If you were at the epic SLF New Years’ Eve party last year, you know that the best way to escape the typical NYE brouhaha is a good old-fashioned loft party! This year, we’re ringing in the new year with an incredible live band feat. Treasure Don (mashup of Brooklyn faves Peoples Champ’s and Super Hi-Fi) and an eclectic crew of DJs spinning the jams all night long.

Please send an email RSVP to rsvp@soundliberation.org for the location.

9PM-Early 2012
$15 at the door (with free champagne toast!)
Clinton Hill, Brooklyn

The SLF crew and Subatomic Sound are proud to announce the first annual Dub Invasion Festival with Lee “Scratch” Perry, Mad Professor, Adrian Sherwood, Twilight Circus Dub, and more! Festival partners include Dubspot, Wax Poetics, Brooklyn Radio, Turntables on the Hudson, Liondub International, Deep Space, Deadly Dragon, Universal Sundays and Restless Native.

Along with some amazing musical performances during the 10-day festival, we’ll be presenting documentary film screenings, a UK dub photo exhibit, and dub masterclasses at Dubspot with Mad Professor, Adrian Sherwood, and Clive Chin of VP Records.

For more info and the full schedule, please check out the festival website www.dubinvasion.net.

In case you didn’t already know, the next edition of our coney island reggae beach party is happening in a few weeks on Sunday August 14th. For those of you who missed the first one, here is a little video recap to give you an idea of how awesome the vibes was. We’re looking forward to see you all on the 14th (and don’t forget the sunscreen this time!)

Also, Please remember that this is a free event and that we need your support to cover our production costs. If you like what we do, please consider donating to our campaign:

KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN – PLEASE DONATE!

Click here for the full picture set.

If you missed the prince of afrobeat at Prospect Park this past weekend, you can catch him with Egypt 80 at SOB’s this Wednesday, July 27th. A HIGHLY recommended show!

WKCR’s Eastern Standard Time and the Sound Liberation Front have joined forces again to present the 2011 season of the Coney Island Reggae Beach Party series, bringing the enormously influential culture of Jamaican sound systems back to the Coney Island Boardwalk on Sunday, July 17.

Building on the success of last year’s inaugural season, the free events will begin at 2 p.m. and last until sunset, and will feature live DJs, special guest artists, and fun activities for the whole family. This year the parties will take place at a new location directly on the beach at W. 19th Street (near the iconic red tower).

Each event will feature an all-star lineup of music selectors and guest vocalists curated by WKCR host Carter Van Pelt. Some notable talents who performed at last year’s events include dancehall legends Johnny Osbourne, Carlton Livingston, and Mikey Jarrett; seminal NYC sound system Sir Tommy’s; and, legendary record producer Clive Chin.

The final Coney Island Reggae Beach Party of the season will be at the same location on Sunday, August 14th.

Check out videos and photos from last season. This time around we’re setting up the sound system right on the beach for even more good vibes, so don’t miss out!

For our second Sound Liberation Radio podcast we decided to keep it local. Here’s music from New York City — spanning decades and styles from the Latin funk of the 70′s to disco of the 80′s to Brooklyn electro-pop of 2011. So tune in while DJ’s Trainwreck and Lil Tiger take you around the globe without ever leaving the Five Boroughs…

— DJ Trainwreck
Kip Hanrahan – “One Casual Song (After Another)”
Jimmy Sabater – “Yroco”
Indian Ocean – “Treehouse (Extended Bootleg Edit)”
Miles Davis – “Rated X”
Billy Cobham – “Red Baron”
Superhuman Happiness – “The Hounds”
Chico Mann – “Once In A Lifetime”
Talking Heads – “Seen and Not Seen”
Material – “Reduction”
Dirty Projectors – “No Intention”

— DJ Lil Tiger
Konk – “Konk Party (Master Cylinder Jam)”
Indeep – “Last Night a DJ Saved My Life”
Captain Planet – “Lagos Speedway”
Spymusic – “Cloak”
Brío – “Carnaval”
Butta – “O’kwawa se’ (First Nibble)”
Louie Vega feat. Pedro Martinez – “Canto Para Chango”
Louie Vega feat. Raúl Midón – “Sunshine”

For all the music nerds out there, Sound Liberation Front is proud to present the first episode of it’s brand new podcast: SOUND LIBERATION RADIO.

To start things off, SLF’s DJ Trainwreck and DJ Lil Tiger got together on a rainy Saturday in Queens and just started playing some records they like a whole lot. The result is a little over an hour of great tunes spanning various styles, including African, Latin, funk, soul, tumba, broken beat, and several points in between.

By virtue of some technical difficulties, Episode 01 ended up being all vinyl and unmixed, and really, that’s okay by us. We plan to make this no frills and anything goes. We’re just going wherever our ears take us. Hope you like it. Here’s the playlist:

— DJ Trainwreck
Liquid Liquid – “Bellhead”
Los Van Van – “Llegada”
Chico Mann – “Guardalo (El Silencio)”
Zed Nkabinde – “Inkonjane Jive”
The Special AKA – “Free Nelson Mandela”
Sahr Vs. Superhuman Happiness – “Gravity”
Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings – “This Land Is Your Land”
NOMO – “Hand and Mouth”
Guerrilla Hi-Fi – “Yabby Loop”
Can – “Spoon”
Mulatu Asteke and his Ethiopian Quintet – “I Faram Gami I Faram”
El Chicano – “Mas Zacate”
The Daktaris – “Eltsuhg Ibal Lasiti”

— DJ Lil Tiger
New Sector Movements – “Free As”
Lekan Babalola – “Aso Kere”
Macario Prudencia – “Awor Cuantor”
Candela All-Stars – “Brobombique (Original Version)”
Broki y Héctor Calderón – “Comparsa”
Gasper Lawal – “Kita Kita”
Neon Phusion – “The Future Ain’t The Same As It Used 2 B”

This Saturday, we are co sponsoring the release party of Subatomic Sound’s latest release: Vampires & Informers. You’ve heard the buzz about the record so make sure you come support our good friend Emch and check out this amazing lineup of international bass specialists.

It’s free too so no excuse!

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=110102212405042

FREE BEFORE MIDNIGHT with RSVP at http://www.SubatomicSound.com/

Ming (of MING & FS)
Liondub (LIONDUB INTL, HALCYON)
Emch (of SUBATOMIC SOUND SYSTEM)
Paul Zasky (of DUBBLESTANDART) out of Vienna
Chicus (REDBUD RECORDINGS)

PLUS special guests, video, & dance performance from Stand Up Hungry dance crew!

The release is blowing up: #5 on Juno (#1 in reggae), Top 40 on Beatport reggae, and the vinyl hit #1 on Ernie B!

“Breaking serious ground in Jamaican music.” – MTV
“Another heavyweight release in a relentless schedule from Subatomic Sound!” – Generation Bass
“The mixtape king and Jamaican dancehall superstar examines the underworld on his latest” – AOL Music

NYC label Subatomic Sound label presents “Vampires & Informers” a bass fueled dance party celebrating the crazy new the vinyl and re-upped digital release of an electronic album of the same name by dancehall reggae star Elephant Man with beats by Subatomic Sound System, Stereotyp, Dubblestandart, Ming, Liondub, David Last, Kush Arora, & Taal Mala. The party featues DJ sets by the album’s producers from the U.S. and Europe, a night of forward, heavy bass, dancefloor sounds: dub, dubstep, dancehall, electro, jungle, uk steppers, funky, bassline, and beyond.

Sponsors: Konkrete Jungle, Brooklyn Radio, Permanent Damage, & SLF

Juno Download http://bit.ly/jnEle2
iTunes http://bit.ly/it2ele
Beatport http://bit.ly/elebtp

So maybe we’ll just stay home on new year’s eve from now on. Of course, staying home isn’t the old pot of tea and Twilight Zone reruns that it might sound like, not when you live in Ezra and Brent’s house and the Sound Liberation Front throws a raging party in your living room with 100 or so of your newest and dearest friends, all of whom act like saving the planet is easy if we just shake it a little bit more, a little bit longer.

For real- overpriced cocktails and cover charges and bad music and craning your neck to see what’s past the velvet rope is so 2010. So we’re gonna do it just like we did this time from now on. Meaning we’re gonna freak out and drive all over town all day picking up equipment and booze, we’re gonna string christmas lights and plug in amplifiers and turntables and build a bar out of milk crates, and then we’re gonna sit back and watch the evening unfold about as close to perfect as you’re allowed to get.

Hopefully it’s always like this- with Brent Arnold starting us all off with his gorgeous looping cello (seriously, you’ve got to check this guy out- http://audiofriction.com/), and DJ ‘lil Tiger and Q-Mastah spinning us right into the new year on just the right note. We hope Treasure Don is always there too, toasting on the mic while a ragtag band of SLF all-stars- Ezra on bass, Linh on keys, Brent on guitar and Quinn on drums- rocks behind him. We made a new friend in DJ B from San Francisco, and Planet Rump’s set of funky electro, I mean…damn- we already knew we had a crush on these guys, like you have a crush on the new kid in school with the funky new haircut, but it turns out this new kid rocks vintage electro beats like your grandma rocks strawberry rhubarb pie, and looks damn sexy in skintight silver too. We’re in love. After that, somehow, it just got better, with a special treat of a set from none other than dj/rupture. By the time Trainwreck hit the decks the sun wasn’t far off and things were shading toward the blurry side, but what a way to end the night (and the year, and the decade…).

So yeah, you have to spend a few days cleaning your living room when you invite the world over instead of going out to meet it on New Year’s, but with a crew like this we wouldn’t have it any other way. Thanks to all who came and made it epic, we’ll see you soon…

So, we just have one question- is Coney Island always this awesome?? Because if it is, we need to re-think our entertainment routines, re-orient ourselves south, trade trendy Williamsburg clubs for sun-soaked slices of Brooklyn boardwalk Americana, overpriced Lower East Side cocktails for cold Coronas bought out of some dude’s shopping cart on a Coney fishing pier. Sure, maybe it was a fluke, maybe this was a one-time event, maybe Sound Liberation Front and Eastern Standard Time hauled racks of speakers, a sound system, coolerfuls of refreshments and the best reggae selectors you could ask for into the one perfect summer afternoon on the Brooklyn beach, when everything was perfectly aligned. We don’t know. All we do know is if we can help it, we are never, ever going to miss an afternoon like that again.

Like the best parties, it’s all a little blurry, to be honest. Some of us got up early and packed a van full of equipment and drove out to the beach. Others of us biked out to Coney Island and arrived around 3, party in full swing, fixing ourselves rum and cokes and boogying down on the boardwalk in the perfect summer sun while the iconic Coney Island parachute tower loomed over us. Once the sound system was finally strung up, Carter Van Pelt from WKCR had things on full boil from the get go, a mixed crowd of reggae heads and curious Coney beachwalkers mingling in front of the decks on the boardwalk. A couple hundred yards down the boardwalk a Puerto Rican party raged on with a live bachata band and a crowd full of salsa dancers. A couple hundred yards the other direction some guy played Beatles songs on drums and guitar at the same time, and was actually, kinda, well, really good at it. We wandered back to the party to find a growing crowd dancing. Throughout the afternoon, a rotation of selectors including Hahn Solo, Vaughn All Star, Nick Solid Rock and Sir Tommy’s rocked the decks alternating rocksteady classics, vintage reggae and wicked foundation cuts.

Some of us wandered a little ways off to the fishing pier, watching some kid reel in a flounder and then lose it at the last second, while a crowd threw money down for a dice game on the planks and we bought beers off a shopping cart. Some of us met cute boys from California and rode the ferris wheel. Back at the party, the Rub a Dub session was kicking into full gear. In a traditional Jamaican sound system fashion, a succession of artists were throwing it down in the gathering darkness, displaying their skills over a series of classic riddims while the growing crowd edged around them. The standout moment of the evening came when Johnny Osbourne unleashed his “Buddy Bye” anthem on the infamous sleng teng riddim followed by Carlton Livingtson performing “Please Mr DJ” which had the crowd going wild.

Yeah, the power went out at one point. And yeah, some of the old school heads wanted more juice from our generator so they could really drive that bass…although truth be told there was no getting away from that bass no matter how far up the boardwalk you walked (thank God).

And then, with the sunlight gone, it was over, and we loaded our speakers and tables and cooler back in the van, scarfed down one more Nathan’s hot dog, and drove back home, back to the city, but still in Brooklyn, because we never left.

Click here for the full picture set.