Customer Reviews

Peace Love Beats

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As a musician, I often get caught up in making things over-complicated trying to show off my "skillz" in some way. This CD is a vital reality check for me. It's simple, direct, and brilliant -- these beats (...) slam your (...), with no (...) frilly Andreas Vollenweider triphop synth (...) to get in the way. If you like breaks at all, this disc will physically reach out of the speakers, grab your head, and nod it up and down for you. And the catchy basslines will be stuck in your head for weeks.

If you want an antidote to all of the "I guess this is pretty cool electronica, if bleeping is cool" lame fruity (...) passing for "lounge" these days, drop this in and smile. Do you understand?

Trancenden has really raised the bar for breakbeat-based electronic music with this CD. My favorite track is Ma'hamatzav, an extrememly well-produced and bouncy mix of sinister fun. Highly recommended! All tracks are delightful, and the disc is fullof international flavor. Three thumbs up!

Tal is an extremely talented guy and this cd rocks! Phat beats and cool grooves will have you nodding your head in time to the music from the first to the last track, and will make you want to get up and dance! If you can't see Trancenden live, this is the next best thing. Check it out - you won't be disappointed!

This album falls under the 'electronic music' category, but if you are a hip-hop fan such as myself, you will appreciate the deliberate, composed beats and breaks. In addition there are some great melodic bits which make this album stand out from other classic works of this kind. Definitely one you can enjoy in a party setting, but also stands up to the scrutiny of a dedicated listen on headphones. Get in on the ground floor, buy the cd, and be the first to recommend it to your like-minded friends before it blows up.

A great set of tracks featuring the rolling funky big beat sound of Trancenden along with some really good guest artists. Tracks like "Fastbreaks of Champions", "O'Zapft Is", "Free Love" (featuring a tasty Sly and the Family Stone sample), and "Dis Phat" feature solid grooves and rolling beats, with a more laid back sound on tracks like "Ma ha'Matzav" (featuring t spigot) with it's downtempo base, or "Kaeru No Uta Ga" with it's slow creeping beat. "Frequent Frequency" featuring rapper calen "The Midwest Terrorist" bunton is a nice improvement from the usual 2nd string rappers that appear on DJ albums. Trancenden has got the funk.

If you dig the big beat sound and want to hear something new, there just really isn't anything else I can recommend beyond Trancenden. I spun it at a party two weekends ago and people couldn't stop telling me how much they dug the music, it's like Amon Tobin was hijacked by Lester Bowie in south Chicago.

I spent a solid year and a half putting this album together, making sure every break was funky, every beat was groovy. It's hard to think of it in retrospect, because whenever I work on new material, I'm still thinking about it in the context of this album.
People ask me what kind of music I make, and I answer, "fun!" Because I'm not sure you can pigeonhole this stuff, I guess I could could say, "it's this trip hoppy, funky breaky, beat-centric groove music; think of K&D being forced to use nothing but 1990's hip hop b-sides bonus beats with RZA and Prince Paul supervizing the production and Fatboy Slim in charge of programming patches and engineering, while everyone at Ninja Tune takes turns coming into the room, adding something, and walking away, and finally the Warp artists making sure everyone is properly inebriated with the drug of their choice."
So you see, this is Fun music. Music you can blast out loud in your car and not be embarrassed. Music that'll make you smile and nod your head along with the rhythm. Music you can throw in at a party that everyone will dig and give you credit for discovering.
Ok, so being the artist makes me a bit biased, but I swear I do all those thing with this CD. I'm really proud of this music, and I hope you'll dig it too.

Tal M. Klein is the DJ! He's a whole lot more, too--he's a professional breaker of beats, and he's put together a great batch o' beats this time out, as well as found sounds, funky bits, samples and grooves. His earlier work was already pretty darned good, but it was a warmup for this, which is tight, funky, without a beat wasted.

This is in constant rotation at my place now. Those who are have a serious break addiction have got to check this out. There's few albums out that are as rhythmically sophisticated as this.

On one hand a funky beat you can get down to, on the other a melody you can just chill out to. The new album, Peace Love Beats, is definately my fav'.