Following on from the huge success of their eponymous debut long-player, everyone’s favourite East London brass and drum ensemble return with one of the album’s highlights on 7-inches of heavyweight fat wax. This version of “No Diggity”, the 90’s r&b hit by Blackstreet, has been a favourite in HCB’s live shows for some time now, long before it was committed to tape.
Following on from the album’s release, this sousa led hip hop/funk hybrid has become a dance floor staple for many a discerning DJ. Not a difficult decision then to make this club smasher the band’s third vinyl release, but to add extra value to the package we’ve put something rather special and exclusive on the flip! “House Arrest” is an original, party starting Balkan monster, complete with frenetic hand-claps and singing (yes singing!) from the 9-piece outfit, showing another side to the HCB sound, and adding another huge anthem to their repertoire.
Good Measure
Hackney Colliery Band is East London’s unique take on the brass band phenomenon. Featuring trumpets, trombones, saxes, sousaphone and marching percussion, the band are totally acoustic and yet able to blow the roof off any room. Hackney Colliery Band’s members have hugely diverse musical backgrounds, ranging from work with cutting edge jazz group Porpoise Corpus to the Bollywood Brass Band, and from Jarvis Cocker to major orchestras. This breadth of musical talent is clearly on display in their eclectic repertoire. Mining nuggets of funk, hip-hop and hi-octane rock from the musical coalface and throwing in a few chunks of Balkan brass, ska and contemporary jazz for good measure, the Hackney Colliery Band’s setlist is as diverse as the London borough that gave them their name.
Reactions
“Who’s idea was it to get UK’s Hackney Colliery Band to cover an r&b dance floor classic in a big brass band style? Bloody genius….” Nik Weston (Mukatsuku Records/Guynamukat, UK)
“Loving that “no diggity” version, goes straight in the box for tonight! once again thanks for sending and big thanks for keeping on releasing such fantastic music!” Karsten John (Vinyl Vibes, Germany)
“The HCB version of No Diggity is flaming awesome; dramatic with the flow, and dem beats are mighty fine too – this track’s sure to put a smile on the face of anyone and pack many a dance floor.” DJ Marcia Carr (UK)
“Nice one, thx! Will play it on the radio show.” DJ Rogall (weekly 88.4 fm , berlin & multicult fm)
“Thanks, just got the No Diggity/House Arrest seven by mail!! I think I already earlier gave feedback related to Hackney Collier Band cd, No Diggity was one of my favourites there and it is also on one of my Wahoo! shows on Samurai FM:
http://samurai.fm/wahoo/wahoo-
“One of the highlights on the Hackney Colliery Band’s debut album was a brass band heavy version of the R&B hit “No Diggity” from Backstreet. It was a favourite of the outfit’s live show long before it was officially recorded for this Wah Wah 45s release – and it’s not hard to see why. Over on the flip, “House Arrest” is a skankin Balkan affair with handclaps aplenty!” Juno Records
“Absolutely KILLER!!!!” DJ Kinski (Germany)
“Just a quick note to say thanks for sending up the hackney colliery band 7”. It’s great to have “no diggity” on vinyl and the flip is a big tune as well!” Simon Harrison (Basic Soul, UK)
“The two tracks are awesome! I (as a Balkan person) love the horn side of music. 🙂 But I think Hackney Colliery Band should think about some vocal tracks…” Dobromir Marzov a.k.a Soulmate (The “45 RPM” radio show, Bulgaria)
“A very nice one !” Ralf Zitzmann (Agogo Records, Germany)
“We already knew that No diggity was a winner, but the great surprise is House Arrest, an explosion of joy and rhythm” Santiago Tadeo Cervera (www.acidjazzhispano.com, Spain)
“Great music! Nice version of “No Diggity”! Hector Pizarro (Chile con mix, France)
“Monster!” Ross Wakefield (Part-Time Heroes)
“Looking forward to spin them!” DJ Laurel (Sound Diving, Minsk)
“No diggity is the one for me !!!” Markus Milz (further in fusion, Germany)
“I have one of those huge smiles on my face again, Teddy Riley’s favorite lyrics were YEP YEP, so It’s 100% YEP from me too, No Diggity is all about diggin’. That includes the flipside too!!” Georgios Paroglou (Greece)
“Personally as a dj, I’ve never been a huge fan of the big band stuff that’s been coming out over the last few years. There has been the odd track or 2 that I’ve added to my crates and I think this version of No diggity is one of them. Although I mostly think this stuff is best to see live there are a few tracks like this one which are well suited to club, bar or mixtape sets. Definitely be giving this one some airtime in all those areas.” DJ Strangefellow
Radio play from Lauren Lavern and Craig Charles (BBC 6Music); Toshio Matsuura, Radio Tokyo Moon (Japan); Russ Jones (HGT Radio)
