BIGGUP: Yan Zombie

Returning from winter hiatus this week, I’m starting a new feature called BIGGUP, focusing on a worthwhile and underhyped artist and their recent output. To pop things off, we have Yan Zombie, a mysterious masked bass-maker from Nelson, BC. In his own words, dude makes

futuristic/purple hip hop badman dancehall riddims meet with glitchy moog synth stutter funk for today’s sophisticated lady

For a quick hit of what this guy’s all about, peep his 15 minute megamash: Yan Zombie_SHOW EM HOW TO GO DUMB megamash free download by Yan Zombie

I first heard of him through Daly City Records, Mochipet’s label. Yan Zombie mixed the first, and I believe the only, episode of the Daly City Records podcast. He mashes the best in 2010 glitch-hop beats (samples, kraddy, mochipet, bassnectar, splatinum, etc) vs. with classic gangsta rap accapellas (slim thug, busta, odb, public enemy, etc), plus some unexpected treats by the likes of Roberta Flack, the Bangles, and Devo, James Brown and Burt “wtf” Bacaharach. Tying it all together are a butt-ton of Yan’s own edits and live glitches. This one enjoyed some seriously heavy rotation last year – tracklist here.
 Yan Zombie -Daly City Records Podcast #1 by Yan Zombie

So I couldn’t be more pleased when I saw that just before Christmas, Yan dropped another full length mix; episode #153 of J’aime Le Dubstep.   Starting with some spooky, west-coast zombie-step, the mix smoothly moves into showcasing Yan’s own hip hop and purple-funk productions before dropping 2 genius mashups (no spoilers, but kraddy would be proud) and finishing out with some grime bangers.

That’s not enough zombie juice for you? Well alright, good thing the man is so generous pon di soundcloud. Here’s a set of mashups and original edits (tooooo many bangers in here to even start breaking it down… but don’t skip the Iko Iko edit):

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/playlists/248597″ height=”200″]

Oh and here’s another 3 plus hours of fine n tasty bass mixes by dude. [soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/playlists/94508″ height=”200″]

WHAT? You’re still here??? Well then have a listen to Yan’s full length, The Hold-On Tight: analogue slices of love and confusion, which came out in June of 2011 (and available in a magical world where samples are cleared by wishing on a waveform). Pretty similar list of ingredients – recognizable hip hop, MPC trickery, west coast lazerbass production, but in this dish time it’s much more finely granulated. Never mind chopped and screwed, this is straight julienned gangsta funk.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/playlists/247601″ height=”200″]