After a long wait, and a good dose of elbow grease,
we are proud to announce that Soul Boulders 2 is officially out today!
Matthew Africa & DJ B.Cause - Soul Boulders 2 Snippets by djbcause
To purchase the mix in digital mp3 format go here.
To purchase the mix in physical form, please send payment via Paypal to matthewafrica at hotmail dot com. The price including shipping is $10 in the U.S, $11 to Canada. and $14 to the rest of the world.
I was going to write something nice about the mix for the blog today. However, after reading Matthew's articulate summary I have decided to post it here and forgo my awkward attempt at an eloquent description of such matters. Thanks to all who have supported this project!
we are proud to announce that Soul Boulders 2 is officially out today!
Matthew Africa & DJ B.Cause - Soul Boulders 2 Snippets by djbcause
To purchase the mix in digital mp3 format go here.
To purchase the mix in physical form, please send payment via Paypal to matthewafrica at hotmail dot com. The price including shipping is $10 in the U.S, $11 to Canada. and $14 to the rest of the world.
I was going to write something nice about the mix for the blog today. However, after reading Matthew's articulate summary I have decided to post it here and forgo my awkward attempt at an eloquent description of such matters. Thanks to all who have supported this project!
"For those who aren't familiar with Soul Boulders, here's the story.
Back in 2005, B.Cause posted a mind-blowing 10-minute mini-mix on the
SoulStrut message board. The songs were exquisite but hard to
pigeonhole-- soulful and funky, but not purely funk or soul, slow,
psychedelic, moody, maybe a little haunted. In other words, exactly my
sound.
I sent him a message urging him either to finish the mix or to let me
hop on and collaborate with him on turning his ten minutes into
something CD length. I grabbed a dozen or so of my favorite records,
figured out their sequence and recorded my half at B.Cause's house one
rainy afternoon. Once B.Cause fleshed out his half and massaged the
whole thing a bit, we released it in the spring of 2006. It was my
first commercial mix CD.
The response to Soul Boulders was amazing. The Fader, The Wire, Wax
Poetics and Hip Hop Connection said nice things about it. Friends and
peers raved, telling us we soundtracked their summer, that it was
their favorite mix, etc. In a couple cases, I even had people tell me
that the mix changed their lives. Although it sold pretty modestly--
we only pressed 1,000 copies and gave many of them away-- it's easily
the most beloved thing I've ever had a hand in. Over the years, people
have consistently and insistently pressed me and Josh to give them
more. So we did.
For me, Soul Boulders was hard to follow up because I wanted to make
something that people would appreciate in the same way. The landscape
has changed a lot since we made the first mix. Compilations, blogs and
message boards have made a lot of formerly obscure music easily
accessible and consequently everyone seems pretty blasé. Also, I more
or less stopped seriously buying records in about 2005 and worried
that I might not have a good enough set of records to construct
another set; I didn't want to just present some tracks that didn't
make the original mix. Although rarity was never really the point of
Soul Boulders-- creating something unique and special was-- the mix
did feature a lot of music that was unknown to even hardcore soul
listeners and that did help create some excitement around it.
Soul Boulders 2 features 40 meticulously mixed songs. Some are from
common records, many are from rare ones, but all are (to us)
extraordinary soul songs that embody a unique feeling. We labored
hard on the mix, cleaning up tracks, re-editing them to emphasize
parts we liked, obsessing over the sequencing and tiny details in the
transitions and generally polishing until we felt like we had made a
worthy sequel. I think we succeeded."
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