“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!
Don’t get it twisted: MySpace is the devil. However, the devil occasionally makes himself useful in the process of promoting his ‘brand’. So it was that Brisbane, the city voted most likely to miss out on sideshow gigs for any festival to come within 182 kilometres of its borders, was granted a free audience with the masters of modern throwback rap, Jurassic 5. True, feedback on their latest album (and first without Cut Chemist) has been lukewarm at best, but there’s never been any doubt that J5 could rock a show properly. All we had to do was line up for two hours along Ann St at 5pm on a Monday afternoon. With rumours that this could be their last tour as a group, we gambled that it would be worth the wait.
Following a warm up set from 2Dogz with assorted freestyles from DNO and Brisbane open mic mainstay Richie D, the LA happy rap crew hit the stage with practiced aplomb. With the Zoo at 500-head capacity, the crowd knew they were privileged to witness such an intimate performance, and J5 seemed genuinely happy to be rocking a club rather than a stadium. Chali 2na, Mark Seven, Soup and Akil laid down their flawless stage routine on what I imagine is a much smaller stage than they’ve been used to in recent years. DJ Numark got his couple of minutes to shine, marred only by a power cut to his handheld sampler. Otherwise, it was back-to-back feel good mic swapping. There were three or four songs I didn’t recognise, only one of which failed to capture the trademark Jurassic vibe. When they departed without performing the lacklustre Dave Matthews Band-guested single, it was obvious what the encore was going to be. However, even ‘Work It Out’ wasn’t all bad in the live context, and when they topped it off with a freestyle session over Pete Rock’s beat for Ghostface’s “Be Easy”, any easy listening indiscretions were forgiven.
J5 is one of the few hip hop crews I can envisage doing a reunion tour ten years down the track. They have finely crafted beats, don’t shy away from real lyricism and can still reach out to a general listening audience. When the 2016 Jurassic 5 reunion tour hits town, chances are all the people who really didn’t give a shit about music when they were 22 will be dragged along by friends with fond reminisces of a gig like this, and end up wondering why they spent the best years of their lives trying to pick up at clubs playing pusillanimous house music.
If you’re in Melbourne on the day after Christmas, you could do much worse than get down to the Espy for this:
The mind-boggling line-up covers the spectrum of local hip hop from media darling Macromantics, to Triple J Unearthed faves Illzilla, to Melbourne stalwart Bias B (who has a new album droppig in the 07) to DJ sets from Dexter (Avalanches), Peril (1200 Techniques) and the grimy, guttery Opulent crew.
Sydney’s Def Wish Cast bring their album launch tour to Queensland this weekend, with members of their Basic Equipment crew in tow. Last night’s Brisbane show was a little sparsely attended, but those who did show brought plenty of love for the b-boy originators. Scott Burns set it off with a short set that seemed largely off the cuff. Beatboxer Rivals stepped up and got busy with Brissy’s own Tom Thumb (aka Tommy Illfigga – album dropping early next year on United Notions) before being joined on stage by MC Immune, who had a tight show and a few songs that definitely deserve a closer listen.
The sound at the Columbian Bar is not brilliant, which is disappointing as the place is becoming the default venue for a lot of Australian hip hop. (The Living Room, across town in Paddington, has a better sound and a classier vibe, but is demand in across genres, so only the bigger events are getting in.) The first half of DWC’s set was marred by feedback that necessitated constant mic-swapping by Die-C and Def Wish, but by the last few songs all kinks were ironed out. DJ Murda 1’s ferocious cuts settled perfectly into the bombastic production and the three MCs maintained their energy throughout. Def Wish’s breakneck speed-spitting on older cuts They Will Not Last and AUST was unlike anything seen on Oz stages these days, Sereck gave us a brief handheld 808 workout, and the closing tracks – Knights of the Underground Table, Allstars and AUS Down – proved definitively that old kings never die.
Video: Def Wish Cast – Knights of the Underground Table – Live at the Columbian
Posted by Writin' Exact 
Posted by Writin' Exact 
Posted by Writin' Exact 
