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The Raid
A trip into the vaults of Fort Knox Recordings & Jalapeno Recs.
Various Artists
Label: Jalapeno Records
Release date: 12th September
Catalogue Number: JAL36
Elliot Ireland & Alex Rizzo aka Skeewiff made a home for their big room, funk breaks sound by creating their own imprint Jalapeno Records. The label jumped to the fore with the release of the label won’t touch this ep… a moment where the world took notice and funk-breaks, lounge-hop, call it what you will, was born…
Over in Washington DC, a musical city already home to Deep Dish,Thievery Corporation and the Eighteenth Street Lounge label, a group of guys were fashioning their own take on how to rock the funky beat. With an image that spoke of 70’s chic and 80’s excess Fort Knox Recordings was born – home to America’s hottest underground funk squad The Fort Knox Five.
Since 2003 these guys – Sid Barcelona & Steve Raskin of Thunderball fame, Jon Horvath aka JonH, and Rob Myers, a sitar and guitar player who works regularly with Thievery Corporation and Thunderball, have created a worldwide buzz with only 5 releases on their label and a slew of remixes for the cream of the world funk cognoscenti. Their blend of live instrumentation and slick funk breaks won them a host of fans in the UK & Europe and the FK5 boys are regular DJ’s on the London scene with nights behind the decks sampling the seamy delights of London’s 333 Club or Nice Up! @ 93 Feet east.
With releases like Blowing Up the Barrio, Learning it the hardway and Robbing The Room – FK5 turned heads from Manchester to Milan and from Prestwick to Paris with their productions eventually landing at the door of Pschent Records in France who quickly signed them up for one of their famous Hotel Costes compilations. They have remixed legends like Tito Puente and Tower of Power and their most recent release Radio Free DC sees them team up with the Godfather of Funk Afrika Bambataa with whom they are now producing tracks for his album.
Their track Brazilian Hipster was the track that made Fort Knox Recordings and Jalapeno realise that the time had come to work together.
“We’ve always been massive fans of Skeewiff. We have played out all of their tunes. So when they came to us and told us they wanted to remix Hipster we talked to them about doing an album together with exclusives and remixes from both of us”.
“We both have artist albums due to drop in the next year so we figured it was a good chance to bring some of the hidden treasures from both of our vaults to light before we all start promoting our own projects” says Jon FK5
Alex from Skeewiff sees the album as a way to move the music they make forward to a global audience.
“Working with another label helps to highlight the fact that there’s a global scene for what we’re doing. We have a crazy amount of fans in Japan and Asia, the US, Europe and Australia and there are like-minded people making amazing music all over the world – our FK5 brothers and Eighteen Street Lounge in the US, Malente, Unique , Audiopharm and Lounge Records in Germany – Labrok in France, Kraak & Smaak in Holland, Resin Dogs in Australia and Boca 45 and Dynamo Productions in the UK to mention just a few.
Artists like DJ Format are using the same influences we are to push their blend of hip hop forward and we’re ending up with a really healthy underground scene. We just don’t know what to call it !”
The Raid is due for release on Jalapeno Records on 12th September 2005.
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