The Beat Is The Thing Posted by independent j

Beatfanatic - Cookin' from 12" on Rawfusion (RAF007) 2003. Beatconductor - Goes To My Head from promo album Beats Cut Out, Played Back, and Souled on Dicey (DICEYCD001) 2005. If you're into dancefloor jazz and big sounding funk these days you need to be hip to Sweden, who's producers are just dominating the scene right now. For that matter, if you are into dope remixes of semi-forgotten and sometimes cheesey early 90s hip hop and r&b acts like Tevin Campbell and Heavy D (not cheesey at all, I love the Heavster), you need to be looking in the same place. Beatfanatic (aka Ture Sjoberg) is certainly the most prolific and definitely one of the best of this super deep and deadly production field, and his work is impressively consistent. First up is Cookin', the B-side to his first single on Rawfusion Jogando Capoeira. A Latin dance number with all the requisite congas and group horn blasts surely, but just listen to the punch of those drums which are especially noticeable as the break becomes isolated in the final minute. Beatfanatic's catalogue includes straight soul and funk, more of this style of Latin/Brazilian work, choppy electronic numbers, and other styles but throughout it is all delivered with excellent rhythms and a hip hop production aesthetic. He has two full lengths and numerous singles out on Rawfusion and Dicey that are very worth checking out. On the slightly less legal front Beatfanatic works under the nom de disques Beatconductor (not to be confused with Madlib's identical moniker for his broken beat/downtempo excursions) and Discoconductor. Under these names he has released numerous remixes on GAMM and Soundscape records that are just this side of essential. Off his recent remix compilation is this track Goes To My Head, putting a sweet bass-line and sharp snares under MC Lyte's classic Paper Thin (unfortunately recently co-opted by Missy Elliot for another forgettable track). I don't know if it is all the nuclear power, or the Nobel committee, or just having one of the dopest national flags; but for some reason Sweden is just killing it now with Beatfanatic, Red Astaire/Freddie Cruger, Samoo, Sebi, Five Corners Quintet, and many others.