Starting back in January with Buraka Som Sistema founding member and label-head Branko’s hectic collaboration with Njena Reddd Foxxx, the series included tasty cuts from Enchufada repeat offenders such as Wildlife! and Slap In The Bass, bass music newcomers Elisa Bee, Captain Steel, Surfing Leons and BIZT, RBMA alumni and electronic pop dreamers :PAPERCUTZ, as well as Buraka themselves and founding member Riot on a rare solo outing.

Ranging from DJ-friendly tropical bass bangers to epic tribal synthscapes, Upper Cuts Vol. 1 also includes the track that kickstarted this year’s hottest new genre Zouk Bass, alongside new-school kuduro joints, weird technoid grime hybrids and all sorts of exclusive futuristic club music. Dare to venture inside our homage to soundsystem culture, where we inspired ourselves in the age-old practice of pressing – or cutting – your own dubplates of exclusive material and inverted that logic to make it fit the Internet age.

‘Upper Cuts Volume 1′ is now available on all major digital stores such as Boomkat, Beatport, Junodownload and iTunes.

The lead single “Superfresh”is the freshest provocation of the Portuguese music scene. The night carrousel, the perfect outfit, the lipgloss in your bag, the crazy beat, an “in your face” lyric and the physical impossibility of remaining indifferent. Bouncing beats, hot stories and exotic melodies in an unlikely mashup between electronic mashup and wild Instagram photos. This is the current moment. The current history. Tonight’s beat. Superfresh is the music of today.

Check the original blog entry by following this link, and even if you can’t read the words at least you can dance to his awesome music selection.

I’m not the first to identify similarities between religious cults and music shows. In fact, these similarities become even more evident inside the clubs: it’s not a coincidence that Faithless’ ‘God Is A DJ’ was such a worldwide hit. We live dance music as a religion, and even though technology has allowed us to decentralize and democratize the way we make music (on a simple laptop from anywhere with the minimum comfort), it’s possible to identify a ceremony in ourselves and all the guests we bring over to the Tooley Street sessions.

Studios do have something special. Sacred or not, there is a certain mysticism at work, more or less, depending on the sensibility of the musicians and sound engineers, so it’s essential to respect the space. However, there’s no need to overdo it and act like we are entering the house of the Lord. Just act like you would if a friend invited you to visit at his mother’s house, for the greater good of the session and the harmony between everyone present.

Kalaf

Dismantle

Yadi

Roses Gabor

Dub Phizix

MC Strategy

]]> http://www.buraka.tv/2013/05/buraka-in-london-friends-in-the-studio/feed/ 0 http://www.buraka.tv/2013/05/buraka-in-london-day-1/ http://www.buraka.tv/2013/05/buraka-in-london-day-1/#comments Thu, 02 May 2013 14:24:33 +0000 admin http://www.buraka.tv/?p=2168 How does one start a new record? In the nighttime or during the day? In a dimly lit room or with the sunlight bursting through the windows? Do we start on empty stomachs or do we avoid eating meat while a group of 12 songs are sent to the mastering studio? Does it make sense to cater to the esoteric side of things by burning incense to ward off bad spirits, all dressed in white to attract positive energies? Or do we open up the closet where we keep our fears and hesitations? All things considered, this is music that we’re talking about and no one creates exclusively for themselves. There’s a whole village – granted, an invisible one – which is present in the room. We feel it breathing, on the the back of our necks, when we choose the right chords for the magical chorus that will make it scream and shout for yet another encore.

Do records only start when one feels inspired or can we beg our muse to be generous and bless this session? We know muses to be whimsical, demanding gifts, sacrifices and mystical rituals, which could involve walking barefoot on the shore under a full moon and so on. Other can be indifferent to such practices and would rather be invoked through a bottle of whisky.

Our first day in the studio was as unremarkable as a call-center operator’s. We landed in London the night before, tired after three days of concerts in Beja, Famalicão and Dubai. The morning after wasn’t very taxing but we were all still in a slow motion mode, which led us to arrive 60 minutes late to the studio. Very unorthodox even for us, Southern Europeans. We powered up the computers and started listening to some drafts that could eventually become songs. In this first phase we call these drafts loops, beats, mambos (Angolan slang for ‘stuff’)… some are good, some are rotten, as Conductor likes to put it. We keep the good ones in a folder to which we gave the very non-poetic name of ‘BSS Red Bull Studio’, and from this first batch we chose two beats to have fun with in the next few hours. This process isn’t really extraordinary: it’s just a mix between the search for the perfect song and the need to keep surprising ourselves as musicians.

Kalaf

Zouk Flute is the name of the track that brings the slow and sexy zouk rhythms to the 21st century clubs. A mischievous and downright hypnotic melody instantly puts you in the mood for dancing in dimly lit rooms, giving the style’s tropical heritage a dangerous modern edge. While the charming synths reel you in, the heavy slow-paced beats and thick sub-bass pressure promise to keep you nailed to the dancefloor, ocasionally breaking the spell to ask the DJ for yet another rewind.

As it happened all those years ago with the fast-paced Angolan rhythms of kuduro, yet another tropical revolution in electronic dance music can be traced back to Buraka Som Sistema’s studio. While the beats radically change this time around, the need to make people dance their troubles away stays the same. Because dancing is always the best remedy, why not do it a bit slower?

To give you some insight on what this Zouk Bass revolution is all about, here’s a short Q&A. Start preparing your new dance moves to the sound of Zouk Flute.

Despite having different origins, Zouk and Kizomba have several similarities that can cause some confusion between the two. How would you explain Zouk to someone who recently discovered the style?

Zouk and Kizomba are both social phenomena. To understand it we have to look deeper inside the African music culture and its role and influence inside those communities. Zouk is the modern soundtrack to their existence. Some people hate it and some people love it, but one thing they can all agree on is that it brings people together, gives them the feeling of home and belonging. Rhythmically it’s very simple: the music can go from a very uptempo pace to a mellow and slow beat. However, some arrangements can be very complex, picking up influence from Calypso, Compas Direct, Soca and American Jazz Brass Big Bands. Nowadays the clubs are playing mostly the downtempo version – Zouk Love. The words usually express love stories, the life style and the cultural idiosyncrasies that take place in the community in an urban context. It’s very sensual and irresistible, especially when you find yourself inside the club with the PA system playing those basslines loud while a gathering of beautiful girls waits for a gentleman to approach them and invite them to the dance floor.

Lisbon has long been exposed to Zouk via the Kizomba clubs. Does it take a full reconfiguration through modern electronic music like kuduro for these musical phenomena to effectively contaminate the mainstream? How did you first develop an interest in Zouk?

We all live in Lisbon, probably the only place beside Paris where you can fully witness this Zouk influence in Europe, in genres such as Kizomba and of course Tarraxinha. Let’s not forget that two of our Buraka members are from Angola and they basically grew up with it. We understand the context and the Angolan clubs are not foreign territory to us. When we exposed Kuduro to a wider audience we didn’t had the intention to make it more mainstream, we were just amazed with the fact that a lot of people were familiar with these sounds but never played them to a different crowd, or didn’t spend time thinking on which elements could be added to the songs in order to sound right when played against the stuff the London producers were making.

The Zouk Bass term tells us that despite being in a constant state of evolution, Buraka’s creative process still consists in fusing Lusophone rhythms with the sounds of the UK underground – bass music. Can we say that the sound may change but Buraka stays the same?

We like challenges and we’re still going around the globe looking for that crazy beat that will make a difference once we play it in a club. There’s not that much science in our creative process, we just like to explore the rhythms we have been exposed to and somehow those rhythms and music genres were not present in the clubs where we usually play. ‘Komba’ is technically our second album and we started exploring the musical kaleidoscope that we find in Lisbon.

This kind of slow rhythms have already been explored in the ‘Komba’ album, namely on the ‘Vem Curtir’ and ‘Burakaton’ tracks, with the Colombian group Bomba Estéreo, where moombahton was introduced into the group’s vocabulary. Do you feel that the global explosion of the genre dictated a shift in the dancefloor’s tastes towards downtempo beats?

Despite having Spanish vocals by Bomba Estéreo, the ‘Burakaton’ track had the same tempo and attitude of the stuff we’re presenting now. Those two tracks were a sort of embryo of what we introduced on our Boiler Room set. We don’t think there’s actually a taste shift, but rather a substantially larger consumption of electronic dance music. Like everything that grows, electronic dance music also gained different perspectives and started branching out in new directions. Because people are better informed that reflects on their tastes, they identify musical currents better and want the DJ to include as many styles as possible in their sets. In the last three years there have been more changes of tempo or BPM than in any other time in music history, which clearly shows the need for musical diversity.

After several years of making very fast kuduro-inspired music, does this shift towards the downtempo zouk beats reflect a radical breach with the past or is this just another style being added to the always-evolving sound of Buraka? Why the sudden jump from 140 to 90 BPM?

In dance music the BPM is a small detail that makes sense in a production point of view, but we don’t think it’s really relevant for the way people perceive and listen to music. For Buraka Som Sistema music has always been a cocktail of emotion, be it fast, slow or any other kind. By slowing down the rhythm we can get to a different and more sensual sound that makes perfect sense for Buraka. It’s the slow stuff that gives the fast stuff its impact and vice-versa. A Yin-Yang type of thing.

]]> http://www.buraka.tv/2013/03/enter-the-zouk-bass-revolution-with-zouk-flute-exclusive-interview/feed/ 0 http://www.buraka.tv/2013/03/buraka-som-sistema-and-enchufada-bring-tropical-vibes-to-casa-da-musica/ http://www.buraka.tv/2013/03/buraka-som-sistema-and-enchufada-bring-tropical-vibes-to-casa-da-musica/#comments Wed, 06 Mar 2013 16:48:15 +0000 admin http://www.buraka.tv/?p=2134 After holding our tongue for the last few weeks, it’s finally time to announce Enchufada‘s takeover of one of the most emblematic venues of Oporto. We’re talking about Casa da Música, a privileged place to interact with new musical languages, which resumes its Optimus Clubbing electronic nights with Enchufada acting as curator, and Buraka Som Sistema, Branko, DJ Marfox, Diamond Bass, Nave Mãe and KKing Kong representing the most tropical side of lusophone dance music, on April 20.

The young Lisbon representative of the moombahton scene KKing Kong kickstarts this Enchufada takeover at 22h00 with his trademark slow and sexy selections, bridging the gap between latin rhythms and contemporary club music. Following the starry-eyed youngster we’ll have Oporto-based DJ Nave Mãe at 23h00, taking listeners on a sonic voyage through the best that the UK underground has to offer.

At 23h30 the headliners Buraka Som Sistema take the main stage in full-band format to revisit the iconic songs of ‘Black Diamond’ and ‘Komba’, which made them one of the biggest Portuguese acts worldwide, but also to give the Oporto crowd a fresh taste of the new tracks that are brewing inside the studio.

Back to the DJ sets, the London-based Lisbon producer Diamond Bass brings over the freshest hybrids of bass-inflected club music and African rhythms, a formula that will also be explored by DJ Marfox‘s mutant kuduro antics, as he take the speakers by storm with the tunes from his new Enchufada EP ‘Subliminar’ at 00h00.

To end this night that will move Oporto a little bit closer to the Equator line we’ll have the always surprising selections of Branko, the Buraka Som Sistema founding member formerly known as J-WOW, who also takes the opportunity to showcase his brand new material which will be released in mixtape format also in April.

So come closer and join Enchufada in this celebration of life that will fill Casa da Música with moving sweaty bodies, in communion with the all-powerful beat, because dancing is always the best remedy.

Besides our new friends at Primary Talent, you can also book Buraka in the US & Americas through Carter Adams at Windish Agency, or in Portugal with Joana Morgado. If you want the guys to bring the Lusophone party to your town, then you know who to call!

]]> http://www.buraka.tv/2013/02/we-are-now-being-represented-by-primary-talent/feed/ 0 http://www.buraka.tv/2013/01/branko-kickstarts-the-enchufada-upper-cuts-series-with-a-njena-reddd-foxxx-collab/ http://www.buraka.tv/2013/01/branko-kickstarts-the-enchufada-upper-cuts-series-with-a-njena-reddd-foxxx-collab/#comments Wed, 16 Jan 2013 17:37:36 +0000 admin http://www.buraka.tv/?p=2024 Enchufada is set to launch their highly anticipated Upper Cuts free download series, and who better to kick it off than the head honcho himself? That’s right, Branko, Buraka founding member and the man with more aliases than Prince, is back in action with a hint of bigger things on the horizon.

After the success of his track ‘Going in Hard’ with Dominique Young Unique, Branko is back with yet another fiery collaboration with frequent Zebra Katz co-conspirer Njena Reddd Foxxx (’Ima Read’). Originally a WNDRBRD production, Branko flipped it into a space age Missy Elliot jam with a bouncy kick drum. ‘(One More) Silly Bitch’ is a perfect example of Branko’s quest to find an unlikely balance between different sonic universes, marrying uptempo club-oriented beats with rap music on a tropical island ceremony. It’s no wonder he fancies himself as a sort of Anthony Bourdain of Ghetto Dance Music, as his globetrotting ways taught him how blend distinct cultures and rhythms into a tasty, fulfilling and highly danceable sonic meal.

This exciting track not only paves the way for the brand new Enchufada free release series (with many exciting bass-heavy surprises to come over the next six months), but also sheds some light on the forthcoming Branko mixtape scheduled to drop this March. Entitled ‘Drums, Slums & Hums’, this mixtape will act as the producer’s mission statement, with several new originals featuring an impressive cast of international collaborators. Branko will make us dance our troubles away, all the while further securing his spot among the Global Ghetto music royalty.

That’s why we’re very proud to announce that Enchufada will be debuting a brand new editorial project called UPPER CUTS. Inspired by the UK soundsystem culture where DJs would press – or ‘cut’ – their own dubplates to be able to play exclusive new material, the guys inverted that logic and applied it to the Internet Age, by scheduling a free, biweekly release from a huge range of challenging artists.

Starting with a brand new tune from Buraka Som Sistema founding member Branko himself, the label will be giving away a new original track every two weeks by a different artist, who could be one of the many Enchufada-affiliated artists or even a new addition to mix things up a little bit, bringing together rising beatmakers and established acts. During the course of six months ten tracks will be released, all of them available for free download, which will then be re-released as a digital compilation and be put up for sale on every major digital music store.

Besides Branko you’ll be able to hear cuts from artists such as 5kinandbone5, Jay Fay, Elisa Bee, PAPERCUTZ, KKing Kong and many other musicians from across the spectrum, as Enchufada keeps broadening its horizons and welcoming new people into our ever-expanding family. However, to listen to all this juicy new music you’ll have to wait until the new Mayan calendar begins and January comes rolling by, but we promise it will all be worth it. And boy, will it be worth it.

Stay tuned.