Hello
It's been nearly 7 months and there haven't been any new issues of Futurepast Zine! There's a reason for that though (not an excuse!). Some of you may know of a project that's been in the works called 'The Light of Day'. You can find more about it towards the bottom of this post. Once that project has been completed, Futurepast Zine issue 7 will be worked on - it's going to be absolutely wicked so keep an eye out for it.
I've been writing bits and pieces about music on scraps of paper and I've got enough now for someone to digest, so here goes. Please listen and read :-) ……..
Marc Mac - Tell Me Now (feat Marvin)
This track features on Marc's album 'It's Right to be Civil'. The album itself is great from start to finish, it's almost like a documentary. My favourite track off the album is 'Tell Me Now'. It begins with the vocal: "I may be black but I am somebody!". Very powerful words. Straight away you can imagine what it must have been like in the USA in those days (even now dare I say ?!?) and what life was like. The tune itself is quite melancholic but full of hope at the same time. The vocal sung by Marvin is beautiful: "I wanna know, what's going on … what's goin on right here in my heart", and the bongo sounds wicked with the melodies. It's a brilliant tune. I'm listening to it while I'm writing this and it's giving me goosebumps. There's really nice things going on musically, melodies are coming in and out, and the vocals and speech work great together. "I may be poor but I am somebody, I am God's child!" If this song does nothing for you, I would question if you are even human! If this is the first time you've heard Marc Mac, please check out his band camp and do some of your own research.
Breakage - Meaning of Things
This track is taken from his album, 'This Too Shall Pass'. The CD album contains two CD's. This track is on the 2nd CD and is not available on the vinyl version. Like the Marc Mac track above, this track is quite melancholic but also full of hope. The drums feel jazzy and hypnotic, I think the bass is like a double bass sound. The music in this song builds slowly and effortlessly. There is a gradual build up and at around 3 minutes 20 seconds, the piano kicks in. Game over, the drug has hit the blood stream, eyes closing, mind melting into a dream. I don't know whether to cry or smile hearing this, but the sound is better than any kind of synthetic bliss. You can be surrounded by bad things but when that ray of hope touches you, it gives you what you need to get through. Yeah, I'm a fan of this tune!
The album is genuinely the work of someone gifted. Breakage must've been young when he made this, but it doesn't sound like that at all. It was released on 'Bassbin Records' which in my opinion was one of the best Jungle/D&B labels out there - all quality and no filler. Often releasing tracks by artists who then released on other well established labels. Anything on Bassbin (especially around this time) is worth it's weight in gold. I also highly recommend the 'Hindsight EP' also by Breakage.
Breakage is a great musician, the music he's made in recent years is good, but the music he made around the time of this album is mindblowingly unreal. It's outstanding and there's a very humble and honest feel about it.
London Philharmonic Orchestra - Super Mario Brothers Theme
This track is taken from the album 'The Greatest Video Game Music'. I came across this track when I was driving back home with my family, it was a long drive and there was the usual fight for controlling the car stereo. Eventually, I got my turn (after much kicking and screaming) and decided to opt for something relaxing so I stuck it on 'Classic FM' (not usually like me to do this, but I'd been listening to some hardcore Bollywood and needed something on the opposite end of the scale, plus I had no CD's with me). I can't remember the guy who presented the show - he was talking about snobbery within Classical music, and what made a piece of music fit that genre. He played this tune, and I was like "Shiiiiiiiiiiiiit, that's Super Mario!" I think it's wicked how they took the music and made a Classical version of it.
Jeff Mills & Montpelier Philharmonic Orchestra - Gamma Player & Amazon
I've loved 'Gamma Player' since I was first introduced to it. It's an outstanding and emotional piece of music. A few years ago, Jeff Mills performed a lot of Techno music with the MPO, and Gamma Player was one of the tracks performed. It's pretty nuts, it's such a great idea to do something like this and Jeff Mills is definitely the right person to take this idea forward. Rave music has always had a relationship with Classical music - straight away I'm thinking of those tunes with the long piano intro's. And a really good example of the use of Classical music is Peshay's 'On The Nile' which uses Claude Debussy's 'Syrinx'.
Music is music!
Anyway, check out Jeff Mills & MPO's version of Underground Resistance's 'Amazon'. The strings are immense and then the 909 kicks, and then the 'Amazon' riff! The video is amazing, you've got to respect the effort involved to put this all together. Long live Amazon and what it represents.
Goosensei Interview
A couple of months ago I went to check out Goosensei compete at Secret Walls, I took my video recorder with me so I could do a short interview with him. Here's what he had to say:
Check his latest music out here:
The Light of Day
This is a project which has been in the works since October 2013. It's taken a long time to put together and it will soon be available - hopefully middle to end of May 2014. Here's a short video:
There is a zine to go along with this, it's currently being printed. If your interested, keep an eye out for it. I will post again on here when it's out. Feel free to add the zine as a friend: www.facebook.com/futurepastzine or follow on Twitter @futurepastzine where you will be able to find out the latest information.
Hope you enjoyed the read and listen,
Futurepast zine
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