[dropcap style=”font-size:100px; color:#992211;”]E[/dropcap]x-Friendly: a motive to tread new turf at all costs, a style that reverbs and trip-hops deep house to a more obscure level, beat-playing and buying time for you to roundhouse the bar and get on the dancefloor for the quick cash easy lashes kinda girl that is now knee deep in blue grooves.
‘Journey Man’ says I’ve got some serious blood running through my veins right now and don’t flyboy the footwork, glide it and manoeuvre you lazy shit because ‘Journey Man’ is no layabout track, no flyboy track; a tripster track that will niggle your knees and free your elbows and palms to movement.
The track has many aspects to it, and a good thing is that ‘Journeyman’ is a marcher, it’s got a middleweight stomach punch that leads with the left hook, it gets you hooked, no doubt. Like munching a pack of Polos it’s got clarity in white spearmint. Saying that, if you don’t want to dance to ‘Journeyman’ you may just get a spear and a whiff of mint from some snap caps chewing gum as he marches on by.
Founded on dance principles, and if bought, ‘Journey Man’ presents you as heritage house junkie as you field different hearts from around the block. As a track ‘Journey Man’ then moves you through the pounding front door and into the living room to find spine tingling Lucy who wants to take you under her wing, whilst the marching Polo salesman flings you a free pack as he walks past your living room window; this is your marching beats producer salesman, Ex-Friendly.
Ex-Friendly is a Nottingham-based music producer, dj, and singer that crawled out of some very big rabbit hole during the 90s Free Party scene as a singer and dj rolling with a DIY sound system. He gained his musical credentials working at The Blue Note in Hoxton Square mixing through the doors with the great and good of quality cutting-edge labels, acts and djs including Metalheadz, Gilles Peterson, Anokha, Ninja Tunes, and list as long as your arm. Ex-Friendly has worked under many aliases but became Ex-Friendly about four years ago exploring electronic soul music in many genres and tempos, generating a following due to his edits of soul, disco and reggae tracks.
Early releases on Gooseneck (Los Angeles) and ITD (Germany) led to breakthrough opening track on Midnight Riot Vol 3 (ISM) that spent four weeks topping the Juno Download Album Charts (also on the 4 track vinyl sampler and CD boxset).
Ex-Friendly’s album release on Futurism Shades of Space and 4 track vinyl sampler reinforced his genre-hopping vibe.
July 2013 saw the release of his new vinyl only label ‘People Are Looking At You’ with his track ‘Journeyman’ accompanied by a remix by his label partners Jonno & Tommo. The release is gathering props from DJs and producers alike including Stuart Patterson (Mi-Soul Radio), X-Press 2, Phil Asher, Ministry Of Sound, KiNK, Danny Howells, MCDE, Luke Solomon, Cyclonix, Peter Ford (playing both sides in one night at Berlin’s premiere club, the Panorama Bar).
Ex-Friendly has more releases and remixes coming up on his own and others’ labels, and with some secret music and art projects on the side, its not unwise to say that Ex-Friendly’s profile will continue to grow…
‘Journey Man’ Out Now
Buy it at Juno.co.uk or good independent record shops.
NAP & Nico. is a writer, a painter, a poet, a illustrator and writer of a disabled squirrels children’s storybook . An academic yet to set the world on fire, but who is holding a Zippo beneath the Zepplin carrying modern society’s scene that will wonder why they hadn’t heard of NAP & Nico before.
