The Witzard

DJ Shadow expertly sampled boat-loads of artists including everyone from Metallica to Björk across his 1996 break-out debut, Endtroducing..... On an album full of stand-outs and fan favorites, "Organ Donor" has stood the test of time and gradually become a cult classic over the course of the past 26 years. Shadow painstakingly built the track upon samples of Giorgio Moroder's "Tears" from Son of My Father (1972,) The New Breed Feat. Tim & Bill's "Someone" B-side to "Little Bit A Soul" (1967,) and Samson & Delilah's "There's A DJ In Your Town" (1969.) Instrumentally covering the sample source or original track interpolated has become a thing in recent years, as well, so bands, such as Japanese Jazz Fusion trio NAUTILUS have covered "Tears" in tribute to both DJ Shadow & Giorgio Moroder. Birmingham, UK-based DJ, musician, multi-instrumentalist, and Jalapeno Records signee is the latest to take a cr...

Daptone Records announced yesterday they'll be re-issuing The Poets of Rhythm's 2001 sophomore album, Disceren / Define. It was previously released on Ninja Tune & Quannum Projects and has been extremely sought-after within the two decades since. Daptone's updated version of Discern / Define boasts a deluxe gatefold jacket with re-imagined artwork. It appears to feature a newly-unearthed Bonus Track by way of twelfth track, "Eulogize The Source." Daptone shares: "Celebrating the album's 20th anniversary, Daptone Records is pleased to present the first vinyl re-issue of The Poets of Rhythm's galactic, Funky masterpiece, Discern / Define." Discern / Define by The Poets of Rhythm "As pioneers in the burgeoning Modern Funk scene of the 90's, The Poets of Rhythm created new standards, transcending the parameters lesser groups were defined by. With Discern / Define, The Poets took their brand of Classic Funk to the next level by ble...

Tokyo Jazz trio Nautilus have returned with an exclusive Europe-only limited edition release of their latest 7-inch single, "Tears" B/W "People Make The World Go Round." Yes, you read that right: Toshiyuki Sasaki, Daisuke Takeuchi & Shigeki Umezawa have effectively decided to record and release a mind-bending cover of DJ Shadow 's "Organ Donor" from Entroducing..... (1996) as well as one of the songs in which it samples, "Tears" from Giorgio Moroder 's 1972 album, Son of My Father. Then, on Side B, Nautilus have expertly flipped "People Make The World Go Round" from The Stylistics' self-titled Avco Records debut, also, released during 1972. I, actually, first heard about "Tears" through DJ Oonops , whose label, Agogo Records has previously released Nautilus' two most recent Beastie Boys & A Tribe Called Quest-flipping singles; "Massive thanks to Nautilus from Japan for their brand new 4...

" Deep of 2 Hungry Bros. is often known as the crazy and ExperiMENTAL half of NYC 's Lower East Side production duo. Deep has produced beats for songs that feature artists such as: Tanya Morgan , Breez EvahFlowin', Reef Tha Lost Cauze , Homeboy Sandman, Fresh Daily , Cella Dwellas, Substantial , and many more. Deep often DJ's parties now, as well as radio show, Living Envious Styles , on Sunday afternoons from 2-4:00pm on 8BallRadio . He has released three instrumental albums on HiPNOTT Records : What You Leave Behind , Bushwick Beatfeed, and Family Recipe . He also expanded his beat tape empire into The West with 77 Rise Recordings' label dropping three sold out beat tapes, Depth Perception Vol. 1-2 . Volume 3 is set to drop this November. All of his albums can be found on all digital retailers and streaming services, as well as on Bandcamp ." Depth Perception Vol. 3 by Deep of 2 Hungry Bros I. DJ Shadow - Entroducing..... (1996) "So, I wr...

"Hi people, my name is Cryptic One, a producer from Brooklyn, NY and I have been making beats since 1989. Yes, you read that correctly, I am THAT old. With that said, when asked to write about a few albums that had an influence on my production, I was initially overwhelmed with a seemingly infinite number of important works to mention. After long deliberation, I narrowed it down to these five; keep in mind that on any given day, I could easily pick five different picks that were just as important to me. So, with no further ado, here is my Beat-maker Bedrock:" I AM by IT I. Jungle Brothers - Straight Out The Jungle (1988) "This was the record that helped me understand how sample-based beats were made. The whole album was great and a big influence on me, but specifically, there is one song from the album that really set things off for me: "[Because] I Got It Like That." But first, a little background/history: In the 80's, Hip-Hop wasn't th...

INSTRUMENTALS.3 by AVER " INSTRUMENTALS.3 is a collection of ideas I was experimenting with in 2016 that don't quite fit into a bigger instrumental project I am currently working on (you could say they are the off-cuts, I guess!) I put it up as a FREE download , so people can see progress in the beats I'm working on, but really just so they aren't [sitting] around on my hard drive. My girlfriend told me I should stop being a perfectionist pr*ck and release them, so I did. It's her fault," THE NATURAL CURRICULUM (TNC) rapper-producer AVER replied within a Twitter DM, when I asked for a bit of background information concerning his latest project. "All Musical & Visual Excretions by AVER ; Except cuts on Track #3 by El Statiko ; This sh*t is not really mixed or mastered, soz," reads INSTRUMENTALS.3 's rather fitting Bandcamp description. THE NATURAL CURRICULUM consists of AVER , emcee Bill Sykes , rapper-producer Chalk , DJ-producer Oma...

"Thank God I can finally say publicly HERE'S A ZACK DE LA ROCHA SONG I PRODUCED... and shout out to my friends @nickhook and [Matt Sweeney] . They are both playing on the jam, as well... the [Zack de la Rocha] the album is happening. 2017... and that's all the info I'm authorized to give out... and yes, this is new material made this year and yes, there is more where that came from," @therealelp revealed on Twitter early Thursday morning, concerning one-time(?) Rage Against The Machine frontman Zack de la Rocha 's first solo single in over a decade. "Been keeping my mouth shut about my work with Zack since January when we did it. It hurt. Now, I'll commence keeping my mouth shut about the rest," an exuberant El-P gushingly continued. Aside from his short-lived 2008-11 group formed with The Mars Volta drummer Jon Theodore and The Locust keyboardist and organ player Joey Karam , which produced a single 5-track One Day As a Lion EP , d...

"The Audience's Following is a 10-year anniversary fan club edition version of The Audience's Listening. I like to call this the bizzaro version follow-up to [The Audience's Listening], as it features songs that never made the cut and demo versions of songs that did. There are also B-sides from vinyl singles, plus a special mix of the original song sampled for "What's The Altitude" by Curtis Knight[-Zeus] . Have fun listening to the album that was almost released 10 years ago. It's the follow-up and the audience is still following and listening and... whatever else," world-renowned DJ Lucas "Cut Chemist" Macfadden wrote within a short 7/11 Bandcamp description attached to The Audience's Following. Now, I don't mean to get all fanboy here, but I've been actively wishing and working on scoring an interview with Cut Chemist for about 3-5 years now; I can remember purchasing Jurassic 5, Cut's on-again off-again and recently...

Brainfreeze 45 extraordinaire and Jurassic 5 DJ Cut Chemist was temporarily locked up for unspecified reasons in recent years, but now he's back with a long-awaited new [compilation] album, Funk Off ; partially previewed during "an excellent mix for the Stones Throw Podcast called Cassette Culture using four cassette decks and tracks from a release he was working on called Funk Off ," it's a quasi-collaboration with 1980's French New-Wave groups Vox Populi! & Pacific 231 . Cut Chemist unleashed two non-album singles leading up to Funk Off 's October 29th release, "Outro (Revisited)" and "Work My Mind." The latter is essentially a re-imagining/remix of [Vox Populi!] album track "Alternative Fresh," which features select verses by Jurassic 5 frontman Chali 2na and Hymnal . "Work My Mind" is more or less a self-described "future-primitive analogue thriller," complete with a music video directed ...

Cut Chemist has remained fairly quiet since parting ways with long-time Hip-Hop crew, Jurassic 5 (2006). Currently readying his first solo album in roughly 6 years - Die Cut , Cut Chemist apparently spent some time holed up in a jail cell semi-recently. Somewhat fittingly then, Lucas MacFadden 's premier track back is a frantic-paced, Punk -inspired Hip-Hop DJ jam; For "Outro (Revisited)," Cut Chemist assembled a pretty solid pick-up band featuring members of The Mars Volta and Weapon of Choice , Deantoni Parks and Lonnie Marshall . Veteran underground MC, Blackbird steps in to handle vocal duties... Cut Chemist may still be best known for his legendary 7" record-scratching magnum opus with DJ Shadow : Brainfreeze , which has been heavily bootlegged since it's 1999 limited release. While Die Cut is currently without a concrete release date, "Outro (Revisited)" was issued as a 12" single back on April 10th. The best interpretation ...