The discovery of phenomenal or rare music in the dustiest thrift store, record shop, or warehouse is one thing that makes being a DJ rewarding. It is one of the greatest feelings to come out of a record store, covered in dust, triumphantly wielding one or two rare gems that you painstakingly found that many people passed up. However, in our ever increasing digital music world, it is getting harder and harder to find digital gems that are buried within the ever growing landfill of music that is on the World Wide Web. And it is also rare when you find a digital gem that makes you feel the same as a hard days worth of dusty crate digging.

I stumbled across Kuroioto – Iro Iro album from a seemingly useless search link from Google. The link was not even relevant to what I was searching for, but a statement in the link caught my eye. In the link it stated, “… you like Dilla… Japanese hip-hop instrumentals.” So I had to click and was brought to some forum, I clicked around in there and was eventually brought to this web page where I discovered probably one of the best instrumental hip-hop albums that I have ever heard. I didn’t know this at the time that this album was going to be amazing.

Iro Iro is an amazing piece of underground work that contains many recognizable 60’s and 70’s funk and soul samples, mixed and blended with an ethereal jazzy flow into ten superb, head noddingly smooth tracks. My favorite track on the album is a piece called, “Aka” that contains samples of one of my most favorite tracks of all time, Kool and the Gang’s “Summer Madness.” Each track is noteworthy and this album is definitely worth having in any collection.

The interesting thing about this album is it has never been pressed into an LP or has it ever been distributed by a label. In fact, Kuroioto is not even Japanese. I did a little recon work on who this artist was and here’s what I found. Kuroioto is actually a student at Michigan State University. He posted this whole album for free on BandCamp.com and “… the album is an expression of what I go through in a week as well as the colors that affect my emotions and experiences during that week.” That’s all I can find out about Kuroioto. Big ups to whomever this cat is and hopefully we’ll hear more from him in the future.

Download Kuroioto - Iro Iro from BandCamp

Check out Kuroioto on MySpace

Mike Realm does a hilarious retake of an Old Spice Commercial.

Mike Relm Remixes Old Spice (via relmvision)

DIPT NYC® launches their much anticipated Summer X Collection. The collection has three T-Shirt designs available. Check out the DIPT NYC Site for more details.

DIPT NYC® SUMMER X’ LOOK BOOK (DIPTNYC.COM)(HD) from The Ice Cream Man on Vimeo.

This is a video of a bear at the Hiroshima Zoo named Cloud. They need to cast this bear in a movie or something soon! I’d watch a full hour and a half of this.

It took me a minute to post this up but here’s my latest mix. It’s got just a jazzy flow to it. Overall I feel it is a decent mix. Let me know what you think about it. The tracklisting is below. Listen to it on iTunes or on SoundCloud

The Stone Groove - DJ Sonar - May 15th 2010 Mix by spacedinvaders

May 15th, 2010 Mix
mixed by: Sonar

Jazz Con Bazz - Da Huzle
People Under The Stairs - Suite For Beaver (Part 1)
Tony D - Piano Grand
Smoke No Bones - Lyrics and Vibes
Ta’Raach - Baaby
L-Fudge - Liquid (Instrumental)
Mr. Scruff - How Sweet It Is
Mass Influence - A Yo! Atlanta Ya On
UMOD - U Better Recognise
DJ Numark & DJ Pomo - The Way I Think

I saw this on Turntable Lab’s blog a couple of days ago. DJ Funktual talks about the history and rise of Hip Hop’s national anthem. I have always wanted to know the story behind The Incredible Bongo Band and how they came up with Apache. It’s a great watch! Check out Funktual’s other videos here. Definitely worth the watch.