Ears Burnin'

Frustratingly, Guns Blazin' is unavailable at the moment due to a slight copyright problem. *folds arms at the Prof* Naughty boy. But don't worry - he's cleaning things up and planning to release a squeaky-clean version, plus more besides.

Brace yourselves. I am now sitting stark naked at my laptop. My clothes, once Savile Row's finest, smoulder on the floor behind me, rent asunder by a force of nature. No, I haven't been at the chilli dip again. You see, I made the mistake of turning the volume up a smidgen when listening to today's recommendation. In Guns Blazin', Professor Kliq has produced an album capable of protecting the planet from rogue asteroids.

If you're a fan of big beat (hitherto believed extinct), hip-hop, trip-hop, electro and all-round catchy electronica, take my advice: this album will make your backbone slip. Professor Kliq is influenced by Bonobo, Coldcut, Amin Tobin, and loves jazz and hip-hop. He's also influenced by the 30 hours a week he works at a gas station and is understandably looking forward to studying Audio Production & Design at Columbia in Chicago. I think he can skip "Pounding Beats 101".

Guns Blazin' sounds rather like a scrumdown between the Chemical Brothers and Propellerheads. It's got beats that cascade over robust bass lines, extensively sampled greats like James Brown (and other people/bands who I won't mention) and spliced movie dialogue. It sounds like Fatboy Slim and Mylo's lovechild. It's loud, funky and fun. It sounds like a record made by an absurdly talented 21-year old bursting with energy. He says, "I'm just a kid in my bedroom."

The Prof understands when to leave a great beat alone, when to drop it, and when to drop it with a slab of stone-cold electro-hop. He also realises that there are few things better in music than adding to a rhythm until it reaches Ground Funk Zero, that place where the listener surrenders and waves his arms in the air like a happy orangutan.

Jamendo, which is otherwise near-perfect, doesn't supply individual mp3 links to wild-eyed loners like myself who want to use their own media player on the world's greatest free music blog that has a surfing catchphrase for a title. [EDIT: Incorrect. I'm an idiot. But now the player's in this post, it's staying.] Instead, I'll have to use Jamendo's rather pretty media player. Here goes nothing.

Good God, it worked. (Not in RSS feed readers, it didn't. *sigh* You'll have to visit CTW, my legion of fans.) To celebrate this small miracle, I'm going to recommend more than just my usual single track (on the understanding that they're all far north of rather good), so try these: Ode to Charles, in which Professor Kliq exploits Charles Manson's rantings and produces an atmospheric, guitar-drenched, thumping head-nodder; The Dirtiest - three and a half minutes of religion, energy, sex and drum breaks; Street Wisdom - a no-nonsense display of hip-hop wizardry with a chemical flavour, and the electro-tinged and rhythmically-adept big beat of Bust This Bust That.

The Prof's latest platter, The Scientific Method, Volume II, (now also available for free from Rec72 netlabel) ties in ambient noise and field recordings with the aforementioned innate funkiness. Its rhythms and mesmerising atmosphere made me drool like a hungry dog, but space prevents me from reviewing it. Maybe later. Anyway, it might be a redundant review; if you like Guns Blazin', you're going to scoop up everything this artist has done with a Kliq of your mouse. Ouch. Sorry.

To summarise: Guns Blazin' prised cash from my gnarled, clenched fingers. Now that, ladies and gentlemen, means it's good. If you feel the same, please think about leaving a suitable donation in Professor Kliq's charity box at Jamendo.

Now, you must excuse me. I've got a splinter.

Professor Kliq on Jamendo

Professor Kliq (homepage/blog)

Professor Kliq on MySpace

Comments

[David McQuillan]

Thanks for this.
Loving the phatness. :-P

[Sylvain]

Hi!

I'm from Jamendo, thank you for you blog post :)

I just want to react to your sentence "Jamendo doesn't supply individual mp3 links". We do offer the download of individual MP3s in high quality (when you hover over the tracklist of an album, there is a download icon).

If you want a permanent link to the MP3 hosted on jamendo, you can check our API on developer.jamendo.com

cheers!

[CTW]

@David I'm glad you're loving it. It redefines "phat", doesn't it? :-)

@Sylvain Thank you for clarifying Jamendo's position on permanent mp3 links. I apologise for misinterpreting your policy. As I understand it, visitors to Catching The Waves can follow the "download" link on your media player and get the album. As for your kind advice to investigate the developer section of Jamendo and find out how to get my site's Yahoo Media Player to follow a Jamendo permanent url...

How can I put this?

I have trouble opening a tin of beans, let alone delving into html. Installing Twitter took years off my life. I'd need a "Jamendo For (Handsome) Dummies" set of instructions in order to do anything - though I'm willing to try. However, I'm very happy to advise any CTW visitors to register with Jamendo and download individual mp3s from your site directly.

Thank you for running such a great site.

CTW

[Mike Gregoire]

Yeah… there's no doubt that Professor Kliq is the truth!

[Lucas Gonze]

Righteous, brother. Thanks for the find.

[Professor Kliq]

Well I feel like a douche for not having actually responded to the post itself. Thank you so much, all of you, for diggin' the sound. Guns Blazin' was actually completed some time in 2006, so to see it getting so much attention within the last six months is absolutely amazing. There's always the new album, Scientific Method Vol. 2, and now onto my next project. There is, as usual, very little time between working on albums, but a lot of time spent on each one. I hope to have this next one done before 2010. At the rate I've been going, who knows where I'll be by then.

Thanks again, all of you. :*)

[Simo]

Wow...thanks for posting this. I'm generally not even a fan of electronic type stuff but this blew me away.

Best of luck to you Prof, looking forward to see what you'll do next.