The Defamation of Strickland Banks told the story of fictional soul singer Strickland Banks who ends up in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. For his next album, The Ballad Of Belmarsh, Ben Drew will go back to his Hip Hop roots and will chronicle his alter-ego’s ordeal in the eponymous prison.

Plan B is not just a musician and has tried his hand at acting appearing in 2008′s Adulthood and the Michael Caine vehicle featuring Harry Brown in 2009. He is currently amidst a popular tour of the summer festivals including Glastonbury and Wireless Festival in Hyde Park. But in the Autumn he will return to acting when he plays George Carter alongside Ray Winston in a remake of the 1970’s British film, The Sweeney.

He has also directed one short film and a music video for Pieces, his collaboration with Chase and Status.

Hear the music the way the artist with HP. In the video below, HP/Intel with beats audio presents Plan B who reveals the process behind recording She Said, the standout track from his Defamation Of Strickland Banks album.  The film uses 3D sound and is best enjoyed with headphones.

To kick off 2011 Stanley Odd have released their wonderful brand new five track EP Pure AntiHero Material, the first of three such extended plays scheduled for release through the rest of the year.

Rap man Solareye said; “We are really excited about the release of the new EP. Doing three EPs over the year means that every new EP is a way of letting fans know where we’re at and what’s been going on with us since the last one. At the end of the year, the 3 separate EPs will make one complete collection on the musings of Stanley Odd through 2011. It also gives us an excuse to go on tour 3 times this year!”

The lead track, The Oddyssey is an update on personal and global news events over the last year, that has a brilliant accompanying video where front man Solareye plays the part of  a news reader.

It can be a strain to make out the lyrics for anyone south of the border, but it is worth taken the effort, the songs reflect the social observations of the band, blessed with wit and a character all of their own, but the stories they tell are universal and will resonate with everyone.

The added beauty of Veronika Elektronika’s wonderful vocal breaks thrown into the mix on most of these tracks, makes the EP all the more palatable and well worth seeking out.

Stanley Odd – The Oddyssey

The album sat firmly in the hip hop camp but the Beastie Boys had started life in 1981 as a hardcore punk thrash band.  The original line-up included Adam Yauch (MCA) and Michael Diamond (Mike D), along with John Berry and Kate Schellenbach (who later became a member of Luscious Jackson).  They supported the likes of Bad Brains and Dead Kennedys and released a debut EP Pollywog Stew.  But in 1983 John Berry had left to be replaced by Adam Horovitz (Ad-Rock) and they released a second EP, Cooky Puss which saw the band change music direction from thrash punk to an experimental punk hip-hop.

Following License To Ill they released the critically acclaimed second album Paul’s Boutique (1988) though the album wasn’t as commerciallyl successful as their debut and with no hit singles from either this or their third album, Check Your Head (1992) any mention of the Beastie Boys and most people would remember three young arrogant American brats in a video for Fight For Your Right wearing baseball caps with VW signs hanging around their necks.

The Beastie Boys third album, Ill Communication was released in 1994.  Before hearing the album I remember watching an amazing performance at Glastonbury in the pouring rain to a small but dedicated crowd.  The TV performance started with the opening track from the album, Sure Shot. A great groove complete with a flute loop and MCA, Ad-Rock & Mike D taking turns rapping; a great opening track that has all the power of their earlier hip hop complimented by a maturity in both sound and delivery.

But what makes Ill Communication a classic album is its depth and scope of music.  Without a breath-taking gap between tracks, as Sure Shot fades the opening thrash guitar of Tough Guy bursts from the speakers. Beastie Boys not only return to their punk thrash roots but they play it as well as they play hip hop! And less than one minute later we swiftly move onto the third track, B-Boys Makin With The Freak Freak (“Shit, if this is gonna be that kinda party, I’m gonna stick my dick in the mash potato!”) a dub infested jazz grooving hip hop tune with distorted rapping giving the track a garage feel.

Bobo On The Corner is a percussion-heavy funky instrumental. Four tracks into Ill Communication and the listener has been pulled every which way through an audible jungle of sounds including rap, hip hop, jazz, funk and punk hardcore thrash. And the reason it works is that every musical direction I am pulled, the Beastie Boys nail perfectly.  I don’t know of any other album that does this so well.

Root Down offers more funky jazz complete with Hammond organ, and all this is followed by the awesome Sabotage which has the three Beasties playing guitar, bass and drums and merging hard throbbing rock with DJ scratching to deliver what is possibly their most perfect track to this day.

Get It Together is a welcome relief from the heavy vibe of Sabotage and takes us back to square one with another funky beat and the three rapping over a more traditional sounding hip hop track.

While other hip hop artists were busy sampling ‘genre standards’ like James Brown grooves and Led Zeppelin beats the Beastie Boys have always shown the scope of their influences.  Here they use the likes of Jimmy Smith, Kurtis Blow, Lee Scratch Perry, Doug E Fresh and The World Famous Supreme Team.

And there’s more… the instrumental Sabrosa with its lazy funky Latin style, the return of hardcore thrash with Heart Attack Man and another groovy beat and flute loop in a similar vein to Sure Shot, with the wonderful yet short and sweet, Flute Loop.

The album jumps all over the place with so many genres and styles that it’s hard to understand why it works.  But the reason it does is down to the sincerity and perfection of the Beastie Boys; and if not for any other reason, that alone in my opinion is enough to consider Ill Communication as a classic album.  An album that sees the Beastie Boys, in many ways one of the most underrated groups of all time, at the peak of their powers.

Ill Communication has 20 songs that stand alone as great tracks and collectively become a pick-n-mix assortment worthy of any Woolworth’s sweet counter.

And if that’s not enough, Spike Jonz directed one of the best music promo videos ever for the single, Sabotage.

This week sees the release of the latest album from Matisyahu,  Light,his first full length for three years.  Featuring the excellent single One Day, already a wonderful reggae anthem, the album takes the listener on a journey through a variety of musical genres  from reggae to dancehall, ska-inflected new wave, pop rock and acoustic folk.

While One Day is a stand out radio sensitive track, it also fits nicely into this powerful collection of songs. A deep and meaningful songwriter, Matisyahu is also a master of writing catchy melodies and infectious beats selling his heavier messages in lighter very acceptable bite size pieces.

The album content is about as diverse as it is possible to get from ballad to ballsy rock, R&B, pop and everything in between including of course some top reggae and ska-inflected tracks.

R&B star Akon is featured on the bonus remixed version of One Day, the final track on what is a remarkable album of strong songs, intricately produced with a message of peace, hope & understanding in a style that could only be Matisyahu.

Matisyahu – One Day

Dour Festival 2010

Dour Festival in southern Belgium has released its full line-up! This excellent festival for fans of alternative music in whatever genre you can think of has 200 bands over 4 days on 6 stages and music from 12am to 5am.

Recently awarded the prize for the best medium-sized European festival, the line-up this year really reflects its stock as one of the leading European festivals.

Band to particularly look out for include Faith No More’s reformation, De La Soul & Rhythm Roots All Stars, Simian Mobile Disco, Gwar, A-Track, Calvin Harris, The Maccabees, The Futureheads, Dave Clarke, Benga feat. Sgt Pokes, Skream, Archie Bronson Outift, Spoon, The Raveonettes, Devendra Banhart, Paul Kalkbrenner, Atari Teenage Riot Gui Boratto, Dan le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip, Etienne de Crécy (Beats’n’Cubes), Brother Ali feat. Bk 1, Mayer Hawthorne, Third Wold, Mr. Vegas, DevilDriver, Shining, Fucked Up, The Very Best, Dum Dum Girls… the list goes on and on, so have a look here for more info.

Travel to Dour is easy either with Big Green Coach from London, to nearby airports or by Eurostar to Brussels or Lille, and for the price of the ticket (€93 + €17 camping) for 4 days of live music, even with travel it’s a bargain compared to UK festivals.

For those who don’t know the festival, Dour is in the French speaking part of Belgium. It is a very European, broad and open-minded festival that welcomes not only different nationalities, but a broad palette of different musical styles.  It has a capacity of roughly 40,000 people a day so is very humane in its size when spread over the six stages.

Here is the Dour Festival site.

Here is the Dour Festival Facebook group.

Here is the Dour Festival Twitter feed.

Follow me on Twitter.

Inner City Dwellers

London based Inner City Dwellers are a new voice socially-disaffected Britain.  Their music fuses rap, punk & nu-metal with their mix of abrasive, metallic guitar riffs and articulate, ‘estate-culture’ rapping.

With the emphasis for their first EP and album being on their ‘broken Britain’ stance, they are readily able to connect with the younger generation of music consumers; their music is pushing anti-establishment messages in the way that Rage Against The Machine, Discharge & The Sex Pistols have done before them.

Frontman Patrick Williams is perhaps best known in the drum n bass scene as MC Rage.  Having toured internationally for ten years as tour MC Rage for the likes of Goldie and Pendulum, Patrick Williams has most recently been the resident live and DJ MC for Chase & Status.  He cites influences from Gallows, Rage Against The Machine and The Clash to Plan B, Mos Def, Steel Pulse and Lowkey.

Musically, Inner City Dwellers offer up a combination of solid metal riffs, stadium-rock hooks and dreamy soundscapes.  Sam, Chris, Jake and Stephan are all graduates of the Academy of Contemporary Music (ACM) in Guildford and they combine perfectly to create a sound that is tight, solid and full of energy.

Following a hugely successful appearance at Manchester’s In The City festival, the band landed the support slot on Roni Size’s sold-out UK tour.  A trip to Europe to play at the Nokia and T-Mobile-sponsored SPRINGeight festival in Austria alongside The Streets was followed by another to Poland for an appearance at the Boogie Brain festival.  ICD continue to sell out venues like the Underworld (Camden), the Boileroom (Guildford) and the Peel (Kingston) and show clear potential, building upon their fanbase as they grow.

A brand new EP will be released in Spring 2010 and will feature guest appearances from Plan B.  At the same time, the band will shortly be introducing their own club night in London.  Run in conjunction with their management company, “LONDON RIOT” will be a weekly night aimed at students and young people.  As well as giving the band an opportunity to play and ‘rehearse live’, there will be guest DJs and special guest performances.

Inner City Dwellers aim to use this to further increase industry and consumer awareness of their music.  The first night is scheduled for Tuesday 18th May.

Inner City Dwellers deliver a fresh and original style of rap metal that will excite all rock and urban music fans.  The positive and socially-aware lyrical content further heightens the band’s current relevance, charm and appeal.

Inner City Dwellers are certainly one to look out for in 2010

For more information visit www.innercitydwellersuk.com

hadouken! - mic check

Mic Check is the second single to be taken from Hadouken!’s current album For The Masses and is being played just about everywhere right now.

For some reason it only makes Radio 1’s ‘B’ list, but still managed ‘Record of the Week’ on the Fearne Cotton show and was Zane Lowe’s  ‘Hottest Record in the World.’

Elsewhere the video is playlisted on all the favourite channels, such as MTV, NME and Kerrang!

Hadouken!’s headline dates in every major UK town and city have proven once again that they’re one of 2010’s most potent live forces, with an energy and exuberance on stage that has drawn comparisons to the Prodigy and Pendulum. Farther afield, the band debuted in the US in February, and will be returning to play Coachella later in the spring. A European tour kicks off shortly.

‘For The Masses’ was recorded with gilded Dutch electronic producers Noisia and is available on Hadouken!’s own Surface Noise Recordings. In contrast to the art-school show ponies and electro-pop crooners that make up UK music’s current establishment, Hadouken! go in loud, hard, and fast.

‘For The Masses’ captures their raw, visceral sound, and lands somewhere between the Prodigy’s ‘Fat Of The Land’ and Pendulum’s ‘In Silico’.

Check out the new video here and now!

Hadouken! – Mic Check

For more information visit the Hadouken! MySpace page.

plan b aka ben drew

The excellent new single form Plan B, aka as Londoner Ben Drew, will be released on January 11th 2010 and has already featured as Record Of The Week for Radio One’s Zane Lowe and is currently Fearne Cotton’s Record Of The Week on the same radio station.

Coming on the back of the 26 year olds fantastic top ten hit with Chase & Status -End Credits, and his appearance in the acclaimed British thriller Harry Brown, Drew is about to take the music industry by storm.

Stay Too Long is a ferocious collision of retro soul, funk, rock and rap, that surprisingly works on every level, erupting into a massive cacophony of wonderful noise.

Produced by Paul Epworth, the studio genius behind Florence and the Machine, The Big Pink and Friendly Fires the single serves as a spectacular taster of what to expect from Plan B’s monster new album The Defamation of Strickland Banks.

To further add weight to its sheer monstrous potential, Stay Too Long has been put through the mill by bass troublers Pendulum – their first remix in three years – resulting in one of the biggest sounding tracks you’re likely to encounter for some time.

Plan B – Stay Too Long

Check out the incredible Pendulum remix here.

Stay Too Long by Plan B is released on January 11th 2010 on 679/Atlantic Records as a CD, 12″ or digital download.

For more information visit the Plan B MySpace page.

Recorded alongside the album tracks with producers of the moment Noisia at their Groningen studios, the track melds a dark string section worthy of the Wu Tang at their finest to a low slung pure evil bassline and is a call to arms for clubbers, partyers and giggers the length and breadth of the UK.

Hadouken!’s return has already begun with their M.A.D track picking up huge coverage across Youtube, the official video featuring a rampaging Mouse on the town shooting straight to the top of the viewed charts on site and registering near on half a million views to date.

With uber vlogger Shane Dawson taking the track for his Halloween special and adding millions more to that total, Hadouken’s return to prominence, and their position at the forefront of using the web to engage with their fans, continues apace.

Hadouken – Turn The Lights Out

Prior to the release, the band take to the road for an extensive UK tour through November and December. With a well deserved reputation for incendiary shows and a tour list that will see them visit towns and cities across the country, these shows will be an early chance for their devoted fanbase to hear the new tracks and for newcomers to  get a first taste of Hadouken! live.

Haouken! Live dates:

November
Tuesday  17th Stoke, The Sugarmill

Thursday 19th Leicester, The Queens Hall

Friday      20th Poole, Chords

Saturday 21st Reading, Oakford Social Club

Sunday   22nd  Colchester, Arts Centre

Monday   23rd   Wolverhampton, Wulfrun Hall

Wednes    25th  Plymouth, White Rabbit

Thursday 26th Southampton, Joiners Arms

Saturday 28th   Jersey Live

Monday   30th   Milton Keynes, Crawford Arms

December
Tuesday         1st  Northampton, Roadmenders

Wednesday 2nd  Derby, The Royal

Friday           4th Hitchin, Remix

Saturday      5th  Dublin, Tripod

Sunday         6th Lancaster, Library

For more information visit the Hadouken! MySpace page.

When Roots Manuva released his second album “Run Come Save Me” in 2001, featuring the cult hit single “Witness (1 Hope)”, which gained him a Mercury Music Prize nomination, he achieved a taste of the success so elusive to UK rappers.

UK hip-hop has always struggled next to the mainstream American market, but Roots Manuva’s fourth album proves that the lack of limelight has not harmed this British rapper’s health.

“Slime and Reason” stays away from the grime dominated UK rap scene (Dizzee Rascal, Wiley, Sway), preferring instead to incorporate elements of reggae and dub with some spot-hitting bass and ironic wordplay and rhymes.

Best of all, the album is diverse, with songs like “It’s Me Oh Lord” featuring impassioned lyrics, preceded by the much more ironic “Again and Again” or the outright funny “Buff Nuff”.

It may not be exactly a progression from his previous album, but this is refreshing and mature rap for a thirsty and immature scene.