Andy Cooper and Sweden’s Easy Are Set to Drop New Albums Late January

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For those into old school beats with a fresh sound, two artists Ugly Duckling's Andy Cooper, a hip hop/rapper in the Sugar Hill Gang style and the Swedish band Easy layered Indie Pop are bringing the funk, breaks and beats.

 

Andy Cooper - The Layered Effect - Rocafort Records - Drop Date January 26, 2018

"The Layered Effect" by US rapper/producer Andy Cooper offers a punchy reminder of the creative fun to be had in digging for breaks, stringing up loops and layering up strata"s of sound.

Brimming full of delightful inflections from the world of Jazz, Easy Listening, Film Soundtracks and Hollywood voices, it's a perfectly stitched sound patchwork that pays loving homage to the classic, funky days of early rap. A touching testimony to the joys of Hip Hop then and now.


More than just the skinny white dude who's into old school beats, Andy Cooper has won his stripes after a twenty year stint with Hip Hop trio Ugly Duckling, then a couple more hanging out with The Allergies, not to mention the recent release of eight 7” singles, an EP and now his second solo LP.


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What is utterly charming is how enamored and respectful he is of how it was at the beginning AND of how it still should be. Far from being the “old timer/delusional revivalist” he describes in "Last of the Dying Breed," Cooper cares not about color or age, but that rap stays fresh, exciting, competitive, similar to a precious martial art.
 
For Andy, rap is a noble form. He's a wordsmith extraordinaire, snappy and audacious, tipping his hat “to all the microphoner's who still bring that dedication and expertise to their craft” and choosing to work with equally rapid sparring partners like Blabbermouf and MC Abdominal. Ownership of the genre is a constant theme throughout the LP.

Like a contact sport, you punch and fight your way to the mic and once there “no one can take it from me”. Reverence is constantly being paid to the dons that went before, overtly Rick Rubin & the Def Jam crew, but covertly the Reggae sound systems and jazzers of old.
 
Not a sloppy note or shabby rhyme, It's an album that pops and fizzes with quirky beats and funky rhythms from start to finish. With production lines neater and sharper than a pair of starched and pressed trousers, it's impossible not to be seduced by the sheer buoyancy of the lyrics, beats and intention. A refreshingly entire body of work with no low points, only head-nodding highs. It's good to stumble across a Hip Hop album that has you giggling, thinking, singing and wearing out the soles of your shoes all at once.

Lead tracks:
1.Here Comes Another One
2.Can"t Be Satisfied
3.Anything Goes ( feat Abdominal)

http://www.youtube.com/user/uglyducklingvideos
http://www.instagram.com/andycooper75/
http://www.facebook.com/acooper75/
http://soundcloud.com/rocafortrecords/sets/andy-cooper-the-layered-effect/s-qKLg0
http://rocafortrecords.com

 

Brand new album release by Easy, "A Heartbeat From Eternity", from A Turntable Friend Records has also set January 26, 2018 as the drop date.

After celebrating the 20th anniversary of the release of their debut album "Magic Seed" with some live shows, Swedish exports Easy started writing some new material and with their friend, producer Charlie Storm, started recording again (in Storm´s Cloud Chamber studio, named after one Easy's tracks). 


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Satisfied with what they had created Easy pressed some CDs of the tracks they had recorded and gave them away to their friends, the band were on a creative roll and decided to write some music for Johan Holmlund"s poetry collection "Swimming with the Beast".

"Pop Songs"  might well be the loveliest tune Easy have ever recorded, "I Can Tell You Why" is as catchy and joyful as any Tamla Motown tune you can think of, "Little Boy" is what Phil Spector would sound like if he was in a Swedish Indie band and "A Picture (I´ve Got Mine)" is the love child of The Chills and Velvet Underground. 

The new single "Ask The Sky" was recorded during the Summer of 2017 and received worldwide airplay with a stunning video from David Janes. In short, "A Heatbeat From Eternity" is a thing of beauty and the music remains as fresh as ever.

https://www.facebook.com/aturntablefriendrecords/

http://easy-sweden.bandcamp.com/album/a-heartbeat-from-eternity