Been awhile since the last check-in at the ongoing Beat Battles series hosted by stonesthrow.com, the popular message board of its namesake record label.
The latest, number 151, like all previous Beat Battles, involves tossing up a beat-friendly sample and seeing which battler can push it further along.
As always, among the entries you’ll find both rudimentary cut’n’paste, and some inspired executions — and also as always, once you’ve listened to a handful of the mixes (at least 38 files were uploaded to the arena, at drop.io/battle151), you won’t listen to the original the same way again.
This time around, the source material is a tinny bit of rhythmic simplicity, though it has just enough different segments — old-school beats, Casio-quality congas, some vocoded chanting — to allow for numerous mixing outcomes.
The original is available as a download, but not for streaming, at mediafire.com. Among the highlights of the contest are those by bit1 (MP3), who provides a slo-mo version, all laconic hand claps, buzzy atmospherics, and a riff that suits the downtempo approach, and insDrumental (MP3), who judging by the sheer internal-combustion complexity of the outcome may have put more effort into his entry than a good number of his competitors combined.
The winner, chosen demo-cratically by votes on a separate message thread (at stonesthrow.com), was mplssoul, who worked in au courant sped-up vocals and a stuttery beat (MP3).
The direct links and streaming above may not function properly, but either way, be sure to spend some time at the drop.io/battle151 site, where the entries reside. The service continues to up its game, now allowing for Zip downloading of a given folder. Also give a read to the comments that trail each entry, evidence of the supportive community of producers that has built up around the Stones Throw Beat Battle.
And on to battle 152 …
