Funk breaks mash-up all over da place

Ever since your gran started calling everything a 'mash-up', the sub-genre of funky breaks combos has swelled like a goose in a grain store. Driven by the likes of A.Skillz and Featurecast, labels like Bombstrikes and the ever growing Ghetto Funk crew, the number of tunes being cut and shunted on a daily basis has been reaching all-you-can-eat levels of abundancy.

If you don't know what I'm talking about (where have you been since 2004?), making a funky breaks mash-up involves taking a familiar vocal / bassline / riff / chorus / sample, blending it with at least one other familiar vocal / bassline / riff / chorus / sample and pouring it over some funky mid-tempo beats, with plenty of bouncing elastic bass thrown for good measure.






Having almost completely exhausted James Brown samples lately, DJ's searching for something different have been using more and more classic hip hop, reggae, funk and music like wot I grew up with. Breaks has always been good at resampling classic tunes and assimilating different styles of music, so this just seems to be a further blurring of the lines to the point that even the individual productions can no longer be identified in the melting pot.

What does this all mean? Have breaks DJs now given up writing original tunes? Does your nan know more than she's letting on? I have no idea, but it all sounds good and it's damn fun to dance to. Here's a few of the tastiest mixtapes I've been enjoying this month:

  Slynk - 2011 Hour Of Funk by Slynk

  Pimpsoul Promo mix 2011 by Pimpsoul

Peachimpy-Ra - Funky Breaks Mix - Welcome to My DanceFlooRA

L.O. Peachi ere: Introducing my 2nd mix of funky ass breaks. Much more groovy than my last full power one and (if I may say so) a bit bettera DJ-skills-wise. Learnt some new tricks, so hopefully a bit smoother on the transitions. Thanks to C-Ra Morbjit for the pointers and to Josh for introducing me to Feed Me. Basically I used three Feed Me tracks as my starting point for the mix and managed to keep two bangers in for the last few tracks (I had to drop 'Merdez Moi' as it didn't quite fit... pooh|!) - I love Feed Me: Grand Theft Ecstacy and in many ways is exactly my style of hip-wiggling-cheeky-stop-blip-womp kinda-track [favourite recent quote: writing about music is like dancing about architecture]. Hopefully you'll hear what I mean when you hear it as the climax of the mix ;)

Soundcloud wouldn't have it, but you can download it here or listen below:

Welcome To My Dancefloora by Peachira on Mixcloud

Other highlights for me in the mix is being able to finally include the Far Too Loud remix of Lilly Alan's 'Not Fair'. Pleased that I could mix it into Party Pushers from Fort Knox Five too (a family favourite). Also included is the exellently named 'You can't spell slaughter without laughter' - love that drop - just makes me zoom into the future on an epic scale. Also love the opening track 'Open Your Eyes', which I have listened too 5 times in a row a few times, easily! Track listing way belooooow!

Anyway, had a great weekend music geeking with Chris-Ra and got a real bug for progressing further with music geekery on all fronts. Thanks bro, and I have to say it's pretty much because of Musical Mana that my musical interests have been re-ignited. Been really enjoying all the new contributions too. Keep it up all ;) x

Swans are Evil C*nts

Finally something that you may not be quite ready for as it will blow your mind: an up and coming music producer who I think is going to be big in the future (well big in other ways than being remarkably phat). Yes it's our very own DJ Morbjit with an immense short piece that, if you don't understand it, then you don't know music. Listen and weep! ;)

IMPULSIVE sWAN by Peachimpy-Ra

[yes, it is of course a joke and just a first attempt at making a basic track in Ableton...ha ha!]


TRACK LISTING - Welcome to My DanceFloweRa
Track - Artist

Open Your Ras - Alex Metric and Steve Angello (Club Mix)
Not Fair - Lilly Allen (Far Too Loud Electro Radio Edit)
The Party Pushers - Fort Knox Five (featuring Mustafa Akbar)
Killer Profit - Kultur (feat Mark Thomas- Colombo Remix)
You Can't Spell Slaughter Without Laughter - (Original Mix)
Believe in the Funk - Ed Solo and Skool of Thought
No Games - Someone Good (Original Mix)
Welcome To My Dancefloor - Someone Else Good (Wireless Mice Remix)
Blackout - a bit racialistical (Kiwa Remix)
The Spell - Feed Me (Origami Mix)
Just Let It Go - Bored of Tracklisting Now (Cutline remix)
Grand Theft Ecstasy - Feed Me (Original Mix)