Lalela feat. ASAP Shembe (Alex Phountzi Remix)
Bruk Rogers

Bruk Rogers, also known as Cian McCann (Zero T/Searchlight) receives a remix from broken beat veteran Alex Phountzi. Alex strips “Lalela feat. ASAP Shembe” back, reworking it for club playout.

The original “Lalela”, taken from Bruk Rogers’ album ‘Loopholes’, came about after Cian remixed Kid Fonque and Jonny Miller’s “Owakho” for Stay True Records, South Africa. “ASAP Shembe was the featured vocalist on that, and I loved working with his rapping in Zulu and Xhosa” he adds. The pair joined forces again on “Lalela”, now fine-tuned as a dancefloor essential with cosmic pulses, stuttering, grimey bass and the reprogrammed drums firing on all cylinders.

Alex has been producing and releasing music since the late 90s and was an original member of West London collective, Bugz In The Attic. Their many high points included albums for Fabric Live and a debut LP on V2 recordings, as well as numerous remixes for artists including, 4hero, Róisín Murphy, Amy Winehouse and Fela Kuti.

An early project of note was Neon Phusion, a three-piece group alongside Kaidi Tatham and Afronaut. Their debut album, ‘The Future Ain’t The Same As It Used To Be’ is widely regarded as being one of the first LPs to lay the blueprint for the ensuing broken beat movement, which took shape at the now legendary CoOp club night. Currently, Alex works alongside long-term collaborator and friend, IG Culture; they run the CoOp Presents records and events, and together they produce music as NameBrandSound. The pair were a fixture on Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide FM before moving to Rinse FM, where they host a weekly CoOp Presents show. Phountzi’s recent production and remix credits include Allysha Joy, Da Lata, T Williams, LCSM and EVM128.