Zifhang out of Santiago, Chile - who produced a couple of the beats on Copius' Blind Mans Maze LP - sent me his EP to check out and it's chock full of wicked jazzed up, blazed-out hip hop beats:

Pentium III 846Mhz EP (Coverless)(Single Downloads Available) by Zifhang

Grab the whole EP: Zifhang - Pentium III 846Mhz EP

Years in the making... my boy Copuis has finally dropped his solo LP (well OK, it was months ago now, but I've been sleeping on this) Blind Man's Maze, available for free download at Bandcamp... check it:

Blind Mans Maze by Copius

He's been taking his time putting this project together, honing his skills for the last 7 years, and he's wound up with something that sounds really well rounded & complete - mad respect to him for taking his time to produce a proper album, & not just taking the first ten tunes he made & putting them out there like so many hip hop mixtapes out there.

The album opens with a selection of straight boom bap excellence. Didn't ya know - just straight rhyming, showing off his quite nasal, monotone flow and matching it perfectly with the beat - tumbling over it each bar until the last beat which is strictly two syllables. Say wot is a highlight with it's Zifhang penned beat and playful flow.

Lyrically Copius is at his best talking about the simple things, like on Synical Sidewalk Talk - just a celebration of being alive in the city he lives in, oozing immense joy in the everyday. Here he reminds of Cat Empire, talking about stuff which is insignificant, personal, local but which gets at something universal to an extent which can't be reached if you try to go direct.

There's a whole bunch of UK stuff I've been meaning to blog for a while, but I I keep forgetting... SO here's a whole bunch-o-stuff at once, all certified by myself...

afro-e

Afro-e chats about his favourite subject - the colour and extent of his hair - over the POW 2011 riddim (so OK, grime, not hip hop)

King Of The Gings (POW 2011) by afroe

copius

Representing the Steel City... Fancy a scooby snack?

Scooby Snack by copius

(Image robbed from Brenda Howell cos I thought it was kinda cool. Sorry Brenda - but here's a link back to you!)

Here's a new remix from me... it's kind of a work in progress, but everything I do at the moment is kind of a work in progress, due to my convoluted mastering process involving listening on various headphones then burning to CD and listening on a car stereo...

SAOTV - A Bruised Reed (andykisaragi remix 0.2)  by  andykisaragi

Mentioned Copius's live band stuff on here a couple of weeks ago, well now he's back and keeping it reel with his first mixtape, 25 minutes of steel city hip hop, check it out at Virb:

http://virb.com/copius

Tracklist:

Blind Mannequin Volume 1

Swagger (Copius)
Funeral Dust (Copius/Soul)
Terror Remix (Copius/Soul/7th Sun)
Tributes (Soul)
Im Outside (Copius)
Lawless Kid (Copius/Soul/Dusty)
High Times (Soul)
Radioactive (Copius/Soul/Omez/7th Sun)

I've been meaning to blog about my boy COPIUS for a while.

Check out this video of him & his band live last weekend:

Copius is a Sheffield based producer & MC who's been making music for a few years now, and man he's coming on in leaps and bounds, the band looks awesome can't wait to see them live in the flesh! This tune gets the live hip hop thing just right, sticking to a tight repetetive groove - not getting too carried away with the instrumentation but still making the most of it.

Check out some more Copius tunes below...