Bwi-Bwi - Southern Grinda (Shaolin Squad Bootleg)

Let's talk for a bit a bout the concept of a "release" because these days it's an often muddled concept which some friends of mine would go as far as to say is nothing but a relic from ancient times. For the majority of the lifespan of underground music songs get released on their own; whether they're released as "Singles" to then lead into a full album release, or simply on their own to generate as much hype as possible. This has been the format for a looooooooooooooooong time, if people like one song from an artist, then they release another; if people like that song then maybe release an EP to showcase their talents with a broader brush-stroke as it were. For that is where that term comes from, "Extended Play" as in we heard a little and we like it so give us more.

But this has also led to a lot of disappointment, I feel especially in electronic music as of late; because the emphasis has fallen so greatly towards the individual track hype and fallen so vastly away from making a cohesive album as a total. Examples are abound but lets focus in on one I'm sure we're all familiar with; RL Grimes recently released debut "High Beams" EP, when this came out everyone was fucking hype as shit (as they should be) because RL Grime (aka Clockwork) was probably one of the most celebrated trap artists to come out of  LA last year; he had the prior experience in other genres, the Diplo/Mad Decent pedigree, all the youtube love  and blogroll in the world, so when he finally drops his debut release it should change the fucking world right?

But it didn't... Because the moment anyone heard the EP they realized that all of the tracks had been leaked all year long, and anyone who had any interest in this producer probably already had all of these tracks...

So that's why I got so hype for my label-mate Bwi-Bwi's new release; firstly, because although this producer has had a lot of hype around him from his work with M&C's "Japanese Folies" release he had resisted the temptation to leak any of these songs before they released, so the whole thing felt fresh. Secondly, with a well thought out intro and outro of well placed house-y vibes with a clear intention to round out the entire listening experience one felt they didn't have to just skip through to the good parts, but could sit down and take in the entire thing as whole, hearkening back to as someone put it "...the days when Bloody Beetroots were kings..."