Tim Healey: Rest in Beats Mini-Mix free download

Fans of Tim Healey will be delighted to click here and grab his new 'Rest in Beats' LP minimix for the princely sum of spending energy clicking a mouse button. If you can't wait to hear his blend of electro, house, future garage, hip hop and more, stream away with Soundcloud below.


  TIM HEALEY LP - REST IN BEATS - PROMO MINI MIX - ALBUM RELEASED 30TH MAY 2011 by Tim Healey  

"A little taster for you from Tim's new LP - Rest In Beats it spans a galaxy of the freshest electronic sonics, with BPMs tastefully varied. Matt King (aka Peep show’s gnarly “Super Hans”) drops in for the album’s spoken word intro, before Tim tours hip-hop, urban and dance-hall beats, an awesome cover of the Beatle’s Dear Prudence and then double delivers with no less than 5 unmissable club cuts.
 

Collaborators on the album include a who’s who of dance-music’s glitterati: Calvertron, Tomcraft, Atomic Drop, Freqhouse, Pete Martin and an arsenal of vocalists from SirReal (Freestylers/Pendulum) to the legendary toaster Top Cat via urban-heros Manners, Loc-E and sassy songstress Pippa Trix."

Tracklisting for Album

1. Intro (Tim Healey featuring Matt King)
2. Live it love it (Tim Healey vs Tomcraft featuring SirReal)
3. Rock it roll it (Tim Healey vs Calvertron feat SirReal & Pippa Trix)
4. Take control (Tim Healey vs Atomic Drop feat SirReal)
5. Tempting to touch (Tim Healey feat Top Cat & Pippa Trix)
6. Dear Prudence (Tim Healey feat Kirsty Sillars)
7. Mars boudoir (Tim Healey feat Manners)
8. Believe him (Tim Healey vs Marc Adamo feat SirReal)
9. Tommy Finn (Tim Healey feat Dean van Jones) (Not in MiniMix)
10. Dance the tears away (Tim Healey vs Pete Martin feat. Pippa Trix)
11. Resistance (Tim Healey vs Freqhouse feat. Loc-E & Pippa Trix)
12. Loving you (Tim Healey vs Tomcraft feat. Pippa Trix)
13. Super surf (Tim Healey)

RELEASED - 30.05.11 WORLDWIDE

Released by: Surfer Rosa Records 

Release/catalogue number: SRRLP001

Stay tuned to the Lo-Quality blog for an upcoming interview with Tim Healey - I'll be taking reader requests for questions, so please leave a comment or email if there's something you're just itching to know. Check out the review of his LP on Lo-Quality Music.

Tim is also playing a warehouse party in London on 2nd July 2011 for Spectrum's Summer Show - more details on Facebook.

New digital release from Texture - Synaesthesia EP

I have to admit to being down on some elements of Scottish hip-hop in the past - sometimes the guttural and clipped Scottish accent distracts rather than flows with the beats - but I felt ashamed after listening to Texture’s ‘Non-Sequitr’, debunking the idea that Scotland and hip-hop as married concepts do not follow. The track kicks off Texture’s new EP ‘Synaesthesia’, available for a donation (or free) on Black Lantern Music, a netlabel offering DRM-free mp3s from independent musicians.

It’s the second part of Texture’s trilogy of EPs, and follows January 2010’s ‘Asphasia’ release which tipped reviewers to declare him a “bookworm emcee” - a title which holds true on the chemical-compound, philosophical quipping ‘Synaesthesia’.

As Texture says: “Synaesthesia is a neurologically-based condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. Synaesthetes may experience smells as colours, or sounds as flavours - they may mistake indie for house music, or rap for dubstep.”

The latter part sounds like a condition which can commonly effect reviewers - after the 30th release of the day beats start morph into other genres and the definitions become so blurred you do start to become hazy about what makes a genre.

Through this haze comes four tracks which have visited Earth in some format or another in previous months; ‘Non-Sequitr’, ‘Silver Age’, ‘Echo Boomers’ and ‘The Dawn View’. If you’re a listener to Vic Galloway’s Radio 1 show, you might have caught ‘Echo Boomers’ when Texture performed it live, and followers of Texture’s previous work may notice that ‘The Dawn View’ is a reincarnation of a track on Texture and Morphamish’s collaborative LP, ‘Future Proof’, released under the Double Helix alias.

But back to the creeping feeling of shame and ‘Non-Sequitr’! The track looks at not so much the ‘plight’ of Scottish hip-hop but of a realistic view that it’s sidelined in some way by the over-hyped US dominance and bling culture - something which very much does not exist in Scotland. He name-checks other Scottish artists who have helped carved the way for Scottish hip-hop, but there is a slightly sombre note to this when considering they have all yet to make breakthroughs on a multi-national scale. Texture’s lyrics make reference to the stark differences in US / Scottish culture; working night-shifts; spitting rhymes in over-crowded basements; being told by people like Kayne to dress in diamonds, “when all we can afford is costume jewellery”; and drinking cheap mind-numbing substances like Buckfast. It’s a slow swagger of hip-hop to a 6/8 beat, decorated by acoustic guitar - composed and produced by Salem Anders and will definitely hold appeal for Scottish hip-hop fans, but will the rest be ready for a rebuke at popular culture hip-hop, bling and all?

Kid Ritalin, co-manager of Glasgow’s Little Rock net-label and artist, joins Texture for ‘Silver Age’, featuring bassy glitch-hop, broken beat and sparks of wonk, and encompasses the ‘bookworm’ title with its digs at TV and ‘cultural’ distractions. The beats help to impose the feeling of urgency in the message, so the track works well in a holistic sense. Long-time Texture collaborator, Morphamish, steps in to do beats and production on this track and the following two.

Previously performed on Radio 1, ‘Echo Boomers (Generation Why)’, is warped electro hip-hop spitting you questions on Generation Y; questioning whether you’re “human or consumer”, just as I try to surreptitiously slide my new android phone under a cushion. The ironies of smoking cigarettes while driving through Bhopal (site of serious chemical disaster); bank balances growing and swelling like tumours; Starbucks authors; romanticised Woodstock; we are all “wikipediphiles”; and living out the carcinogenic inheritance of Baby Boomers - from chemical-laden technologies to surviving on celebrity gossip. This song has the potential to chip away at international boundaries given that it nails issues which stretch into lots of different cultures.

‘Synaesthesia’ closes with the revamped ‘The Dawn View’, taken from ‘Future Proof’, and taking an optimistic view of what I prefer to call ‘the walk of shame’ - that walk home from the club while still bedraggled from the night’s partying on MDMA, just as the milkmen appear. It’s an upbeat fusion of indie and jazzy cumbia tinges with added guitar by Richard Lindsay that would have you dancing home ‘Singing In the Rain’ style rather than the obligatory hood up, eyes down, shuffle quickly routine!

The trilogy will be completed with ‘Parasomnia’ due for release on Black Lantern in January 2011.


If you're stuck for a gift for your nearest and dearest hip-hop-lovin' friends, download the EP here and watch the video (filmed in Edinburgh) for ‘Non-Sequitr’ below:

Vinyl and digital reviews: Tiga and Roland Nights

Title: Sex O'Clock Remixes
Artist: Tiga
Label: Turbo
Release date: 1 Feb 2010

Sounds like: Full throttle, chunky electro

High notes: Lidell's Sex O'Cloak n Dagger remix was always going to be a winner - the almost belching bass and low rumbles suggestive of all the funky bodily fluids that may accompany sex; and Playgroup's (Trevor Jackson) remix decides to wash your head in throbbing electrics, while a predator bassline roams with lust and notes hang in the air like dirty suggestions - it's Sex O'Clock indeed.

Bum Notes: It's not fair to class this as a bum note - but in comparative analysis, Matias Aguayo's remix is missing something amongst the snare and dangerous-edged electro.

Title: Bright Light EP
Artist: Roland Nights
Label: Urban Torque
Release date: 25 Jan 2010

Sounds like: Will strike chords with the Soma camp

High notes: Roland Nights aka Danny Stott is starting to make waves in the UK techno scene, and 'Bright Light' holds all the traditional Soma school of techno nuances, while 'Phonic' works on classic techno swell patterns, imbued with old rave melodies updated for 2010.

Bum Notes: The chintzy strings on 'Bright Light'

More info: This is Roland Nights' first appearance on Urban Torque, after winning of Tom Middleton's 'Hypnotizer' remix competition