Monkey Love Records News

Sunday, 16 December 2007

We are pleased to announce that graphic designer and illustrator, Will Pointer, has seen the light and joined our little tree-top collective.

With four fantastic Limited Edition prints Will has shown he has the skill and imagination to roll with the big boys at Monkey Love HQ.

You can find these fantastic prints and more info in the 'Art' section of the Monkey Love Shop.

Will Pointer's artist page should be following shortly, but if you can wait 'til then swing over to www.willpointer.co.uk for visual enlightenment and a taste of what's to come...

Do your wall a favour, dress it in something sexy,

Monkey Love x

Wednesday, 12 December 2007

The mighty BeatBrew celebrated 12 months of residency last week with a shin-dig to remember.

Special guest headliner, the one, the only, DJ Vadim, currently in the middle of his World Tour, came to make sure the party went off with a BANG! And it did.

With cracking live visuals and the usual diverse eclectic sounds you can associate with those vinyl-junkie BeatBrew DJs the vibe was set to maximum-fun-setting. Alongside the DJs were superb live sets from Innasekt and Monkey Love's very own beat-maestro; Robberriff, who was laying down some particularly awesome tunes.

Thanks to DJ Vadim and to all who were involved in the night, we all had a blast!

Current BeatBrew live dates and other info can be found on their MySpace,

Feel the fun,

Monkey Love x

Sunday, 02 December 2007

Due to the unfortunate closure of the Fake Science Music Store we've got two fantastic past releases back in the Monkey Love Shop!

Exclusive EP's from Red Cassette and Robberriff that were previously only available on Fake Science have found their way home to the treetop HQ.

Both classic EP's are available to buy as digital download by clicking this link or one of the images below.

Feel the power of the past!

Monkey Love x

 

Sunday, 21 October 2007

Joy Tourette's highly anticipated debut EP entitled 'Cassiopeia' is now available to buy as a Limited Edition CD or as a digital download from the Monkey Love Shop.

This 3 track EP demonstrates perfectly the balance she creates of powerful rhythms and layered harmonic vocals. Be prepared for a unique blend of hypnotic electronica, dark attitude, caustic rhythms and beguiling harmonies with an electro-folk-pop twist.

What a woman!

You can find more info, gigs (next month supporting the sensational Sargasso Trio) and music by Joy Tourette on her artist page. Or she is often seen hanging around, causing mischief on MySpace.

The CD is hotter than a barbequed banana and limited to 200 individually numbered copies. The download is sent out @ 320kbps mp3s with both formats available for purchase by visiting the Monkey Love Shop or by clicking the image below.

Finally, a massive thanks must go to David Pye for mixing this wonderful debut recording, fantastic job all round.

Now go and buy it!

Monkey Love x

Saturday, 20 October 2007

Long-term Monkey Love friends, Fake Science, will be closing their online digital music store from November 1st 2007. This is very sad news.

Fake Science say;

"It is with a heavy heart that we must inform you that on November 1st, 2007 we will be closing the Fake Science Music Store. Fake Science was originally started as a labor of love by four friends who had an idea to help share music with people like you and has since grown into the online music resource it is today. However, we evaluated the amount of investment that it would take to keep the store running, as well as making necessary upgrades to keep the Fake Science standards high. We came to the realization that none of us could realistically keep the commitment due to the weight other important things in our lives, such as families, day jobs, and even other side projects. With this knowledge, we wanted to provide you with an opportunity to get back into to the store and purchase music that may interest you."

Everyone at Monkey Love HQ would like to say a massive thank you to all at Fake Science for everything they have done for us in the past and releasing our music. Undoubtedly, they will continue to be an excellent resource for digital music.

There is still time available to go over to the store and stock up on all that lovely independent music you should have bought ages ago. An EP from Red Cassette or Robberriff wouldn't be a bad place to start, only $2, what a bargain!

GO AND BUY!

Monkey Love x

Tuesday, 16 October 2007

This weekend Norwich hosts the first ever Dumduckerdumb Music Festival.

Running from October 19th - 21st, the festival has arranged an eclectic batch of musical talent for you to feast your hungry ears on. The line up includes "post-folk sonic overlords" Gravenhurst, "acoustic synth-folk" wonders Sargasso Trio and "self-styled freaks and Hip-Hop heads" Def Tex.

As if that wasn't enough to make you jump up and shout 'Whoop!' then the news that Beat Brew will be playing at the Norwich Arts Centre bar just might! The whole gang will be out in force, including our very own sonofsam, so expect pumpin' music and slammin' visuals.

The doors open @ 20:00 and it costs £8 to get in, or you can buy a Weekend Festival Wristband for £30, more info can be gathered by calling 01603 660352.

Do it!

Monkey Love x

Sunday, 07 October 2007

Monkey got a fantastic surprise this week when he found himself between the sheets, page 68 infact, of this month's The Fly magazine.

The wonderful Karen D'Ache wrote these lovely words about us;

"Genre-defying Monkey Love Records has grown from an idea pitched to The Princes Trust a few years back into a collective whose aim is to showcase quality and diverse artists from the Norfolk area. Among its roster is majestic hip-hop producer Robberriff, indie/alt.country maestro Red Cassette, electro-folk meanderer Sonofsam and harmonic songstress Joy Tourette. With plans to branch out into animation, storytelling and club nights Monkey Love is definitely something to watch."

Everyone @ Monkey Love HQ would like to thank Karen very much for her kind and encouraging words.

Plus, she's right, we rock!

Monkey Love x

Saturday, 06 October 2007

We here at Monkey Love HQ have a fondness for giving stuff away.

On our Goodies page not only will you find our banana-busting monthly calendars, IM icons, desktop wallpapers and the wonderful Rupert, but now we have added a stack of free music from all our artists.
This means that you lucky people can just go and help yourselves to the bounty of great music we have on offer.

There are 2 tracks from Red Cassette, one of which appears on his 'Thin King Twice' EP, a live mix and the 'Drifting in Dreams' EP from Robberriff, the 'special days' EP from sonofsam and 2 tracks from Joy Tourette. We will be updating and adding new music from these and other artists in the coming months, until then...

Listen and enjoy,

Monkey Love x

Monday, 01 October 2007

Chip-rockers KittenRock have released "16 tracks, 50 minutes of chippy porno silliness, misogyny, weirdness, bad noises and big fuck injections" in the form of their new Porno-Chip Compilation.

sonofsam appears with the track 'old people can still do it' on a compilation which includes tracks by Goto80, Bit Shifter, Jellica, Josstintimberlake, Mark DeNardo, Ikuma and load of others.

It's another freebee and the artwork looks great! Click this link or the image below to get your own copy.

Naughty,

Monkey Love x

Monday, 01 October 2007

The fantastic Jon Kennedy will be appearing at this month's Beat Brew.

It should be an awesome night which will also feature our very own sonofsam on the wheels of steel!

Get there early to avoid disappointment. Here are the details;

Date: 19th July 2007
Time: 2100-0200
Place: The Mustard Lounge, Westlegate, Norwich, NR1 3NA
Cost: £5

Fun-tastic!

Monkey Love x

Monday, 27 August 2007

sonofsam's brand-spanking-new EP entitled 'special days' is now available. It comprises of 7 tracks that were inspired by birthdays.

Apparently, these tracks were written as gifts as he is "too cheap" to buy actual birthday presents. We don't think this is anything to be ashamed of, in fact we would much prefer a lovely song rather than the useless tat we usually get.

This release has a little bit of everything and shows sonofsam's eclectic lo-fi organic mentality, tracks include a variety of instrumentals and vocal based songs, smashing genres from ambient to hip-hop to lullabies.

You can download a copy for free from his artists page or by clicking on the image below.

Killer,

Monkey Love x

Monday, 13 August 2007

Joy Tourette has appeared in this month's The Fly magazine, buzzing headlong into the Norwich section as a featured artist. It reads;

"Electro-swamp-folk artist Joy Tourette (no relation to that twat from Towers of London) is a one-woman project quite different from the majority of stuff floating around Norwich and beyond. Tourette's music couples harmonic layered vocals with caustic rhythms, plucking snippets from PJ Harvey, Missy Elliot and Tom Waits and mixing it all up to bringing something new and fresh to the arena."

Monkey says, "I agree!" Thanks to Karen D'Ache for her intuitive views on our wonderful songstress. You can find more about Joy Tourette here.

Believe,

Monkey Love x

Wednesday, 08 August 2007

One day, while foraging around the cybernet-world-web of underground music, Jellica found a posting from the ingenius people @ Tone Wars requesting tracks for a compilation they were putting together.

The rules were simple;

"Create a song using the Casio VL Tone as the only source material. Sample it, multi-track, what-ever. The only catch was you can't use outside sounds (i.e. drum machines, synthesizers, acoustic instruments, etc). You can use external sequencers or DAW's to organize the song. Audio FX (distortion, chorus, reverb, pitch shift, etc etc) can also be used to manipulate the VL-Tone, and Vocals could be used as well to allow for some added creativity from the artist."

When Jellica read this he knew exactly what he had to do! He picked up the Monkey Love Hotline and we sent sonofsam swinging over, armed with his VL-Tone, to start working on the latest collaboration from these two super-dudes.

After toying with sounds, melodies, bass lines and enough ADSR to kill a cat, they had a brainwave! Why not use the allowance of vocals to full effect? So an onslaught of beatbox, bom boms, la las and an interesting take on using vocals as drums ensued mixed up in a big pot with lyrics collected from error messages given to them by their computers.

The outcome of this meeting of musically unbalanced minds is titled 'Shared Memory Realm Does Not Exist' and appears along with 19 other tracks from artists all over the globe. You can download the compilation by clicking the image below or by going here.



And it's FREE! That's right, FREE NEW MUSIC! Go get it.

Proxy server!

Monkey Love x

Wednesday, 08 August 2007

To coincide with the new sampler 'Thrifty, Brave and Clean Vol 1', from Boy Scout Recordings, the Betsy Trotwood hosted three of the artists who appeared on this great release.

Belkis, Red Cassette and Sargasso Trio showed how alternative acoustic folk (with a touch of electro) should be done. Look at Red Cassette go! A night of quality music indeed.



If you fancy getting your paws on this sampler, its really good, really cheap, there are loads of artists on it and you can buy it here.

Top banana!,

Monkey Love x

Saturday, 04 August 2007

So it's taken over a week to recover, but the first Monkey Love Records Label Showcase went off without a hitch!

Big thanks to all who came along, Lavar for sorting out the sound, Beat Brew for hosting our troop of artists, Maria and Pete for taking photos and Gumbo's Mum for making some awesome foam versions of Monkey, he was very pleased.

The evening began with Red Cassette showing what a seasoned pro he has become with a barrage of fantastic tracks and sideways humour. His skillful improvisation was clear to see, it's like he has some kind of crazy internal metronome that allows him to change seamlessly between a variety of styles within tracks and not drop a beat. What a guy!



Joy Tourette then made her live debut with four songs that rocked the crowd. Her powerfully emotive voice was intoxicating and her electro beats were perfectly accompanied by Ben from the Sargasso Trio on drums. She sounded fantastic, even grabbing the attention of those noisy people at the back!



sonofsam's unconventional minimal-pop-punk-electronica style took most people by surprise, even himself when he realised he had to sing into a microphone for the first time. He just managed to keep it together with the help of partner in electro, Jellica.



Robberriff, also making his live debut, showed what happens when man and machine merge together in perfect harmony. He ripped out a set with no less that 26 tracks that were so pumping even the break-dancer got tired! Down-tempo, electronic, acid, bass lines, melodies, harmonies, this set HAD IT ALL!



Finally, Jellica took the evening bpm to another level with an 8-bit extravaganza of tunes made on Commodore Amigas and synchronised Game Boys, finishing up with a microcore mega-mix that got all the hardcore ravers dancing! He also did a little bit of singing too.



What a night! We WILL be doing this again, so if you missed out keep an eye on the site or sign up to our mailing list to keep one banana ahead of the bunch,

Monkey Love x

Friday, 13 July 2007

Imagine yourself 7 days from now. You have a smile on your face and you are doing a slightly drunk version of the 'robot dance'. You spill a little bit of your pint on your shoes, but you don't care, you just carry on letting your arm pivot effortlessly left and right at the elbow. You are having fun.

Yes people! The event of the summer is a mere week away and there will be plenty of opportunities to 'robot dance' (or any other dance) your socks off.

Not only are we giving you 6 resident Beat Brew DJ's, who will play you everything from Calypso to Electronica, but we are also giving you ALL the Monkey Love artists playing LIVE, and special 8-bit guest Jellica from underground dance label KittenRock.

'Where is all this happening?' I hear you say. Well, here's all the info;

Date: 19th July 2007
Time: 2130-0300 (live music starts from 2200, so don't be late)
Place: The Mustard Lounge, Westlegate, Norwich, NR1 3NA
Cost: £3

More information about this event can be found on the Beat Brew MySpace or the Monkey Love MySpace.

This event promises to be extremely eclectic and will appeal to the broadest of musical tastes, so if you like music then this is the place to come.

To listen to tracks and get more info on all Monkey Love artists, follow these links;

Red Cassette . sonofsam . Robberriff . Joy Tourette

Finally, in conjunction with this event, Beat Brew head honcho Joe has appeared on Episode 8 of the Monkey Love Podcast with a bundle of dazzling tracks from 'Dave Boakes', 'Jon Kennedy', 'Concrete Breaks Live', 'Robberriff', 'DJ Vadim' (exclusive remix!!!), and 'Funky Wormhole'. It's beat-tastic!

See you Thursday banana-faces,

Monkey Love x

Tuesday, 10 July 2007

Folk-wizard Red Cassette has appeared on a marvellous sampler, released by Boy Scout Recordings, with the track 'Thin King Twice'.

Rough Trade says

'...boy scout recordings provides a home for the worlds best urban pastoralists, or nu pholk artists, or anti folkists... or something like that.'

Nice! Simon Hawkins says

'Talk about a hidden gem. Expecting nothing more than some droll, twee folk, this compilation of singers on the Boy Scout Recordings label is a fantastic introduction to what appears to be a label jammed full of low-fi talent. Run by Tim Love Lee, from his Brooklyn base, TB&C highlights artists from both sides of the Atlantic. Dawn Landes, Turner Cody and Red Cassette are the stand outs, each providing their own off-kilter folk-rock. In a never-ending land of dull and dreary identikit singer-songwriters, it's very uplifting to find a batch of artists who bring something different to the genre. A total and utter surprise. The perfect summer evening album.'

Double nice!

You can get the sampler in CD format from Rough Trade or Selectadisc and in download format from Tune Tribe.

Well done Red!

Monkey Love x

Monday, 09 July 2007

Big news coming, hold onto your tails people...

The Monkey Love Records Shop is now open for business!

Thanks to everybody for all your emails concerning the availability of our products. You can rest assured that 'Shop Monkey' Gregory has been working his little hairy knuckles to the bone gathering together a great selection of them.
These products currently include our very special hand-printed t-shirts, 4-pack badges and 2-pack stickers. We also have a fantastic Monkey Love sampler which includes 10 tracks from all of our artists, a great starter if you are new to our music.

We will be continuing to update the shop with new and exciting products, so keep your eyes peeled.

Not literally peeled though...obviously,

Monkey Love x

Wednesday, 06 June 2007

Our friends are very special to us and most of them are doing some very cool things. We thought it was about time we told you about them and the joy they bring to the world.

First up we have Free Wheels East. These boys are a couple of complete madmen who set off on their bikes on a journey which will take them to over 50 countries and to every one of the worlds great continents, all without the use of an aeroplane. Hell yeah!!!! Now that's what I call cycling! They are about 2 years into their trip and, after a few near death experiences, are currently in South America somewhere.
As I said...madmen, but madmen with a purpose as this trip is all in aid of the charity Practical Action, which 'helps people to use technology in the fight against poverty'.
You can keep up to date with their escapades by visiting their website and if you're feeling flush you can even donate some cash to this great cause.

Moving away from trying to make you part with your money, our record label chums over @ Kitten Rock have a load of FREE music from all their artists available for you to download @ your pleasure. There you will find Grandtheftandrew's NES-style power-pop cover of Queens of the Stone Age's, 'Go with the Flow', Jellica's 'Microparty Megamix', a 22 mix crammed with 60 chipcoremicrorave tracks, Josstintimberlake's 'Amiga Noise Rave EP' and a link to the 8-bit chip music show they hosted on London's Resonance FM, which is pretty cool. Jellica also swung into Monkey Love HQ as a guest on the latest Monkey Love Podcast, you can find more details, track-listings and you can even have a listen here.

Next we have more great music for you from independent digital distributors Fake Science. These lovely people sell digital music from independent musicians and record labels as well as having their own podcast to keep you up-to-date with their new releases. We ran a remix competition with them last year and they are going from strength to strength and now have a eclectic catalogue of fine music. If you ever fancy trying something different, then this is a great place to start...plus you can buy EP's from our very own Red Cassette and Robberriff there so they must have some taste!

Make friends, not war,

Monkey Love x

Saturday, 02 June 2007

Ok, here's how it goes...
Step 1: Get a pen.
Step 2: Open up your diary.
Step 3: Go to the page marked Thursday 19th July 2007.
Step 4: In the space next to that date please write;

"Dear [your name],
Monkey has been asked to remind you that tonight is very special. You must make your way to the Mustard Lounge, Norwich as tonight's the night that Monkey Love Records' artists will be showing what they're made of by playing live all under one roof. It's a bit like 'Toys 'R' Us' but with more live music and more fun."

That's right people! The time has come to let our music do the talking.
Those eclectic people over @ BeatBrew have given us the opportunity to flex our musical muscles by handing us a whole floor of the Mustard Lounge to play our songs.
We do realise that this event is still a while away but we cant keep it a secret any longer...we just HAD to tell someone!

Whoop!

Monkey Love x

Monday, 30 April 2007

Read Conflict Error, the project combining the lo-fi charms of sonofsam and the Nintendo Gameboy skills of Jellica, have made it onto the latest Microdisco compilation.

A big thankyou to Manou for adding them to this eclectic release which includes such 8-bit forerunners as Goto80 and STU.

You can download the compilation here completely free! YES, that's right, FREE!
What more could you possibly ask for?
Ok, maybe a yacht, but who gets a yacht for free?
Not monkey, that's for sure!

Happy Sailing,

Monkey Love x

Tuesday, 17 April 2007

We know a lot of you out there work in those horrible offices, wearing ties and getting headaches from those nasty strip lights.We also realise this is nothing compared to the day-to-day grind and the constant threat of R.S.I., so we have decided to help out by making your time infront of your computer as aesthetically pleasing as possible.

We have a new calendar to brighten up your desktop and if you're super-sneaky (or your I.T. department haven't blocked it) and you can get away with using an Instant Messenger program (MSN, Yahoo, AIM, etc.) we have a set of IM icons you can download and use.
They are way better than that stupid butterfly!
If you don't have access to IM @ work, no fear, the icons will still be there when you get home.

We have also redesigned the home page with lots of pictures so now if you see something you like all you have to do is click on it. It's easy, give it a try.

Thanks to everyone @ Beat Brew for an absolutely fantastic night last week. I was there and because of them Easter officially rocked! If you don't believe me pictures of the night can be found on the Beat Brew MySpace Even sonofsam had a good time, and he played well too, you can read a review of his thoughts on his MySpace.

Party on,

Monkey Love x

Wednesday, 07 March 2007

The Monkey Love shop is entering it's final stages of development and stock has been compiled to fill it's virtual shelves with all kinds of lovely goodies.

Currently we have hand-stencilled t-shirts, some stickers, and badges ready to go. They all look good, especially the t-shirts, we're pretty proud of our stencil skillz yo!

Our lovely artists are working flat out to get their new material finished and put our stencilling to shame.

Red Cassette has finished an EP entitled 'The Club Of The Sons' which is just waiting to be mastered. We've heard it, it sounds amazing, you can listen to a couple of tracks included on the EP @ his MySpace page.

Robberriff is in a very similar position. He's been locked up in a room with a couple of cats pushing limitless boundries around a cosmic void and creating some amazing cuts.

Joy Tourette has a 3 track EP ready to be mastered. We're not sure what the title will be but you can find rough mixes of the tracks on her MySpace.

Unfortunately, lazy sonofsam is letting the side down. He has reliably informed us that he "is working on stuff". This "stuff" can be found here. He also let us know that he's started working with 8-Bit Gameboy guru Jellica on a new project called Read Conflict Error.

March's calendar is up and features the beautiful Maiko. All of us have a little crush on her to be honest. Make your desktop look as sexy as she does by clicking on the little one to get a bigger one. Ooh la la!

Monkey Love x

Friday, 09 February 2007

Now we are firmly in 2007, and the cold days and nights are still with us, we want to help you through those dark times by bringing a little bit of colour and functionality to your life. That's right! Colour AND functionality, we aren't just a bunch of pretty faces you know. Every month you will find a brand-spanking-new calendar here. They are great fun and can be downloaded to brighten up your desktop or printed out to stick in you tree-house. Now you will always have an answer to that age-old question "What's the date today?".

Thanks to all those who came out to gigs recently. Red Cassette showed his skills @ the Arts Centre in Norwich with the Sargasso Trio and @ the Camden Barfly supporting Richard Swift, two fabulous nights of music. You can read a review of the Arts Centre gig here.

Then at the beginning of the month sonofsam helped rip it up @ Beat Brew. Unfortunately there are no reviews for this event but I was there so let me see if I can remember...dancing, scratching, reggae, smiles and free badges. What more could you possibly want? There will be another installment on the 1st March 2007. More badges are promised!

Finally, thanks to Leon and Matt for their wit and wisdom as guests on the latest podcast. You can subscribe in itunes or download the mp3 here

Whoop!

Monkey Love x

Sunday, 07 January 2007

This month's gigs seem to be all about Red Cassette.

On 18th January 2007 he will be playing @ the Camden Rock Cafe, which was formally The Caernarvon Castle, here's a map!

Then on the 27th January 2007 he is @ the Norwich Arts Centre playing on a fantastic bill which is headlined by the Sargasso Trio. You can book tickets online here or you can call Norwich Arts Centre Box Office on (01603) 660352.

Finally, Rough Trade and Pom Pom Promotions presents Richard Swift supported by Red Cassette @ the Camden Barfly on the 30th January 2007. You can get tickets for this incredible event here through TicketWeb.

Full details (including maps) for all these gigs can be found on @ Red Cassette's artist page, where you can also find some of his music if you want to learn the words and sing along when you come and see him.

Wink,

Monkey Love x