Sep
30
2005
6

Finnish Spirit

Nuspirit Helsinki are a collective of DJs, producers and live musicians, based, not surprisingly, in the Finnish capital city. Since the release of their debut album in 2003, they have been fairly quiet on the recording front, but they are the force behind an annual summer music festival in Helsinki. And the musicians (such as the very fine trumpeter Jukka Eskola) and the DJ crew seem to pop up in clubs all over the world.

The collective’s musical influences range across virtually every kind of black music (jazz/soul/funk) as well as Latin and African musics. What impresses me most about this group is how they mix frankly DJ-oriented production/composition methods with some very intelligent live instrumental arrangements.

Nuspirit Helsinki – Afro-Cuban Sunshine
From Mundial Muzique (Various Artists): Guidance Recordings [Buy]

Nuspirit Helsinki featuring Nicole Willis – Honest
From Nuspirit Helsinki: Guidance Recordings [Buy]

Holy Crap It’s etnobofin’s First Birthday
I’ve just realised that I’ve been doing this for a year now. OK, it didn’t really start out as a music blog, but as etnobofin moved through its 6 month adolescent crisis, this blog’s destiny became clear… here’s to a second year of free parking! Thank you to everyone who continnue to visit and have faith in this little corner of Internetworld. And happy birthday to Benn loxo du taccu, the best blog on African music on the web.

And for all of us who stepped out of the spaceship at a young age to travel the world alone, Nick’s post on exchange students is great. It is all so true. It’s not the places you go, or how much you drink. It is always the people that make the journey memorable.

Nuspirit Helsinki

Written by Richard in: Blog,Europe,jazz,Music | Tags: , , ,
Feb
25
2005
0

Breakin the Beat

Broke n’Beat Radio – respect. Now I’m not always the biggest fan of dance/club music, but there is some stuff I can really get to: for example, the stream of work represented by artists like NuSpirit Helsinki, King Britt, Mark de Clive-Lowe and New Zealand’s own Thisinformation. Broke n’ Beat Radio is one of the best places I’ve found to sample this sort of stuff, an outfit out of Philadelphia that has great DJ sets available online in mp3 and streaming realaudio. Normally there’s a new mp3 every week or so.

They also have a some nice photos and some styley wallpapers… this one particularly grabbed me of course, the cross-colonialism going on here is quite mind-bending.

Tumeke !

For the most part, the stuff served up on Broke’n'Beat is pretty intelligent, and very concious of its roots – whether that’s Sun Ra, Curtis Mayfield or Sugarhill Gang. Nice groovy listening.

Written by Richard in: Music,USA | Tags: , , , , , ,

Powered by WordPress | Aeros Theme | TheBuckmaker.com