Trettmann ADD

Review

Review: Trettmann - Reggae Showcase EP

10/09/2017

by Munchy

While some love to talk about being innovative and even believe they are, while they actually aren’t, others just do it big time and don’t even brag about it. Creative collective KitschKrieg and their artist Trettmann just dropped a little bomb, casual like that “without any relevance to the charts”, and not just German Rap fans can love them for it. #DIY, short for Do It Yourself, is the name of a fan box they started selling about a week ago, for which the purchasers can actually do it themselves and pick whatever they prefer: one of two t-shirts, one of three specially designed posters personally signed by the artist with whichever 100 letters they like (excluding any that would result in a disrespectful word), plus a sticker set and of course music, music and more music. A brand new album entitled also #DIY, that might - despite its description - be indeed of great relevance to the charts and no less than six, partly previously released EPs, some in collaboration with Bonez MC, RAF Camora, and Megaloh contain 42 tracks in total. One of latter EPs that is brand new and exclusively in the fanbox is the Reggae Showcase and since this is Reggaeville and we love the one drop and nothing but the one drop, this review will – without holding back that the rest is pure awesomeness as well, but possibly a tiny little less relevant to the Reggae massive – focus on exactly this five track project.

Together with one of Germany’s most thriving Reggae and Dancehall beat makers Teka from Berlin, the artist formerly known as Ronny Trettmann chose five great hits, he had released previously on the KitschKrieg EPs and re-recorded them: Adriano, In Meinem Leben, La Dolce Vita, Raver, and Skyline. And again without even bragging about it, they did it in fine style with the musicians of Magic Touch, a Rocksteady band that usually plays with artists like Bitty McLean on stage, on reel-to-reel tape with some decent Roland RE-201 aka the infamous space echo and of course nothing less but Hammond organs and Fender guitars. If one didn’t know, he could actually mistake the thereby created, amazingly authentic sound as old originals, but for Trettmann and Teka no expense was too high, no effort too big. Even though the artist now has his greatest success ever with not his original style of music, that used to be Dancehall and Jamaican vibes, but German Rap, he didn’t forget his roots, where he comes from and what he obviously still loves and appreciates. He traced it back, way back to the times of Studio One and fused it the old school way with his big tunes. The formerly minimalistic electronic Adriano got even more relaxed and emphasizes on the punch line “I don’t care about you” on the Party Time Riddim, while the experimental, decelerated sound of Skyline got replaced by the Get In The Groove Riddim, that turns the whole sentiment into laid-back ease of mind. Horns roar, old vinyl crackles, guitar chords ring, piano bubbles effortlessly. The result is an organic, authentic and extremely enjoyable sound and a time-travel to the good old days of Rocksteady and Ska, and the roots of Trettmann, for both his new and his old fans. It bursts with great music and of course still the thoughtful and sophisticated lyrics of its interpreter, that sometimes result in the wink of an eye when being combined.

If the artist’s fingers aren’t bleeding from signing the fan boxes by now, they surely will when the Reggae massive heard the snippet and all decided to do it themselves as well.

The Reggae Showcase EP is only available as part of the <link https: www.kitschkrieg.de produkt trettmann-box external-link-new-window>#DIY Fanbox, but here you get full tune Adriano (Reggae RMX):

---

Release details