Damian Lazarus, The Ancient Moons and Crosstown Rebels

August 25, 2015 7:49 PM

Damian Lazarus is an interesting chap. On one hand, you have the self-proclaimed ancient wizard who channels mysticism into his live rave mixes around the world, while on the other hand there is his well-regarded house music label, Crosstown Rebels, which recently celebrated its tenth birthday with a 3 CD/40 track compilation. You can find a ton from both sides of Damian online.

Going waaay back, you can stream Damian Lazarus' first commercial mix, P.M. Scientists (YT playlist; tracklist on Discogs) from when he spun drum'n'bass and breaks in the mid-to-late 1990s. He released a few single tracks in 2000 on compilations, and in 2003, Crosstown Rebels kicked off.

It would be six years before Damian's first album, Smoke the Monster Out (select club versions on YouTube), and earlier this year, he released his second album with an ensemble cast from around the world:

The Pakistani Qawwali virtuosos Fareed Ayaz, Abu Muhammad and Hamza Akram; the Mozambican guitar genius Neco Novellas; Hossam Ramzy, the Egyptian percussionist who worked with Jimmy Page and Robert Plant on their ’94 album No Quarter; the leftfield-jazz pianist Eric "ELEW" Lewis; sitarist Sidartha Siliceo, a onetime student of Ravi Shankar; Penguin Café double-bass man Andrew Waterworth, who provided string arrangements for Mexico’s Yucatan Symphony Orchestra; vocalists Moses Sumney and Ali Love; and, helping Lazurus tie it all together, producer James Ford from Simian Mobile Disco

The album was Damian Lazarus and The Ancient Moons - Message from the Other Side (Soundcloud set). If you like this general vibe, you can find similar sounds from the many mixes and tracks on his Soundcloud page, plus there's his 53 minute Boiler Room mix from last year, as well as his BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix from May of this year and another Essential Mix from 2006 (tracklist). For more past mixes, you can browse the list on MixesDB.

If you want to hear more from Crosstown Rebels, they have a YouTube channel and a Soundcloud account.

posted by filthy light thief (4 comments total)

I've been listening to his mixes on and off today, and there's actually a lot of variety in them. Even from his Lazpod mixes (tracklists) range from his Burning Man set to a surprisingly sentimental and sappy lovers mix. And if you want more ambient, Countdown to Zero is quite nice.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:05 PM on August 25, 2015

yessssssssssss
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:28 PM on August 25, 2015

The YT link to the BBC Radio 1 Essential mix is broken, it points to the Boiler Room mix linked earlier.

Nevertheless, nice collection of links.
posted by all the versus at 10:45 PM on August 26, 2015

Mod note: Fixed the link, carry on.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 9:11 AM on August 27, 2015