DJ Center will be in the studio Monday night to preview tracks and talk about his debut album “Everything In Time” that comes out the next day.

Far Side of Town
Arthur Lewis
If We Were - EP, 2008
Rxlngr

on iTunes

I love this song. My friend OP over at Suite903 put me onto Arthur a few months ago and he seemed perfect to have on the radio show. After bullsh&*#%n for a couple months I finally dug up his site, emailed him and he came by last night. At my request he picked songs to play for the rest of the show (after we played his EP) and they were appropriately all over the map (you’ll hear many influences when you hear the song).

We had a great time talking music. This is quote that I love from another interview he did, it encapsulates one of the reasons I’m excited about new music right now in a way that’s more concise than it is in my head:

There’s a certain narrative of success that says you have to compromise in order to reach a big audience. That you have to “sell out” your “art” in order to reach your cookie-cutter goals of fame and fortune. But things have changed a lot in the past few years, to the point where, outside of the major label-360 deal-recoup or die model, it’s almost the opposite. To distinguish yourself from the throngs of people making records in their bedrooms, you have to be unrelentingly yourself.

This is a track that he made available for free on his site.

[To download, right-click (PC) or ctrl-click (mac) on song title above & choose “save linked file as” or similar.]

Put Everything Together
Plus
Funk Mode (Compilation), 2004
Scenario
(not available on iTunes, amazon says “This item has been discontinued by the manufacturer.”)

This is a track I heard Freddie play back in the summer of ‘07 after a somewhat bizarre El Michels Affair show at Rose Live Music in Williamsburg. The band played a really short show and ended super abruptly; it was the kind of thing you really wouldn’t want to follow as a DJ. DJing after a band is bad enough as it is - people have an ingrained “the show is over - time to go” thing with bands, even if the band is part of a larger event with other artists. Freddie played his ass off for the people who stayed and was nice enough to let me take cell phone pictures of some of the stuff he played. This track blew me away. I love this guy’s voice - his really defined diction is reminiscent of Jon Lucien.

I can’t figure out much about this track. It shows up on two other compilations, one by Morcheeba and one possibly by Madlib. The subtitle for this compilation is “Undiscovered funk gems from the far corners of the globe” and the only credits inside say “Courtesy of Pink Elephant (Belgium) From the LP Plus. Catalogue Number PE8777.024-Y.” Anyone know anything about this artist/track?

Click for a larger view of the tray card.

[To download, right-click (PC) or ctrl-click (mac) on song title above & choose “save linked file as” or similar.]

The Highline Ballroom is hosting two free screenings ($10/person food/drink minimum) of The Bill Withers documentary Still Bill on Monday (MLK Day). This movie needs your support!

The Main Ingredient / Show #34 / 01.05.10 / eastvillageradio.com / Best Of 2009 Edition
El Michels Affair - Uzi (Pinky Ring) (Truth and Soul)
HomeMade - Feel Like (Bacardi Vista)
Joy Jones - Supernova (Future Soul)
Hudson Mohawke - Rising 5 (Warp)
Mayer Hawthorne - Maybe So, Maybe No (Stones Throw)
Little Dragon - Feather (Peace Frog)
Shafiq Husayn - Cheeba featuring Bilal (Plug Research)
Diamond District - Streets Won’t Let Me Chill (Oddisee Music)
AFTA-1 - Love Suite 2 (Sit Still)
Raekwon - Ason Jones (Ice H2O/EMI Records)
Lee Fields & The Expressions - Ladies (Truth and Soul)
Pure P - Body Heat (G.A.M.M)
Mos Def - Casa Bey (Downtown Music)
Floatingpoints - Love Me Like This (FTPS Remix)
Dam Funk - Burn Straight Thru U (Stones Throw Records)
Zero 7 - Medicine Man Featuring Eska (Atlantic)
Dirty Projectors - Stillness is the Move (Domino)
Fat Freddy’s Drop - Big BW (The Drop)
Sa-Ra Creative Partners - Love Czars (Ubiquity)
Eska - Inside Out (Live)
Jay Electronica - Exhibit A (Decon)
Little Dragon - Come Home (Peace Frog)
Black Spade - Untitled Mix II Featuring Coultrain
De La Soul - Forever (Nike)
Joy Jones - Over (Future Soul / Love Jones)

Listen here.

Dawkins & Dawkins - Love pt2 inst.
Edge Of (Aischa & Coultrain)
Daru Jones
Spirit & Soul​-​Hop Sampler 09, 2009
Rusic

Daru Jones is back with another free album’s worth of material, this time with a very streamlined presentation, courtesy of Bandcamp - the site that seems to have become every producer’s favorite, overnight. This ’sampler’ features “songs produced by Daru…and remixes of songs recorded by local and international artists such as Muhsinah, Rena, Kissey Asplund, Eagle Nebula…”

These tracks have his signature heavy percussion vibe.

My favorites so far are:

Kissey Asplund - Rat Race “Up & Down”
Chef of Funkilinium feat. Ray Burton - Chef Love
Aischa feat. Black Spade - I Want U pt2 “Spirit Dilla”
Daru & Reggie B. - So Happy pt2

And the two tracks above. You can download the sampler for free here.

Songs are available for two weeks.