Kitty-Yo » jahcoozi

jahcoozi

say hello to our multi-national trio cutting up their abstract electronic beats with ragga rhythms, dancehall rhymes and hip hop structures made to get your lame asses moving. as xlr8r magazine said “despite underground tendencies, they manage to find pop songs buried in digital grit” word!

jahcoozi - reworks

its time to get moving as we turn the level up with one of the hottest liveacts jahcoozi. now the trio has gathered some folks to do some remixes featuring ali mcbills as robert johnson 6am x-ray italo re-work, arto’s bubbles in the bathtub shake and the cassy remix.
read a review michael f. gill… yet even more sweets for 2007’s remix piñata. i’m not too familiar with jahcoozi’s glitchy dub-pop stylings, but the “name” remixers piqued my interest here, and deliver three eargrabbing pieces of lively and stripped down house music. leading things off is the nicely titled “robert johnson 6am x-ray italo rework” of “ali mcbillls” by playhouse boss ata and moodmusic’s sasse. it starts off a bit like an old mri or force tracks record (dubby stabs on 2 and 4), punctuated by a heavily flanged snare at the beginning of each measure. as it progresses, things get slimier, with some disco-dub effects, pulsating eighth-note synths, and posh female vocals (”my daddy’s rich but i don’t admit it”). there’s a line about ally mcbeal which is a bit cringeworthy, but thankfully it’s not so much a deterrent but a reminder of the fact that there are finger smudges in this chic pudding. on the b-side, arto mwambé’s “bubbles in the bathtub shake” remix of “shake the doom” is more straightforwardly housey, with simpler kick patterns and a two-note bassline. arto maintains the interest level with an ever-shifting arrangement of staccato vocal chunks, colorful cymbal timbres, and a sneaky little chord progression revealed at the end. cassy, miss panoramabar herself, remains in fine form with her own take on “shake the doom”. similar in sound to her recent single with a guy called gerald, this is a cyclic minimal house cut in love with its taut, old skool sounding drum rhythms. yet it doesn’t feel flat or indulgent to me, as there’s a lot of spring to this remix’s step. maybe i have a soft spot for drums that sound like they are made of rubber (i.e. they feel very flexible, yet still give a strong attack), but cassy seems to get endless mileage out of this drum sound with only one vocal and keyboard loop laid on top.

mp3/wav: finetunes | beatport | emusic

jahcoozi - pure breed mongrel

blip hop, ragga-tech, rnb punk, click pop illectronica? pop? a shakespeare’s sister - neptunes collabo?!! what misinformed people call grime?! oh no! not another berlin story… well, we all heard about m.i.a. from london.maybe some of you think that the smart arses from kitty-yo are now just trying to invent “berlin’s answer to m.i.a.” you got it all wrong. life just ain’t that simple! musically, you may find a few similarities and the singer does also happen to be a london born srilankan, but jahcoozi don’t do the glamourous tamil tiger freedom-fighting-art-student backstory and don’t do that world music / baile funk /reggaton phenomenon either.instead, it’s just three youngsters from different musical and cultural backrounds who met in the electronic music cosmos berlin and indulged in the uninhibited mash-up of genres. jahcoozi gained respect for their freaky live shows. they also made a name for themselves with their debut ‘fish’ ep which came out on the berlin club label wmf records in july 2003. john peel played ‘fish’ on his bbc radio show and the de-bug listed the ep as one of its favourites. they have felt at home supporting the likes of big dada soundsystem, aphex twin, dat politics, chicks on speed, airborn audio, kevin blechdom, jamie lidell, tiefschwarz and mocky. remixes by stereotyp, modeselektor, beige, and dj highfish have also firmly rooted jahcoozi in electronic club szene. they have worked with a wide range of artists such as braun and the mob (jahcoozi being part of the mob), infinite livez, al haca soundsystem and have even done a recording session with grime stars kano, lethal b, d double and jammer. robot koch’s side project the tape vs. rqm is out on kyo (kitty-yo’s idm-hip-hop sublabel) and sasha perera has recorded vocals with the likes of mc soom-t & dj maxximus, modeselektor and tolcha. at the beginning, jahcoozi were just into making freaky beats and messing about with vocals. there was less text and less structure. the band then then started to experiment with pop structures; more songs and less idm glitch for the sake of it. this development can be seen on their album pure breed mongrel, which has tracks which they made between 2002 and 2005. it is hard to define and impossible to pigeonhole the sound of jahcoozi. maybe a bit like the the (brit-srilankan-israeli-westgerman) avantglitchpop trio jahcoozi themselves. pure breed mongrel is a mish-mash of genres but despite this immense style crossover, jahcoozi have managed to create their very own sound and house it within a homogenic album which is full of surprises. a pure breed of mongrel. mongrel music, made by mongrel people for a mongrel society. (soulseduction.com)

mp3/wav: finetunes | beatport | bleep | emusic

cd/lp: kitty-yo popstore

jahcoozi - back barbie

this jahcoozi picture 12inch is a glitchy lo fi sound collage / dancehall tune that showcases jahcoozi’s early musical concept; i.e. robert koch and sasha perera 3 years ago sitting in a foggy home studio in berlin, sproadically making music together. this was before oren gerlitz joined the band at the end of 2002 to complete the trio. black barbie’s lyrical pisstake spotlights the chliche booty girl role model ever present in commercial “black” music. she really takes it to another level…

mp3/wav: beatport | bleep | finetunes

12″: kitty-yo popstore