Ebo Taylor - Love And Death info
Free The Robots - Ctrl Alt Delete info
Gonja Sufi - A Sufi And A Killer info
Homelife - Exotic Interlude info
Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey - Stay Gold info
Marco Benevento - Between The Needles And Nightfall info
Mushroom - Naked, Stoned & Stabbed info
Quantic and his Combo Bárbaro - Tradition In Transition info
Skeletons - Smile info
The Souljazz Orchestra - Rising Sun info

After publishing a solid 10-records-a-year selection of the last decade (from 1999 to 2009), we took a few days to think about the 2010 best of... READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE ON COLORED-INC.COM

Ebo Taylor - Love And Death (Strut) parisdjs
Free The Robots - Ctrl Alt Delete (Alpha Pup) parisdjs
Gonja Sufi - A Sufi And A Killer (Warp) parisdjs
Homelife - Exotic Interlude (Humble Soul) parisdjs
Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey - Stay Gold (Kinnara) parisdjs
Marco Benevento - Between The Needles And Nightfall (Royal Potato Family) parisdjs
Mushroom - Naked, Stoned & Stabbed (4 Zero) parisdjs
Quantic and his Combo Bárbaro - Tradition In Transition (Tru Thoughts) parisdjs
Skeletons - Smile (Impossible Ark) parisdjs
The Souljazz Orchestra - Rising Sun (Strut) parisdjs

After publishing a solid 10-records-a-year selection of the last decade (from 1999 to 2009), we took a few days to think about the 2010 best of... The first thing that came to mind when weed look back at the past 12 months, was the obvious blast of compilations that were released. From the incredible Ninja Tune XX boxset (6xCDs, 6x7", 2x12" and a book - all new tracks and remixes!), the amazing "world" compilations and reissues from Soundway Records, Analog Africa, Academy LPs, Nascente or Vampisoul, the fantastic and rare funk/jazz stuff from the diggers at Finders Keepers, Jazzman or Luv'N'Haight, the jaw-dropping sets from Numero Group, all those Fania Records reissues... I'm missing a few but you get my point: this is highly-entertaining quality stuff, but from hte independent's viewpoint it also looks like the music industry has never been so much focused of its back-catalog.

Meanwhile, a few labels are still doing the job of distributing today's music to the people of today, and maybe they deserve a little bit more spotlight... That's what we thought would be interesting to look at anyway. We had to forbid ourselves not to put any Colored-Inc. release in our selection, of course, even though some of the records we've put out this year were simply astonishing... such as the Hard 2 Find series for example!

What was left: some genre-bending electronic/hip hop/psychedelia marvels from Gonja Sufi and Free The Robots, from the Los Angeles beats scene, ecstatic afro/jazz from Germany (Eboy Taylor & Afrobeat Academy), Canada (The Souljazz Orchestra), or England (Skeletons), addictive cumbia/soul from Columbia (Quantic and his Combo Barbaro), psychedelic folk exotica from former Nina tune affiliates Homelife (their leader Paddy Steer has also released a solo album that's quite a treat too), and finally mesmerizing jazz/indie rock mixtures from Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey or Marco Benevento, both released thru the sensational US label The Royal Potato Family. Well, all in all another good year for music, nothing like 1976 when stadium FM rock was rising and Hotel California was king...

Contenders : Bonobo, The New Mastersounds, Randa & The Soul Kingdom, Fat Freddy's Drop, The Qualitons, Saravah Soul, Hidden Orchestra, The Roots, Kings Go Forth, Big Pimp Jones, The Hot Rats, Flying Lotus, Candice Monique & The Optics, Aloe Blacc, Cochemea Gastelum, The Bees, Roots Manuva, Lloyd Miller & Te Heliocentrics, Brownout, Grupo Fantasma, Mike Gordon...

Grant Phabao & Djouls - Ninja Tune - 20 Years of Psychedelic Hip Hop, Funk & Jazz (MP3 Podcast on www.ParisDJs.com) 2010-08-28 We're still celebrating 20 years of musical activism from the english label Ninja Tune! The huge boxset is now coming out very soon... Parties in Paris and London are starting to get sold-out quite fast, and french magazine Trax has released a special (Ninja Tune 20 Ans...), in which I've written 3 articles. The first one is about 20 of the rarest pieces of wax released by the label. The second is a selection of 20 astonishing or stunning remixes, you might...

Homelife - Exotic Interlude
(CD/LP) Humble Soul HS302CD/HS302LP, 2009-10-05
Released in France 2010-03-01 thru Discograph with bonus tracks

The world of the exotic lives in the imagination, a way of looking at the world. A useful way of coping now we live on Google Earth, mapped and finite, a shrunken head. More than an interlude, Homelife have painted an Exotic English landscape. An urban crust on heathen clay, the village green from tower blocks. The tower blocks seen distant from green hill sides, Pagan pylons bathed in antiseptic sunlight fingers. Bright moulds, vines and blooms on Victorian iron decay. Feel the sandstone turn to limestone, rock of ages, dirty flags, caves of blue john, land of lakes and red brick evening glow. Exotic Interlude is a mature work, slow brewed. I feel I’ve heard it all in a dream, it's familiar but utterly strange. It might be words engaging me, emotions I can empathize with, uncomfortably honest, sweetened by being set amongst gardens of glowing music. The music is both ethereal yet earthy, with heavy use of acoustic timbres, swarms of coloured percussion, bulbous synths and fresh use of languid Hawaiian guitar. A timeless English summer of a record.

Paddy Steer (from Homelife) - Dragon's Breath
(CD/Digital) Red Deer Club RDC017, 2009-03-30

Paddy is a Zelig-like character along the timeline of Manchester's musical activity. It's a testament to his musicality that he has played with such a wide range of music and artists over the years, be it as a bass player, drummer, Hawaiian guitarist etc. or all these roles at the same time. His own Homelife project released five albums in recent years, Homelife's sound was intricate but with a warm sense of wonder, a balance of songs and instrumentals. Many musicians contributed to the Homelife project, brewed slowly by Paddy in his attic before being taken out as a small orchestra for some very unique concerts. On Dragon's Breath, essentially an instrumental solo project recorded in parallel with Homelife's Exotic Interlude (a new song-based album), there seems to be a link with his current interest in animation. It's a cartoon-like music with parallels to Carl Stalling (Looney Tunes genius); dense with events, new textures and the colours of children's paintings, Dragon's Breath sounds like a Swiss cuckoo clock made of egg boxes and horsehair, glued together by an African Moog player in a Vietnamese iron monger's shop.

Gilles Peterson - The BBC Sessions
(2xCD) Ether, 2005-10-31

Tracklisting :
CD1-01. Heritage Orchestra - Ballad for Strings
CD1-02. N.E.R.D. - Untitled
CD1-03. Jazmine Sullivan - Braid Your Hair
CD1-04. Matthew Herbert - Summer Love
CD1-05. Beck - Round the Bend
CD1-06. Bjork - Who Is It?
CD1-07. Roots Manuva - Dreamy Days
CD1-08. Peven Everett - Gabrielle
CD1-09. Spektrum - Kinda New
CD1-10. Beth Gibbons - Romance
CD1-11. Nitin Sawhney - Gilles Smiles
CD1-12. Plantlife - 3AM
CD1-13. Fat Freddy's Drop - This room
CD2-01. The Roots - Melting Pot
CD2-02. Heavy - Unbelievable
CD2-03. Amp Fiddler - I'm Doin' Fine
CD2-04. Zero 7 - This World
CD2-05. Bilal - Sometimes
CD2-06. Jade Fox - Grace Under Pressure
CD2-07. Dwele (Feat. Roy Hargrove) - Red Clay
CD2-08. New Sector Movements - Don't Say It
CD2-09. Roisin Murphy - Sow Into You
CD2-10. Homelife - The Seedpod
CD2-11. Cody Chesnutt - The Seed
CD2-12. Common - The Corner
CD2-13. Jamie Cullum - Frontin'
CD2-14. Steve Reid & Four Tet - Knives + Forks

Homelife - Home Broadcaster
(Downloadable EP) Ninja Tune ZENDL93X, 2005-04-28

Info :
Homelife's "Home Broadcaster" EP is only available as a download direct to your PC. Four tracks deep, "Home Broadcaster" runs from the epic "Arsonite" which effortlessly combines Bitches Brew, Bollywood and brown bread, through the perfect, sunny psych-pop of "Five Flat Four" (with the greatest xylophone break since the invention of the synth), the folksy whimsy of "Hair Cut" to the electro-rock of "Blob".

Tracklisting :
01. Arsonite
02. Five Flat Four
03. Hair Cut
04. Blob

Links :
Buy mp3 release (£3.99)

Beck - E-Pro
(12"/promo CDS) Interscope Records, 2005-04-14

Tracklisting CDS :
01. E-Pro (Album Version) (3:22)
02. E-Pro (Venom Confection remix by Green, Music & Gold) (3:02)
03. E-Pro (Ghost Range remix by Homelife) (4:24)
04. E-Pro (Video)

Tracklisting "Remix EP #1" Promo CDS :
01. Broken Drum (Remixed By Boards Of Canada) (5:39)
02. Black Tambourine (Remixed By South Rakkas Crew) (3:36)
03. Missing (Remixed By Röyksopp) (4:59)
04. Ghost Range ("E-Pro" Remixed By Homelife) (4:24)
05. Fax Machine Anthem ("Hell Yes" Remixed By Dizzee Rascal) (3:08)
06. Farewell Ride (Remixed By Subtle) (4:54)

Homelife - Guru Man Hubcap Lady
(2xLP/CD) Ninja Tune ZEN93/ZENCD93, 2004-08-31

Info :
La fanfare electro-pop-funk de chez Ninja Tune est de retour! Un disque ludique et addictif de chansons et de mélodies improbables et lumineuses, aux grooves un chouia plus électroniques que sur leurs disques précédents, le "Flying wonders" de 2002 ("entre Beck, Burnt Friedman, et les Tindersticks"), ou le "Flying Wonders/Wobbly Jack EP" ("version balkanique de Can sous coke"). Il ne faut absolument pas que Ninja tune lâchent leur fanfare from Manchester et qu'ils continuent à nous abreuver chaque été (le disque est sorti au mois d'Août 2004) de rafraichissements de ce type. Passez le mot! (pour cela le plus simple consiste à choper les mp3 ou l'album et surtout, c'est essentiel, de les écouter)

Homelife - Radio Number One 2004 - A Mix For Radio
(Promo CD) Ninja Tune, 2004-08-30

Tracklisting :
01. Stark Reality - All You Need To Make Music
02. Mulatu Astatke - My Gubel
03. Nara Leao - Dois E Dois, Quatro
04. Odetta - Pay Day At Coal Creek
05. Martina Topley-Bird - Introduction
06. John Mayer - Acka Raga
07. Moondog - Two Quotes
08. Stark Reality - Say Brother
09. Moondog - Ostrich Feathers On Drums (edit)
10. Phil Cohran - The Minstrel
11. Phil Cohran - Extract from
12. Phil Cohran - Water Water
13. Phil Cohran - An Intermission With
14. Harry Partch - Prologues And Epilogues
15. Baden Powell - Canto De Ossahna
16. Moondog - Up Broadway
17. Arthur Russell - Another Thought
18. R.D. Burman - Dance Instrumental
19. O.S. Mutantes - El Sinaloense
20. Odetta - Gallows Pole

Note : this mix is different from the Solid Steel one.
...