If you ever wondered why Man Recordings records and releases sound so extra special, it´s because we put a lot of effort into mastering. Practically all Man Recordings releases from Man 01 up to Man 041 were mastered by our man Andreas Schönrock , or S-Rock, as he is often featured in our label copies. Based in Berlin, Andi has an experience of more than 8 years in mastering. He did an internship at mastering legend Bob Katz’s „Digital Domain“ Studios in Florida, and recently finished with a Master Of Arts in Audio Communication, Musicology and Technical Acoustics at both the Technical and the Humboldt University in Berlin. Before his degree he wrote a pretty fascinating piece on the physics of a hit, analysing 2Pacs “California Love” in closest detail (which you can find on his website). But mostly, Andi is a man of practise with a perfect ear. He even managed the miracle to master original baile funk MP3s making them brilliant, loud and punchy.

Besides mastering all releases for Man Recordings, Andreas is the Mastering Engineer for Munich’s Jazz & Milk Recordings, Cologne’s Up My Alley, the Spanish heavyweights Lovemonk and New York’s Bastard Jazz, just to name a few. A recent highlight was his remastering of classic recordings from artists like Mongo Santamaria, Héctor Lavoe or La Lupe. Originally released on legendary Fania Records, his mastering gained critical acclaim around the globe.

UK DJ magazine IDJ voted Man Recordings “Label Of The Month” in its June 2009 issue. Read the full story here:

If you are a fluent Portuguese reader you might want to download the above book for free as a PDF file. It is a comprehensive study of the Tecnobrega phenomenam from the far North-East of Brazil, amazon country. Tecnobrega could have been Brazil’s next baile funk, i.e. an exportable exotic ghettotech, but is in fact far too cheesy for most tastes. However, what is interesting about Tecnobrega is its self-sustained business model and that it is a soundsystem based music, almost entirely based in the neighborhoods of the Belém do Pará outskirts.

I have started reading the book on my laptop and it is a fascinating piece of research.

There is an overview of the book in English here.

and you can download the PDF file here.

The documentary “Good Copy, Bad Copy” about tecnobrega is well worth watching as well. Below is a clip:

Here’s a great bit of footage from ace 80s Channel4 tv programme the Tube. It features Man inspiration Greg Wilson demonstrating mixing for the first time on British TV. The headphones he’s using look like he’s just unplugged them from his groovy cassette walkman.

This clip also proves that Jools Holland was and is probably the most annoying c*nt on earth, but he at least he doesn’t play boogie woogie piano all over the track ( as he is inclined to do).

Daniel, head honcho at Man, sent me a mail asking me to look into the current accusations against DJ Marlboro that have hit the headlines in the last week.

Self-entitled Godfather of Baile funk, Marlboro, real name, Fernando Luís Mattos da Matta, 46, was accused last week of the sexual abuse of a 4 (FOUR!) year old girl. The story goes that the girl, from the Minas Gerais state, went to stay with her Godmother who was Marlboro’s girlfriend at the time, in Rio in March 2008. According to the childs parents the girl returned from the journey and displayed behaviour relating to sexual abuse and this was confirmed by a psychologist.

Marlboro can’t talk to the press at the moment, due to the nature of the accusation, though his laywers are saying that nothing will come of this as the evidence against Marlboro is weak and inconsistent.

My opinion is that Marlboro, though criticised for his business practices, is a pretty clean-cut and scandal free type of guy and is definitely a ladeez man. This could be a case of the parents trying to get at some of the DJ’s money, a common practice here in Brazil. Let’s see how it pans out, but as with all cases of child abuse, once the accusation is made, the reputation sticks.

The real crime is trying to find a decent promo picture of DJ Marlboro, of which the one above is the best of a bad bunch. The rest are all cheesey thumbs up picks, he need a professional photographer to do some moody dj in action pics!