2016 thankfully reminded the world of the uniquely cool and talented, The Allergies, known individually as Rackabeat and DJ Moneyshot, as their debut album As We Do Our Thing was released.
The album effortlessly combined handfuls of funk, soul, disco and hip-hop by taking classic sounds and reshaping them for the modern age, which is just a couple of reasons why we are extremely excited to see what experimental aspects they bring with their new record Push On, released via Jalapeno Records and exclusively revealed here on We Plug Good Music.
Growing up big fans of funky music from the golden era ‘hip-hop dons’ (as The Allergies call it), who had the ability to make you move, think, laugh and stand up, are all DJs who encouraged both Moneyshot, from South Yorkshire, and Rackabeat from Guildford, to become DJs themselves and to spread the love they felt for the music towards other people.
“We put our first free DL out in the summer of 2012. It was a two tracker made up of the moody, driving ‘symphonics’ and the head-nod blues reworking, ‘Big Star’. That’s been the mission from the start, hopefully in 2017 we’ve upped our game a bit and increased the quality without losing any of that original spark.”
And that spark is something that makes The Allergies stand out in the music industry – taking old records as inspiration and sampling music in a hip-hop kind of way, focusing on particular aspects of the drum breaks, real sounding bass riffs and sound horns to create their very own style of music. “We like to keep one eye on the dance floor, whilst tugging at your heartstrings, and making you nod your head. We force people to dance in a funny ways”.
The pair has had a deservingly amount of support from the Craig Charles Funk and Soul Show on BBC 6Music, where they have been supported continuously from the start, doing guest mixes, dropping exclusives on his show and performing live on his show. Not to mention support from a hero of the duo, Zoe Ball on BBC Radio 2, who is continuously very vocal about her support.
It’s no wonder these two can make incredibly unique music with their musical backgrounds varying from being a resident on Ninja Tune’s Solid Steel Show for ten years in Moneyshot’s case, creating award winning mixes, and on the other hand being a drum’n’bass producer previously, for Rackabeat, before moving to Bristol to partner up with Moneyshot and become what they are today.
Describing their music making process as like piecing together a puzzle which can take hours, by dusting up old recordings, choosing loops and stabs and trying to weave them together. “We work in the day because nights are for DJ’ing. The next step is to start taking the sessions into Logic and finessing them there. Then when that’s done it’s done“.
“We spend a lot of time sat on the computer with the same four bar loop going over and over for about six hours, which can definitely drive you bonkers! But when you go out to DJ and people make all that effort and drive all them miles to come see us and share how much they like us makes it all worth while. At the end of the day we get to make music for a living so really there is no downside!”
“We ain’t doing nothing that ain’t been done before but we just seem to be one of the few peeps still flying that flag for raw drums, dusty crates and party raps. We like to stick to our guns and don’t jump on any bandwagons, but play and make the kind of music that we got excited about when we first dipped our toes in all those many years ago”
If you like the sound of raw drums, party raps and dusty crates, then give “Entitled To That” a listen here today as an exclusive, and make a note in the diary for their second album Push On release date on the 28th of July, which features raps from LA’s Ugly Duckling Crew member Andy Cooper, Latino vibes, disco moods, low slung soul and rap battles – all of The Allergies favourite music in one handy album, so be sure to make a note of the date and give it a good listen.
Pre-Order The Allergies Push On on iTunes here.
Words by Mia Woloszczynska
