5 Questions with Rags #54 - Flamingosis

in

I like funky music, but I also like chill grooves and sometimes those things aren't the most compatible. But once in awhile there's someone – now, I don't wanna say hero but...someone special who can perfectly fit the niche my ears and soul so desperately need filled. Flamingosis is that someone. Purveyor of the some of the tastiest laid-back funk that this planet has to offer, Flamingosis has become one of the main staples of the listening diet over the past year. His albums are an endless stream of blissed out disco vibes (Bliss-co/blissco?) that keep a feeling but change the sound enough to always keep it interesting and familiar at the same time. Chilling in the afternoon sun? Cuddling up with a lover? Having a dinner party? Smoking a spliff on the deck with your homie? Damaging your skin with a day at the beach? Flamingosis has you covered with a soundtrack for all of this and more. Lucky for me, Flamingosis found the time, in amongst his relentless hustlin', to get down with an incredibly thoughtful and freshly honest round of 5 Questions.

Make sure to keep afloat of all things Flamingosis at www.flamingosis.com. And make sure to grab his glorious new album A Groovy Thing (For free, or however much you think it's worth)!

1. Do you remember the first album you bought with your own money?

I believe the first album that I bought with my own money was Flying Lotus - Cosmogramma on iTunes when I was a Senior in High School. I was just pirating music off of Limewire during that time, but for some reason after I discovered FlyLo his music captivated me in such a way I was just like, “Damn, I gotta pay for this,” because I had never heard anything quite like it during that time. He was one of the OGs who helped introduce me to the beat scene and that type of sound. I'll be honest and say I still pirate music digitally, but since then I've started a vinyl collection. I think buying and collecting vinyl is important. I don't care if it's considered hipster to listen to music on vinyl, at least you're gonna be more likely to listen to an album in it's entirety that way because we are currently in a microwave era where a lot of people are listening to playlists rather than full releases.

2. When is the last time you did something for the first time?

I'm kind of embarrassed to say this, but I purchased a new phone and activated it for the first time last week on my own, rather than having my parents help me with it. For some reason I always had a social anxiety with going to a store and talking to a representative who I don't know, about what type of product I should buy and stuff of that nature. So I usually just had my parents help me with it. But now I'm 26 years old and I gotta grow up when it comes to dealing with that kind of shit. It sounds like a simple thing, but I'm proud that I did it on my own.

Read More

5 Questions with Rags #53 - WBBL

in

“I used to play in bands back where I lived in Dorset in the UK - ska bands, pop cover bands. That's what you gotta do in Dorset to make fun, you gotta make your own fun down there. It's a lovely little countryside area but not a lot going on there at all, nightlife especially. I think there's one club that's only open once a month.” This is where WBBL's music started. WBBL, one of the leaders of the next wave of great bass-masters coming from the UK. Before he was smashing open the ears of clubs and festival crowds around the Europe (And Canada!) the good homie, known in the real world as Joe Gale, was laying a solid foundation for his eventual assault on bass-seekers everywhere. “I went to ACM in Gilford in the UK - Academy of Contemporary Music. It sounds fancier than it is,” laughs Gale. “They're a great school. It's all about the experience you get from going there. I met so many great people there, loads of people trying to do the same thing. People who just want to make their music better, who want to meet and collaborate.” Taking a look at WBBL's output, the collaborative spirit is alive and well, as evidenced by his ever-growing list of tracks with wobbly peers like Slynk, X-Ray Ted, Mr. Switch and Father Funk.

Too many years in the making, a long-established heavyweight of the ever-popular Ghetto Funk label, WBBL made a triumphant Shambhala Music Festival debut on the legendarily funky Fractal Forest last month. A dance floor filled with a couple thousand people was, then and there, turned into a legion of WBBLites. (WBBLers? WBBListas? What's the term we want to collectively coin for the growing mass?) If you want some more in-depth talk of his set, GO HERE, and read the thing I already wrote about it. Earlier today the powerful homie gifted his Shambhala set onto the world, so you don't even have to read what I wrote. You can listen for yourself. Pair up his blistering set with another tasty round of the 5 Questions to get a full helping of wobbly goodness. Here we discuss the Gorillaz, welcoming-ass Canadians and Hendrix's proclivity for plain bagels.

1. What was the first album you bought with your own money?

WBBL: It was the first Gorillaz album on CD. In 2001, or something. It was a good introduction because it was pop but it was dub and reggae and hip-hop and garage. It opened my mind up to a load of different genres. I thought it was such a cool thing to have in the charts that were all bubble-gum pop and you get this dark, awesome album.

2. First time you did something for the last time?

WBBL: Well, this is my first Shambhala. So that's the obvious one. But last year was my first time in Canada, my first time being out of Europe, coming to do international shows. That was a brilliant first time because everyone in Canada is so ridiculously welcoming and nice. That's what Shambhala is about as well. I want to do this first time every time.

Read More

#festivalseason - Atmosphere Gathering 2017 might have been the most joyful festival of the year.

in

The people behind the Atmosphere Gathering have built something truly special and unique in the increasingly large and saturated festival world. In the heart of Vancouver Island, nestled in the midst of the Comox Valley, they've built a festival that is part folk festival, part rave ala Bass Coast or Shambhala, part yoga/health/body festival ala Blessed Coast, an interactive arts festival – the breadth of art contained in the relatively small park is astonishing. And on top of everything, Atmosphere Gathering is all-ages to boot. Maybe more than ever in my life, I thoroughly enjoyed the presence of children, running around oblivious to everything but the immediate need for more fun, more dancing. Their energy was absolutely infectious and helped to power me through an incredible weekend in the soft, grassy embrace of Cumberland's Village Park.

The creative spirit of that youthful energy was on display everywhere you turned in the small, but never crowded (!!!) area. Paintings were on-going works of art, changing each time you passed by. The Elixir Temple was dispensing all variety of remarkably healthy beverages, created with a seemingly-endless array of fruits, veggies and spices. People of all-ages, suited up in a harness to help them climb safely, piled milk crates impossibly high throughout the day. There was a misting station that looked like an octopus! A strong selection of local vendors brought their most colourful and creative wares. And the musical performers all brought their best stuff, delivering some of the finest sets I've seen this summer in by far the most intimate festival environment I've experienced. Each provided highlights that hold up to anything else I've seen this year. These are some of those highlights.

Read More

#festivalseason - 20 years in, Shambhala is as memorable and magical as ever.

in

Every year I step onto the Salmo River Ranch for Shambhala (This was my fifth consecutive year) I'm amazed and inspired. It's not just all the great music – though the amount of high-quality, incredibly creative music is near-baffling – but how Shambhala brings the best out of everyone involved. The organizers seemingly outdo themselves every year with new instalments, a keen eye for talent and various tweaks, small and large, to the well-oiled machine that is Shambhala. The Djs, visual artists, dancers, hoopers, etc, all bring their A-games, bringing out their finest beats, strokes and moves to the funky proceedings. And my fellow attendees – their willingness to let the weirdest parts of themselves shine and bathe in bass makes me smile. Seeing all the little pieces of oddness people have found for themselves, the novelty we all gift to each other as we traverse the four days on the farm, is unlike anything my imagination can come close to. I am astounded every year and this year was no different. Please Shambhala, Shambhalovelies, please don't ever stop astounding me.

EVERYONE HAD TO DEAL WITH THE FIRES. WELL DONE, EVERYONE.

There have been many stories about the Sunday cancellation/evacuation/cancellation of the evacuation. The good homies at Betty & Kora just put out a great breakdown of the timeline and events of the whole thing. There's nothing more to be said on the matter. However, what is becoming more interesting to me is hearing stories from attendees of how different people and camps came together and dealt with the impending chaos in their own ways. My campmates sat down Saturday afternoon for a very well moderated meeting that included a time to share our favourite moments of the first couple of days of Shambhala, in an effort to keep spirits high. This is when we found that two of our Sham-fam had got engaged on Friday night! In the same spot at the Pagoda where two other members of the fam had had their wedding ceremony a couple of years earlier. I'm sure we would have found out soon enough, but to discover this beautiful thing in the midst of what kind of felt like impending doom was a deeply moving moment. One that I'm sure no one who experienced it will forget anytime soon.

THE RIVER OF SMOKE

This is an untouched photo of the river on Thursday, in the midst of what would prove to be the worst bout of wildfire smoke all weekend. It's burned into my head forever now – the relentless partiers continuing unabated in front of what looks like the bloody apocalypse. At this moment it felt like the smoke would never let up, that this is just how life was going to be, gasping for fresh air in between dance moves. Obviously it wasn't like that, crisp air wasn't that far away, but it's a pretty good summation of the most challenging parts of this Shambhala20.

Read More

Jimi Needles - Of synths, sounds and Jungle Strikes.

in

“I recently came to the realization that I've been Djing half of my life,” Jimi Needles – world-class DJ, producer and drummer for knock-out soul band Ephemerals – recalls, talking to me from home, shortly before leaving on a well-deserved holiday. “I had my CD decks first when I was 14. I bought really cheap CD decks and hated it, then got vinyl decks when I was 15 and restarted again. Not many people did that back then. You didn't touch Cds like that. It was all vinyl and then suddenly it was all Cds and I did the opposite. I've been djing full-time about half of my djing life. And only about the last four have been giving a real shit.” Four years is probably about the length of time that Needles has been on the radar of an ever-growing contingent of bassheads here on the Canadian west coast. His Needlewurk mixes are some of the most reliable I've found, able to keep all the members of the crew happy – no matter where they lay on the spectrum of bass music enjoyment. The good homie combines his incredible arsenal of sounds, tempos and feelings, with great taste in music and a penchant for juggling the best parts from an unyielding scope of genres.

It's been a year and half since the last time I've talked to Needles. It's been a fruitful time that has seen him touring relentlessly on his own and as the drummer for Ephemerals, the creation of the Jimi Needles Band and the beginning of the final stretch toward his long-awaited debut album. “I think I've become a worse DJ and a better producer since we last talked. I've sacrificed a bit of the Djing. In the past 18 months I've really collected a bunch of sounds that I will use for all of my tracks. Every producer has their signature thing, like Stickybuds has his signature bass. 'Oh yeah, that's a Stickybuds tune there.' Featurecast has got his signature boom-bap-shuffle-drums. You can't miss those. A. Skillz has own kits and stuff. I've done a lot of tracks that share the same synth,” says Needles. “The whole album is going to speak to that synth. It'll be the “Jimi Needles Sound.” Really moving away from bootleg stuff on the album to more original stuff. It's exciting. I've really learned to create space in tracks. When I was just bootlegging I would just go, “Let's just feature loads of stuff!” Never give it a breather. You kind of learn to add those spaces in.”

Read More