Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Dorothy - I Confess (1980)

This is a rather curious 7" single that showed up on Throbbing Gristle's Industrial Records in 1980, shortly before the band took a hiatus. The liner notes describe Dorothy as a 19 year old girl with no prior releases, but apparently she was an established 25 year old musician named Max who played in a band called Rema Rema.

The A-side was written with Alex Fergusson, and the B-side was written with the former and Genesis P-Orridge.

All I can say is that this is very different from what I've come to expect from Industrial Records. It's a rather catchy four or five minutes, however.

Download it here.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

B-32 - I Need A Bag Of Dope (1993)






















Before skyrocketing to fame as one half of the Southern rap duo Big Tymerz, Birdman was using the name B-32, short for Baby With The 32 Golds. He had recently started an independent record label with his brother Slim, calling it Cash Money Records. Its first release was an album by Kilo G released in 1992.

In the following year he recorded and released his first album for the label, I Need A Bag Of Dope. It features guest verses by a slew of unknown southern rappers. The sound is typical early 90's bounce, recorded with analogue synths and ancient drum machines. Production is handled by Mannie Fresh, the other half of Big Tymerz, who is still producing occasional tracks for these Cash Money artists to this day. Three tracks are instrumental beat mixes he created for the record. I'm not sure if any other Cash Money albums have had this distinction.

The eight songs here aren't anything special and the release could easily be written off by most, but there are a couple catchy songs here and it's an interesting document concerning how the biggest record label in modern hip-hop got its start.

Download it here.