"It's been a long time, I shouldn't have left you
without a strong rhyme amen to step to..."

As I went to reclaim this long neglected child of a blog, that snippet of hip-hop history, altered for context by yours truly, popped through my head and it seemed apt to the moment, for multiple reasons, some of which I'll address now and some of which we may get around to later on. If you don't know where it comes from, shame on you, and you probably shouldn't be reading this blog, but. In either case, you may wonder where I've been, and the answer is: around.

Snide aversion aside, my wife and I moved from New Yolk Shitty to Hippieland Oregon and back (it's also red-neck Oregon, don't let TV fool you, but it still rocks), and upon our tail-wagging return, decided to "move on up" from Harlem down to the East Village. A couple few generations too late for the arts scene, but at least I can stare at the hipsters and wonder where their hips went.

Now onto the goods, I'll probably end up selling most if not all of my records, which is actually good news for you, because it means I finally have enough incentive to follow through on my promise of ripping them and turning this wan, speechless child into a blog worth its weight in download exercises. So get out your trigger fingers. Make sure that mouse works. Tell your ISP to shove it and get started. I hope this one, two, three punch turns out to be just what the junk-man ordered to ease that jungle withdrawal.

1) Some obscure '95 amen work from German producers Bassline Generation:
[SIREN001] Bassline Generation - Acetate Drums 1; Breeze; Survival (FLAC)
http://www.discogs.com/Bassline-Generation-Acetate-Drums-1-Breeze-Survival/master/147521

2) A couple atmospheric/intelligent amen jungle tunes on the mostly unknown label Electric Aura:
[AURA02] Artificial_Intelligence - Get Down (Remix); The Vision (FLAC)
http://www.discogs.com/Artificial-Intelligence-Get-Down/release/28942

3) Dirty darkside '94 butchery, one of the lesser known plates on White House.
[WYHS036] Phrenetic - Liquid Sky EP (FLAC)
http://www.discogs.com/Phrenetic-Liquid-Sky-EP/release/75369