2True monthly ft Bookworms and Roche LA 4/28

"Degage" Out Now!

We are proud to present our newest release "Degage" by Roche

here's some words about the release from www.turntablelab.com

"Trying to define what kind of music Roche makes is a little difficult, but you usually land somewhere between proto house and some sort of post weed sleep. Tracks like Ice Job and My House Is A Dark House bring a certain level of repetitive intensity and hypnotic focus. They seem to fit within the spectrum defined by Larry Heard‘s Time and the instrumental to Theo Parrish’s Soul Control. A lo-fi vibe is heavily present throughout Degage and it’s brought to the forefront on SK Rhythm. 808 percussion is built-up around a dubbed out keyboard sample until a female voice subtly whispers some onomatopoeia you’ll never understand. From there it all breaks down into the relaxed hazy atmosphere that defines Degage."

Y∆O opening for Kode 9 in Hong Kong !

This Saturday, our friends over at Kongkrete Bass will be hosting the mighty Kode 9 in Hong Kong and having our very own Yao opening alongside DJ's Wash, Blood Dunza and Elemiz.

Prepare, its gonna be a bassy night!

As a bonus, make sure you check out the mix Kode 9 and Burial made for Mary Anne Hobbs BBC final send off show last week. Its proper!!

Kode 9 * Burial Final Mix for Mary Anne Hobbs

CB Radio featured on Money Studies (TTL) Secret Hangout Vol.2 compilation

CB Radio was recently featured on the Money Studies (TTL) Secret Hangout Vol.2 compilation release alongside the likes of Blu Jemz, Michna, Cosmo Baker, and DJ Ayres. Its a TTL love affair and is avaiable below for free, enjoy!

Secret Hangout Vol. 2

Ice Job

"Ice Job" is the first track on Roche's new EP "Degage" due for release early this fall.

SFWEEKLY DJ Mini-Mix From Bookworms

Exclusive: DJ Mini-Mix From Bookworms

By Patric Fallon, Monday, Jun. 14 2010 @ 2:13PM

​

Nicholas Dawson has been hard at work for over five years on the musical project Bookworms. In that time, Dawson has churned out a couple of EPs and the full-length LP The Hidden Staircase on Solos Records, in addition to remixing local favorites Mi Ami and Lemonade. His style is hard to pin down. Each song is more a less a tribute to the DJ/producer's favorite records, as each plays so differently depending the sampled source material. It's obvious in his beat-heavy work that Dawson is very much into vinyl and the great samplers of our time (J. Dilla, Madlib, and such), so asking him to contribute a mix to our ongoing series felt right. He hooked us up with some old-school classics and unfamiliar tunes that are sure to become new favorites. And don't miss Bookworms this Friday, June 18 when he plays Li Po Lounge with a bevy of our city's most interesting producers. Full track list after the jump...

1. Brian Eno - "No One Receiving"

My uncle Michael gave me this record (and all his records) when he passed away a few years ago, and it still has a sticker with his old address on the back cover. He was a DJ in the Bay Area during his life, and when I play records he gave me it makes me feel like he is still here in a way. My dad gave me a copy of the same record, but I'm not sure where it is. This is my favorite Eno jam by far. With Phil Collins on drums and Rhett Davies on a gong and stick, you can't go wrong. I hate to quote Bono, but ,"we didnt got to art school, we went to Eno."

2. David Van Tieghem - "Number One"

This is a guy I had never really heard of until I went to see my friend Jeff, who works at Green St. Music in North Beach and showed me the David Van Tieghem record These Things Happen. It's a mid-'80s percussive electronic score to a Twyla Tharp piece. Random, I know, but when I took it home and Wikipedia-ed David, I saw that he had played drums with Steve Reich, Laurie Anderson, Brian Eno, Talking Heads, David Byrne, Jerry Harrison, Pink Floyd, Steve Nicks, Nona Hendryx, Peter Gordon and the Love of Life Orchestra, Arthur Russell, Howard Shore, Robert Fripp, Deborah Harry & Chris Stein of Blondie! And he played on some records I already owned and loved, like My Life in The Bush of Ghosts and Speaking in Tongues.

3. Beautiful Swimmers - "Horizon"

This track came out on a compilation by a label from Maryland called Future Times. I think the dudes in Beautiful Swimmers run the label as well. They also put out some stuff by this dude I met in S.F. who goes by Steve Summers (or Rhythm Based Lovers or a bunch of other names). Steve put me up on some cool music stuff when he was living here.

4. Yellow Magic Orchestra - "Mad Pierrot"

This is another record that I got a copy of from both my dad and my uncle. I always looked at Yellow Magic as the Japanese Kraftwerk. The vocals are so vocoded, I'm not sure what this song is about. I can't understand it at all. It just sounds like a robot wailing about, partying and dancing to me, with the chunky arpeggios going behind the vocals and that late-'70s drum machine sputtering away.

5. Steve Wonder - "Race Babbling"

Another one of my uncle Michael's records (thanks Michael), this is the most bugged-out Stevie Wonder joint I have ever heard! For the most part, it features as much vocoder as the Yellow Magic song before it, and the drum machine that gives this track its rhythm sounds even older. The piece is so robotic, but still so full of soul.

6. Sun Ra - "Moonship Journey"

This is from one of the first records my dad gave me when I was still in high school, and it is still my favorite record. I always look at high-priced Sun Ra albums at record stores and pass on them. Then I come home, put this on, and mellow out. Nice.

Li Po June 18th

The Private Lives Vol II – Live Mix

Be sure to check out the Private Lives Vol 2 mixes straight out of Hong Kong from Kid Fresh, Rafik, Enso and Yao.

Space Blue

Space Blue Pt1 by rochesolos

Space Blue Pt 2 by rochesolos

Space Blue (CB Radio Remix) by rochesolos

Roche delivers the latest installment in Solos Records digital release
series. Poised between two of the mighty legacies of Detroit, 'Space
Blue' takes the Dilla touch to an extended, 3 Chairs style house
meditation on rhythm modulation, making Gottsching cumulii shower
synth shards.

Space Blue: the title is a hint, a certain cold outerspace melancholy
which perforates the warmth of a shifting upright bass sample that
underpins the track. Cosmic jazz tones for mental therapy. Or, maybe
it's it's the trace of blue light in a club that catches the trails of
smoky wonderment wafting upwards.

The flipside to this stunning piece is a remix by CB Radio, who strips
away the A-side's gaseous atmospheres for a physical disco-house
flex'n'bump refix that's suitable for riding the back alleys of the
city of the future.

The haze permeates, still we know this much; Space is the Place.

Bookworms gets the Focus treatment

x

Check out the recent Bookworms feature over at HeadsHigh Music, where they give an in depth evolution of this mythical musician we know and love as Bookworms.

And dont sleep on the exclusive podcast Bookworms blessed them with.

African Rhythms

Our first digital single is now available on itunes and tons of other online stores; Bookworms' "African Rhythms"

By the time something drifts to california, it's always undone, pulled apart by the sunlight: The broken rhythmic tic of UK bass musics washed up clues on the shore for Bookworms, whose re-imagining (not remix) of Mi Ami's 'African Rhythms' is what he describes as a 'an open ended question or love letter' to the musics he loves.
Delayed chants that sound lifted or remembered from Bill Gunn's 1972 avant-garde blaxploitation classic Ganja and Hess, which gradually reveal a lover's rock refrain, weave over breaks reminiscent of prime IG Culture and melancholy, foggy synth drifts. Like Gunn's film, 'African Rhythms' shares a delirious fever state that collapses past and present, the street and inner space.
In the mix are traces of garage, broken beat, and funky, but this is not reverent bass nostalgia: 'African Rhythms' pushes past fashion to wire a new set of rhythmic histories and spaces: the track sounds equally tuned to solitary late night rollage and body-dense warehouses.
The A side of this digital single is backed by two remixes: a 4x4 tuff melancholy Theo Parrish-style banger by Yao, and an ambient, abstracted daydream by Fat Transfer, whose disorienting EQ and filter work take the original even further out.

More to come from Bookworms and the rest of the Solos crew.....

Bookworms Live @ Li Po Lounge 07.06.09

Bookworms Live @ Lipo 07/06/09 from Solos Records on Vimeo.

Bookworms Live @ Retox (SF, CA) 05/29/09

Bookworms half hour set from last night @ the Retox lounge in San Francisco. Bookworms having just got back in town from NY shows us his own disco and minimal techno stylings - give thanks and praises for the first 22 seconds before strapping yourself in for the journey.

Bookworms Live @ Retox

nik on first class con air coming back from NY

VIDEO: Bookworms Live @ House of Shields (SF) April 11th, 2009

**Apologies the video has some minor audio glitches.**

Bookworms Live @ House of Shields (April 11th 2009) from Solos Records on Vimeo.

Bookworms Live Set May 1st Music Seen

The first 7 min of Bookworms set at Li Po May 1st
Good stuff
It gets a little louder after the talking

Bookworms On BBC Radio 1 ((once again))

Big ups to Mary Anne Hobbs of BBC Radio 1's Experimental Show!!

"Mary Anne Hobbs has been showing a lot of luv to the west coast during her experimental show on BBC-Radio 1. Last night she made me blush(again) by playing a remix i did of Brookhaven's 'static in the valley'. it is an honor to have my music played by her on that station. Thank you again to Mary Anne Hobbs :-) and Lemonade for alerting her to my music or whatever.thanks yall!..yesss" -Bookworms


Wednesday 18 February

0200
Zinc feat Foreign Beggars - 'Move' from the 'Killa Sound EP' (Bingo Bass)
Flying Lotus - 'Parisian Goldfish' [TAKE Rmx] (Warp)
Pinch - 'Teleport' (Planet Mu)
Legion Of Two - 'And Now We Wait' (Planet Mu)
F - 'Epilogue' [Ramadanman Rerub] (7even)
Samiyam - 'Bricks' (Dubpate)
Floating Points - 'Esthian Three' (Dubplate)
The Scarlet Harlots feat Shiftee Moova - 'Backlash' [Raffertie's Bigger Bass Remix] (Dubplate)
Harry Craze & Silkie - 'French Knickers' (Break The Habit)
Teebs - 'WLTA' (Dubplate)
Joker - 'Psychedelic Runway' (Kapsize)
Exile - 'Your Summer Song' from the LP 'Radio' (Plug Research)
Ras G - 'Speaker Smash!!!!!!!!!!!' (Dubplate)
Beat Pharmacy - 'Nuclear Race' [Komonazmuk & Appleblim mix] (Dubplate)
Martyn - 'Elden St' from the LP 'Great Lengths' (3024)

Ben Klock in the Mix
Ben Klock – ‘Grip’ (Ostgut Ton)
Levon Vincent – ‘Six Figures’ (Novel Sound)
Steffan Linzatti – ‘See’ (Stockholm LTD)
Steve Stoll – ‘Run in it - B1’ (Proper)
Norman Nodge – ‘Rush’ (MDR)
Telefon Tel Aviv – ‘Immolate Yourself’ [Ben Klock Remix] (BPitchcontrol)
Roman Lindau – ‘Simplicity’ (Fachwerk)

0300
Bookworms – ‘Static In The Valley – Brookhaven’ (Dubplate)
Mono/Poly - 'The Beatles' (Dubplate)
Bullion - 'Young Heartache' (One Handed Music)
EPROM - '64 Bytes' [Boreta Remix] (Additech)
Commodo - 'Querky' (Dubplate)
Truth - 'Stolen Children' (Deep Medi)
Computer Jay - 'Maintain' [Mike Slott Rewerk] (Ramp Recordings)
Robert Logan - 'Acurate Spit Boy' (Slowfoot)
The Woods - 'Anatomy Of A Leak' (Plug Research)
Glasser - 'Apply' [Lemonade mix] (Dubplate)
Sh** Mat – ‘White Label Unity’ from the album ‘One Foot In The Rave’ (Planet Mu)

Roche & Bookworms play music in a cave

Roche & Bookworms play music in a cave, this footage was recently found and is probably from the pre historic neanderthal days.

UPDATE: Many may perhaps see the Barack Obama pins (at the video's end) as a reflection of the political leanings of Roche and Bookworms, but these items and their placement in the video are merely a representation of pics of the event and the night's partygoers and in no way reflect the opinions of Roche and Bookworms or Solos Records.

It should be also stated that Yao and Enso do openly support Barack Obama and his presidential run.

Solos crew remixes Lemonade

Lemonade, bay area hometown heroes, who have just relocated to NY are releasing their excellent debut album on True Panther Sounds today actually!! If you order it here, you will receive an exclusive remix CD featuring many incredible reworkings of the hot tracks from the album. Solos crew came out in full force, as Bookworms, Roche and Yao jumped at the opportunity to remix some of their friends great material. Don't sleep!

customs check...

this is on american soil...watch out for a musical shot....

Solos In Stereo II SF Release Party

SOLOS IN STEREO II SAN FRANCISCO RELEASE PARTY LI PO LOUNGE SATURDAY AUG 30TH

High Time was the opening dj. Pure gems.

Bookworms played a live set, it was crazy.

Shane King had the kids dancing, I think that's been said in a few blogs already.

Steve Summers (performing as Malvoeaux) played some really big filters and tweaked knobs, it sounded awesome.

Disco Shawn closed the night like a true hero, enough said.

Thomas Bates provided visuals throughout the evening. It was hi-tech and sci-fi amazingtripness.