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Makossa & Megablast
Kunuaka
Kunuaka - the debut album by dynamic dub specialists Makossa & Megablast is breaking onto the airwaves like a sonic future shock, and looks set to propel the Austrian duo into the producers elite. Fusing afro-electro vibes with organic grooves this album shows G Stone, their spiritual home, is still looking forward and bringing through the best of the next wave of producers.
Makossa & Megablast have already created a stir with a series of hot remixes and two single releases. Their first single Like a Rocket / Kunuaka was unveiled at last years Winter Music Conference and proved an immediate hit with the likes of such luminaries as Gilles Peterson, Carl Craig, Laurent Garnier and Kenny Larkin. The title track of the album was nominated for Best track 2006 on Gilles coveted Worldwide awards. Their futuristic remake of labelmate Tosca’s Heidi Bruehl track was a sonic highlight from Tosca’s remixes album with a killer riff that made it one of the most floor friendly G Stone releases of recent years.
Marcus Wagner-Lapierre or Makossa as the nightlife residents of Vienna know him is no newcomer to the scene. He is Musical Director for Austria’s influential FM4 radio station and has a long and illustrious DJ career behind and ahead of him as well as hosting an influential saturday night radio show with MC Sugar B, one of the promoters of Vienna’s famous Dub Club and tour MC for Kruder & Dorfmeister. There is a casual interlinking of friendships and influences that gives a common thread to the music coming out of Vienna on G Stone while still allowing individual producers to shine in their own particular way and it’s this that helps define the club sound of Vienna which Makossa & Megablast represent here.
Some of the collaborators on the album can be recognized from other G Stone projects and in particular the Dub Club compilation CD that was compiled by Makossa. It’s the vocal contributions of these guests, from the intro provided by Reggae Sound system stalwart and Tosca collaborator Ras T Weed, to the afro chant of 3gga and taking in contributions from Rockers Hi-Fi’s Farda P, Capitol A, rap superstar Kool Keith, Nigerian born Viennese resident Subrinah and a host of others, which inform the listener of the background and culture of Makossa & Megablast.
The heavy analogue synths, organic bass, dub echoes and tripped out electronic sounds that form a musical core to the album gives us an insight into the soul of the other half of the duo Sascha Weisz the man like Megablast. Initially inspired by dub beats, reggae and hip-hop the aspiring producer developed a passion for acid house, tribal and electro. His career has taken an interesting path with remixes and releases for hot germans label Pulver, Stereo Deluxe, K7 and UK label afro art before finally finding his place on the G-Stone roster.
Seperately they both had something to say but when Makossa & Megablast started to work together it became clear that there was some magic being done in the studio. The unique blend of different styles ranging from Electro, House, Disco, Dub and Afro-Cuban vibes seems to come naturally to the pair. Tracks like their second single release Porque, a typical hybrid fusing organic, dub-influenced tech-funk with a traditional Cuban flavour reflect the blend of cultures that both these men surround and inform themselves with.
As a contrast Galaxy 82 takes us on an instrumental time journey through a spaced out cosmic disco wonderland while The Mating Game featuring LA’s Bittersweet show that the boys can deftly handle a lighter touch blending the sweet vocals with a driving acidic backbeat.
The rhythmic breakbeat of Que Pasa shows that there is plenty of life on the dancefloor for this album. A stuttering rhythm underpins the vocal contributions of Cleydys Villalon while analogue synths drive the track forward.
It’s a dynamic mix that gives the whole album it’s flavour with Vienna seeming to be one of the few places in the world where this cross pollination of styles works so effortlessly well. Like label-mate Stereotyp whose album has been well received by the black music community this is an album that crosses traditional racial and cultural divides and in fact makes those divides seem non-existent fusing house or breakbeat with reggae and Cuban vocals and adding dub rhythms to electro pop without it ever seeming contrived.
Makossa & Megablast – Kunuaka is released on March 12 on G-Stone. The single Porque with b sides Que Pasa and Galaxy 82 is out now.
preview & preorder: www.soulseduction.com/common/item_detail.php?ItemID=170381
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