Freestyle music, also called Latin freestyle or Latin hip-hop(sic) is a form of electronic dance music that emerged in the New York metropolitan area and Philadelphia, primarily among Hispanic Americans and Italian Americans in the 1980s. It experienced its greatest popularity from the late 1980s until the early 1990s. A common theme of freestyle lyricism originated as heartbreak in an urban environment typified by New York City.
Mercury Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group. It had significant success as an independent operation in the 1940s and 1950s. Smash Records and Fontana Records were sub labels of Mercury. In the United States, it operated through Republic Records; in the United Kingdom, it was distributed by EMI Records.
Matmos is an experimental electronic music duo originally from San Francisco but now residing in Baltimore. M. C. (Martin) Schmidt and Drew Daniel are the core members, but they frequently include other artists on their records and in their performances, including notably J Lesser. Apart from releasing twelve full-length studio albums and numerous collaborative works, Matmos is also well known for their collaboration with Icelandic singer and musician Björk, both on studio recordings and live tours. After being signed to Matador Records for nine years, Matmos signed with Thrill Jockey in 2012. The name Matmos refers to the seething lake of evil slime beneath the city Sogo in the 1968 film Barbarella.
Funky house is a subgenre of house music that uses disco and funk samples, a funk-inspired bass line or a strong soul influence, combined with drum breaks that draw inspiration from 1970s and 1980s funk records. The use of disco strings are also common in the genre, although not always. Funky house uses specific techniques and a specific sound, characterized by bassline, swooshes, swirls and other synthesized sounds which give the music a bouncy tempo with around 128 BPM.
Illegal Art is a sampling record label that was started in 1998. The label gained immediate notoriety from legal threats surrounding Deconstructing Beck, a compilation made exclusively from sampling Beck's music. This was followed by two other theme-based compilations, Extracted Celluloid and Commercial Ad Hoc. All three were co-released with Negativland's Seeland Records label and sponsored by RTMark. After these theme-based compilations, Illegal Art focused on artist releases. One of the most popular artists on the label is Girl Talk, who in 2006 released his third album, Night Ripper, to critical acclaim on the label, earning a Wired magazine Rave Award a year later.
Kurtis el Khaleel, known by the stage name Kurtis Mantronik, is a Jamaican-born hip hop and electronic-music artist, DJ, remixer, and producer. He was the leader, DJ, and keyboardist of the influential 1980s hip hop and electro-funk group Mantronix. He currently lives in South Africa, where he has produced and remixed house and techno music tracks by artists such as India, Junior Senior, Kylie Minogue, Fatboy Slim, The Chemical Brothers, Michael Gray, Victoria Beckham, Liberty X, and Mim. Mantronik was influential in the development of hip hop music: notably, he laid the foundations for Southern hip hop genres such as Miami bass and trap music, and helped popularize the Amen break.
Jason Forrest is an American electronic music producer known for noisy experimental electronica and breakcore incorporating many ideas of mash-up and rock and roll. Largely produced and performed on a single computer, his songs tend to be constructed from digital samples of found sounds and other artists' music. Until 2004 he recorded under the name Donna Summer, an allusion to disco singer Donna Summer.
Critters Buggin is a Seattle, Washington-based instrumental group which performs in a jazz, rock and African-influenced, eclectic style. The band is composed of Matt Chamberlain, Skerik, Brad Houser and Mike Dillon.
Skull Snaps was an enigmatic funk group active between 1963 and 1973. The group is known for their mysterious origins and the anonymity of their members, with the identities of their members being unknown for most of their career and long afterward. Until 1970 they were known as The Diplomats, and released a number of singles with some success. Renamed Skull Snaps, they released an eponymous album on the small GSF label in 1973 before suddenly disappearing.
Double Dee and Steinski is a duo of hip hop producers, composed of Doug "Double Dee" DiFranco and Steven "Steinski" Stein. They achieved notoriety in the early 1980s for a series of underground hip-hop sample-based collages known as the "Lessons".
Nu-disco is a 21st-century dance music genre associated with a renewed interest in the late 1970s US disco, synthesizer-heavy 1980s European dance music styles, and early 1990s electronic dance music. The genre was especially popular in the first half of the 2000s, and experienced another mild resurgence throughout the 2010s.
Transmutation is the first album by Bill Laswell's ever-changing "supergroup" Praxis. The album was released in 1992 and features Buckethead on guitar, Bootsy Collins on bass and vocals, Brain on drums, Bernie Worrell on keyboards and DJ AF Next Man Flip on turntables.
Truth & Soul was a record label and production team based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It was formed in 2004 by Leon Michels and Jeff Silverman with Philippe Lehman. The label was best known for their releases with Lee Fields & The Expressions and other New York retro-soul groups. As a production house and recording studio, Truth & Soul worked with artists like Aloe Blacc and Adele. In 2016, Truth & Soul's catalog was acquired by The Orchard, and was succeeded by Big Crown Records.
Post-disco is a term to describe an aftermath in popular music history circa 1979–1985, imprecisely beginning with an unprecedented backlash against disco music in the United States, leading to civil unrest and a riot in Chicago known as the Disco Demolition Night on July 12, 1979, and indistinctly ending with the mainstream appearance of new wave in 1980. During its dying stage, disco displayed an increasingly electronic character that soon served as a stepping stone to new wave, old-school hip hop, euro disco, and was succeeded by an underground club music called hi-NRG, which was its direct continuation.
Soul Food Taqueria is the third studio album by American multi-instrumentalist and composer Tommy Guerrero. It was released on April 8, 2003, by Mo' Wax Records.
"Send Them/Entropy ", is a double A side EP by Asia Born and DJ Shadow and the Groove Robbers. This was released 1993 from Solesides. Parts of this were later featured on the retrospective album Solesides Greatest Bumps.
Tree Machine Records is an independent record label in Bloomington, Indiana. It was founded in the summer of 2010 by students at Indiana University working to sign new artists and expand Tree Machine's outreach. It follows no specific genre and has connected with artists across the globe. Notable artists include Living Hour, !mindparade, co-manager Eazy, Blimp Rock, Jon Dice, Vows, and Living Body. The first production under the label, was co-signed to Gulcher Records and has since received instant recognition in the underground, indie rock world, helping with the founding and early progression of the label.
Mixpak Records is a Brooklyn-based independent record label, founded in 2009 by record producer Dre Skull. The label operates across a range of genres, from dancehall to underground club music, experimental electronic, rap and leftfield pop. Mixpak has released music by Vybz Kartel, Popcaan, Palmistry, Murlo, and Jubilee, among others.
Deconstructed club, also known as post-club or deconstructed music is an experimental style of electronic dance music characterized by a post-modernist approach and an abrasive or dystopian tone. It stands opposed to the tropes of mainstream club styles, often dispensing with four-on-the-floor beats and stable tempo while mixing eclectic or abrasive sources.
Retro soul, sometimes written as retro-soul, is a post-modern and contemporary popular music genre that emerged years after the golden era of soul music. In style of singing, arrangement and recording techniques, this music attempts to offer new music in the tradition of soul music from the United States from the 1950s to the 1970s. This differs from soul music, Contemporary R&B and neo soul as it is intentionally produced in a vintage recording sound and style years after the original era.
