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Netlabels: Black Lantern Music
03.08.2011
07:11 pm
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Black Lantern Music is a British netlabel that folks in the States probably haven’t heard, but should. Based in Edinburgh, and launched in late 2009, the label deals in hip-hop, electronica, dubstep, breakbeat and jazz. The bastard children of Grant Morrison’s late 90s sigil experiments and early Rawkus, with a healthy love of poetry and politics, It is closely associated with the Weaponizer website (well worth a read when you have a few spare hours). The label mostly centers around the work of artists Texture, Morphamish, Asthmatic Astronaut and Harelquinade, who have a supergroup of sorts called the Chemical Poets, also featuring the producer Gung Who and the MC Tickle. Although they’re not even two years old yet, the catalog has swelled to a very impressive 32 releases. Here’s a selection of what’s on offer:

Texture is Bram Gleiben, the main man behind both Black Lantern and Weaponizer. A talented MC and veteran of the Scottish poetry slam scene (yes, such a thing exists), he addresses the “non-sequitur” of the idea of “Scottish hip-hop” on the track of the same name, which opens the Synaesthesia EP. The production comes from Salem Anders and fellow BL artist Morphamish, and guest vocals come from Little Rock‘s Kid Ritalin.
 

 
That man Morphamish again, this time hitting hard with the 3 track Urge Mode EP. This is heavy dancefloor dubstep, with Morphamish showing off his very impressive production chops that equal of anyone else on the current UK mainstream dubstep scene:
 

 
Church of When The Shit Hits The Fan is a collaboration between the Edinburgh MC Harlequinade, and the producer Asthamatic Astronaut. Taking its cues from industrial and electro, this is still very much hip-hop, with a political and esoteric bent:
 

 
That should be enough to pique your interest - there is lots more where that came from, with releases from Scottish hip-hop veterans Eaters, laidback jazz from Daddy Scrabble, the incredibly named Shit Hop Ninja Terminatorz, and some guy called Metatron.

 

Posted by Niall O'Conghaile
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03.08.2011
07:11 pm
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Netlabels: Jahtari.org
02.14.2011
09:00 pm
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In the first part of this on going series, I explained what a netlabel is, and gave some background on the set up of our own netlabel, Little Rock Records. For the second part I have decided to cover the daddy of them all, the netlabel that inspired me to start up my own, Leipzig’s digital reggae/free download heroes Jahtari.

It was after being shown the Jahtari.org website back in 2006 by my friends in Mungo’s Hi-Fi that the penny dropped - I really could do everything needed to get music out there without the aid of another label.  All I needed was someone who could build me a website where I could host music for people to download. The concept of net labels had been floating around before, but nobody had done it as well as Jahtari, with such a coherent outlook and music policy. They took it to another level.
 
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Mikey Murka “Sensi Addict” JTR NET 08
 

 
As the name would suggest, Jahtari is a combination of old school computing and dub/reggae. In particular, the classic King Jammy/Wayne Smith-style digital reggae sounds of the mid-80s (records like “Sleng Teng” and “Walk Like Granny”), largely made on Casio keyboards, but here compressed even lower into 8-bit jams. The design is classic reggae styles, refracted through an 8-bit prism, and combined with a love of arcade games like Kong. Most importantly for me was the format - “Net 7s”, a free download which comes packaged like a physical 7 inch record, with an A side and a B side (often a dub version), and corresponding inlay sticker art. When I first encountered Jahtari in early 2007, they already had a large catalog of free releases available, releases I plundered greedily. Yes, there is a slight tongue-in-cheek vibe about the label’s presentation - which is not out of place considering that this is reggae made by a bunch of white Germans - but the music is as high quality an hommage to digital-dancehall as you will find anywhere in the world.
 
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Disrupt “Arcade Addict” JTR NET 08
 

 
Jahtari was founded in 2004 by Jan Gleichmar, who records as Disrupt, and who provides the backbone of the Jahtari catalog. Apart from Jan (who has worked with some seriously talented MCs like Mikey Murka, Solo Banton, El Fata and Soom T) the artists’ roster also includes Bo Marley, Dubmood, Roots Ista Posse and the Jahtari Riddim Force. The label doesn’t just deal in free downloads, having expanded into vinyl, tapes and CDs over the years, and now has a 7inch (physical) offshoot label called Maffi. Well, you gotta earn a crust.

There are 20 net 7s and 10 net EPs you can download for free from the website www.jahtari.org, and it all comes highly recommended. If you like the sounds of the Mikey Murka vocal / Disrupt dub tracks in this post, you will like the rest of the catalog, so my advice is just to jump over to their website now and get downloading.

But if you want to hear more music first, there’s more after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Niall O'Conghaile
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02.14.2011
09:00 pm
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