All Home Brew's producers' other releases
I'm thrilled that AK hip-hop crew Home Brew have debuted at number 1 in the New Zealand album charts. This is music I actually give a shit about, and its popularity seems to be completely about the force of personality that shines through in the music (not how much money got thrown at it or whatever else).
Home Brew's MC, Tom Scott, justifiably has a lot of light shone on him. He's fantastic. But I thought I'd try and do the same for the beatmakers, given production's my thing...
Haz' Beats
Haz' Beats is the producer overseeing all things, and he's got a couple of beat tapes on Bandcamp, plus another couple of free ones on his own site. There's also an entire free album by another crew he does the beats for, Team Dynamite. I'm pretty keen on this one, 'Aqua Raps'.
Christoph El Truento
Christoph El Truento produced some of the stand outs on the Home Brew album for me - 'Everybody' (co-produced with Sires, who I don't know... Si Res, see below! Misread that one, sorry...), 'Plastic Magic' and 'Fungi / Absence'. I actually knew about his beats before I listened to Home Brew... I think via this Conch blog post, which still has a working link to his first beat tape. He followed that with anothe beat tape, Home Made Shit, then two more free EPs and some more individual tracks last year, before dropping his first commercial release (12", even!) on Japanese label Wonderful Noise. Here's the preview mix of that EP:
Christoph El Truento - EP01 (WN12021) digest [OUT NOW] by wonderfulnoise
He also did my fave beat on last year's Home Brew connected project @Peace, 'Nobody' and my fave beat on last year's Hollie Smith & Mara TK album, 'Wait For Me'. He's alright I guess.
It's prob fair to say he's the one making most waves outside of hip-hop circles. Album in the works, I think?
Dandruff Dicky
Dandruff Dicky's got a run of 3 tracks on the album - 'Alcoholic', 'Yellow Snot Funk' and 'Datura / White Flowers'. His beats tend to have some soft keys in there and don't hark so much back to the golden era / Primo kind of thing as much as, Haz's or SoulChef's.
He's taken down the track on his Soundcloud that I wanted to link to, but this one's a goody too.
He mentioned recently on Twitter that he's working on an EP. He's also involved in @Peace and in the live duo Side Steps Quintet with...
Si Res
Yeah, Si Res is the other half of Side Steps Quintet. He just has the one co-production credit on this album, the amazing 'Everybody', but he seems to be playing guitar for... well, everybody. I knew him from Harbour City Electric first. Here's one of a bunch of tracks up on his soundcloud.
Ben Jamin
Ben Jamin' did one Home Brew track, 'Last Day'. He has heaps of tracks on his Soundcloud (1500+ followers!) and a wee collaboration EP that you can grab for free. Here's some super-synthy madness from that - his collaborator here, Sable, is also fucking good.
Think I read somewhere he's working on another EP, called Wire, but I can't find where I saw that...
SoulChef
SoulChef I didn't know, beyond seeing his name on the @Peace EP last year, so I had to do some digging tonight. Turns out he may have released the most shit out of any of these guys! There are heaps of albums on his site, including at least one free album of instrumentals and an album put out in December that features Home Brew:
UPDATE: Word from DJ Substance is that SoulChef was Home Brew's OG producer, he did all the beats on the first EP, The Light EP. Check all Home Brew's old stuff if you haven't.
Fire and Ice
Fire & Ice closed the album with 'Space'. In my mind, these guys were the biggest (popularity-wise) before Home Brew went straight to number 1. They're behind a big chunk of David Dallas (hell, all of them?) and PNC tracks. Here's Dallas's 'Take A Picture'.
