February brings with it the gloom of winter. The holidays have come and gone, the snow is no longer entertaining or beautiful, an oversized rodent becomes a momentary oracle that will hopefully tell of an end to a season that has overstayed its brief welcome. A musical relief from the doldrums comes from Brooklyn DJ Nickodemus whose cover artwork alone looks as though it could combat a tough case of S.A.D. Nickodemus didn’t skimp when it came to remixing the songs from his second album, Sun People. By incorporating artists from around the globe Nickodemus has added legitimate world music names to an album with a world music vibe.
The reworks come from a laundry list of DJs who probably aren’t household names to many, but musical skills obviously mean much more to Nickodemus than namesake. Kush Arora, Christian Prommer, Adham Shaikh, J-Boogie, Tal M Klein and The Spy From Cairo are some of the artists he has recruited to help make an already vibrant and eclectic original release stronger.
The ever-upbeat disc is an endless stream of optimistic and sunny beats, with each track it’s own sampling of cultures that should clash but instead meld together well. The second track, “Brookarest (The Pimps of Joytime Remix),” begins with a French Quarter jazz feel before meandering into what could be best described as a snake charmers lullaby. Pablo Sanchez’s remix of “Sun Children (featuring The Real Live Show)” drops the listener into a urban center, a sweltering summer street corner where old school harmonizing has been traded for hip-hop.
Every song holds the same type of complexity. The soundtrack perhaps to a day spent wandering through the world’s most diverse marketplace, where each turn finds you facing a new cultural gathering or maybe it’s much closer to home; just a reflection of Nickodemus’ New York City backdrop, a place of equal diversity and the rhythms to match.
02/01/10
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