Forthcoming BlakRoc / Edan LPs

So this is really like a hastily scribbled Post-It note stuck to the fridge door reminding me to buy milk more than a post of any interest / use to my limited, but beloved, readership, so if you wanna skip this and wait for the next post about The Addams Family or The Harlem Globetotters, go right ahead, no hard feelings. A couple of cool looking LPs are being released before the end of the year and if I don't make a note of them somewhere permanent like I'll just forgeddabout 'em, so you'll just have to indulge / ignore me.

The first LP is by BlakRoc, a totally rad sounding collaborative project headed up by the marvellously incongruous pairing of Ohio scuzz-blues duo The Black Keys, & heavy duty hip-hop impresario Damon Dash, co-founder of Jay-Z's Roc-A-Fella empire. Basically the Black Keys are laying down the dirty fuzz RnB breaks, and a mind-bogglingly dope cast of rappers have lined up to spit knowledge all over them; Pharoahe Monch, Q-Tip, Mos Def, Ludacris, and most excitingly for a Wu nut like me, Rza, Raekwon, and - back from the grave! - ODB. I've always thought The Black Keys' sound had the necessary fat-bottomed funkiness, wide-open drum breaks & real deal geetar rawness to make perfect source material for great hip-hop (infact their very first LP had an almost hip-hop instrumental, '240 Years Before Your Time'), and I'm really looking forward to this LP (drops on 'Black Friday' 27/11). The link to the BlakRoc site is here, or you can just check out the video of RZA and the Black Keys in the studio to get a flavour of what it's all about. Can't wait.

The second LP is 'Echo Party', marking the return of DJ/MC/Producer/All Round Cool Kid Edan, aka Edan The Magnificant, the man responsible for what is possibly my very favourite LP of the past decade, 2005's 'Beauty & The Beat', an album that basically sounds like the Ultramagnetic MCs rapping over a badly warped copy of Nuggets, ie: very much my sort of thing. He hasn't put out an LP since, and I've sorta given up waiting, but in the meantime we now have this release, which is being described as a sorta psychedelicised old-skool rap mix tape, back-to-back late 70s hip-hop tracks with loadsa new stuff played by Edan himself thrown in for good measure... apparently including xylophones, moogs and kazoos...and early reports are all positive. Again, can't wait.