Exactly one year on from the sunny November weekend that saw One Handed’s boy-genius Paul White and Brooklyn native Pursuit Grooves inaugurate the loft of Gaz A L’Eau with their auspicious brand of low slung abstract hip hop Cloud City cemented its purpose with a birthday celebration that saw four more white hot talents gracing Athens with their indisputable visions.
To define what unites the four individual talents is to define what unites good music in every form; sub division by genre (merely a device to pass the time amongst the fanatical it could be said) can see avant musical descriptors such as dubstep or wonky merged with the hip hop ethos but ultimately the psychedelic glitch soul work outs that these acts fundamentally embrace are simply about celestial visions and an atmospheric funk.
TokiMonsta, the only lady in the pack, has already been acknowledged by two trailblazers of this electronic soul circuit; 2009 has seen her sign to Flying Lotus’s Brainfeeder imprint and gain acceptance into the highly anticipated Red Bull Music Academy 2010 edition – a setting she will be sharing with the only UK guest at the birthday party, Manchester’s illustrious Illum Sphere who has been flooring new comers to his sound with the dubbed out space within his Detroit infused beat downs, drawing comparisons with luminaries from J Dilla to Theo Parrish and garnering huge support from the Fat City crew. Another young man making jaws drop around the beats circuit has to be Mono/Poly who gave Greece a live performance that has been described by converts as both devastating and immaculate, and whose massively influential and aptly named ‘For Progressive Minds’ cut is already exchanging hands for 10 times its original retail price in collectors circles. He was one of Mary Anne Hobbs’ original ‘Wild Angels’ featuring on her West Coast Rocks special and has been a firm Benji B staple for the last couple of years to give those who missed out on his immense talents a clue as to his sound and style. The guest quartet was rounded out with the cult radio prodigy Andrew Meza. Not content with curating a sound and generating an audience quick to grasp the bass heavy methodology of the scene via his BTS radio show, which he started up more than five years ago, he also has plans to launch his own imprint in early 2010 to give a home to some of the producers he has been behind since day one. If you’ve to make it to one of the Cloud City parties never fear – more is set to come in 2010 – with the upfront freshness as ever at the heart of the party!
