Upgrade your record collection with Fritz Kalkbrenner's top 10
**Please note, this event will now take place in Asateer Tent (next to Nasimi Beach) due to the rain**
German master of deep house music Fritz Kalkbrenner will bring his unique and soulful beat to the blissful setting of Nasimi Beach at Atlantis, The Palm on November 21. Making a stop in the Middle East amid a 2013 world tour of his latest album ‘Sick Travellin’, Fritz has been leaping from bar to club to festival, continuing to shatter the perception that house music is just house music as he goes.
Ahead of his appearance in Dubai. What’s On sought out Kalkbrenner for a bit of inspiration for our own record bag. So here are the top 10 tracks he simply can’t live without.
1. Nina Simone
To Love Somebody
What can you say that hasn’t been said about Nina Simone? One of the greatest singers of the last century. I personally dig the stuff that she did in the late 60’s, the RCA stuff that was more soulful than the blues and jazz from earlier in her career. This is a cover version of the Bee Gees hit and proves that sometimes another interpreter can improve on the original.
2. Show & AG
Hold Mines
These guys are part of the legendary NYC hip-hop crew DITC (Diggin’ In The Crates). Together they were always a team, with Show doing the production and AG providing the raps. This one is real heavy New York stuff running around with heavy bass. Top stuff.
3. The Revenge
Night Flight
Everyone is loving Greame Clark’s stuff right now. Me too. He’s a great producer that works so intimately and carefully with the samples. This one is heavily influenced by a Steve Wonder record as you can hear in the final third of the tune. I can’t recall the name of the original track but I do know it was from the soundtrack to the film The Lady In Red.
4. Wade Nichols Edit of
Mindless Boogie
Wade Nichols I guess is Todd Terje? This one is a heavy edit where Todd, or this mysterious Wade Nichols, works with “I’m Your Boogieman” by KC & The Sunshine Band. It’s a very clever and tricky edit because the last part of the instrumental breakdown was used to create the whole track. This is how an edit should be.
5. Robag Wruhme
Thora Vuk
Robag is a good friend of mine and I’ve always admired his music both as a solo artist and in his days as one half of Wighnomy Brothers. This is the title track from his album on Pampa. I really love it, especially the string work.
6. Tindersticks
Marbles
I discovered Tindersticks in the late 90s. From the first time I heard them I fell in love with their sound. These guys were doing very high orchestral sounds, with rhodes and a lot of strings. All I can say is that I really love this track.
7. InI
What You Say
InI were a super group formed of Grab Lover, Rob O, I Love H.I.M, Marco Polo and DJ Boodakhan. Their album was produced by Pete Rock and for some mysterious reason the album never saw the light of day until just a few years ago, more than a decade after it was made. “What You Say” is the best track from that album and one of the best hip-hop tracks I have ever heard.
8. Baby Huey
Hard Times
To say ‘Baby’ is the joke. From what I know the guy is like 7ft tall and around 300lb. He had an incredibly strong and heavy ‘corn bread’ voice. Unfortunately he died soon after he released his first solo album, which came out on Curtis Mayfield’s ‘Curtom’ label. It featured some cover versions of Mayfield’s material, but his Hard Times version, for me, is better than the original. The album was also heavily sampled by a lot of the hip-hop dudes in the 90s.
9. Bibio
Lovers Carvings (Catz n Dogz re-edit)
Greg & Voit are good friends of mine. They heard the original version and took the guitar hook and created a whole track. Its a pretty unofficial recording so didn’t get an official pressing, but whatever. It’s so highly addictive and I love it very much!
10. Common ft. Vinia Mocjica, Roy Hargrove & Femi Kuti
Time Travelin (A Tribute To Fela)
This is the intro from his 1999 album “Like Water For Chocolate.” For this album he hooked up with the production team the ‘Soulquarions’, consisting of James Poyser, D’Angelo and the great J Dilla. The whole album plays with a certain afrobeat appeal, as this intro does. I fell in love with the into because it was so far away from the ‘classic’ Hip-Hop sound and more in a way of art. I love it!
Nasimi Beach, Atlantis, The Palm, Dubai
Tel: (05) 5200 4321 Taxi: Atlantis The Palm.
November 21, 7pm – 2am
Dhs100