Posted by Budgie at June 29, 2005 01:44 PM

Turntablist : One who uses the phonograph turntable as a component to make music as well as an instrument to literally play music.

The first music that probably caught my attention as a kid was Hip Hop. It'll always be my first love, but like most love affairs it has it's ups and downs. On one hand it has opened my mind with it's own wild eclecticism and introduced me to so many different genres of music and on the other hand, mostly with current mainstream Hip Hop, it has driven me mad by the sheer laziness and boredom of it all.

This post is not about dull rhymes over dull beats, none of the tracks below feature rappers. This post is about the inventiveness of Hip Hop. This post is about adventures on the wheels of steel. This post is about celebrating the skills of the DJ.

Back in '95 a landmark album was released on Bomb Hip Hop records entitled "Return Of The DJ - Volume 1". It was a landmark because it was the first full length album of strictly Turtablism to be released and it blew the door wide open for the return of the Hip Hop DJ. It featured names and talents that would go on to be some of the scenes leading lights. Mix Master Mike, Cut Chemist, Rob Swift, DJ Babu and The Invisibl Skratch Piklz all made appearances on there.

It was a few years later when San Francisco's Om Records, following the scene, started to put out their "Deep Concentration" series of albums. It was a series that would feature most of the guys mentioned above, introduce some up and coming DJ's and crews (Scratch Perverts, Radar, The X-ecutioners, The Beat Junkies) and resurrect some of the old skool guys like Cash Money and Prince Paul.

The tracks below are from that series of albums.

I could easily have picked out tracks that just showcased some of the crews skills, as some of the albums feature some competition winning performances. But I wanted to pick out some tracks by lesser known DJ's, tracks that had some sort of form and production to them and not just the sound of 3 or so guys just on decks trying to create beats and rhythms and outdo one another.

Track : INGRID DE LAMBRE / EDDIE DEF - "POEISIES, SCENE 1 LE BLUES"

This is rather special. The original version of "Poeisies" appeared out of Paris as an early release on the Yellow Productions label and became a much sought after piece of vinyl. It was purely an instrumental record that sounded like DJ Shadow jamming with St Germain - and it has some rather cool drum and bass remixes on the flip of the 12" too.... Here, this jazzy, fender rhodes driven cut is given the once over by the Bay Area's Eddie Def. Recorded live, his scratching never becomes too intrusive over the laid back backing. But the patterns he freestyles over the top are astounding.

(taken from "Deep Concentration")

Track : SOLE & JC - "WHAT IT IS"

Influenced by that story telling section within the seminal
"Adventures Of Grandmaster Flash On The Wheels Of Steel", Sole & JC doff their caps to the Grandmaster and go off on a mini adventure of their own. Beats and sound effects are scratched, stopped, started, spun backwards. sped up and slowed down over another great and catchy jazzy riff whilst a female compliments it all narrating some sort of take on "Alice In Wonderland".

(taken from "Deeper Concentration")

Track : MING & FS - "THE HUMAN CONDITION"

Ming & FS are a couple of DJ's from NYC who describe their style as "junkyard". Anything goes. This six and a half minute track journeys from jazzy hip hop beats to old skool electro whilst going off on a detour via some heavy drum and bass. Its topped with loads of scratching and spoken samples - seemingly from an alien point of view trying to work out humans.

(taken from "Deep Concentration 3")

Go Visit : The History Of Turntablism

Go Buy : Various Artists - Deep Concentration
Go Buy : Various Artists - Deeper Concentration
Go Buy : Various Artists - Deep Concentration 3

Feel free to leave a comment about these tracks in The Pipe section of the forum

Ta,
Budgie