If you like your music mashed up beyond belief then The Kleptones may just be what the music doctor ordered.

With Rock ‘n’ Roll and R ‘n’ B beautifully blended with Hip Hop and Rap, Kleptones mashups are distinctive despite the eclectic range of source material used. Soundbites from TV and film are added into the rich mix of fine rock and powerful beats make listening to The Kleptones an absolute pleasure.

DJ Eric Kleptone (get it?) of Brighton (UK) has released a number of ‘Internet only’ albums that feature his remixes and mashups. The first of which, Yoshimi Battles the Hip-Hop Robots, was a hip hop flavoured remix of instrumental tracks from the The Flaming Lips album, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots released in 2003.

Queen Remixed and Mashed

The following year A Night at the Hip Hopera was released. Despite Walt Disney’s ‘cease and desist’ notice for the original hosts of the album A Night at the Hip Hopera remains The Kleptones most popular release to date.

Despite the title this album is not a pure remix of Queen’s 1975 album, A Night at the Opera, as it features Queen songs from other albums too. The first remix by The Kleptones that I heard was ‘Bicycle Race’ mixed with Eminem’s ‘Slim Shady’. I was hooked by the comical genius that could even think of such unlikely combinations to remix.

There is a cut up version of Bohemian Rhapsody was released shortly after A Night at the Hip Hopera. It was not included, probably as it is the whole song made up of many many samples from covers of the original so not in keeping with the rest of the album. I’m not even sure if the original by Queen is actually used!

Judge for yourself:
[See post to listen to audio]

24 Hours

The Kleptones albums flow beautifully from one mashed track to the next, often with soundbites to link the two without interruption. There is no better example of this than the double album 24 Hours.

Released in March 2006 24 Hours is possibly the best to date. The sheer range of cut up songs and numerous samples all mixed to perfection show off Eric’s knowledge of music and his talent for producing bastard pop.

[See post to listen to audio]

Bestival 2007

The latest album available was recorded live at the 2007 Bestival. This may surpass the brilliance of 24 Hours. Who else mixes Aphex Twin’s ‘Window Licker’ with ‘You Give Love A Bad Name’ by Bon Jovi! Sublime.

The Kleptones collection of bootleg albums are worth downloading as there are a few hours of ingenious musical entertainment to be enjoyed. Listen in awe.

www.kleptones.com

www.myspace.com/kleptones

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Here what a finished mixtape looks like:

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Moby’s free MP3 was worthwhile and I could see the point of releasing such a track.

However, a few days later a free track was added to iLike by Jason Mraz [play it above]. The track is 3 minutes of rhythmic strumming that could be mistaken for a looped sample. Unfortunately this free MP3 just seems to be something thrown up online as a freebie without much thought. Such dull tracks are a bad advertisement that could put people off checking out the artist’s other music.

Such a shame!

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Moby is offering fans a free mashup of the tracks from his new album, Last Night.

This special offering from Moby is available via his iLike or MySpace page (the later requires registration).

After listening to this track a couple of times Moby’s new album is on my ‘to buy’ list.

Providing previews like this is a great idea. Recently REM ‘gave away’ a video via iTunes and such gestures are great for promoting new albums. I think it is a trend that will become more popular with record labels, especially those whose artists use social networking websites such as iLike, Facebook and so on.

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The blog will focus on the numerous places where music (good music) can be downloaded legally either for FREE or for a reasonable price.

Check back soon as we’re working on the website’s design at the moment so new posts will begin in earnest from Monday.

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