Soulmate Records’ inaugural release, Boltz’ The Wishlist, hits stores next weekend. With a spate of worthy debut solo artist albums in the past month (see also Vents’ Hard To Kill and Damo’s D-Classified Files), you might be having trouble deciding where to spend your hard-earned.

To help you decide we have, for a very limited time, an exclusive download of the track “Spitfire”, as featured in Acclaim Magazine’s quotable column “Sweet Sixteen” this month. The Mules-produced track features a sample you may recognise from last year’s comeback record from a group of Aussie pioneers, but flipped differently and embedded in a thick, funky track that really lets Boltz, aka Bobby Rocketz, get busy with his. Additional production on the album comes from Styalz Fuego, Canada’s Muneshine, Weapon X, Trials of Funkoars and M-Phazes, while Royce Da 5′9″, A-Diction’s Breach, Fergo One and Ken Hell-alter ego Take It Easy Heezy collaborate on the mic.

Stream or download “Spitfire” right here.

Boltz on MySpace
Soulmate on MySpace

Download “Comin’ Home” (mp3)
from “Jewelry Box Sessions”
by Planet Asia
Gold Chain Music

• Buy at iTunes Music Store

More On This Album

Cali Agent and chief-jewellery-rocker Planet Asia is hitting Australia for the first time, with five shows scheduled in four days! With a conveniently timed new album on deck (which, if I’m not mistaken, comes less than a year after his last full length, the Evidence-produced The Medicine), Asia brings his rock solid flow and stage presence to Adelaide, Melbourne (free show!), Sydney, Byron’s sold out Splendour in the Grass festival and Brisbane this week. See above to download a track from the new album Jewelry Box Sessions.

Those dates in full:
1st August @ Electric Light Hotel, Adelaide: $20 (or $12 before 9pm). Featuring DJ Sum 1 on the cut and BVA from Mnemonic Ascent.
2nd August @ The Espy, Melbourne: Free! Support from DJ Flagrant, Illy, M-Phazes and One-Sixth. And it’s free!
3rd August @ Bar Broadway, Sydney: $21 on the door/$15 before. Asia joins the 2nd birthday celebrations for ever-busy local label Nurcha. Last Credit launch their album Breakfast of Champions and Def Wish Cast perform.
4th August @ Splendour in the Grass, Byron Bay: The only international hip hop act at this year’s Splendour (though megastars the Hoods and The Herd rep for the homeland), Planet performs what must be an afternoon set at the sold out winter festival before hot-footing it north for:
4th August @ Step Inn, Brisbane: $22.50 presold. Asia rocks the venue formerly known as the Shamrock. Support from DJ Staen 1, Clinic, Stricknine, Proclaim, Nikk C and Kingskonekted.

The debut album from Adelaide battle rapper Damo, D-Classified Files, hits stores this weekend. Two notable things about this release: it’s entirely produced by Simplex of Terra Firma (who have just
returned from full-band format shows in Melbourne and the Victorian snowfields) and Damo drops virtually every name in Australia (hip-hop related and otherwise) in his rhymes.

The list includes, but is by no means limited to: Ian Thorpe, FiggKidd, TZU, Hunter, Dazastah, Muskrat, the Hoods, Ken Oath, Sereck, Brad Strut, Bob Balans, Matty B, Maya Jupiter, MC Trey, Fubex, Bert Newton’s son, Glen McGrath’s wife, Sally from Home and Away, Big Kev, the Resin Dogs, Kylie Minogue, Ivan Milat, Martin Bryant, Weapon X, Sleek the Elite, John Howard, Scribe, Phrase, The Herd, Shane Warne, Adam Hills and that cab driver that Mark Latham punched. You can probably guess from some of these names that Damo’s references are not always tasteful. One of his less off-colour lines is:

I’m dope as fuck when I’m spewing sick shit
I’m like the Jason Akermanis of the music business
So when I’m on the cover for doing lyrics
Your picture’ll be in the where are they now section next to Quromystix.

He’s got a point there. Where is Quromystix?

Aha! There he is.

The former Fugleman, Reference Pointer and solo artist (This Last Week I’ve.. and Looking for Andrew Bradley) has been off the map for a minute. Last time I was aware of him doing anything, he was on stage in Sydney with Upshot, Sleeping Monk and Sleek the Elite. As it happens, he’s got a track about to hit radio with homeboy Mostyn (aka Mostyn Space Unit, also of Reference Point). Their single “Goodnight Mr Howard” is a optimistic lead up to this year’s federal election. You can check it on their joint MySpace page. It will appear on Mostyn’s upcoming solo album, Heavy Lifting.

Sydney’s 13th Son (of December) is set to release his second full length through Central Station’s newish hip-hop imprint Grindin’ in mid-June. Guests on Our Lives include the Gold Coast’s Trace Elements, Fame (Overproof MC/producer), Sereck of Def Wish Cast/Celsius and sin city young guns Spit Syndicate. No specifics on the production line-up yet, but 13th himself and Fame were the primary producers behind his previous effort, 2006’s The Hero The Trickster, and the presence of Trace Elements suggests there’ll be at least one M-Phazes beat in there.

13th’s other work includes a beautiful 12″ release on Basic Equipment in 2001 and contributions to numerous compilations, including 2002’s landmark Culture of Kings 2 on Obese.

Groundup broke the news and has the tracklist exclusively.

13th Son on MySpace
Grindin’ on MySpace

“All You’ve Got”, the first single from Ashley “Katalyst” Anderson’s forthcoming sophomore solo album looks to be a rather large cut of the posse variety. The slightly vague press release indicates there’s an extended version of the song with verses from seven emcees, four of which – Sleeping Monk, Xela (Good Buhdha), Mr Clean and The Tongue – will appear on stage to perform the track at Dust Tones in Sydney this weekend. Also appearing on the single are RuCL, Hau (Koolism), Nfa and the UK’s Yungun, though it’s not totally clear whose on the album version and who blesses the extended “Sinister Seven” remix.

The 12″ will drop on Invada, the Inertia-distributed label helmed by Katalyst and Portishead’s Geoff Barrow, in May. The album What’s Happening will follow soon after.

Dust Tones, this Saturday 21 April at Sydney Uni’s Manning Bar, will feature sets from Hermitude, Rephrase, Percussion Junction, Mark Walton, Noodles, Noel Boogie and Bentley. Nice!

Be quick (because the world’s number one backpacker congregation point doesn’t seem to have permalinks for their front page news items) and check out Okayplayer giving some props to funny-accented rappers from the UK and Australia. Naturally, Macromantics gets the bulk of the Oz coverage, but Nick Sweepah and Aux One’s EP from 2005 is lauded as “the best foreign Hip-Hop release of recent years” by writer El Keter, who gives honest opinions on Macro’s Moments in Movements and Braintax’s Panorama.

Combined with a review of the Stricknine and Optimen produced Thirstin Howl III and Rack Lo LP on Allhiphop.com and positive write-ups for Bias B and Funkoars at OHHLA-affiliated review site Rapreviews.com, it makes for some relatively high profile international attention on local rap.

More news from the Elefant Traks camp! Sophomore solo records are due from The Herd’s Unkle Ho (May) and Urthboy (mid 07, produced by Count Bounce of TZU and Elgusto of Hermitude). Unkle Ho’s Roads to Roma was criminally overlooked. Don’t sleep this time!

Astronomy Class, fresh off smiling with one Ms Lily Allen on her recent sideshows, hit the road for a national tour with Mr Savona, pimping the much acclaimed Melbourne meets Kingston record on most dates.

SKOOL DAZE TOUR DATES
Saturday April 7 – The Great Escape Festival, Newington Armory
Saturday April 14 – Shoreshocked Festival, St Leonards Park
Thursday May 3 – Ruby’s Belgrave + Combat Wombat
Friday May 4 – East Brunswick Club + Combat Wombat
Friday May 11 – Beach Rd Hotel, Bondi
Saturday May 12 – Groovin the Moo Festival, Maitland
Saturday May 19 – Republic Bar, Hobart
Sunday May 20 – Lewisham Tavern
Thursday May 24 – Pirate Radio @ Yallah Roadhouse
Friday May 25 – The Red Room, Katoomba
Saturday May 26 – The Annandale Hotel, Sydney + Unkle Ho
Friday June 1 – Three Bears, Dunsborough
Saturday June 2 – The Rosemount Hotel, Perth
Sunday June 3 – Mojo’s, Fremantle
Friday June 8 – Great Northern Hotel, Byron Bay
Saturday June 9 – The Columbian Bar, Brisbane
Sunday June 10 – Solbar, Coolum

Download “The Heist” (mp3)
from “Interview With A Madman”
by Mark ‘Chopper’ Read
Rott’n Records

Buy at iTunes Music Store

Buy at eMusic

For a taster, here’s “The Heist”, produced by Nino Brown and featuring Anecdote and Justice dropping verses around Chopper’s spoken word-ish material.

Chopper on MySpace

Meanwhile, Obese Records have scored themselves a nice little feature on the Aussie iTunes store and The Hard Road unsurprisingly remains one of the most consistently popular hip hop tracks on the site. Speaking of which, the Hilltop Hoods are following in the path of Portishead and Metallica by preparing an orchestra-accompanied version of the multi-award winning album, presumably a la their performance of the title track at last year’s ARIA awards, but without the accompanying suspect sound mixing. Will The Hard Road Restrung convert classical purists to Aussie hip-hop, or at least open some minds? Will the Hoods launch the album at the Sydney Opera House? I’m willing to bet they will.

EDIT: The Adelaide launch was announced about the same time I posted the above. The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra will perform with the Hoods on May 12 at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre. Purported to be the trio’s only South Autralian performance for 2007, this doesn’t necessarily rule out a SOH launch in NSW. The latter half of the year will see the Hoods, who have hit high orbit in the Oz indie music stratosphere, attempt to crack overseas markets.

Hilltop Hoods on MySpace

Typical. You wait weeks for a quality local hip hop release and then three (okay, two and two halves) come along all at once. These should be hitting shelves tomorrow:

Distributor: Obese
Bias B – Been There, Done That (Obese): Third album from the Melbourne stalwart has generated a positive pre-release buzz. Long time live favourites like “Namedropper” finally get an official release, and Ciecmate joins Bias for an ode to fishing on “Catch of the Day”.

Distributor: Shogun
Clandestien – Chasms of the Citadel (DoubleBeef): Mortar (who’s currently doing SA and NSW launches for his own solo album), Tomahawk and Graphic’s third album won’t dissapoint fans. Preview tracks indicate development in flow and production without losing any trademark Clandestien grime.
Hell Razah – Renaissance Child (Babygrande): Wu-Tang-affiliate and Sunz of Man member continues the string of better-than-anyone-expected albums from Shaolin second stringers. Word has it that HR is no slouch, but RA’s verse steals the show (a la his guest shot with Jedi Mind Tricks last year). Other guests include DOOM, Kweli and Ras Kass.
JVC Force – Forcefield (Traffic): Another in Traffic’s series of essential re-issues.
Shawn Lov – Waiting for a Ghost (Nuffsaid): Not quite an Australian release, but featuring production from Prowla and some of the most earnest, hungry verses to drop this year, this is underdog hip hop at its best.
Thirstin Howl III & Rack Lo: Lo Down & Dirty (Class A): As with Shawn Lov, here we have a veteran US East Coast act backed by beats from down under. Stricknine and The Optimen provide half the beats for the Polo Rican’s first full album alongside long time homie Rack Lo. Purportedly some of the Skillosopher’s best work in a while.

Time for another look at what’s hit the shelves of your local CD emporium this week. It’s a pretty quiet one.

Distrbutor: EMI
Gang Starr – Mass Appeal, The Best Of (Virgin)
NWA – The Strength of Street Knowledge, The Best Of (Priority)
Best of compilations from two groups whose entire catalogues are virtually essential as it is.

Distributor: Inertia
Jazzy Jeff – Return of the Magnificent EP (Rapster): Vinyl EP featuring tracks from Jeff’s forthcoming album, with verses from CL Smooth, Little Brother and Rhymefest.

Distributor: Shogun
J-Rock – Streetwize: 15th Anniversay Edition (Traffic): Re-issue of the classic DJ Premier/Easy Mo Bee produced rarity.
DJ Green Lantern & Ludacris – The Truth Shall Set You Free (Invasion): Ludacris gets the coveted Green Lantern mixtape treatment.
Sean Price – Jesus Price Supastar (Duck Down): This was on last week’s release list as well, but I’m not going to argue – Sean P brings it with more personality than the rest of underground rap combined.

Distributor: Warner Music Australia
P Diddy ft Christina Aguilera – Tell Me (Atlantic): Okay, it’s a dead week for rap releases. Apparently, this guy used to work with B.I.G.