THE FADER/Magazine
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THE FADER KICKS OFF THE NEW YEAR WITH ITS MARQUEE ‘NOW’ ISSUE
The FADER Magazine Presents FADER #43 The ‘Now’ Issue—A Look At The Most Relevant Music On Earth RIGHT NOW, Available on Newsstands and iTunes
New York, NY: The FADER magazine, the definitive voice of emerging music, releases it’s 43rd issue, kicking off 2007 with an in-depth look at the most important music on earth RIGHT NOW. ‘The Now Issue’ celebrates two legends-to-be on its covers. Damon Albarn (Blur, Gorillaz) has sold some 20 million albums in his career yet he consistently makes some of the most thought-provoking and envelope-pushing music around, as his new project The Good, The Bad & The Queen proves. Meanwhile, Trinidad’s Machel Montano is the face and sound of soca, easily one of the biggest and fastest growing genres of music currently bubbling—like reggaeton before it, soca is reaching an enormous worldwide audience and Machel Montano is leading the way. Also inside the book is a feature on LA’s incredible electrified soul scene, a profile on Miami’s black-Chinese dancehall powerhouse Black Chiney Soundsystem and Non-Format’s zooted out textual interpretation of Nas’ new #1 album Hip-Hop Is Dead. As always, F43 will also be available via iTunes in its entirety, along with corresponding audio podcasts as a free download at http://www.thefader.com/blog/articles/category/podcasts.
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 If you’ve got an eclectic taste in music like me this is definately something you should pick up.
p.s You know I love me some soca and I know most of you do too, so check out your boy Machel Montano in this issue of “THE FADER”….download the FADER 43 on Itunes it’s HOT!!!
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DOWNLOAD FADER 43 ON iTUNES FEATURING DAMON ALBARN // MACHEL MONTANO - FREE!!!
http://www.thefader.com/podcasts
More after the cut
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Highlights Include:
Damon Albarn
“The point is, I don’t think a lot of people get what I try to do in my tunes, which is to kind of express my sadness, my melancholy about the state of politics. I don’t necessarily point and say ‘that’s wrong.’ But it’s the melancholy I feel about what’s wrong.�
As the frontman of Blur, the secret mastermind behind Gorillaz and the globe-crossing boss of the record label Honest Jon’s Records, The FADER spent a week in England with Damon Albarn and his new band, which features Paul Simonon (the Clash), Tony Allen (Fela Kuti / Africa 70) and Simon Tong (the Verve), along with producer Danger Mouse (Gnarls Barkley). Their record The Good, The Bad & The Queen is a daring masterwork, but, even more importantly, Albarn, more than any other contemporary rock star, has remained relevant by challenging himself, his collaborators and his audience, while also making a revolutionary political statement through music, especially with his program that takes fellow musicians to Africa.
Machel Montano
“I think that when people are in this dark room trying to get a message out, the only way to do it is through this music that sells an emotion. The melodies and chords, sadness…bravery!�
Machel Montano has taken soca from its roots in Trinidad and Tobago’s indigenous calypso and chutney music and made it into a genre-crossing, world conquering global musical force. Montano, the undisputed king of soca, mixes everything from soca’s cousin dancehall reggae to hits by U2 in his obsessive pursuit of bigness as an overall concept: bigger beats, bigger sonics, bigger hooks, bigger ideas. With Montano at its helm, soca is poised to begin its crossover to a mainstream audience in 2007.
Also between the pages:
In the hands of a scene of inspired Californians, Los Angeles Hybrid Soul mixes hip-hop, jazz, funk and Latin music to take soul to uncharted territories; Black Chiney Soundsystem is the love-it-or-hate-it Miami-based dancehall soundsystem that has forever changed the way reggae is played; London-based design geniuses Non-Format use textual artistry to illuminate Nas’s new #1-selling LP Hip Hop