Album Update

....are you ready for the new era????

I'm writting this sitting next to my engineer and producer whilst we are going over vocal takes for selection, shit is starting to get real. For real, for real..... for real.

For those of you who don't know, I've been slaving away at my debut album for a while now. And by a while, I mean ages. And by ages, I mean most of my life. lol.

Just wanted to keep people up to date with its progress. Aaron Rodgers is producing the album, and its being record at CMD Records by head engineer Matty J.

We're approximately 9 tracks into the initial recording progress, and I'm aiming for 13 tracks on the album (Lucky number 13) with beats coming from all over the world. SO far on the album we have beats by:

Engineer (Canada)

Twist (Germany)

One Tone (USA)

Fons (USA)

Creed Birch (Australia)

As it stands, the album will have guest appearances from DiktionOne, Twist, Flip Simmonds with more TBA when they are confirmed.

If you have made it to any of my recent shows, you would have heard me playing a few of these tracks, ranging from soulful samples to orchestral bangers. They way these tracks have been received live is incredible, and I can't wait to be able to share them with you all.
Release dates are yet to be announced, but rest assure this will be out as soon as possible, no one wants this to come out more than I do!

Matty J and Aaron Rogers working hard on some vocal edits!

LucidFest Perth

For those of you who don’t already know, the next couple of months for me live shows will be kicking into over drive. For the first time ever (around my other commitments atm L) I am pretty much booked out for shows. This kicked off this weekend with a trip to Fremantle for LucidFest 2012.

Note to self: Never fly tiger airways. Ever. Again. I am writing this whilst on the flight back to Melbourne so the displeasure is fresh.

(Nekminute I’ll probably be flying with tiger as I cant afford to be on a plane that wasn’t from the 70’s. I mean, c’mon how long has it been since you’ve been able to smoke on an airplane and this thing has ashtrays. Seems legit).

What also doesn’t make me feel to great, is (whilst on this flight) I finished a report for uni about the Nimrod aircrash from 2006. Feeling safe.

The way their, domestic flights check in is what, usually 60mins before. Tiger, specifically stated “Check in BEFORE 4:30am” for a 6:30am flight. Got to the airport at 4:30am, guess what, they don’t even open until 5. F*ck You. F*ck your baggage allowance rules, f*ck your attitude. *$@#

Personal bitching about airlines, and illogical situations aside, we made it to Perth airport in one piece, so it’s all gravy baby.  When I say we, I am talking about the crew. Aaron Rogers (who you all should know by now) and Josh Mergard.

Josh is our film man/genius/outta the box advertising ideas man/philosopher. Josh came along for the trip to document some behind the scenes footage, to film lucid fest, and to film a video clip for one of our affiliates Chronicle of Perth. 

Josh is also essentially the Zen master. Here are some of his quotes from the weekend, and I sh*t you not. These aren’t even taken out of context, as the context that they were in had no relevance to what he was saying.

“Time is irrelevant. The meaning to life is death”

“If I had a rock melon in one hand, and 12 banana’s in the other and peeled them. Diced them and made a salad with then, this would be easier”

“I’ve never smoked crack, accept for twice”

“Its just like Zoolander, except none of this happened”

“It’s a straight back stand up blow job. When a midget is standing up and giving you head, you eat a pawpaw and the juice drips on his head”.

^^^^^^^ This right here. Yep. I nearly died from laughter. Said with such conviction and sincerity. And yes, he said and meant ‘him’.

Anyway, got there Friday and met up with Vie. First time meeting the dude, had a great time hanging out over the weekend. Ended up playing a joint set with him, which was sick. Nothing makes me happier than after a show when people make comments like: “You’re a natural born performer”, “How do you have so much energy? That was great”.

Honestly though, the set felt great, getting the props afterwards is just gravy.

Vie has an EP titled “ENTER” that will be out on Monday, check the first track released from it below

Vie is another affiliate of ours, and really glad to have him on the team.

Daniel Ray opened the night; have to say I was very very impressed with this guy. IMO he shouldn’t have been the opening act by any stretch of the imagination.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Daniel-Ray/140674782671604

Chronicle closed the night spitting his UK grime inspired raps. I still can’t figure out how he flows like that hahaha.

The day before the show (Friday) we filmed the video clip that we had set out to for his track “What’s Left”.

Can’t wait for it to come out, it was Josh’s ideas for the clip, and Josh doing the filming but everything else was a real group effort to get things done. And would you believe that our lighting budget was $0? You’ll understand when you see the clip.

The trip was loads of fun. Had a great time, cemented a lot of new relationships within the Perth hiphop community, stayed in a kick-ass place on the beach in Fremantle, got a bunch of live footage. Fremantle you are a truly beautiful part of this country, and I enjoyed every second of being inside you!

If you wanna catch me live in Melbourne, I’ll be playing with Chance Waters 31^st of August at First Floor, and then 1^st of September with Bastian Killjoy at Revolver upstairs.

www.facebook.com/kryptic.music 

Up-Coming Gig Scheduele

Well, if you can't tell by now I'm pretty infatuated with this whole blog thing. Gotta say, I'm really enjoying updating this thing now. lol. I suppose we have my housemate to thank and/or hate for that. His blog is starting to really take off, and if you wanna see some great photo's/fashion/ramblings this is his blog right here http://dylanisrestless.blogspot.com.au/



I've got a lot of upcoming gigs (as you've probably seen me post about on FB at some point) and for the first time ever, I'd have to say I'm pretty much booked out over the next few months.

I did want to however put everything in one place with dates, times, prices etc etc... so no one is misled and more importantly no one misses out!

LucidFest
18th August Swan Basement Fremantle

This is a FREE gig with some of WA's finest up and comers.
The bill includes: Tektonik, Vie, Chronicle and Ghost and myself

Chance Waters - Maybe Tomorrow Tour (Melbourne)
31st Of August - First Floor, Fitzroy.


After the success of his latest single "Maybe Tomorrow" Chance is hitting the road again, and I'm lucky enough to be booked as the main support. Tickets (through me) are $8 otherwise $12 on the door. Leave a comment or email me at kryptic125@gmail.com if you're after tickets.

Bastian Killjoy - 'No Country For Bastian' Album Launch 
1st of September - Revolver Upstairs 

Bastian Killjoy and Wordsmith Presents are gearing up to launch the new album. This night is jam packed with a Stella line up of Melbourne talent. The bill includes:

Vytual Juan, Emjay, Muma Doesa, Second Hand DJ's (Relik and Meta4) and myself.

This gig $8 (pre-sale through me... so please email kryptic125@gmail.com for tickets) or $10 on the door.

NJE Melbourne Showcase - Laundry Bar
15th September

NJE returns to Melbourne for a showcase event with a high calibre special guest list.
Grinny and Big T, Tys, Big Dip, Blunt Paper Massive, Bastian Killjoy and myself.
Pre-sale tickets through me are $12 each.

Oh and there are more TBA... I just don't have the artwork for them yet ;) one big one left to announce as well!!!

My 2016 Olympic Campaign Journey

With the Olympics being on, I was thinking:

 Are there any sports in Australia that we are so bad at but still enter that I would have a chance of making the Olympics team?

I mean, without dedicating my entire life to perfecting something like swimming, and not needing a lot of natural ability or training that embodies everything in the Olympics. Something that Australia suck at beyond comprehension that by default, I would weasel my way into the team. Purely because no one else tried out. My reasoning basically implied, how many people are really trying out for our national water polo team?

This prompted me to try and find some obscure Olympics sports that I could enter... unfortunately I didn't find anything that I could just waltz into (...yet), but I did find this list of strange sports that were once an Olympic sport:

Water motorsports (1908)

Lacrosse (1904, 1908)

Jeu de paume (1908)

Croquet (1900)

Basque pelota (1900)

Rackets (1908)

Roque (1904)

Tug of war (1900-1920)

Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_are_some_of_the_most_obscure_olympic_events#ixzz22H4ppnCK



Perhaps I will train really hard at my tug of war skills, or maybe even become a Croquet master in case one of these makes a sudden come back. 


Yep. That's it. Tonight I'm hitting the gym hard to work on my Croquet. 


Rio De Janeiro 2016. Look out. I'm coming for you. 

                             (Above: 2016 projected image of me competing in Brazil)

Grey Ghost Gig

As this was a four-week residency at the workers club in Fitzroy, I was booked to play the second week. The first week I went down to check out the set, and it had been a while since I’d gone to a gig just as a spectator. I love being around live music, it’s the only real place I feel that I fit in/feel at home.

Turns out GG is playing with a full band, and the whole set had me thinking “Goddamn that bass player looks familiar”.

Turns out its DJ Matik. If you don’t know who this is, he’s the man behind the music for Seth Sentry, Pez and Grey Ghost. He’s also one of Australia’s best scratch DJ’s. If you ever get a chance to see him playing a DJ set, it’s more than worthwhile checking out.

After the show had a chat to him and GG, was pretty pumped for my set the week after.

I took the liberty in this set of playing a lot of new album material I’ve been working on, and played 6 or so songs for the first time ever. This is so exciting for me as I’ve been sitting on these tracks for a while now, and the crowed (although small numbers for my set) was really feeling the new stuff. Being so intimate and close was also fantastic after playing a few big shows recently… really lets me show my soul through the mic when I'm performing.

Allday was the other support for the night, and I was really interested in checking out his set. You’ve probably heard his new one “It’s all good” being smashed on triple J rotation.

GG killed the set again as expected… Also noticed mantra just quietly shifting through the crowed. It makes me so happy when I see bigger names still making it out to gigs and involving themselves in the scene. 

Supporting Seth Sentry and Chance Waters

The Funkoars support really got shit rolling for me, and this next support slot that I landed I was so, so happy with.

Seth Sentry and Chance Waters are two of my favorite Australian rappers, and when I heard that their shows were being merged together and that I was going to be playing along side them: Mind basically blown.

This show sold out. And I mean really sold out. And then they managed to sell at least another 50 tickets than what the Everlyn could hold… The show was overflowing.  I have never seen the Everlyn with that many people in it before. That venue, as I'm sure it does with many people, has a special place in my memory. I remember going there on a Monday night (when I was about 14) for the hip-hop night hosted at the time by litigate, seeing acts such as Fluid MC (now known as Bam Bam) come through and rip sets and open mics. I’ve seen so many great gigs at the Everlyn from every style of music, and lots of the acts I’ve seen there have gone onto pretty massive things (Pez and 360 as prime examples).

Anyway, the crowed was digging my opening set, which was nice, and getting props from Seth and Chance really is a highlight of my career to date.  Chance played with his full band, adding even more dimensions to an already killer set… When it was time for Seth Sentry to take the stage, you should have seen the crowed go mental. Comes on stage starting the chant of what is pretty much the unofficial hip-hop anthem

“Its bigger than… HIP HOP, HIP HOP, HIP HOP!”


Also gave us a taste of the new album... this is the first time i heard the new single "Float Away" which I'm sure you've heard by now. 

What a fun night. Check this photo out of me getting my fan on and getting all my shit signed…

This is a video of a track me Olivia Romas and Jordan Creely wrote together, decided to play it for the first time live. Its Called "Fake Hate That Can't Aim". Used this to close the set.

Also notice the Grey Ghost drawing in there. I ran into him on the way out of the gig and stopped for a chat. Its funny though, I had this song stuck in my head for weeks and I couldn’t for the life of me remember where I had saved it/what it was called. It was a track that I’d listened to A LOT when I was about 14, after one of the nights at the Everlyn seeing the band “Alex the Kid”. I could even recite the lyrics, and I new that the song was featuring Jeremody (now known as Grey Ghost).  I took my chance and asked him about the track, and because I didn’t no what it was called I had to rap back some of his lines to him… it quickly jogged his memory and he laughed saying that that song was never released and wondered how I had it. I really have no idea, but once he told me the name of it I found it saved on an old laptop of mine. Listening to it as we speak…

“That’s why I don’t take drugs anymore, I just drink lemonade” – Jeremody (Grey Ghost)

I think this little run in is maybe what sparked his management to contact me for me to support him at his Mixtape launch.

If you haven’t already check out Grey Ghost’s EP and new free Mixtape… I am a big fan.

Greyghost.com.au 

Funkoars Support

All right, so like with lots of things in my life I start them and never go back to them… thankfully I have a little more drive with music than I’ve had with this blog! Lol.

I have a pretty big catalogue of things to discuss with hat I’ve been up to recently with music, so I think I’ll extend them to a few posts but first thing first:

SUPPORTING THE FUNKOARS  (yep. Little ol’ me and THE Funkoars)

This was a little bit of an up and down with the promoter calling me and offering me the spot… then calling back and saying there was not going to be any local supports, then a few weeks later calling me back to re-offer the spot to me. I have to say I'm very glad that he called back. As with all support slots they the deal is basically you get to play, but you have to sell pre-sale tickets. Not that Funkoars tickets were hard to sell, but still you have to actual do the legwork to move the tickets.

The night itself started for me at sound check. Rocked up to Dj Reflux with 3 mics in hand rapping Funkoars songs because no one else had turned up for sound check… things like: “I hate my group, I hate, hate my group” were thrown in between verses… me and the sound guys had a pretty damn good laugh.

Anyway, this show was great for me in many different ways. Not only did I get to open up for/meet the Funkoars, I got to play a hometown show for the first time in years, and when I looked out into the crowed I was in awe of how many people had gotten in early to see me play. I swear though half of the people there went to my high school (Frankston) at some point hahaha. Check out some pictures from the night below: All photo's were taken by Dylan Nie you can find his blog here http://dylanisrestless.blogspot.com.au

The other supports for the night included Maundz, Briggs and Backyard Funk.

What a fantastic night.

I THEN however got up for work the next day to proceed to just clean shelfs and the windows for about 8 hours.

“Last night, rocking out with the Funkoars,

Day light, 8 hours mopping down floors,

Yeah I rap, but I still need this day job,

Making music in my time off…!”

Yeah, my job is pretty brain taxing.