Simple is better
So, to continue my little downtempo beat-driven turn, here's a new gem by my favorite French stoner producer, Kid Loco. The Kid has been producing great downtempo music since the mid-90s and been quite prolific. First his own full-length albums, A Grand Love Story (1998) and Kill Your Darlings (2001). AGLS' companion remix-album A Prelude to a Grand Love Story came out in 1999, which included some great contributions by St. Etienne, Tommy Hools and Dimitri From Paris. Also in '99, he released a compilation of some of his remixes of other people's work, Jesus Life For Children Under 12 Inches, including his versions of songs by Talvin Singh (what ever happened to him?), Pulp and Mogwai. Loco also put out an edition of the classic !K7 series, DJ Kicks and an entry in the AnotherLateNight series (2003).
This is a track from the soundtrack to the film The Graffiti Artist, by independent writer/producer/director James Bolton, who was called one of the "five groundbreaking filmmakers" this year in Shout New York, and who's first film, Eban and Charley was championed by Gus Van Sant. The Graffiti Artist centers around Nick, a high school-aged graff artist, an outsider and loner, who skates around Portland and Seattle (I haven't seen the film yet, but I'll definitely put it on my Netflix queue).
This track slips along slowly on the organ untill the drum track comes in, which I dig - I love me some good compressed live drums - the whole soundtrack is filled with moody pieces like this, with strings and middle-eastern instruments, slowed up beats, and highly evocative soundscapes - whenever I listen to soundtrack music, I end up linking the songs to the part of the movie it appears in. In this case, since I haven't seen it, I try to imagine what the music is linked to... maybe walking around the streets at night, looking for a blank wall?
Both the soundtrack and the DVD of the film are available to purchase from the film's website, here - they're not officially out until the 3rd of May, but if you buy them from the site you'll get them before the street-date.
Also if you want to check out Kid Loco's other output, check out his discography at Insound.
Solid.