually involves mixing beats and bass with contemporary African and latin music.
So back to Donae'o, well firstly he has a silky voice as this video with Lethal Bizzle shows, 'Go Hard'. That song was released in 2009 but Donae'o has been active musically since early 2000s when he was a teenager. However, he started to get attention in 2009 with a string of brutally catchy songs like 'African Warrior', which exquisitely shows off the African/tribal influences of his genre.
In fact, 2009 has been a pretty damn good year for Donae'o. Nominated for a MOBO award for Best UK Act, performances at Glastonbury and Radio 1's Big Weekend as well as headlining the 'I Love UK Funky' concert at Wembley. He also released an album 'Party Music' with such catchy tracks as 'Party Hard', 'I' and his current, well played single 'Riot Music'. 'Riot Music' has been receiving all manner of love from DJs ranging from DJ Zinc to Skream, who released a beat-driven remix: 'Riot Music (Skream Remix)'. In fact 'Riot Music' has come out on Shy Fx's Digital Soundboy Label and is currently tearing through London's Funky underground scene.
I also felt a public service to let you listen to his minimix for Annie Mac at Radio 1. This is a piece of genius, maybe it's because a lot of the tracks mixed in here are utter tunes, early Enimem, classic Prodigy, Jay Z, The Shaman, Kano, it's all good. An awful lot of them I recall from listening to music growing up but at the same time he combines those tracks with an awful lot of contemporary music.
Since 2009 was pivotal for Donae'o's rise to where he is now, hopefully you'll be hearing all manner of music from him this year. Hoping so.
Act Two: Refused
Large rumblings on the horizon have made music folk all excited.
Apparently Refused are coming. There's been an awful lot of excitement from all quarters, from the punk bloggers, forums and internet all the way to Radio 1's Zane Lowe and NME. The announcement came this very day, March 27th just after midday.
Just a pity it's wrong.
An hour or two later, news started to break about the fact that the misleading Refused website which stated 'Refused, Coming Soon...' is actually a cheeky stunt from label Epitaph to promote a re-release of Refused seminal album 'The Shape of Punk to Come' in May. Punktastic broke the news just before half two this afternoon and the world got a whole lot less exciting.
No offense Epitaph but screw you for misleading us!
But the truth is, if the release goes well, Refused may well reform. I know for sure that myself as well as a whole heap of other folk are hoping this is the case.
For those of you not knowing who Refused are, they're a Swedish punk band who formed in 1991, released three albums and then disbanded in 1998. Their last press release was entitled 'Refused Are Fucking Dead', named after a song off their 'The Shape of Punk to Come' album. It's fairly incendiary stuff and makes a fair old point about how finished Refused are.
Refused have made a name for themselves with angry, powerful, clever punk music. Possibly one of the best punk bands since Sex Pistols and The Clash, they're that good. Tracks like 'Tannhauser/Derive' (a personal favourite) and 'New Noise' show off an intelligent yet brutal style that isn't quite punk and the reasons for that I will explain shortly.
Their first album was 1994's This Just Might Be....The Truth, and it was a sharp, hard, angry release. Songs like '5th Freedom' give insight into the talent and punk style of their music. Similarly, their second album Songs To Fan The Flames Of Discontent, released in 1996 is very much a typical punk offering. Lyrics about topical issues, very good quality musical skill and songwriting too.
It is with the release of their final album, 1997's The Shape Of Punk To Come: A Chimerical Bombination In 12 Bursts (to give it it's full title) that the band started to feel that releasing punk music on a label, through a company, to people buying their CDs was not as anti-establishment as they wanted and felt they should be. It is why then that the album is a very varied mix of styles, sounds, genres, song lengths and so on. The album itself is anti-establishment to what an album should be. The two songs I linked earlier, 'Tannhauser' and 'New Noise' were both taken from this album and it is seen as the band's magnum opus, mainly because it plays so hard against what punk was at the time with releases from Blink 182 and so on who were classed as punk but were much more popular and mainstream.
The album was wonderfully received by those who understood it, as the reviewer from Allmusic did. It was a punk album because it was so unlike what anyone assumed a punk album should be. And it is genius.
So yeah, damn you Epitaph records for playing on my hopes for a desire to shift a remastered album.
I'll be honest with you ladies n gentlefolk, I am knackered both physically and mentally so I will leave you for now.
Until another day friends.
Considering the tribal beats of Donae'o are still kicking around inside my brain, here's a great track in that style from Major Lazer and his work of art 'Guns Don't Kill People...Lazer's Do'.
Here's the Jamaican styled 'Anything Goes (feat. Turbulance)'