Hello, ok it's September 11th, a day remembered for all the wrong things like the callous demolition of 2 NY skyscrapers riddled with asbest (exit donna summer), that said no victims among the 'chosen' people (clearly Yahweh warned them) and no trace of the gold kept in the faults, seriously a total affront to 'intelligence' blaming some desert terrorist for it all, but hey these people chose Trump 15 years later so what do you expect from people that worship money and guns.
Incoming the love of my early life has died of cancer today, , Dame Dianna Rigg, let's have re runs of the Avengers (in color) please. Anyway apart from being gracious, beautiful, funny and intelligent, she was a formidable actor too , the only woman who tamed James Bond and was more than the equal of John Steed. a wonderful personality who's presence I now will never bath in , thank you Diana for all you gave to the world, luckily the singer of Elbow made her a grandmother just in time
Today's Artists stunned the music scene by hitting home from the moment their wonderful singer offered to hide us, truly amazing it was as if Siouxsie had been reborn.........N Joy
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
The drum'n'bass trio tagged Kosheen (Darren Beale, Mark Morrison and Sian Evans) molds something sophisticated and complex, and their hypnotic breakbeats took their native U.K. by storm at the close of the '90s. Fronted by Welsh-born singer/songwriter Sian Evans and Bristol dance natives Darren Decoder and Markee Substance, Kosheen's meeting arrived in 1998. Evans was invited by Decoder and Substance to lay down some guest vocals and something clicked. A unit had been solidified and Kosheen immediately began work on their hip-hop/soul-driven sound. The debut single "Hide U" grabbed hold of the dance circuit in mid-2001, later earning Kosheen honors for Best Single at the Drum & Bass Awards in the U.K. BBC Radio 1 raved about it nonstop and trance guru John Digweed was already spinning Kosheen tracks such as "(Slip & Slide) Suicide" and "Catch" into his club sets. Already poised to take over electronica's ever-changing world, Kosheen's debut album, Resist, was issued in their native land in the fall of 2001.
xxxxx
Sian Evans’ family have a long musical history. Her mother was a singer and Sian herself began singing from an early age. Her grandfather was a composer and conducted for male voice choirs and by her teenage years she was following in his footsteps providing vocals for numerous jazz and r&b bands, as well as immersing herself in the music of female singer/songwriters like Joni Mitchell. A hip-hop enthusiast from an early age, it was perhaps inevitable that the young Sian would be caught up in the energy of the fledgling dance scene. Sian had her first encounter with drum & bass courtesy of the seminal Roughneck Ting parties. She had left home at 16 and moved to Cardiff to escape, living in squats and friends’ houses while working several jobs at once and travelling to parties and festivals all over the country.
I always got it. I was never refused entry and I rarely had any money. I was top blagger (smooth talker)
Having moved through the free party scene, Sian found her musical tastes radically altered by a change in her personal life. At the height of the rave scene, in 1991, she gave birth to her son, and was forced to reassess her priorities.
I had a baby at the height of the rave scene which obviously puts a stop to going crazy. It started me thinking a lot more about songs and the music, and at the time I also got full on into jungle
With a strong foundation in her mother’s collection of Carly Simon and Joni Mitchell LPs, Sian began applying her combined tastes to a variety of dance music and funk/jazz projects, before retreating up a Welsh mountain to raise her little boy in a teepee.
For the next four years, Sian and her son split their time between environmental protests like Newbury and working at summer festivals. It was all she needed to give her a taste for living outdoors and so in 1996, Sian moved into a tepee on a traveller’s site in the Brechfa Forest for nine months. At night, after her son went to bed, Sian passed the time by writing songs. Despite being brought up writing poetry and listening to Welsh folk music and Joni Mitchell, it was the first time Sian had felt moved to create music. Realising her future lay with these songs – in fact, most of them went on to form the tracks on Kosheen’s debut album, ‘Resist’ – she soon moved back to Bristol to find someone to play them with.
KOSHEEN
Whilst most people might find this a rather daunting experience, Sian was only driven back to regular life in Bristol by a growing collection of songs, and an increasing frustration at having nobody but a few sheep to play them to. Darren Beale and Mark Davies first heard Sian singing on a track by a friend of theirs, but deciding that all’s fair in love and war. Their first studio meeting yielded instant results
I hadn’t even taken my coat off when I heard their music and we started working. And it hasn’t changed since then. We still fling things down that fast, it’s a lovely chemistry
As a trio, the band learned they could combine their respective loves of rock, hip-hop, jazz, drum n’ bass and folk. The debut single ‘Hide U‘ grabbed hold of the dance circuit in mid-2001, later earning Kosheen honours for Best Single at the Drum & Bass Awards in the UK. ‘Hide U’ reached number 6 in the UK, while ‘Catch‘ hit number 15 and ‘Hungry‘ reached number 13. The accompanying album ‘Resist‘ (now platinum–selling) went on to reach number 8 in the UK album chart and made the top 30 in Australia, the Netherlands, Belgium and Greece. It has since sold half a million copies, making it the most successful drum & bass album at that time.
Ignoring the accepted protocol that dictates ‘dance’ acts don’t play live, Kosheen then set off on tour. With their debut album ‘Resist’ this equated to an impressive 141 shows in 33 countries to an audience of over million.
I cut my teeth on pub gigs in Wales. so I really wanted to get the music of Kosheen represented live. The songs really translated because they're very melodic. A lot of them were written on the guitar and we can actually do most of them unplugged too. When you strip a song down like that and it still works, you know it’s a good song. A lot of people were surprised when they go into the gig and see a full band set up with a drum kit and guitars. No one’s been disappointed
In fact, crowds of up to 17,000 have since seen the band play in Europe, Australia, South Africa, Asia, even America where fans who had only heard Kosheen via Napster knew all the lyrics before anything had ever officially been played there. The LA Times went so far as to proclaim the band one of four hot new electronica acts to watch for. In summer 2001, Kosheen further cemented their reputation as a world-class live act by performing to a 20,000-strong crowd in Serbia, the first international band to do so since the trouble in the Balkans.
After touring extensively, Kosheen had become a successful live act and festival favourite. By 2002 the band had recorded enough new material for their second album. ‘All in my head‘, the first single released from ‘Kokopelli‘ went straight into the charts at number 7. After ‘Kokopelli’ went gold in the UK, Kosheen left BMG in the midst of the Sony/BMG merger, signed to Universal Germany, and returned to the studio, with a new drive and vision and worked on their third album, ‘Damage‘ for the next two years. ‘Damage’ featuring ‘Guilty‘ & ‘Overkill‘ was released in Europe in March 2007 by Moksha/Universal GMBH.
‘Independence‘, Kosheen’s fourth studio album was released in October 2012 and their fifth, ‘Solitude‘, in December 2013, both on Kosheen Recordings. Kosheen officially disbanded in 2016.
Early into the following decade, as Sian remained in the group, she made a name for herself as a featured vocalist. She had also worked on a side project with Simon Kingman as Melo Park.After a reunion gig in aid of the Tsunami disaster, Sian and Simon began writing songs in the winter of 2006 and in 2007 began developing Melo Park. They later played festivals in Russia and Glastonbury in 2008.
In 2011, Sian Evans teamed up with Dj Fresh writing and featuring on the number 1 smash hit ‘Louder‘. It was released on 3 July 2011 on Ministry of Sound. The song debuted at number 1 in the UK Singles Chart, UK Dance Chart, UK Indie Chart and the Scottish Charts with first week sales in excess of 140,000 copies. In its second week, the single shifted an additional 80,000 digital copies. The song also peaked at number 4 in the Irish Singles Chart.
It feels great, it feels fabulous. I guess that we knew, actually, that we had something pretty crazy on our hands. We were very confident in it, though we didn’t have a clue it would turn out to be quite as viral it has. We loved it when making it, and that’s a good sign
‘Louder‘ is considered an important landmark for dubstep music as it was the first of its’ genre to reach number 1 in the UK Singles Chart. The song was featured on the soundtrack to SCE Studio Liverpool’s Wipeout 2048 and used as the promotional theme for Fox8’s reality program Cricket Superstar. The song serves as the theme for the Lucozade Sport Lite campaign. Sian joined the select group of Welsh artists to have topped the charts and still she is the most recent Welsh artist to hit the top spot. She also wrote ‘Hot Right Now’ for Rita Ora.
In 2011 Sian Evans appears on several tracks on Roger Shah‘s artist album ‘Openminded!?‘. A new version of ‘Hide U‘ along with two other original tracks ‘In The Light‘ and ‘Shine‘ all appear on the album. Since that Sian has collaborated with many top level producers and artists such as Dino Psaras, Dr. Meaker, Jolyon Petch, Jody Wisternoff, Brains, Martin Eyerer, Chicane, Paul Hazendonk, Lee Dagger, Bent, EZ Rollers and Bench.
In 2016 she featured on the track ‘Losing My Mind‘ with eSQUIRE & Petch and in 2017 ‘Boy In The Picture‘ with House luminaires Kid Crème & Jolyon Petch.
In 2019 Sian Evans featured on the tracks ‘UP2U‘ with Stanton Warriors and ‘Orange Heart‘ with Headhunterz.
SOLO CAREER
In 2015 Sian Evans formed a band and started to perform with her solo Unplugged shows, injecting a new lease of life into her classic hits with drums, piano, acoustic guitar and double bass, presented in a warm, funky, soulful mix of contemporary vibes & a touch of jazz. This gave her the opportunity to hear the songs she’s written in the past in their original format. During the following 2 years Sian and her band had headlined many festivals and sold out a handful of strategically placed shows in the UK, Russia, Belguim and Ukraine.
By 2017 the show had evolved with a change of band members and brought back the electronic sound, unveiling a new perspective, passion and depth to the shows.
Sian has been channeling her energy into recording her debut solo album and touring around the world as well as collaborating with many producers.
Her live performances have always been brandished by her unique ability to resonate every lyric in the hearts of each and every member of the audience with flawless vocals, charismatic charm, and boundless enthusiasm. Sian’s live shows have been well received in Europe, Asia, Russia, Belarus, and countless UK and European festivals.
Sian’s passionate and emotionally charged shows remain a force that continues to materialize in dazzling and powerful performances all over the world.
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Kosheen, one of the new millennium's brightest junglists, makes a fierce introduction with their Kinetic Records debut, Resist. The title itself boasts a confidence and a desire to be unclassifiable, and Kosheen lives up to the test. They bring in classic new wave synths and mold breakbeat grooves into something dramatic. The first single, "Hide U," blasts with thick electronic breaks, and Sian Evans' soulful vocals are tragic but endearing with the fact that this track is tangible and raw. Kosheen is attuned with what makes them become a trio -- and that is emotion. The human quality found on Resist suggests their powerful disposition inside drum'n'bass, but also in tweaking electronic music. Kosheen kicked off their career with RESIST, sliding comfortably into their breaks with "Hide U," augmented by Sian Evans' strong vocals, pushing the energy further with "Catch." The electro takes a softer tone with "Cover," sliding into the slower chug of "Harder," though it maintains a clatter of percussion lower in the mix. But the album continually pulls back-and-forth between these two modes, the speed reasserting itself on "(Slip & Slide) Suicide" and the bass squatting on "Empty Skies." A guitar riff strums on the moody "I Want It All" and the title track rides on its piano line. This album falls strongly in the electro-pop category, but it's still an enjoyable listen, like on the country-western influence on "Hungry" or the crisp beats on "Pride." The more spare "Let Go" allows Evans' voice to really shine, as does the album closer, "Gone" which features clashing folk and electric guitar textures (though to be honest, the US version ends on a techno remix of "Hide U"). It's hard to resist this album.
Kosheen - Resist (flac 434mb)
01 Demonstrate 0:26
02 Hide U 4:12
03 Catch 3:21
04 Cover 3:48
05 Harder 4:17
06 (Slip & Slide) Suicide 3:34
07 Empty Skies 4:11
08 I Want It All 5:05
09 Resist 4:45
10 Hungry 5:25
11 Face in a Crowd 3:42
12 Pride 4:01
13 Cruelty 4:05
14 Let Go 4:19
15 Gone 3:37
16 Hide U (John Creamer & Stephane K Remix Edit) 3:37
xxxxx
Kosheen - Resist Bonus (flac 441mb)
201 Suicide (Decoder & Substance Basement Mix) 4:37
202 Playing Games 4:15
203 Empty Skies (Decoder & Substance Dirt Mix) 5:28
204 Catch (Decoder & Substance Breakers Mix) 3:44
205 Dangerous Waters (Decoder & Substance Mix) 4:49
206 Always the Same 3:56
207 Hold Me Down 4:17
208 Get It Right 4:11
209 Tell Me 3:58
210 High & Dry 5:16
211 Live for Today 4:09
212 Repeat 2 Fade 4:38
213 Too Late 4:38
214 Hungry (Live Lounge) 3:12
215 I Want It All (Live Lounge) 5:11
216 Hide U (Live Lounge) 3:19
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Putting drum'n'bass back on the map for the first time since Roni Size four years earlier, Kosheen's debut album, Resist, was a surprising commercial success back in 2001. Combining dark brooding basslines, high-octane breakbeats, and Sian Evans' distinctive vocals, it cleverly managed to appeal to both dance aficionados and mainstream radio, notching up sales of nearly half a million in the process. Follow-up Kokopelli, named after a mythical Native American flute player, sees the trio ditching its programming tools in favor of guitars to create a more expansive sound that often leans toward goth rock. It's a puzzling change in direction. (not really for Siouxsie fans) The menacing atmospherics may still be intact but with the rough edges that made Resist so intriguing smoothed out, Kokopelli often struggles to move out of second gear. Indeed, the majority of the album follows the same crunching guitars, minimal electronica, and doom-laden lyrics formula that makes it hard to distinguish one track from another. In Evans, they have one of Britain's most underrated vocalists, her emotive folk-rock tones just as powerful and haunting as the more revered Portishead's Beth Gibbons, but even she is unable to rescue the likes of "Avalanche" and "Blue Eyed Boy" from their flat and repetitive production. The album is far more convincing, though, when it abandons its Evanescence-lite attempts at metal. "Coming Home" may be a retread of the epic "Hungry," but its melancholic, acoustic vibe is a welcome change of pace, while lead single "All in My Head," with its upbeat radio-friendly chorus, shows Kosheen are capable of producing great pop with strong melodies. But considering the expectations, Kokopelli is something of a disappointment. Their unique take on the Bristol sound made them one of Britain's most interesting dance acts. But by deciding to pick up their guitars, they've now become just a very ordinary rock band.
Kosheen - Kokopelli (flac 380mb)
01 Wasting My Time 5:08
02 All in My Head (radio edit) 4:05
03 Crawling 3:53
04 Avalanche 6:15
05 Blue Eyed Boy 4:50
06 Suzy May 5:31
07 Swamp 3:36
08 Wish 5:09
09 Coming Home 5:25
10 Ages 5:51
11 Recovery 5:39
12 Little Boy 3:35
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Mix by Decoder & Substance given away with the March 2002 issue of Mixmag, excellent for a free CD. Worth picking up it up if you can find it.
Starts off at the lighter (Jazzy) end of Drum & Bass going through a couple of Kosheen tracks before getting pretty hard & dark at the end. The final track (Technical Itch's Mind Killa is very dark). Includes the great Krust remix of Snapshot. One of those mixes you will take to your grave (its that good)
Kosheen – Drum 'n' Bass Reborn (flac 522mb)
01 High Contrast - Music Is Everything 4:22
02 MC Conrad - Futures Call (Makoto Remix) 4:23
03 High Contrast - Make It Tonite 2:44
04 Carlito & DJ Addiction - Supergrass 3:27
05 Un-cut - Midnight 4:34
06 Kosheen - Hide U (Decoder & Substance Mix) 3:50
07 Influx Datum - Music 3:58
08 Kosheen - (Slip & Slide) Suicide (Decoder & Substance Mix) 4:28
09 DJ Krust - Snapped It (The Snapshot Remix) 2:24
10 Decoder & Substance - Icon 4:31
11 Decoder - Auto 3:15
12 Silent Witness - The Calling 2:10
13 Shimon - Hush Hush 3:26
14 Ant Miles & Red One - Bring It On 4:42
15 J Majik - Tell Me 2:54
16 Trinity - Picture On The Wall 2:10
17 Ice Minus -Babylon 3:57
18 Technical Itch - Mind Killa 5:41
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Incoming the love of my early life has died of cancer today, , Dame Dianna Rigg, let's have re runs of the Avengers (in color) please. Anyway apart from being gracious, beautiful, funny and intelligent, she was a formidable actor too , the only woman who tamed James Bond and was more than the equal of John Steed. a wonderful personality who's presence I now will never bath in , thank you Diana for all you gave to the world, luckily the singer of Elbow made her a grandmother just in time
Today's Artists stunned the music scene by hitting home from the moment their wonderful singer offered to hide us, truly amazing it was as if Siouxsie had been reborn.........N Joy
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
The drum'n'bass trio tagged Kosheen (Darren Beale, Mark Morrison and Sian Evans) molds something sophisticated and complex, and their hypnotic breakbeats took their native U.K. by storm at the close of the '90s. Fronted by Welsh-born singer/songwriter Sian Evans and Bristol dance natives Darren Decoder and Markee Substance, Kosheen's meeting arrived in 1998. Evans was invited by Decoder and Substance to lay down some guest vocals and something clicked. A unit had been solidified and Kosheen immediately began work on their hip-hop/soul-driven sound. The debut single "Hide U" grabbed hold of the dance circuit in mid-2001, later earning Kosheen honors for Best Single at the Drum & Bass Awards in the U.K. BBC Radio 1 raved about it nonstop and trance guru John Digweed was already spinning Kosheen tracks such as "(Slip & Slide) Suicide" and "Catch" into his club sets. Already poised to take over electronica's ever-changing world, Kosheen's debut album, Resist, was issued in their native land in the fall of 2001.
xxxxx
I always got it. I was never refused entry and I rarely had any money. I was top blagger (smooth talker)
Having moved through the free party scene, Sian found her musical tastes radically altered by a change in her personal life. At the height of the rave scene, in 1991, she gave birth to her son, and was forced to reassess her priorities.
I had a baby at the height of the rave scene which obviously puts a stop to going crazy. It started me thinking a lot more about songs and the music, and at the time I also got full on into jungle
With a strong foundation in her mother’s collection of Carly Simon and Joni Mitchell LPs, Sian began applying her combined tastes to a variety of dance music and funk/jazz projects, before retreating up a Welsh mountain to raise her little boy in a teepee.
For the next four years, Sian and her son split their time between environmental protests like Newbury and working at summer festivals. It was all she needed to give her a taste for living outdoors and so in 1996, Sian moved into a tepee on a traveller’s site in the Brechfa Forest for nine months. At night, after her son went to bed, Sian passed the time by writing songs. Despite being brought up writing poetry and listening to Welsh folk music and Joni Mitchell, it was the first time Sian had felt moved to create music. Realising her future lay with these songs – in fact, most of them went on to form the tracks on Kosheen’s debut album, ‘Resist’ – she soon moved back to Bristol to find someone to play them with.
KOSHEEN
Whilst most people might find this a rather daunting experience, Sian was only driven back to regular life in Bristol by a growing collection of songs, and an increasing frustration at having nobody but a few sheep to play them to. Darren Beale and Mark Davies first heard Sian singing on a track by a friend of theirs, but deciding that all’s fair in love and war. Their first studio meeting yielded instant results
I hadn’t even taken my coat off when I heard their music and we started working. And it hasn’t changed since then. We still fling things down that fast, it’s a lovely chemistry
Ignoring the accepted protocol that dictates ‘dance’ acts don’t play live, Kosheen then set off on tour. With their debut album ‘Resist’ this equated to an impressive 141 shows in 33 countries to an audience of over million.
I cut my teeth on pub gigs in Wales. so I really wanted to get the music of Kosheen represented live. The songs really translated because they're very melodic. A lot of them were written on the guitar and we can actually do most of them unplugged too. When you strip a song down like that and it still works, you know it’s a good song. A lot of people were surprised when they go into the gig and see a full band set up with a drum kit and guitars. No one’s been disappointed
In fact, crowds of up to 17,000 have since seen the band play in Europe, Australia, South Africa, Asia, even America where fans who had only heard Kosheen via Napster knew all the lyrics before anything had ever officially been played there. The LA Times went so far as to proclaim the band one of four hot new electronica acts to watch for. In summer 2001, Kosheen further cemented their reputation as a world-class live act by performing to a 20,000-strong crowd in Serbia, the first international band to do so since the trouble in the Balkans.
After touring extensively, Kosheen had become a successful live act and festival favourite. By 2002 the band had recorded enough new material for their second album. ‘All in my head‘, the first single released from ‘Kokopelli‘ went straight into the charts at number 7. After ‘Kokopelli’ went gold in the UK, Kosheen left BMG in the midst of the Sony/BMG merger, signed to Universal Germany, and returned to the studio, with a new drive and vision and worked on their third album, ‘Damage‘ for the next two years. ‘Damage’ featuring ‘Guilty‘ & ‘Overkill‘ was released in Europe in March 2007 by Moksha/Universal GMBH.
‘Independence‘, Kosheen’s fourth studio album was released in October 2012 and their fifth, ‘Solitude‘, in December 2013, both on Kosheen Recordings. Kosheen officially disbanded in 2016.
Early into the following decade, as Sian remained in the group, she made a name for herself as a featured vocalist. She had also worked on a side project with Simon Kingman as Melo Park.After a reunion gig in aid of the Tsunami disaster, Sian and Simon began writing songs in the winter of 2006 and in 2007 began developing Melo Park. They later played festivals in Russia and Glastonbury in 2008.
In 2011, Sian Evans teamed up with Dj Fresh writing and featuring on the number 1 smash hit ‘Louder‘. It was released on 3 July 2011 on Ministry of Sound. The song debuted at number 1 in the UK Singles Chart, UK Dance Chart, UK Indie Chart and the Scottish Charts with first week sales in excess of 140,000 copies. In its second week, the single shifted an additional 80,000 digital copies. The song also peaked at number 4 in the Irish Singles Chart.
It feels great, it feels fabulous. I guess that we knew, actually, that we had something pretty crazy on our hands. We were very confident in it, though we didn’t have a clue it would turn out to be quite as viral it has. We loved it when making it, and that’s a good sign
‘Louder‘ is considered an important landmark for dubstep music as it was the first of its’ genre to reach number 1 in the UK Singles Chart. The song was featured on the soundtrack to SCE Studio Liverpool’s Wipeout 2048 and used as the promotional theme for Fox8’s reality program Cricket Superstar. The song serves as the theme for the Lucozade Sport Lite campaign. Sian joined the select group of Welsh artists to have topped the charts and still she is the most recent Welsh artist to hit the top spot. She also wrote ‘Hot Right Now’ for Rita Ora.
In 2011 Sian Evans appears on several tracks on Roger Shah‘s artist album ‘Openminded!?‘. A new version of ‘Hide U‘ along with two other original tracks ‘In The Light‘ and ‘Shine‘ all appear on the album. Since that Sian has collaborated with many top level producers and artists such as Dino Psaras, Dr. Meaker, Jolyon Petch, Jody Wisternoff, Brains, Martin Eyerer, Chicane, Paul Hazendonk, Lee Dagger, Bent, EZ Rollers and Bench.
In 2016 she featured on the track ‘Losing My Mind‘ with eSQUIRE & Petch and in 2017 ‘Boy In The Picture‘ with House luminaires Kid Crème & Jolyon Petch.
In 2019 Sian Evans featured on the tracks ‘UP2U‘ with Stanton Warriors and ‘Orange Heart‘ with Headhunterz.
SOLO CAREER
In 2015 Sian Evans formed a band and started to perform with her solo Unplugged shows, injecting a new lease of life into her classic hits with drums, piano, acoustic guitar and double bass, presented in a warm, funky, soulful mix of contemporary vibes & a touch of jazz. This gave her the opportunity to hear the songs she’s written in the past in their original format. During the following 2 years Sian and her band had headlined many festivals and sold out a handful of strategically placed shows in the UK, Russia, Belguim and Ukraine.
By 2017 the show had evolved with a change of band members and brought back the electronic sound, unveiling a new perspective, passion and depth to the shows.
Sian has been channeling her energy into recording her debut solo album and touring around the world as well as collaborating with many producers.
Her live performances have always been brandished by her unique ability to resonate every lyric in the hearts of each and every member of the audience with flawless vocals, charismatic charm, and boundless enthusiasm. Sian’s live shows have been well received in Europe, Asia, Russia, Belarus, and countless UK and European festivals.
Sian’s passionate and emotionally charged shows remain a force that continues to materialize in dazzling and powerful performances all over the world.
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Kosheen, one of the new millennium's brightest junglists, makes a fierce introduction with their Kinetic Records debut, Resist. The title itself boasts a confidence and a desire to be unclassifiable, and Kosheen lives up to the test. They bring in classic new wave synths and mold breakbeat grooves into something dramatic. The first single, "Hide U," blasts with thick electronic breaks, and Sian Evans' soulful vocals are tragic but endearing with the fact that this track is tangible and raw. Kosheen is attuned with what makes them become a trio -- and that is emotion. The human quality found on Resist suggests their powerful disposition inside drum'n'bass, but also in tweaking electronic music. Kosheen kicked off their career with RESIST, sliding comfortably into their breaks with "Hide U," augmented by Sian Evans' strong vocals, pushing the energy further with "Catch." The electro takes a softer tone with "Cover," sliding into the slower chug of "Harder," though it maintains a clatter of percussion lower in the mix. But the album continually pulls back-and-forth between these two modes, the speed reasserting itself on "(Slip & Slide) Suicide" and the bass squatting on "Empty Skies." A guitar riff strums on the moody "I Want It All" and the title track rides on its piano line. This album falls strongly in the electro-pop category, but it's still an enjoyable listen, like on the country-western influence on "Hungry" or the crisp beats on "Pride." The more spare "Let Go" allows Evans' voice to really shine, as does the album closer, "Gone" which features clashing folk and electric guitar textures (though to be honest, the US version ends on a techno remix of "Hide U"). It's hard to resist this album.
Kosheen - Resist (flac 434mb)
01 Demonstrate 0:26
02 Hide U 4:12
03 Catch 3:21
04 Cover 3:48
05 Harder 4:17
06 (Slip & Slide) Suicide 3:34
07 Empty Skies 4:11
08 I Want It All 5:05
09 Resist 4:45
10 Hungry 5:25
11 Face in a Crowd 3:42
12 Pride 4:01
13 Cruelty 4:05
14 Let Go 4:19
15 Gone 3:37
16 Hide U (John Creamer & Stephane K Remix Edit) 3:37
xxxxx
Kosheen - Resist Bonus (flac 441mb)
201 Suicide (Decoder & Substance Basement Mix) 4:37
202 Playing Games 4:15
203 Empty Skies (Decoder & Substance Dirt Mix) 5:28
204 Catch (Decoder & Substance Breakers Mix) 3:44
205 Dangerous Waters (Decoder & Substance Mix) 4:49
206 Always the Same 3:56
207 Hold Me Down 4:17
208 Get It Right 4:11
209 Tell Me 3:58
210 High & Dry 5:16
211 Live for Today 4:09
212 Repeat 2 Fade 4:38
213 Too Late 4:38
214 Hungry (Live Lounge) 3:12
215 I Want It All (Live Lounge) 5:11
216 Hide U (Live Lounge) 3:19
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Putting drum'n'bass back on the map for the first time since Roni Size four years earlier, Kosheen's debut album, Resist, was a surprising commercial success back in 2001. Combining dark brooding basslines, high-octane breakbeats, and Sian Evans' distinctive vocals, it cleverly managed to appeal to both dance aficionados and mainstream radio, notching up sales of nearly half a million in the process. Follow-up Kokopelli, named after a mythical Native American flute player, sees the trio ditching its programming tools in favor of guitars to create a more expansive sound that often leans toward goth rock. It's a puzzling change in direction. (not really for Siouxsie fans) The menacing atmospherics may still be intact but with the rough edges that made Resist so intriguing smoothed out, Kokopelli often struggles to move out of second gear. Indeed, the majority of the album follows the same crunching guitars, minimal electronica, and doom-laden lyrics formula that makes it hard to distinguish one track from another. In Evans, they have one of Britain's most underrated vocalists, her emotive folk-rock tones just as powerful and haunting as the more revered Portishead's Beth Gibbons, but even she is unable to rescue the likes of "Avalanche" and "Blue Eyed Boy" from their flat and repetitive production. The album is far more convincing, though, when it abandons its Evanescence-lite attempts at metal. "Coming Home" may be a retread of the epic "Hungry," but its melancholic, acoustic vibe is a welcome change of pace, while lead single "All in My Head," with its upbeat radio-friendly chorus, shows Kosheen are capable of producing great pop with strong melodies. But considering the expectations, Kokopelli is something of a disappointment. Their unique take on the Bristol sound made them one of Britain's most interesting dance acts. But by deciding to pick up their guitars, they've now become just a very ordinary rock band.
Kosheen - Kokopelli (flac 380mb)
01 Wasting My Time 5:08
02 All in My Head (radio edit) 4:05
03 Crawling 3:53
04 Avalanche 6:15
05 Blue Eyed Boy 4:50
06 Suzy May 5:31
07 Swamp 3:36
08 Wish 5:09
09 Coming Home 5:25
10 Ages 5:51
11 Recovery 5:39
12 Little Boy 3:35
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Mix by Decoder & Substance given away with the March 2002 issue of Mixmag, excellent for a free CD. Worth picking up it up if you can find it.
Starts off at the lighter (Jazzy) end of Drum & Bass going through a couple of Kosheen tracks before getting pretty hard & dark at the end. The final track (Technical Itch's Mind Killa is very dark). Includes the great Krust remix of Snapshot. One of those mixes you will take to your grave (its that good)
Kosheen – Drum 'n' Bass Reborn (flac 522mb)
01 High Contrast - Music Is Everything 4:22
02 MC Conrad - Futures Call (Makoto Remix) 4:23
03 High Contrast - Make It Tonite 2:44
04 Carlito & DJ Addiction - Supergrass 3:27
05 Un-cut - Midnight 4:34
06 Kosheen - Hide U (Decoder & Substance Mix) 3:50
07 Influx Datum - Music 3:58
08 Kosheen - (Slip & Slide) Suicide (Decoder & Substance Mix) 4:28
09 DJ Krust - Snapped It (The Snapshot Remix) 2:24
10 Decoder & Substance - Icon 4:31
11 Decoder - Auto 3:15
12 Silent Witness - The Calling 2:10
13 Shimon - Hush Hush 3:26
14 Ant Miles & Red One - Bring It On 4:42
15 J Majik - Tell Me 2:54
16 Trinity - Picture On The Wall 2:10
17 Ice Minus -Babylon 3:57
18 Technical Itch - Mind Killa 5:41
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5 comments:
Hi Rho,
That's a strange tracklisting for Kokopelli.
Is it a Special Edition...?
No, Anonymous - That tracklisting is from :
Conjure - Cab Calloway Stands In For The Moon.
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Nice post! Currently downloading - thank you.
Have you watched 'Detectorists', Rho?
If not, I highly recommend it.
Ah yes , my mistake-oversight it's been corrected and yes i've enjoyed the slow tv series 'Detectorists' with as it happens a supporting role by Diana Rigg and daughter.
Thanks for the Kosheen. Nice one.
also with respect to Dame Diana Rigg. I was a very young yank watching the Avengers in the 60s. My eyes only saw her on the tv -- every week -- for the run. Seeing her in the Game of Thrones was a real joy. Thanks for the memorial.
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